Get on with it!
“Look – I’m a technician. I haven’t a clue about words. It’s your job is to come up with all the flowery language.”
These were the words of Bob, my lovely new client.
Once I’d stopped smiling, I had to let Bob down gently and remind him, that of the many services offered by Copywriter Pro, being the purveyor of ‘flowery language’ definitely isn’t one.
Copywriting that's clear, concise and compelling
Bob was suffering from a common misconception – that for words to engage, they need to be flowery, riding a wave of exotic clever and convoluted similes and manufactured metaphors.
Here’s an example – an extract from a recent newsletter by a famous and successful Sales Coach –
“The walk from my car to the revolving door front entrance in the Burlington Marriott Hotel couldn’t have been more than 50 yards, yet my cheeks and chin felt like sharp-edged ice pressed against them and my eyes stung. To the south-east, yellowish watery-thin sunlit gaps between horizon-wide gray cloud streaks, brightening the tops of snowbanks piled high on either side of the sidewalk.”
Let’s not debate whether this qualifies as ‘good writing’.
The sad fact is that the immediate reaction (certainly mine) was, ‘for goodness sake - get on with it!’.
The florid, convoluted writing style has nothing to do with the message. It’s as though the writer is waving a big flag and shouting through a megaphone,
“Hey guys! Listen to me! Aren’t I clever? I can write!”
His message about the importance of using trusted advisors was a great message but, phew! Getting there was one hell of a tortuous road!
So – what’s to be learned from this? It’s simple.
Effective writing needs to be
Clear
Concise
Compelling
and
On message
Your readers will love you for it. They really will.
