Beat corporate drone; be ruthlessly specific
June 13th, 2005
Jonathan Kranz had a great article in Marketing Profs last week on How to improve your writing for the web . He offers five pointers; my favourite is number 4:
4. Become ruthlessly specific
Print out your Web pages—or the drafts of the Web pages you intend to post—and grab a yellow highlighter. Mark every phrase that reeks of broad abstraction (”enterprise process solutions”), vague promises (”exceeding customer expectations”) and empty boasting (”best in class services.”)
Now take a look at your page. Good copy should have very few, if any, streaks of yellow. Bad copy will look like a field of dandelions. Pull the weeds. Replace all the yellow copy with specific promises, facts, benefits, features and other pieces of concrete evidence that can support your causes and claims.
You might transform the previous parenthetical examples thus: “enterprise process solutions” becomes “browser-based manufacturing and inventory control”; “exceeding customer expectations” becomes “a 30% decrease in material waste in just 60 days, guaranteed”; and “best in class services” becomes “recognized as the industry standard by the Institute for Chemical Forensics.”
Bonus link: kranz.com carries ten tongue in cheek reasons not to hire Jonathan . I like that idea so much, I just might steal it. The worrying thing is we all know people to whom this ten could apply.
1 Comment Add your own
1. Adrian Trenholm » M… | October 17th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
[…] ly experiencing a paddle deficiency If you are ever tempted to write or speak like this, try being ruthlessly specific instead. In the words of contestant Mary Hughes: If you still say ‘Think […]
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