Copywriting Tip: The Dead Tone
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Copy should be lively and induce curiosity. We all remember those professors who droned on for two hours in that monotone voice. I had one professor who at least broke up the monotony by shouting, “note that down!” every fifteen minutes. Don’t get me wrong the man was brilliant. At least it was better than the professor I had who would fall asleep standing at the whiteboard as the marker left a streaking downward arrow and we all looked at each other, wondering if we could leave now.
My point? You don’t want your readers falling asleep. You want to keep them interested and reading on. The more they read about what you can do for them, the more likely it is that they’ll make the conversion. Induce curiosity in them and make them feel that they couldn’t live without you. The emotional response will be to purchase.
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Tags: Search & Marketing
Posted in Search & Marketing
Spot on. I repeat this endlessly to clients, so it’s worth saying again: talk to your customers in the language they speak. If it means being informal, outrageous or grammatically incorrect, no problem. But the tone must match the habitual tone (let’s get all Greek and call it the idiolect) of your target demographic. That’s the only way to induce the emotional response you rightly identify.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:56 amThanks Bill,
July 10th, 2007 at 9:47 amI’m not sold on the idea of being grammatically incorrect unless it is obvious that it is a stylistic move, but the point remains the same. Talk to your target audience! Use the slang terms they use… If you find yourself talking to someone else that may not even be interested in buying your product, you’re wasting valuable time and resources. In addition, it’s wasteful to speak in the wrong idiolect to your target.