Whether you’re writing blogs or social media, or whether you’re making videos or giving presentations, you need words to market your business. Images can be powerful for creating your audience’s emotions, but the words you use will give them certainty about why they need you.
The right words can attract the people you need. But, in the same way, the wrong words can actively put them off. So how do you make sure you’re using the right words?
Know Who You’re Talking To
It’s easy to assume that you need to address as many readers as possible, and you’re going to leave a lot of them out if you’re too specific. But have you ever been in the audience for a comedian who focuses on one person? Did you feel left out? Or did that actually make it more relevant to you?
For any message you might be writing, you need to think about the perfect person to read that message. If you know an actual person who fits that description, write for them. If not, try to imagine what they’d be like.
It doesn’t need to be the same person every time, though. Choose your audience for each campaign, or even every message.
Write About the Reader, Not About Yourself
Suppose you’re taking your car to be repaired. What would you think if the mechanic sat you down and explained exactly what parts of the engine they’ll be working on and what tools they’re going to use? You just want to know you’ll get your car back in good working order.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty much how many business owners approach their marketing. It’s much more effective to write about what’s going to interest that ideal reader you’ve identified. What’s bothering them.
Highlight their concerns to show you understand, and then offer answers or solutions. That’s what we all care about — what we’re going to get, not how it’s going to be done.
Write Simply and Clearly
I’ll let you into a secret — when it comes to writing about your business, being clever isn’t clever.
Your readers aren’t going to be impressed that you can fling jargon and acronyms around that no-one outside your sector can make head or tail of. You may need to use a technical term here and there, but be sure you explain it simply and clearly.
Think about how you’d speak to your reader, not how you’d write to them. It’s OK to be informal. We were taught in school not to be colloquial, but that was for academic writing, not for real communication. If you’d say “don’t” or “it’s”, rather than “do not” or “it is”, then use them when you write, too.
The Three Stages of Writing
Whatever you write should go through three drafts:
- The first draft is to get it wrong — just get the ideas down on paper (real or virtual) without worrying too much how you’re saying it. It’s nothing more than a brain dump.
- The second draft is to get it right — this is where you go through and get your ideas in their most effective order. You can also think about the most effective way of expressing them.
- The third draft is to get it polished — record yourself reading it and think about how it sounds. Make what you’re saying more striking, but also make it as natural as possible.
And just three drafts. Don’t spend days agonising, writing draft after draft, trying to get it perfect. You don’t need perfect. You just need good enough.
Learn Basic Grammar
I know, I know. Grammar’s something created by academics to enable them to look down on everyone else. No-one can actually know the rules without a degree.
Well, would you instinctively say “a big red bus” or “a red big bus”? If you chose the first option, it means you’re using one of the most complex and obscure grammatical rules in the English language — without even knowing you know it.
That’s because grammar isn’t some arbitrary set of rules. It’s simply the way the language is spoken by native speakers, and it’s there to make your meaning clear and unambiguous. You probably knew at least 90% of the grammar of your mother-tongue by the time you were five, without even trying.
There are some rules to learn, though, mainly about punctuation. A comma can change the meaning of a sentence, from “Let’s eat Grandma” to “Let’s eat, Grandma.” And you don’t want to tell people you enjoy cooking your children and pets.
At the same time, there are many so-called rules you can safely ignore, if they don’t make sense. Feel free to split infinitives or finish sentences with prepositions, as long as it feels right. And don’t put too much faith in grammar checkers, either. After all, they don’t know what you meant to say.
What About AI?
Do we even need to know how to write any more, though? Isn’t that what AI is for?
Well, no. Writing AI (Claude, ChatGPT etc.) is a great tool, but a bad solution. It can be a great help with lots of things, from brainstorming ideas to tossing out the first draft (which, you remember, should be wrong anyway). What it can’t do is produce a high-quality final version. What it comes out with will sound like a robot — because that’s precisely what it is.
Writing to get your business noticed is a skill that has to be learnt and practised, but it isn’t beyond most people. You just have to unlearn a lot, before you learn how to express yourself in writing as you do when you’re speaking.