 Careful word choice builds trust among your ideal customersOne of the companies I write for is in the process of rebranding at the moment, and part of that process involves a reworking of the tone of voice principles they apply to customer communication. It’s a large company with an international presence, so this is no small undertaking – and yet an objective observer might conclude that the tone-of-voice change they’re implementing, which involves changing just one adjective in the keywords they use to describe the kind of copy they want us to write, is minimal.
An objective observer might conclude as much, but they’d be wrong. This one tiny tweak represents a seismic shift for the copy I’ll be writing. That’s how important it is to make sure you’ve got your tone of voice principles absolutely on point. Whether you’re considering a TOV re-think, starting from scratch, or worrying that you haven’t given yours enough thought, read on for some key principles that you can apply to help move you in the right direction.
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 Why your word choice might be costing you salesOne thing you will never find me doing is making blanket statements about the passive voice. In addition to copywriting, I’m a published novelist, and I know perfectly well that the passive voice is a respectable, functional and necessary element of the English language. There are some sentences that simply don’t work as intended in the active voice (“She was elected by over 50% of voters,” for example, transposes inelegantly from the passive), and I have little time for the kind of advice that suggests this particular construction should be avoided (see what I did there?) at all costs.
However. Copywriting is not like novel writing. There are crossover points, for sure – both involve telling a story, both strive to activate the reader’s imagination, and both involve evoking the reader’s senses in the service of an overall goal. But the key difference is that the goal of copywriting is to sell: an item, a service, a company, an idea. That’s where the passive voice makes things more complicated. Here’s why.  Five key things to avoid when writing product descriptions that convert“If you build it, they will come,” might be true of baseball pitches and long-dead sporting legends, but this far into the twenty-first century it certainly doesn’t apply to websites. And even when you’ve got your potential customers as far as your sales page, you’ve got a tiny window to shift them from “potential” to “actual.” When it comes to online retail, your sales page needs to be working hard if you’re going to make it convert, and a poorly thought out product description can actively harm your bottom line – according to Nielson Norman Group, a massive 20% of lost sales are down to lack of product information.
If you’re doing any of the following, it’s probably costing you money. Here’s why.  A very happy new year from Fabula Copy! May your business thrive, your customer base grow, and your brand shine in 2022.
The new year is a time for evaluation and goal setting for the months ahead. The past few years have certainly had their challenges, and consumer behaviour and expectations have changed as a result, but the great news is that there are some easy, cost-effective steps you can take this year to make your company stand out from the crowd. Read on for 5 ways you can make your copy work harder for you in 2022. |
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