Some people get real chatty when writing copy for the web. Others write so tight they sound curt. How does one strike a balance?
Here’s what I do.
First, write as tight as possible. Make it terse and curt.
Then, add words that soften your tone. Articles help a lot here. Throw in an editorial comment like you would if you were talking to a friend.
Read it over and see how it flows. Would adding any words make it clearer or friendlier?
No? Well then, it’s done! 
Adam Bryant of the New York Times regularly interviews CEOs and other business leaders for his column, Corner Office. I’ve long admired his interviewing style. He asks short, pointed, open-ended questions that get his subjects thinking — and opening up to him.
Lately, I’ve been noticing how he gets in a one- or two-word follow-up question and draws out more insights from a source. Anyone who has conducted interviews will appreciate the beauty of questions like:
Because it’s questions like these that take a source to places they weren’t expecting. And the interviewer uncovers new layers to a previous answer.
Read a few of Adam Bryant’s interviews; watch a master at work.
Given the global nature of business, marketing and communications pieces written in one country are often consumed in another. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to translate documents. Other times, the document is used as is.
A marcom document created abroad and used in the U.S. without change may still work. For example, an American reading a website written in British English may stumble a bit at certain words and phrases, but he’ll understand what the writer intended.
Even if he reads a halfway-decent translation from a foreign language, he’ll get the gist of the piece.
But if the marketer wants the communication to have an impact, the translation must be perfect. Here’s why:
In any writing, you want the words to be “invisible.” By that I mean, you want the reader to get the effect of the words rather than have him or her think, “This is a wonderful/terrible piece of writing.”
Non-standard English on a website or brochure draws attention to the words. Instead of absorbing the meaning of the words, the reader gets distracted by thoughts like, “Ah, this seems to be written by someone whose first language isn’t American English.” That adds an extra, unnecessary step between your text and its comprehension.
For best results, the translation should be done by someone who is more fluent in the language being translated into.
To be sure, many foreign companies with badly-written marketing materials sell their goods and services in America every day. It may be that when we know we’re dealing with a seller whose first language is not English, we make allowances.
But everything else being equal, the company with the brochure that has fewer language mistakes will get the business first.
"Impenetrable Jargon"
With the recession driving more people to using government services, it’s time the public sector abolished its incomprehensible jargon, says the UK’s Local Government Association.
The association is a lobbying organization that speaks for local governments in the national arena.
It wants government employees to stop saying things like coterninous, stakeholder engagement. When consumed by the urge to utter such words, staffers should just say talk to people instead.
The object is to get citizens to understand clearly what the government can do for them.
Some 200 words have been put on the “terminate with extreme prejudice” list. The list includes gems like holistic governance and predictors of beaconicity.
That last one has me flummoxed. Does anyone know what it means?
I’m all in favor of cutting out jargon and being clear, so I wish the LGA success in its efforts.
When a visitor arrives on your website, they want to know:
In response, your website copy should tell them:
You may have noticed the questions in the visitor’s mind were all about himself or herself. Not about you, the site owner. The only pronoun the visitor totally cares about in your copy is you. And its relatives your and yours.
But engaging websites try to hold a conversation with the visitor. And our normal conversations are littered with words like I, me, and us. (Listen to yourself sometime, or read the emails you send.)
How do we sound conversational without using first-person pronouns?
You don’t. Go ahead and use I, me, and us. And we and our, too. Just don’t overdo it. Keep the balance in favor of you and yours.
After writing your copy, count the number of we’s and us’s, including your company name, and the number of you’s.
The you’s should hold the majority.
Websites keep inserting hyphens where they should place em dashes. It makes for awkward copy and slows the reader down, who must reread the sentence to get at its intended meaning.
Like this bit from a recent Newsweek story: “…everybody always associates it with actors-you know…”
“Actors-you know” is one of those “huh?” phrases. You come across it, it doesn’t quite make sense on first reading, so you go over it again. And you realize that the hyphen is standing in for an em dash.
Fortunately, this kind of problem can be easily avoided. How?
First, a few definitions.
A hyphen is the smallest dash available. It’s the key next to the zero on a standard keyboard. It is used to join two words together that express a single idea. Like post-op or live-action. Sometimes it’s used to avoid doubling vowels, as in pre-empt or co-operate.
An en dash is slightly longer than a hyphen. It’s Its purpose is to show a range, as in: Boston beat Miami 98–83.
An en dash also shows a connection between two things, like Mason–Dixon. There are other uses for it too, but these are the most frequent ones.
To type an en dash in Word, press the Ctrl and the minus sign keys on the numeric keypad (on a standard keyboard). Since this doesn’t work in a Web editor or your blogging software, you’ll need to use the html code for the en dash, – or –.
Which brings us to the em dash. It’s twice as long as the en dash, and is used most often in a sentence to set apart two separate but related ideas. Example: He would make a good spouse—but not for me.
To produce an em dash in Word, press Ctrl-Alt-minus sign on the numeric keypad. Html codes: — or —.
But what if you don’t have a standard keyboard, or are writing a blog post (like I am), or don’t want to mess with html?
Go ahead and use a hyphen instead of an en dash. Not too many people will quibble, and there will be no loss of meaning.
And create an em dash by one of two ways: leave spaces before and after a hyphen – like this, or type two consecutive hyphens- -like this (without the space between the two hyphens). Some blog platforms automatically convert a double hyphen to an em dash. WordPress does this, which is why I left a space between the two hyphens in the last example.
And then your hyphens, en dashes and em dashes will all be in their proper places, and your readers won’t stumble over your words.
Personalization is such an alluring concept. It promises to make the recipient feel valued, make you stand out, get your message read.
Yes, it can do all that, if you personalize the hard way. Do it the easy way, and the reader sees right through you.
Take, for example, the personalized email subject line. Like the one pictured above.
Nobody I know sends me an email with my name in the subject. Also, I am aware of the capabilities of mail merge. It’s obvious to me that this message’s sender is a stranger who has simply added my name to his subject line with a mail merge command.
Therefore, it must be a broadcast sales email. The kind that my Delete key lives for.
That’s the easy way to personalize a sales message. Use it if you don’t want me to read your sales email.
To personalize the right way, you have to work hard. Do some research. Find out what the reader (probably) cares about. Write an email addressing that concern.
If you’re sending a letter, don’t just hand-write the recipient’s name and your signature. That’s personalization lite. Write the letter by hand, or add a hand-written Post-it Note.
Personalization works. It just has to be done right.
