Here's why you aren't getting the conversions you want...
It's all your reader's fault...
Today's consumers are over-communicated to, pressed
for time, and perhaps a little lazy. They want to
know what it's about fast and they don't want to
read your languid prose.
vs... you, the writer...
As writers, we have to write A LOT to get good. It's
frustrating, but we have to accept that the longer
and more detailed our writing gets, the less likely
we are to seduce readers into accepting our ideas.
Does your writing suffer from gassy bloat?
At worst, they take one look at our long salesletter,
bloated video run-times, sprawling blog posts and
articles... roll their eyes (or yawn) and move on.
At best they're fans who have decided they like our
writing. Don't count on getting too many of these
rare birds on your lists though.
Writing to the common denominator
People want clarity and brevity. They ain't stoopid -
they just prefer easy.
It's not just about selling products, it's about
selling people the idea they should be paying attention
to what you want to tell them.
At regular intervals in your written communication -
perhaps once or twice every page - you should
be placing markers of some sort that help your readers
to scan and interpret the shape and meaning of what
you're trying to get across.
Making Better Markup
These markers can be bolded text emphasizing some
relevant concept, cross-headings and section
headings, bullet lists, Johnson boxes, callouts,
sidebars, colored or italicized text, different type
faces and font sizes...
Of course if you throw all those together in one
web-page it starts to look like it came from
HTML Hell.
We're in an era of Visual Communication
... and the young people now are accustomed to, and
expect, a style of communication that is frankly
"dumbed down". Print-era writers are probably
more skilled readers than many many of today's smart
young folks - and it will probably hurt our ability
to reach them if we don't bring our writing to
the level they prefer.
Today's consumers are over-communicated to, pressed
for time, and perhaps a little lazy. They want to
know what it's about fast and they don't want to
read your languid prose.
vs... you, the writer...
As writers, we have to write A LOT to get good. It's
frustrating, but we have to accept that the longer
and more detailed our writing gets, the less likely
we are to seduce readers into accepting our ideas.
Does your writing suffer from gassy bloat?
At worst, they take one look at our long salesletter,
bloated video run-times, sprawling blog posts and
articles... roll their eyes (or yawn) and move on.
At best they're fans who have decided they like our
writing. Don't count on getting too many of these
rare birds on your lists though.
Writing to the common denominator
People want clarity and brevity. They ain't stoopid -
they just prefer easy.
It's not just about selling products, it's about
selling people the idea they should be paying attention
to what you want to tell them.
At regular intervals in your written communication -
perhaps once or twice every page - you should
be placing markers of some sort that help your readers
to scan and interpret the shape and meaning of what
you're trying to get across.
Making Better Markup
These markers can be bolded text emphasizing some
relevant concept, cross-headings and section
headings, bullet lists, Johnson boxes, callouts,
sidebars, colored or italicized text, different type
faces and font sizes...
Of course if you throw all those together in one
web-page it starts to look like it came from
HTML Hell.
We're in an era of Visual Communication
... and the young people now are accustomed to, and
expect, a style of communication that is frankly
"dumbed down". Print-era writers are probably
more skilled readers than many many of today's smart
young folks - and it will probably hurt our ability
to reach them if we don't bring our writing to
the level they prefer.
In short - just because today's buyers prefer short,
dumbed down, visual communication doesn't make them
stupid - but it is foolish for us professional
communicators not to adapt to their preferences.
Hasta la WinVista, Baby!