An Articulate Marketing handbook
Reading in print
Reading online
Readability and trust
Solve for the reader
Know your audience
The writer’s voice
The art of influence
The value of research
The case for case studies
The many sins of marketing copy
Better headlines: would I click on it?
Making good copy better
Today, information is easy to come by. Your marketing copy is another web page, another social media post, another article fighting to draw the attention of your customers and potential customers.
At Articulate, we believe that copy succeeds when:
It’s worth reading. With so much information available, copy only gets the attention it deserves. Remarkable content beats mundane filler every time. It speaks the reader’s language. When copy isn’t focused on your readers’ needs, the connection is broken. It’s written well. Bad copy is like a dodgy salesman who talks non-stop about himself and his product. Good copy is trustworthy: it engages the reader and positions your product in the context of their needs.
Online and in print, your copy is the first and possibly only impression your company makes.
Generic copy wastes money, time, reputation and trust. For marketing copy that works, you must understand your audience, get rid of generic, ineffective writing and learn how to write for the reader.
Your copy is the message. Your copy is your brand.
When you read something, it feels like a smooth continuous process as your eyes move across the page and the words flow into your brain. In fact, your eyes hop from spot to spot on the page like a child skipping on hot sand.
However, if you put speed bumps in the way you can slow the reader down or trip them up, even to the extent that they give up on what you are saying. Typical speed bumps include: punctuation, numerals, abbreviations and trade mark bugs. Avoid them if possible.
Similarly long words, long quotations, weasel words (‘could’, ‘would’, ‘should’), complex grammar, passive sentences and overlong sentences all slow readers down.
People do not read the same online as they do on paper. Traditionally, we read from left to right and our eyes follow the flow of the words across the page.
But once you sit down in front of a screen, the way you read changes. Below, you’ll see the results of an eye-tracking study where the Nielsen Norman Group tracked the paths of people’s eyes as they read through web pages.
The red area represents the areas read more closely and tells us that we have little time to capture the attention of our readers.
When reading online, people:
Read at half their normal speed Skip and jump about the page, scanning for relevant information Focus more on headlines, subheadings, bullets, hyperlinks Gravitate to the top and left hand sides of the page Ignore (generally) the right rail, which they associate with adverts Read picture captions more than you’d expect
The same group did a study on How users read on the web. They found that they didn’t read – they scanned.
To test what makes copy on the web readable, the NN Group focused on concision, scannability and objectivity. They took this simple passage written about Nebraska tourist attractions (the actual text is longer but we’ve pulled the opening paragraphs here to illustrate the changes):
ATTRACTIONS
Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).
First, they cut the copy to make it 50% shorter.
ATTRACTIONS
In 1996, six of the best-attended attractions in Nebraska were Fort Robinson State Park, Scotts Bluff National Monument, Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum, Carhenge, Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park.
…
Next, they reformatted the original text to make it fit into the same pattern that they saw in their eye-tracking study. ATTRACTIONS
Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail.
In 1996, some of the most popular places were:
Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors) Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166) Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000) Carhenge (86,598) Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002) Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).
The third time they edited the passage, they took out the inflated text and left only the facts.
ATTRACTIONS
Nebraska has several attractions. In 1996, some of the most-visited places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).
On their own, these changes each showed at least a 30 per cent increase in readability, but when combined, they more than doubled the readability of the passage.
Readers found the text more agreeable, more memorable and more plausible – just what you’d like your own marketing copy to be.
ATTRACTIONS
In 1996, seven of the most-visited places in Nebraska were:
Fort Robinson State Park Scotts Bluff National Monument Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum Carhenge Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park. Fort Robinson
Researchers refer to this as user-centric versus maker-centric. Simply put, your content can be focused on your customers or focused on your company. “One thing is certain, You are not trying to sell your product to your colleagues or write as simply and your boss, so don’t write for them. The language that sounds plainly as possible and smart in a conference room or on a memo might make no it’s more likely you’ll be sense in the real world. thought of as To write copy meant for customers, focus on what and how intelligent.” you write. - Daniel Benefits, not features. Readers respond to ‘faster’, Oppenheimer ‘more efficient’, ‘cost-effective’ over technical terms found in your company product descriptions, especially if you show them how your product achieves these results in the context of their own story.
Definitions, not vocabulary. Your products and their names may not be common knowledge. Don’t use your company’s internal vocabulary unless you’re certain that all your readers know what it means.
Conversation, not a sales pitch. A lot of companies talk at their customers rather than to them. Don’t be afraid to be conversational.
Their language, not yours. You probably work eight or more hours a day with the same people who are focused on the same things you are. Because of this, it’s easy to forget what the outside world cares about and how they talk.
Focused writing is effective writing. A buyer persona is a fictitious character the company can use to represent a real customer.
Identify a specific person who your product or service helps. Ask yourself questions about that person to create a detailed, effective persona.
Background:
What is their name and job title? What does their role include? What information should I know about their company or workplace? What is their educational background?
Demographics:
What is their level of income? Where do they live? How big is their family? What age bracket do they fall into?
Identifiers:
What is important to them? How do they act around others or on their own? What do they do in their free time?
Goals:
What is the number one goal for their role? What other goals do they have?
Challenges:
What is keeping them from reaching those goals? What prevents them from overcoming those challenges?
How we help:
What does my company do that can overcome obstacles? How can my company help them reach their goals?
Get specific about who your customers are, where they work and how they live and then introduce them to your team. The more you know about your personas, the easier it will be to speak directly to your customers.
When we write, it’s easy to forget that a human is on the other end of the exchange. The text is just how you’re delivering information. You have to decide who you as a company will be to the reader.
As a company, you want to sound informed and approachable, but tone and style mean more than attitude.
Audience: Who are you writing for? We cannot emphasise enough the importance of the buyer persona in relating to your audience. It brings focus to your writing and to your marketing goals.
Viewpoint: Who are you to the reader? Decide if you are to be the wise educator or the trend-savvy friend. It’s a bit like creating your own persona that will determine how you talk to the reader.
Language: How will you talk to the reader? You have to decide exactly what the language in your copy will look like. Always use ‘you’, ‘us’, ‘we’ to make the language conversational.
Structure: How will you engage the reader? How will you organise your copy to engage the reader? Remember, readable content is concise, scannable and objective. Once you know who you’re writing for, you have to persuade that person to stay on your web page, to sign up for a demo, ask for a consultation or buy the product or service you are offering.
To convince someone to do any of these things requires influence. Robert Cialdini identifies actions and behaviour that make a company influential in business.
Reciprocity Relationships are based on give and take. An example of a reciprocal arrangement in marketing is where you offer a free white paper (ahem, like this one) in return for some customer details like a name and an email address.
Commitment People want to feel like they are a part of something and they feel a great reluctance to go back on previous commitments and decisions. A great example of this in marketing is the loyalty shown by people to certain brands – just think of Harley Davidson owners or Mac users. If you can turn your customers into evangelists for your product, they’re much less likely to defect to your competitors.
Social proof Social proof is the idea that ‘If a lot of people like it, I will like it too.’ In a complex world, social proof is a heuristic that simplifies people’s decision-making. Think of the old adage that ‘Nobody got fired for buying IBM’ or the use of customer case studies in the sales cycle.
Authority Brands often borrow the authority of celebrities to endorse their products – this is an example of authority in marketing. But copy can help here too: a white paper or thought-leadership blog can raise your profile and add weight to your marketing claims.
Likability People will buy from a company they like. And it’s not just that you have a good product or service. How likeable your employees are, what your company stands for and how you come across in your writing will determine your influence.
Scarcity If people believe that something is rare, they are more likely to want it. When an artist dies, the price of their work skyrockets. If a new gadget comes out, fans queue round the block to get it first.
It takes one click to get on your page, but it takes just one more click to leave. If you earn that coveted click, your content has to persuade the readers to stick around.
At Articulate, we place the most emphasis on preparation. Good preparation makes writing more efficient. Good research adds weight, depth and credibility to any copy. Effective copy has to be about the reader. The buyer personas you create for your company tell you who those readers are and what is important to them. Research tells you what questions they are asking and the answers. You have so many resources at your disposal to make sure you know what you are writing about.
1. Company materials provide the basic information that will help you supply accurate information to your readers about your company. But remember, your company is not the focus. 2. Interviews. Talk to people in the company, others in the industry, people like your customers to get their perspective on the subject. 3. Online resources. Use Google to find out what is out there on the topic already and what questions are being asked. 4. Establish points of view. Find out if there are two sides to the topic and know both sides. 5. Find answers to the basic questions. By the time you start writing, you need to know: What is the focus of this piece? Why does it matter to my reader? Will it be relevant to the industry? How does this help the reader?
As humans, we are wired for stories. We are drawn to them. We can’t get enough of them. In every article, you have to identify the element that makes it a story.
Case studies are an excellent way to tell a story to your readers and an unobtrusive way to pitch your products and services.
We talk about case studies a lot on our Bad Language blog, but here are the basics of compelling case studies that give results:
Find the angle. Figure out what makes the story important to the reader and focus on that. Keep it short. A case study should be no more than 500–750 words. Don’t overbrand. Don’t use half of your 500 words to talk about the product or your company, talk about the customer and the challenges they faced and overcame. Use real people. Interview the customers who actually use the product. Don’t make up synthetic quotes. Avoid editing by committee. A case study is, primarily, a story. And like any piece of writing it benefits from a little editing but suffers from too much. Get creative. Try media such as videos and podcasts to find out which delivery is most effective. Get the whole story. Find out who in your company helped that customer and talk to them too. Stick to the story, not the formula. Let the angle dictate the structure of the story. There is no law that a case study has to follow the traditional format: company bio, problem, solution, benefit. To write copy that does work, you have to address the issues that plague bad copy:
Forgetting the point. Focus on what you want the reader to know, believe or do. Short words are best
Lorem Ipsum. When you design first and write second, using placeholder text, you’re putting the cart before the horse.
Big, clever words. Big words sound clever to people who read the dictionary for fun, but they mystify everyone else.
Writing waffle words. When you don’t The Wall Street Journal published an have an answer, waffle comes forth in the article entitled ‘For the love of big form of unnecessary adverbs like words.’ In it, they said that, while you ‘generally’, ‘possibly’ or ‘essentially’. may love words and have a big vocabulary, if people can’t understand you, they actually think of you as less Self-importance. It’s as much of a turn off intelligent. in print as it is in real life. We’re not talking about dumbing Defensive writing. Insecure copy is full of down copy, but instead about qualifying words like ‘should’ or ‘may’. ensuring that it’s readable. When you You’re an expert, write like one. open a thesaurus to find the right word, the longest word will rarely be
the most effective. Typos. Grammar and spelling errors, even if they’re just an oversight, can cost companies billions. Learn the power of proofreading.
Hype, jargon and acronyms. Your readers aren’t playing buzzword bingo. They shouldn’t have to sift through inflated speech, company lingo or unexplained acronyms.
Hot air. If you only have so much time to capture the attention of your audience, you can’t afford to be wordy.
Before you can begin to influence potential customers, you have to get their attention. Effective headlines persuade people to click on your web page, post or article. There is a method to writing convincing headlines. Some of these simple examples of best practice can enhance your titles and headlines:
Alliteration. ‘Smarter, sleeker service’ rolls off the tongue. Put the same sound at the beginning of key words in your headline to make them more effective.
Rhyme. You’re not writing a poem, but words like ‘reliable and capable’ sound like they belong together.
Repetition. Construct headlines like ‘It’s smart technology for the smart business.’ Repetition gets the message across.
Contrary. Tip a typical headline on its head. Turn ‘How to talk to customers’ into ‘10 things you should never say to customers.’
Numbers. For whatever reason, people love numbered lists. Use numerals, not words and try unusual numbers like seven (our nation’s favourite number) or 13.
Writing a good headline takes practice, but these best practices can guide you along the way. Most important of all, however, is that you deliver on the promise that your headline makes.
Making comparisons through metaphors and similes is an effective way to relate your products and services to what the reader already knows. As you tell a story, think about how you can meet the reader where they are.
If one of your ideal buyers is a high-powered executive, they will relate to business comparisons (‘Buy it like Buffett’, for example). If one of your ideal buyers is a travelling freelancer, they will relate to exotic stories of adventure. And so on.
When using these comparisons:
1. Avoid clichés (like the plague). Relate to people, but avoid stereotypes that exclude or offend readers. 2. Don’t mix your metaphors. Make one comparison at a time. Along with everyday language, you want … by zombies actionable language. A lot of marketing copy defaults into the passive voice.
The passive sentence doesn’t answer the basic question: who is doing it. In other words, there is no subject in the sentence. Passive Microsoft Word’s grammar checker will The product has been purchased by highlight passive sentences for you. many small businesses and benefits But an even better way to detect the were seen in the day-to-day tasks of the passive voice yourself is to see if you can employees. ‘sensibly’ add the words ‘…by zombies’ Active to the sentence. Small business owners purchased our The new system was product and employees experienced implemented…by zombies immediate benefits. The new features will be The passive voice is complicated to read, omits introduced…by zombies…in a basic piece of information and looks June. defensive. The passive voice eats brains for breakfast. Kill it before it kills you.
You have to win the reader on every page to keep the conversation going and convert readers into customers. This is done through consistent and focused writing.
Ensuring that kind of consistency in house can be a challenge. We’ve only scratched the surface in this ebook, so if you’re looking to learn more, Here are some resources that can help:
30 Days to Better Business Writing, our easy-to-follow guide to improving your own writing skills. Secrets of the copywriters, our one-hour video master class.
If you’re feeling particularly thirsty for knowledge you can even hire us to come in and deliver writing training through Articulate Training.
Then again, sometimes, expert copywriting is best left to the experts. In fact, 62 percent of companies now outsource their content marketing to external copywriting agencies, like Articulate Marketing.
Articulate Marketing specialises in inbound content marketing and copywriting for high-tech B2B companies. In other words, we help you attract, convert, retain and delight customers.
So if you want to make sure your next piece of copy isn’t just good, but is truly remarkable, then get in touch – we’d love to chat.