Who are you writing for? This is the first and most important question you need to answer well to succeed with text. Neither elegant phrasing, light and appealing language nor correct grammar can save a text that misses its target audience.
Who are you writing for?
This is the first and most important question you need to answer well to succeed with text. Neither elegant phrasing, light and appealing language nor correct grammar can save a text that misses its target audience.
The 90% rule: we are boundlessly self-absorbed
Regardless of product, service or segmentation: it is a psychological fact that everyone wants more attention and recognition than they (we) get. We are born that way and raised that way.
The human brain has one main task: keeping its owner alive. Millennia of evolution and technological progress do not change the species’ starting point; we must get food without becoming food.
We have senses that warn us of sudden movements, taste/smell, and hot/cold/sharp. And we always have spare brain capacity to interpret and react at lightning speed when we must. That we focus on ourselves is nothing to be ashamed of – it is a biological, rather obvious, necessity.
As children we are cheered on by our parents for every step we take on the long staircase to independence. Our first words, drawings and small things we manage ourselves trigger a stream of positive feedback and love. Finished the milk, tidied up, put on shoes, tied the laces, remembered to say thank you, got a note out of the recorder, and so on.
Innate self-absorption combined with an upbringing bathed in attention – what happened next?
Kindergarten, school, leisure activities, military service. Through social training (reward/punishment) you learn that you are one of many. Raise your hand, wait your turn, fall in line, do as others say. In class you get a painful encounter with the herd’s internal justice, the ranking by classmates (and unconsciously by
teachers and activity leaders). Some are stronger, faster, better-looking and more talented than you. More popular. You learn to live with not getting as much attention as you would like.
Through trial and error you learn that it is socially accepted and expected that you listen to others, do not talk about yourself, and that showing care, consideration and interest in others brings various forms of reward.
Over the course of 10–15 formative years you have gone from being an attention-demanding child to being one of the adults – someone who follows the social norms and behaves. Wrong!
The truth is that you are just as self-absorbed, but that society around you has trained you not to show it. Deep down you are still that little child, always searching for attention and recognition.
To put it mathematically, you direct 90% of your attention at yourself and the remaining ten outwards at family, friends, the news and the rest of the world – there you have the 90% rule.
Copy that sells has one thing in common: it aims where it is easiest to hit, within the 90% rule. It talks about something that feels relevant because it is about the recipient – not about you as the sender.
In the introduction I simplified the first, most important question so that the answer became general.
Who are you writing to, and what do you know about them?
We are quite different, considering how alike we are. Ordinary demographic data such as age, gender, where people live, family situation, education and income play an important role here. The same goes for the psychographics – politics, religion, taste, interests and cultural capital. What do you know about them, and what could you find out?
All of this comes down to something as simple as adapting the message – something you already know how to do. When you talk to a child, you use a lighter voice and simpler words. You also know how to get attention first, then sell the message.
(heading) Do you want to go to the water park?
(body copy) There are just a couple of things you and mum/dad need to do first: we need to finish our food and tidy up the hallway and your room. As soon as we are done, we are off to the water park.
Here you know the audience, you talk about something attractive, and you tell them what they need to do to get it.
The recipe for ads and copy that hit home and sell is to talk about something attractive and tell the audience what they need to do to get it.
Years of socialisation and the urge to appear professional and grown-up are what make writing good copy at work feel so hard. It feels much safer – also in terms of internal approval – to write about the company’s size, history, sustainability and innovation. It also feels safer to make an updated version of the old text, perhaps even reuse the same photo as last time, or one that looks like it.
That will probably get the boss’s stamp of approval fairly quickly. Efficient you gets the job done and moves on to the next task.
It feels safe – but you miss the audience and miss the sale.
It does not work.
