If your marketing messages aren’t powerful and don’t speak to the right audiences, they won’t deliver the results you need. In other words, you’ll lose money on your investments, and you’ll lose sales. No business owner can afford that!
Words carry a lot of weight, and you need to use them wisely in your marketing messages. An experienced copywriter can craft messages that communicate effectively and motivate the audience to take action, but what if you can’t afford to hire a copywriter? What if you’re not sure the copywriter you’re working with is any good?
Fortunately, there are a number of theories you can learn and tools you can use to write better marketing messages yourself or to ensure the writer you’re working with is delivering quality copy. Here are five ways words can destroy your marketing and simple ways you can fix them.
1. You used too many words.
Research has found that people have an attention span of just eight seconds, so you don’t have much time to get your message across to your audience. It’s even worse for younger audiences. Millennials have a five-second attention span for ads!
Bottom line, every word that isn’t necessary needs to be deleted from your copy or you run the risk of investing a lot of time and money into a marketing piece that people will ignore before they see or hear the call to action. Get to the point! Here are three ways to do it:
K.I.S.S. rule of copywriting: Remove filler words from your copy to keep it simple. For example, words like “really,” “that” and “very” should be deleted without mercy. Don’t feel bad for these words. Delete them!
T.M.I. rule of copywriting: Don’t let your audience get bored or distracted as you weave a lovely story. If text doesn’t support the goal of the marketing piece, get rid of it. Remember, you only have five to eight seconds, don’t waste them!
Red pen rule of copywriting: Keep your copy succinct, and it will almost always be more powerful. Once you’ve written your messages, get out your red pen and delete at least 30 percent of it. The objective is to delete a significant amount of copy, because it’s likely what you delete doesn’t include your strongest messages. You’ll be left with something that actually drives the results you need.
2. You used jargon.
Big words and jargon are rarely appropriate in ads and marketing materials unless you’re in a highly technical or regulated industry. Even then, your audience will probably prefer you leave the jargon out, or it just looks like you’re trying too hard.
One of the most important factors to write great marketing messages is understanding your audience and writing copy that speaks…
