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The Dangers of Being
Professional Professional copywriters coming to the Web is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good, because we are seeing copy on sites, e-mails, and newsletters being written to a much higher standard of professionalism. Sales pages are being written more carefully. Instructions are being written more clearly. And good writing is having a beneficial effect on a number of areas of usability and site architecture. Open rates for newsletters and conversion rates on sites are showing that strong copy makes a difference. So what’s my beef? Where is the danger? Well, most of us have told our clients, at one point or another, that writing for the Web is not the same as writing for print. And that’s true. No question. But do we put our money where our mouth is? For sure, we adjust our writing for the Web. We accommodate the medium – its advantages and its barriers. But – and here’s my beef – I think we are still writing in the same WAY and style. I think we are still writing as if the medium were simply another form of print or broadcast. I think the language we use and the sales phrases we depend on are the same as the ones we use for print and direct mail. Does it work? Sure, within the confines of the limitations you impose when treating one medium as if it were the same as another. The thing about the Web, the HUGE thing about the Web, is that it is the only medium we use in which our readers are connected, networked and as much, if not more, in control of the medium than we are. Our readers don’t write print ads, don’t mail out DM pieces, don’t create TV ads. But they do send e-mails, create their own sites and wax lyrical in their weblogs. Our audience online are our peers, our colleagues. They are as much the ‘authors’ of the Web as we are. In fact, through emails, weblogs, instant messaging and forums etc, our audience is creating more online content than we are. So here’s the question – are you writing to your readers online as if they were passive, isolated recipients of a direct mail letter? Or are you writing to them as your equals, as your peers, as co-authors of the Web? My guess is that most of us, almost all of us, still write AT our readers as if they were ‘them’ – instead of communicating with them as one of ‘us.’ It’s still adversarial. It’s still us against them... trying to overcome their inertia. The danger I speak of is that as professional copywriters we tend to fall back on what we know. We depend on our ‘professionalism.’ And that offline copywriting professionalism includes a particular attitude towards our audience. It’s that attitude that needs to change. That adversarial component. That skill in persuading, manipulating, cajoling and tempting. We need to take our eyes off the monitor and look our audience in the eye. And when you do that, you’ll see that the online audience is very, very different from its offline equivalent. They’re right there, behind their own monitors. They’re one of us. And my guess is that they’d respond a whole lot better if we treated them with a little more respect. Nick Usborne has been writing, speaking and consulting on the subject of
writing online since 1997 and has had hundreds of articles published on
Clickz.com, MarketingProfs.com, Business 2.0 and elsewhere. He is the author of Net
Words - Creating High Impact Online Copy. His speaking and consulting site: www.nickusborne.com.
His newsletter site: www.excessvoice.com.
His weblog: http://nickusborne.typepad.com. |
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