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.