Copywriting Makeovers: August 2006

Saturday, August 12, 2006

It's Not About You, It's About Your Offer

Overview

When I think of the San Jose software company, Qarbon, I recall the story of David and Goliath. In this case, Qarbon is David and another San Jose firm, Adobe, is Goliath.

Qarbon's products are mainly desktop authoring packages used to create Adobe Flash movies for online presentations and e-learning courses. Their flagship product, ViewletBuilder, competes with Breeze and Captivate - applications from, you guessed it, Adobe.

Qarbon offers registered users of its authoring packages ViewletCentral - a hosted application with different levels of membership. It's a combination of content management system, learning management system and traffic analysis service.

In this installment of Copywriting Makeovers, we re-write the ViewletCentral portion of the current Qarbon newsletter to make it:

action oriented
easy to understand

Copywriting Makeover

Before

After

Help us serve you better by participating in our on-line surveys

By completing both of our small surveys, you will be entitled to an exciting reward:

For ViewletCentral users, we will add 3 months to your account free of charge or upgrade you for 1 month to the next subscription level (your choice).

For all others, we will give you a free 3 month subscription to a ViewletCentral Licenced Bronze account worth 75 dollars.

Claim Your Free 3-Month Subscription to ViewletCentral

Complete 2 lightening-quick surveys and you can:

Add 3 months to your account at no charge
Upgrade to the next level. Enjoy all your added privileges for 1 month free

Not a registered user? Sign up to test-drive ViewletCentral for 3 months absolutely free (a $75 value).

Readability Statistics

Overall, the changes discussed below give us a 43% jump in readability. Notice how grade level drops by 6 years. The Before snippet required a high school senior’s reading ability to comfortably understand the pitch. Now, a freshman in middle school will catch on.

Go Easy on the Eye

White space matters. The layout of your offer must be easy to take in whether you’re scanning or reading it word by word.

Less clutter eliminates the fatigue of information overload. One way to sweep away clutter is to use bullet points. Bullet points accelerate your prospect’s grasp of the offer.

Speak from the Prospect’s Point of View

The most important thing of all is perspective. The Before snippet reads from the vendor’s standpoint. The After snippet reads from the prospect’s point of view.

The opening headlines make this clear. The Before snippet starts with "Help us help you…" Placing pronouns like "I, we, or us" early on in your message causes your prospect to activate their anti-sales defense shields because they haven’t read "what’s in it for them" yet. The After snippet begins with "Claim Your Free..." to immediately couch things from the prospect’s point of view.

Inspire Action not Reflection

Verbs spark motion, nouns just sit there. None of the paragraphs in the Before snippet start with verbs. In the After snippet, starting with verbs transforms nearly every sentence into a customer benefit with a call to action.

Sweat the Subtleties

How to Spin "Give Before You Get"

The newsletter entices readers to take a survey using temporary ViewletCentral membership as bait. Few people like to take surveys no matter how short so, it’s important to put the right spin on it.

The Before snippet opens with "By completing both of our small surveys, you will be entitled to..." This is wordy and leaves the prospect to think, "OK, get on with it, what’s in it for me?"

Now, 2 less obvious points. "Both" means "all" and "all" in this context suggests work – ugh. Next, by using the word "small," the writer intended to minimize the work aspect of taking the survey and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, it unintentionally denigrates the survey itself.

The After snippet looks upon this opening sentence as a necessary speed bump to come clean with the catch before launching into why prospects should love the offer. It labels the surveys as "lightening-quick" to assure the prospect:

this sacrifice is virtually imperceptible
they get the better of the deal

Make Your Prospects Feel as Welcome as Your Customers

Ever fly coach? Do you sometimes feel like a third-class citizen because you’re not among the first or business-class travelers?

The writer did not intend to have this effect and it is subtle but the phrases, "For ViewletCentral users," and "For all others," emphasize the "in group versus the out group."

The After snippet never mentions the in group because speaking of accounts and privileges makes this clear. By asking the question, "Not a registered user?" we politely and humbly suggest gaining in group status is quick and easy.

Wrap-up

Layout, point of view, and choice of words affect our conversion rate. Emphasize action verbs. Make rewards obvious. Their value must clearly exceed any sacrifice required.

Next year, Qarbon will celebrate its 10th anniversary – a true survivor of the dot com bust and everything since. They compete with Macromedia and now, Adobe. They must be doing something right.

Armed with powerful copy, this David can start making Goliath nervous.

To your marketing success,

Eric "Rocket" Rosen
Clear Crisp Communications
Tel: 408.506.0719
Fax: 814.253.5142
Email: eric.rosen AT clearcrisp.com
Web: http://www.clearcrisp.com
Blog: http://copywritingmakeovers.blogspot.com
ROCKET Response Copywriting Services
Polished Marketing Materials in 24, 48 or 72 Hours

How-to Make Excellent Marketing Literature 37% More Readable

Overview

For our first installment of Copywriting Makeovers, we focus on a product called Halo from Hewlett Packard (HP). Why choose HP? They're #1 on the Silicon Valley 150. Why Halo ? When software helps people overcome barriers of time, distance and culture, I get excited and writing about it is irresistible.

We look at the white paper explaining how Halo marks a major advance in business collaboration technology but first, let's answer the question, "What is Halo?" To quote HP:

The Halo studio—designed by DreamWorks Animation in partnership with HP—provides life-size, real-time, eye-to-eye conferencing with outstanding audio and no delay. Halo gives the sense of being in the same room together...
When you buy Halo studios from HP you connect your organization in a way that's never been possible before. Halo can transform how your business works by bringing people together frequently and spontaneously to collaborate in the most natural way.

This white paper is obviously top notch. The challenge is how to make it even better.

Scanning it the first time, I felt something subtle could be improved but wasn't sure what. Then, it hit me – the paper uses the passive voice. Giving the paper an active voice makes it more readable, as demonstrated below.

Finally, if you like irony, you might find the Wrap-up to this post a touch humorous.

Copywriting Makeover

The passive voice subtly mutes the original as if a Plexiglas wall was shielding us from the full force of what the writer wants us to feel:

Before

After

Though in most cases, Halo is purchased initially for senior management, businesses also report cultural changes across the company, its customers, vendors and strategic partners.

Human Resources staff use the Halo studio to interview applicants instead of flying them in for interviews. Managers eliminate travel by conducting performance appraisals and contract negotiations in Halo rooms. Projects with vendors can be completed quickly with no in-person meetings at all.

At the same time, relationships develop, as if all of the project work were done in the same location. Companies that have gone through mergers or acquisitions report that Halo hasbrought the organizational cultures together because, even though not everyone affected by mergers can travel to establish new workrelationships, they can do so using the Halo suites.

Usually, companies purchase Halo for senior management. A short time later, cultural changes spread across the company, its customers, vendors and key partners.

Human Resources staff use the Halo studio to interview applicants instead of flying them in for interviews. To eliminate travel, managers conduct performance appraisals and contract negotiations in Halo rooms. Projects with vendors finish quickly with no in-person meetings.

At the same time, new social networksform. The quality of work from these teams reaches parity with that of teams in a single location.

Companies recently merged or acquired report Halo has brought their cultures together because people unable to travel as a way of establishing new relationships achieve the same thing using Halo suites.

Get the Scoop on Readability Statistics

Before we take a closer look at the Readability Statistics pictured above, let's explain the last two measures. Throughout the 20th Century, Rudolf Flesch championed clarity in writing by simplifying sentence structures, selecting more common words, and emphasizing flow. The Flesch Reading Ease index runs from 1-100: the higher the number, the easier to read. The Flesch Kincaid Grade Level specifies the minimum reading level needed to follow a passage comfortably.

Need a Fast Grammar Lesson on Passive Voice?

The after passage removes the Plexiglas wall by eliminating the passive voice. If your grammar is a little rusty regarding the passive voice, English Grammar Online offers a simple definition with lots of examples. The passive voice creates a barrier to understanding because it leaves the subject of a sentence unknown.

Boost Readability - Make the Passive Voice Active

The screenshots above tell the story. Our reward for making the passive voice active - Flesch Reading Ease index improves by 37%.

You'll find the passive voice in scholarly writing. It makes sense the writer would choose the passive voice as white papers are meant to appear objective and free from sales hype.

Still, I contend it's okay to write white papers with an active voice.

First, in a world where everyone is starved for time and attention spans are short, we want readers to absorb the spirit of our writing without anything to impede their understanding.

Second, it's no secret white papers in the technology sector are meant to generate interest and are therefore "non-sales sales tools." We can use an active voice while remaining mindful of white paper etiquette.

So, do you consider your marketing materials to be excellent? Whether they are or not, picture what a 37% spike in readability could do for your business.

Wrap-up

OK, I promised irony.

Doesn't It seem ironic a technology capable of creating this sense of intimacy would have its literature written in the passive voice?

Someday, the ability to beam people from place to place as envisioned by Star Trek will arrive. They'll need a white paper. Will they write it in the passive voice?

What's a Copywriting Makeover? Why Should You Care?

Hustling to beat out your competition? Is victory in view?

Or, does an inner voice keep you awake at night wondering whether you've overlooked something simple?

Just as a fish doesn't see the water around it, it's easy to let the writing of your marketing materials swim by without reeling it in for closer study.

Do your prospects find your promotional literature clear and easy-to-understand? It may be murkier than you think. Don't get caught thinking, "prospects know why we're the best choice they can make."

Unless prospects see, "what's in it for them," chances are you need to clean the tank.

Welcome to Copywriting Makeovers where we focus on making communications clear, crisp, and compelling.

We start by mentioning the industry of the company, its size and anything else relevant. Next, we take a snippet from their website, re-write it and show them side-by-side.

But, we don't stop there. We serve up quick stats comparing both selections for ease of reading. Better still, you get a summary explaining why the re-write is:

easier to understand
more human
a better sales tool

Snippets come mainly from websites in software, professional services and training and development. Occasionally, we look at self-help stuff like yoga, meditation, nutrition, or coaching.

Clarity is the highest priority of a Copywriting Makeover. With clarity, your excellent qualities rise to the surface especially your warmth and humanity. The more "human" your literature comes across, the more you connect with your audience on an emotional level. Bond with your audience through their hearts and they'll use their heads to justify choosing you first.

Finish reading a Copywriting Makeover. Think about how copy affects your business. Use the links here or in the sidebar to request a:

Excited you're here. Look forward to a lively exchange of ideas.

To your marketing success,

Eric "Rocket" Rosen
Clear Crisp Communications
Tel: 408.506.0719
Fax: 814.253.5142
eric.rosen AT clearcrisp.com
http://www.clearcrisp.com
ROCKET Response Copywriting Services
Polished Marketing Materials in 24, 48 or 72 Hours