Online Copywriting Advice - Avoid Corporate and Technical Speak
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The goal of website copy, both sales letters and content, is to connect and relate to your ONE customer.
The next paragraph is a perfect example of how NOT to write if you want to connect with your audience from a Canadian Bank.
"If you want to purchase your home in the next couple of years, you'll probably want to invest money in shorter-term vehicles that preserve your capital and are less likely to fluctuate in value....If you are not sure of your time horizon or risk tolerance..."
Shorter term vehicles? ...Time horizon or risk tolerance?
I've made this mistake myself and seen many copywriters do it. By using smart words and jargon, we try to appear smart and knowledgeable. We feel those words spice up the writing, and give it a classy vibe. We feel smarter ourselves. In reality, technical words and jargon kill off your connection with readers and confuse them.
When Jargon is OK
Jargon is okay when you are speaking to a niche audience. For example, jargon would be expected in a white paper for computer programmers about scripting. In that case, jargon and technical terms INCREASE connection with the audience. You demonstrate your understanding and knowledge of the topic, and methodical, slow buyers need to see that you're on the same page (or better, above them) before buying.
Keep in mind that this only works for audiences that know the topic inside out. When you expand your audience, you will need to simplify your writing.
Corporate Speak
George Orwell described corporate speak in his novel 1984. He called it Newspeak. The purpose of Newspeak was to eliminate free thought and thus limit the user's perception of the world.
If you take a close look at the current state of the English language you'll see that Orwellian prediction of its erosion is well on its way to being fulfilled. Corporations and governments hide their lies beyond the veil of vague language that has no visuals. Here's a good example from George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language:"
"Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called 'transfer of population' or 'rectification of frontiers.' People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called 'elimination of unreliable elements.' Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them."
You can see it clearly in action when you turn on CNN or FOX News. "A local merchant whose daughter's leg was cut off by a cluster bomb, wife shot in the head by a machine gun strafe and son's stomach butchered by a grenade, is taking his revenge with an AK47." Such people are called "Terrorists" and "Insurgents" by the "news" media. As you can see, those words conveniently eliminate all visuals and conceal brutal reality from a sleeping Western population. This is exactly the purpose of Newspeak, or as we call it - corporate speak.
As a website writer you can contribute to the restoration of the English language by using more visuals in your writings. Avoid accepted "terms" but rather paint a picture in the mind of the reader. Take a color palette and a brush. Draw the sun, the sky, the water and the grass. Draw a water droplet falling down from the edge of a green leaf down to the moist summer grass.
Once you do, your readers will feel the difference. As opposed to reading predetermined words and phrases with little meaning, they will see your idea behind their words and use their imagination.
Check out the Web Economy Bullshit Generator for more corporate speak and read Orwell's Politics and the English Language.
Next: Painting a Picture >>
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