You Write Like Shit...

Don't lie.. your writing could be better.

Your tone of voice and writing style is supremely important to creating a brand and company that customers can connect with.

If you have already defined your brands tone of voice and personality then good on ya, but here are some key rules to copywriting that will make sure your customers stay engaged and entertained while interacting with your brand.

If you don't know what a tone of voice, brand personality or even a brand is and why it's so important, I suggest checking out my branding workshop that will help you develop the key elements to a successful brand.

1. Be concise. Your customers will quickly bail if you keep beating around the bush and repeating yourself. Combine thoughts, get to the main point, and make sure to read what you wrote out loud. Don't be the long winded recipe intro about your grandma Sue and her search for the perfect pie. Instead be concise.

2. Use the active voice. The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive.

I shall always remember my first visit to Boston.

Is much better than:

My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me.

The latter sentence is less direct, less bold, and less concise. If you try to make it more concise by omitting "by me" it become indefinite (aka it is confusing who is remembering your first visit to Boston?)

3. Put statements in positive form. Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless hesitating, noncommittal language. Use the word not as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion.

He usually came late.

Is much better than:

he was not very often on time.

Using positive words keeps your customers thinking positively even if what you are saying is bad news.

4. Write with nouns and verbs. Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight placer. This is not to disparage adjective and adverbs; they are indispensable parts of speech. Use them to create powerful sensory sentences.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men...

The nouns mountain and glen are accurate enough, but had the mountain not become airy, William Allingham might never have got off the ground with his poem. In general, however, it is nouns and verbs, not their assistants that give good writing its toughness and color.

Hunt for more enriching nouns and verbs at https://www.thesaurus.com/

5. Do not overstate. When you overstate, customers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in you judgment or your poise. Overstatement is one of the common faults. A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole and a single carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for customers, the object of your enthusiasm.

I got everything from this post from a book called "The elements of Style." It's really affordable and you can get it here: