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I’m not sure how I feel about this, but it is an original idea: a post at Copyblogger suggests that you intentionally include select typos or spelling errors in your writing in order to sucker people into commenting and getting further involved with you. Check out Made You Thunk: Engage Your Readers With Typos and Misquotes. Sounds a little dubious to me. Sure, you might get some people to contact you, but many of them might wind up thinking you’re a tool (and the many others who don’t contact you will think you’re stupid). I’d file this in the same category as the old door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman trick where he throws a pile of dirt on the prospect’s living room floor so that she HAS to let him show off how good the vacuum is.

I posted a few days ago on the value of simplifying your marketing language - whether written copy, or verbal communication. I’ve been trying to be aware of this myself, and boy it’s hard. I suppose I’m cursed by too many hours spent with my nose pressed in books, but I keep realizing (always after-the-fact) that I’ve let another 25-center slip out when a nickel or dime word would have sufficed.

To be honest, I suppose there is some subliminal instinct to show off (I learned all these words, and dammit, I’m going to show people that I know them). But I think it’s at least partly accidental. You are what you eat, you speak what you read or hear.

On the other hand, self-awareness is half the battle, ie. recognizing that you have a problem. Problem in this case is only a problem to the extent that you’re in danger of speaking over the heads of most of the general population if you insist on dropping nuggets like aggrandize, or b-school-speak like operationalize into your everyday conversation. But it’s a problem nonetheless if you’re trying to sell widgets in Wisconsin or doodads in Delaware.

I wonder if you can trick out Outlook’s spell-checker to highlight all words longer than 3 syllables?

If you write for a living, whether novels, jingles or emails to your boss, this may be the best thing you can read this year:

George Orwell’s Rules for Effective Writing

If you can’t be bothered to follow the link (although you should since the post citing Orwell’s 1946 essay is quite good), then here they are, as written by the man himself:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

For examples of these rules in action, pick up any collection of Hemingway short stories and read a few. (Not a bad way to spend a few hours in any event).

I for one know that I am guilty of breaking a few of these rules with regularity. I can’t resist tossing in the 25-cent word once in a while. Next time around, I think I’ll think twice about it.

Copyblogger recently had posted an article pointing out how copywriters could ‘repurpose’ headlines from Cosmo - using that distinctive Cosmo style to create some inspiration and attention-grabbers. OK, that’s a great idea. Now they’ve posted Cosmopolitan Link Karma, which links out to a whole bunch of posts which picked up on that idea. Check out the list for some good examples of how this can work.

A few of my headline observations and tips:

• Ask a question, which makes the reader want to know the answer (How do carpenters avoid falling off the ladder?)
• Insinuate the reader is missing out on something (5 things your neighbor knows about lawncare that you don’t)
• Appeal to the natural human sense of paranoia (What THEY don’t want YOU to know about your health)
• Be specific, and use lists: 5 things, 3 ways, 22 secrets.

In my web travels I’ve come across the website Psychotactics (good free newsletter to check out. Lots of free downloads and analysis on how people think and why some marketing/copywriting works better than others.

There’s a free pdf download available now called Why Do Some Headlines Fail? which I thought was a worthwhile and quick read. It’s filled with some strategies for writing the type of headlines which suck people in and get them to take the next step. I don’t want to steal the article’s thunder, but here’s one tip: your headline should focus on the reader’s problem, rather than focusing on what it is you’re trying to sell. It’s all about the user.

Remember the Golden Rule of Marketing: “What’s In It For Me?” (and always remember that ‘me’ is the customer, not the marketer.

Now here’s a good post for other bloggers (and anyone who writes for the consumption of others): Six Common Punctuation Errors that Bedevil Bloggers goes over a bunch of common errors. I’m picky about punctuation and spelling, so I can really identify with this post. It drives me crazy to see poorly written material, whether it’s online or in print. I’ve always felt that’s like hanging out a sign which says “Not That Smart.”

It’s one thing if you’re not a native english speaker. In that case, I have sympathy for you– you’ve really got your work cut out for you. But if english is your mother tongue, get with the program.

Just last week I was at a trade show where I noted one company which had a big sign in their booth with a mispelled word. Doh! These days, with spellcheck installed on every computer, you don’t even need to know how to spell yourself– you just have to take the time to let the computer fix your mistakes.

Good piece at the MarketingProfs website, Killer Web Content Examples.  Gerry McGovern reveals the results of an experiment where he asked 3,000 people to choose the headline which immediately jumped out at them. What a great test, since writing for the web allows you to do incredible amounts of measurement, leading to results-based development. He found that there were clear winners in each of several categories. His summary…

The content that works on the Web has one key characteristic: It is customer-centric. The content that doesn’t work on the Web also has one key characteristic: It is organization-centric… They want brutal, pared-down content that gets to the point immediately.

We’ve certainly all heard that before, but so hard to put it into practice when it’s so tempting to go on and on! Check out the piece, it’s a short read.

I came across a really good copywriting post at Grokdotcom, Stop Being a “More-On”. This argues for eliminating the web copywriting cliche of ending a paragraph with a hyperlinked “click for more on…”. The argument is sound:

• If you really want people to click, you need to entice them with something more alluring than “more on…”. Otherwise, why should they bother risking a click. Tell them what they get by clicking. Make it a call to action, not an excuse for inaction.
• There are obvious internal SEO benefits of loading your site with keyword-rich hyperlinks between pages.

I know I’ve been guilty of variations on this practice, and am feeling inspired to go back and review some of my copy. Replace the dull with florid, enticing, irresistable calls to action.

More on this topic…

I posted the other day on writing copy, so while I’m on that topic, let me point out something which really annoys me: sloppily written promotional materials. If you’re creating an ad, or a website, you really should put in the effort to make sure that the grammar is not just correct, but also ‘tight’. Why? For one thing, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to get your point. If they have to slog through text which is difficult to read or unclear, they will likely move on to something easier.

For example, I’ve been checking out the website Trendwatching recently. Lots of interesting concepts covered there. Today I was reading the promo for their trend report, and found this paragraph (italics are mine):

To the point slides focusing on how trends can help your brand get (at least somewhat) closer to today’s Holy Grail: innovation! This section also answers how to apply trends in a structured fashion within the brainstorming and innovation processes. After all, you’re going to work with this report to dream up profitable new experiences, goods, and services for your customers.

3 sentences, and 2 problems I see. (I’m going to skip the lack of a verb in the first sentence, because I see they are shooting for a bullet-point feel.) First, I would have written ‘To-the-point’, which to me makes the sentence less confusing. Otherwise, readers may be left wondering what a point slide is. Second, ‘This section’ does NOT ‘answer’ how… it ‘describes how’. It’s poor grammar as written; not the most egregious example by a long shot, but still…

Picky? Yes. But you should be picky with your copy– in fact, you should be more demanding of your own copy than you are of anyone else’s. People are going to judge you by those few words you put out there in the public sphere, so make them clear and make them count. Start off by (generally) avoiding attempts to write as you would speak, since written words lack the visual and aural signals which comprise much of verbal communication. What makes perfect sense when spoken might be confusing in print.

Are you a poor speller or poor grammatician? Have someone proofread for you. Second opinions can be invaluable. You already know what you’re trying to say (we would hope), but your proofreader does not, and thus is less likely to have a blind spot for confusing or awkward copy.

Trendwatching strikes me as not a small organization. They probably have someone on staff who is picky enough about words to clean up the copy before putting it out there for all to see. Every organization should seek out the employee who goes to bed each night with “Elements of Style” under his or her pillow, and turn them loose on public-facing documents.

One of the things I enjoy about marketing is finding the little things which can make such a difference in attracting or keeping someone’s attention. For example, copywriting tips such as: DON’T WRITE LONG STRINGS OF WORDS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE THAT MAKES YOUR SENTENCE DIFFICULT TO READ.

Another one of these little rules was covered in Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox this week, which is a great web-usability resource (although some tips, such as this one, apply to printed matter as well). A post titled Show Numbers as Numerals When Writing for Online Readers discusses… why you shouldn’t write out numbers in word form online. Seems like a good rule to follow in much printed copy too.

Web copy needs to be scannable, because most people are only going to scan your web page. They don’t have time to read the whole thing, because they just stopped by your site in between surfing for porn, so you have to get their attention fast. Nielsen writes that eye-tracking studies reveal that “numerals often stop the wandering eye”, likely because people feel that numbers stand in for facts, and people love facts.

So word to the wise: If people want facts, give them facts. And try to put the facts in numerical form to stop your readers dead in their tracks.

“Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover” just doesn’t pop out at you the same as “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”. See, Paul Simon instinctively knew all about the numbers-not-letters thing, and you should pay attention since he’s one of the greatest living American lyricists. As a matter of fact, Simon really only dishes out about 5 ways to leave your lover (I just counted), but he astutely realized that a song titled “Five Ways To Leave Your Lover” just wouldn’t have the same hook.

Ironically, the one exception I would cite to this rule would be use of the number “1″ in a heading or title. For example, the title of this post. ‘1′ should really be written out as “One” since it looks kind of weird stuck on its own. On the other hand, you read the post this far, so maybe I’m wrong about that.