Better writing equals better communication equals better business
Thanks to new media commentator Jeppe Kabell for linking to this intriguing post about how a course in business writing led to dramatic improvements for the author.
Written by the creator of the Dilbert comic, Scott Adams, the post urges people to remember the art of simplicity. Advice every writer should take on board.
But the post also got me thinking about why people should try and improve their writing skills.
What is the actual benefit?
We take it for granted here in the office that good writing is something valuable in itself. But what is its value to businesses?
I’ll try and get the ball rolling and then I’ll leave it to my colleagues - and hopefully some of you as well - to fill in the blanks.
I guess the title of this post gives my arguments away! For me, it’s all about clarity. Communicating something, whether it’s the benefits of a new product, or the values of a company, is optimized through clarity.
Simple, easily understandable language should be every writer’s first goal. Striving for that powerful, hard-hitting message can wait. Start simple, and then hone. Often, the most powerful text is the least confusing!
Now, over to you.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
It strikes me on an almost daily basis that we copywriters really do take the importance of good writing for granted. Try to convince someone with no connection to marketing that cutting down the message to its key details is essential, and you can find yourself in a heated debate over why headlines and clarity are essential.
It seems that the closer someone is to a product or service they’re describing, the harder it is for them to simplify it. EVERY detail seems essential! So they end up with, say, five-page case stories that mention every single step of the way - and leave the reader thoroughly confused.
They say that “hindsight is 20/20,” meaning that when we look back at an event, we understand it far better than we did at the moment. I’d go so far as to say that “External copywriting is 20/20.” It certainly helps to have a person who hasn’t been involved in the whole process step in and extract the key messages. That’s what we do here every day. The risk is that the customer may feel we’ve stripped their story of its layers of complexity. But for the reader, simplicity means a better understanding, and that is everyone’s ultimate goal.
I guess I’d reword your last point slightly, Aaron. Perhaps in reality, simple, easily understandable language is the way towards the hard-hitting message. If you can’t find that hard-hitting message, simplify what you’re saying, cut out anything you can, and then do it some more. Then, like a 3D Magic Eye image, it will finally emerge from the busy background to reveal the real message you’re trying to tell your audiences.
June 19th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
What often strikes me is that many people “speak” messages well, but can’t “write” them. Talk to someone about their product and they tell you in a language you can understand. But ask them to write it down and a strange metamorphosis occurs. They fall back on stock phrases and complicated sentences and forget all about you, the reader.
Learning to write well is learning to write to a person. To remember who they are, what motivates them, why they are interested and what turns them off. We do this naturally in face-to-face communication, but many of us have to learn to do it in writing.
So what value is this to businesses? Perhaps the most important benefit is connection. For many of us, most of our contact with a business is through writing, whether it’s in a brochure, on a website or in an email. Wouldn’t it be nice if we felt a connection with the business through its writing, if we saw a personality and felt we were being ’spoken’ to?