Do you Americanize or Americanise your copy?

by briancassingena

Posted: 13 years ago 9 replies

COPY WRITING

With the internet as a worldwide media, obviously anyone can see most sales pages. Let's say you sell a product and your market is nearly any country - do you use US spelling or not?

#americanise #americanize #copy

MontelloMarketing 13 years ago

I wrote about this last year on my blog.

Wanna Make More Money Online? You Gotta Be American!
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shayman 13 years ago

Hi. I tend to Americanize
I think that to most English speakers it's an acceptable way of spelling but I'd probably think that Americans might not always get the other way of spelling and if you lose just one sale for that reason then that would be one sale too many!
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briancassingena 13 years ago

I do as well, just asking the question because here in Australia a lot of people seem to have a problem with US spelling, recently I recycled a report I initially wrote for the US market, rejigged it, and used it offline, got some whingers complaining about some of the spelling because I neglected to change it to british spelling. (At least they were reading it!)
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- Neil AM 13 years ago
  
  I try to tailor the copy to whatever the main market is - and if it's in America, that means using American spellings.
  
  At least, that's what I tell people. Sometimes I'm just trying to cover up the fact I can't spell.
  
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nzmegs 13 years ago

I seem to be in a minority here. I stick to British spellings becuse that is what I have learned. I do Americanise when I am writing for Americans (of course, that makes sense), but i love the English language and in particular the way British, New Zealanders, Australians and so on speak and spell it. I find the American ways of spelling things just plain weird! PS this is coming from someone with a degree in American studies - so no prejudice!!
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max5ty 13 years ago

No matter which method you prefer...

...the important thing is that you monetize - or is it monetise?
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Tom Oxby 13 years ago

Since my main market is the US I write to that market. Here in Canada we are used to seeing American spellings.

Only exception is for my travel type sites I put distances in miles/km and temperatures in F/C as that is what visitors will see when they arrive.
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BrianMcLeod 13 years ago

If you intend for big dumb Americans to open their big dumb wallets,
use big dumb American copy (spelling, colloquial language, etc).
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- max5ty 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod
  
  If you intend for big dumb Americans to open their big dumb wallets,
  use big dumb American copy (spelling, colloquial language, etc).
  
  LOL...you summed it up quite nicely.
  
  Thanks
  
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