“The open source platform generates a substantial overarching aegis that mitigates the potentiality of your J.B.A. becoming saturated." (Don’t worry, I have no idea what that means either, and I’m the one who wrote it.)
Ever wonder why designers, computer software engineers, and industry experts do not write instruction manuals. It’s because they would end up crafting sentences like the one above – Filled with jargon, acronyms and technobabble.
There’s a reason why companies turn to copywriters to create their marketing collateral and content for their websites. It’s because they know just enough to stay out of trouble. Instead of filling the copy with confusing and hard to understand industry jargon, good copywriters explain the benefits of a product or service in their own words. Sure they may throw in an acronym or two for good measure, but for the most part, the content is concise and written for a wide audience. They are not experts and they do not try to be.
Ask the New Guy For Help
Yes, the idea of writing for a wide audience is much easier said than done. At times, it is impossible to separate yourself from the acronyms, technical language and industry jargon. If you become too immersed in the product or service, attempting to explain the benefits in layman’s terms can become an exercise in futility.
When this happens, the solution is surprisingly easy. If you find that the descriptions of your company’s products or services are filled with techno-speak, it might be time to ask the “new guy” for help. By asking someone who is not fully immersed in the culture or committed to a product, you’ll get a response that is not clouded by all your company’s lingo and industry speak.
Ask new sales people, customers, or administrative users to put the benefits of your services into their own words. In short, ask anyone who is not an “expert.” When a person is not bound by the constraints of the “industry language,” it’s amazing at how straightforward the responses are.
Try this out for yourself. The next time you are explaining the benefits of your product or service, whether it is for an internet marketing campaign or for a sales pitch, make an attempt to filter out the jargon and technobabble. You might just be surprised at how responsive your audience becomes.
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Just throw in some bullet points. Go ahead—you know they’re easy. They’ll take up space and even make your copy look better!
I don’t know about you, but this is what my unconscious often tells me when I’m pondering how to organize a particular piece of copy.
Although I’m a relative newcomer to the copywriting field, I know how tempting it is to use bullet points as the backbone of my copy. In many cases, this temptation is justifiable. When bullets are used effectively, they break up bulky paragraphs to highlight major points. The result is a pretty, attention-grabbing page that’s easier to scan.
So why not just give in to my instincts and use bullet points freely? For one, bullet points cease to be eye-catching if they’re everywhere. Second, bullets rely entirely on the writer’s instincts to be successful. After all, when it comes to writing bullet points, we copywriters use our best judgment to decide on:
- Order
- Length
- Construction
- Number
- Salience
This isn’t news to you, though. All writing depends on the creativity and intuition of the writer. But writing relies on criticism as well as intuition, and my inner critic feels a little suspicious of bullet points. Can’t our intuition be wrong sometimes?
As a matter of fact, it can. Visual appeal is almost as important as content when it comes to bullet points, but not many copywriters know how to fully coordinate these two characteristics. Fortunately, I found a few helpful tips for balancing argument and aesthetics by doing some research.
Anne Holland, Content Director of the firm MarketingSherpa, wrote a great blog post about bullet points titled "How to Improve Bullet Point Copywriting - 2 Critical Rules." In the post, Holland advises copywriters to place the two most important bullet points first and the third one last, filling the middle with points that aren’t as significant. Why? Because this arrangement suits the pattern of our gaze as we quickly scan the page. I’ve always organized bullet points in order of importance, chronology, or even length, so this visual tip surprised me.
On the same principle, Holland also suggests that the first word of each bullet should be the most solid, relevant, eye-catching word in the entire point. Our instinct is to order bullet points based on their content, but as Holland explains, we shouldn’t forget to build visual appeal into our word choice.
I discovered another useful trick in a recent email newsletter from Bob Bly, the renowned freelance copywriter and consultant. Bly discusses a simple but brilliant tactic: literally building bullet points, or bullet-point worthy features, into a product or service. Why not build copy the same way?
Sometimes we engage in this method automatically by outlining our bullet points before we draft the rest of an article. But Bob Bly’s insights suggest that we can take this process to a new level. We should ask ourselves, what kinds of bullet points would really grab readers? How can we build a page or article topic around those? (Adopting this view, you can see that the bullet points used above aren’t very effective because they don’t reflect this post’s overall argument. This is a problem of “salience,” as the bullets ironically note.)
Holland and Bly, both impressive copywriters, have outlined surprising strategies for writing more effective bullet points. Using our intuition is a great starting point, but we can always find more aggressive ways to tackle bullet points. Just try to balance the visual and persuasive elements of your wording the way you balance the instinct and critique you apply to your writing.
*Image provided by madmarv00 on Flickr
We all know that YouTube is the premier place to watch, share, create, and upload original or professional videos on the Internet. And with approximately 450 million people visiting the site every month, there is a great deal of potential to make money.
So what is YouTube’s next big push? E-commerce, of course.
YouTube already made a brief foray into the e-commerce realm back in May by giving users the ability to rent and watch movies through the site. But now YouTube is taking things further with plans to launch its very own Merch Store.
The Merch Store will give musicians the chance to sell tickets, songs, T-shirts and other merchandise directly through YouTube.com. A specific launch date hasn’t been announced, but Google, the owner and operator of the website, is working with a variety of existing companies and platforms to hasten its arrival.
Some of the companies Google is working with include Apple, Amazon, Songkick (a concert tracking service) and Topspin (a retail software platform). Through these partnerships, the Merch Store can take advantage of the successful infrastructures their sites already have in place. Plus, these arrangements make it possible for consumers to purchase items on YouTube that come through Apple’s iTunes or Amazon’s music service.
This is definitely a smart move, because according to the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, Amazon is ranked the number one retail web site and Apple sits comfortably at number three.
There have also been rumors floating around that Google may eventually launch its own digital music store, an entity that would inevitably become part of the Merch Store umbrella as well.
The goal appears to be to give consumers the broadest range of choices when it comes to buying music and merchandise from their favorite artists. And since YouTube gets such a massive amount of web traffic, this may end up being a wonderful opportunity to better monetize the streams of people who visit each month.
*Image provided by Christian Reed - Concert Co-Op on Flickr
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Healthcare-industry (and social-media) people, I have an exciting announcement. We are but one week away from a webinar that presents new research on key innovations in social-media marketing for healthcare. (Register today!)
On October 26 from 2:00–3:00 p.m. (EDT), you won't want to miss Amy Marshall and Lindsey Grant of Webbed Marketing* break down their insightful new research on the 25 largest health systems in the nation (by employees):
- What channels and topics are most effective for reaching audiences
- How to bridge social media with HIPAA and Joint Commission standards
- Ways to measure and benchmark your organization’s progress
Register today for the free hour-long webinar and get an exclusive look at how you could be propelling your healthcare organization's social prowess.
***
Get Fathom's "Online Marketing Doctor" white paper or learn more about online marketing for healthcare in our portfolio, including the latest healthcare posts on the Fathom blog, featuring "Healthcare Data-Crunching: Connecting IBM’s Watson to Email."
*Webbed Marketing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fathom.
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The popular clique of the Facebook club made its mark two days ago, when InsideFacebook announced its list of the 25 most-liked pages this quarter.
These lucky elite have managed to score not only thousands, but millions of adoring fans, earning (or keeping) their social media superstar status.
So what makes these pages better than yours?
Four major similarities pop up among most of the company pages that made the list. Here’s what they all seem to be doing right:
1. They have a strategic landing point. Pages like Texas Hold ’Em Poker and Coca-Cola have clean landing pages with simple messages: “Play now,” and “Like Coke? There’s a Button for That.” Other pages take visitors straight to their walls (and not to their Info sections) so that viewers can jump right into a conversation. Both strategies engage visitors from the onset.
2. They use iconic symbols as their profile pictures. From Mickey Mouse to a Coke bottle, the pages stick with their most recognizable images. Keeping it classic and consistent in this area says a lot about your brand and helps users to easily identify your company.
3. They don’t ramble. The superstar pages keep their Info sections short and able to be read in their entirety “above the fold” of a computer screen (or without having to scroll). Getting down to the basics here lets could-be fans get through the introductions quickly so they can move on to better things (like liking your page).
4. They reward their fans. Texas Hold ’Em features a “Fan of the Week” contest, Coke has an app for “Fan Downloads,” and Family Guy shows they value fan input with polls and quizzes. Give your fans a reason to like you, and then show them how much you appreciate it by offering exclusives on your page.
Like that? Feed your inspiration with more of our social media posts before you start re-crafting the Facebook fan page that will make next quarter’s Top 25.
Image provided by 55His.com on Flickr.
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