What’s wrong with your writing? Part 1
Insert your own overwrought intro. I’ll skip to the value you’re after.
If you’re not quite hitting the target with your written communications, it’s likely to be due to one of these factors:
You’re going too deep
You’re using jargon and highly technical descriptions that engage a specialised niche of your audience but alienate the rest. The buzzwords you’re using don’t have the substance to generate confidence in your ability to deliver. You’re not acting as the conduit that translates the features of your product into benefits for the user.
You’re overestimating your skillset
You assume that because you’re a native English speaker, you’re also a natural writer. You’re not getting someone else to proofread your writing. You’re inconsistent in your use of product names and capitalisation. Your messaging comes across as amateur, which reflects on your business as a whole.
You’re trying too hard
You’re trying to sound something. Knowledgeable, professional, accomplished. Like that Ipsos report you read, or that Economist article. You forget you’re writing for people, busy people, who mostly read The Sun and conduct virtual interactions in 280 characters. You’re forgetting to make the action of reading feel effortless.
You’re overpromising
Your headlines are clickbait that lead to an anticlimactic payoff. You’re using too many adjectives and wasting valuable space in telling rather than showing. You’re overestimating your audience’s attention span and loyalty inclination. In other words, you’re putting yourself across as the next decade’s Simon Sinek while your content delivers the value of Piers Morgan.
You’re writing about you
You’re focussing on how great your product is, how accomplished your executive team is, how much you’ve grown over the past n years, what your CEO likes on his toast in the morning, or how your ethos is based on the idea that one buzzword plus one buzzword equals a hybrid buzzword you’re forcing your staff to manifest in their daily output.
It’s worth investing in communications professionals. Tools like example-laden tone of voice guidelines and style guides can help create the framework and colouring of your communication. It will help you and your business be consistent. It will help keep your communication focussed and will help you use your audience’s time efficiently, which is something they’ll be grateful for. It will help you look like you know what you’re doing without having to remind your audience so often.
However, if you really insist on managing your communication yourself, give yourself a quick lesson on how to write more effectively.
