Rhythm, Rhythm, Rhythm

Green eggs and ham.

There's a lot to be said about "saying" something well. A few years ago, I heard the CEO of a company speak. He was brilliant. Prior to hearing this guy, I'd heard dozens of CEO's and top corporate executives speak about their businesses. No others came close.

What made him brilliant was his pacing, his enunciation, his conviction. He could have been reading out the telephone book and still be captivating.

In my view, there are two parts to a message: the content and the delivery. If you only get to choose one, content trumps delivery.

But why limit yourself?

PS. Is it still a great song when...?

Hi Marcia, thank you for all of those very helpful links. I understand it from a poetic point of view, and I'm really interested in how rhythm captivates people and makes them continue to make the same decision again and again (to read more and more).

Max5ty, thanks for the opinion. You're right for the most count. But sometimes, the market is highly sophisticated, and a direct approach like an offer/benefit lead may not be the best way to go.

In that case, pacing in its own seems to have some form of captivation and sustains attention. Attention is the new scarcity... I do think there's something to be discovered about rhythm in copy.

Ray, that's a very nice analogy... I'm keeping that! Haha, for the most part, we can all agree that a good offer is key to closing a sale, but the opening of a sale really starts from first impressions and sustained interest.

Yes! Exactly. Politicians themselves, train themselves to have certain pauses here and there. They speak with a rhythm, and it stirs up the crowd. The inflections, the speed of delivery, the rhythm... You can't deny that it all has an impact!

Look at Martin Luther King's speech. It's full of a set rhythm. Sermons have a certain rhythm to them. Great sales pitches seem to have that 'rhythm' that escalates and follows the prospect's heartbeat as interest levels peak.

I understand what you mean, Bellerine. But even politicians have to train themselves in delivery. Even Steve Jobs had a certain rhythm to his captivating presentations.

ONE of the many reasons why whiteboard videos may work better than a control powerpoint is probably because of the flow/change in tempo of the whole script/video.

Thanks Mike, that helps. I normally do that too - copywriting advice about not eliminating widows, for example, for visual clarity. But I do think that there's more to the rhythm of copy.

For example, easy words are read faster by prospects. Complicated words may be read slower than prospects. Bigger font is more speedily read... That's why headlines catch so much attention as well.

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Am I getting ahead of myself here? I might be getting hypothetical over here, but I do think that rhythms are a part of copy that we often do not take into account just because of the change from salesmanship into print.

But there's always remediation. For example, salesletters eventually 'evolved' into sales powerpoint-like presentations. And there's remediation with respect to infomercials, etc.

Good salesmen have that knack of rhythm too. But due to the lack of feedback from written text, I think part of that ability dimmed away.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I appreciate it.

James Fame

A key difference between the use of rhythm in poetry and in copywriting is that in poetry you want the reader/listener to notice the rhythm. But in copywriting, except for things like tag lines or radio jingles, you do not want the reader to notice your use of rhythm. And yet it can have a serious impact all the same.

Marcia Yudkin