Whether you need simple copy for an effective postcard campaign, or full articles for your newsletter or magazine, the writing needs to be clear, concise and reader friendly. Too often I’ve had clients opt to write their own material and, invariably, make mistakes like writing “over the head” of their readers with too-technical terminology. Or perhaps they write in an overly formal manner which can be very off-putting to the casual reader.
With newsletter and magazines articles geared to the Average Joe, I prefer to use a conversational style. That means writing like you talk. Yes, your grammar teacher would scream, but using this style is more reader-friendly to today’s average consumer. While I won’t use things like “ain’t”, I do believe in using proper contractions with this style of writing — “isn’t” instead of “is not”, for instance.
Another common mistake is to forget the cardinal rule in marketing materials: Keep it short and punchy. Often a list of bullet points are more effective than paragraphs of text. Besides that, read, and re-read your piece, looking for unneeded words (a particular personal favorite for removal is the redundant “that”).
Please, never rely on your software’s spell check feature. It will miss all manner of problems, like typing “your” when you really needed “you’re”, or “quite” instead of “quiet”. Spell checkers and text messaging abbreviations have been the bane to good writing!
