Size matters

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I had an interesting meeting with a new client today. We often try and convince clients to try different approaches to engage their prospects and customers more. This client beat me to it. From the off they said that they wanted to tell a story to enthral the reader.

There was a time when whitepapers were long, technical pieces, often with a large element of blue-sky thinking; and case studies were quite in-depth reviews of a project. Driven by the perception of a time-poor audience, bombarded by thousands of marketing messages, we’ve seen pieces get shorter and shorter. But there are dangers in making everything shorter. Not only is there the risk of ‘dumbing down’ the message, but it can also take the human interest out of the story. Edited down to a curt list of bullet points, the customer and their story become implausible and impossible to empathise with. Simplified to appeal to a broader audience, the whitepaper can become nothing more than a glorified brochure—that’s fine, but not when you are trying to demonstrate competence and thought-leadership to technical decision makers.

At HN we aren’t bound by industry-standard terms. We look at each project and agree with the client what length, tone and level of technical detail is most appropriate to the audience and therefore be best at achieving their objectives. Why not have a look at our article The resurgence of storytelling, or give us a call and put us to the test.

We get mail

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The other day an email landed in one of our inboxes and we passed it around in wonder; we couldn’t believe how long-winded and awkward it was. Here’s the opening:

In the midst of this dynamic, hyper-competitive global economy, understanding and addressing the ever-evolving needs and requirements of every customer is increasingly more complex yet essential. In response, a complete shift is happening in the way marketers are pursuing buyers and consumers, as well as addressing the needs of the sales channels. These realities provide immense challenges and opportunities for marketers.

Did you make it all the way to the end? If you were the recipient, would you continue reading?

To be fair, it wasn’t long ago that the trend was predominantly for a style of copy only slightly toned down from this example. We weren’t allowed to address ‘the business audience’ as if they were normal people who might appreciate plain speaking. There was a whole other language to use, ‘business language’; and it was unengaging, passive and wordy. Why say ‘in’ when you can say ‘in the midst of’? Why be satisfied with addressing customer needs if you can address both their needs and their requirements? Oh wait, not just address, but understand also. And we’re still in the first sentence!

The tendency to produce over-complex and verbose copy came, we think, from the belief that wordiness conveys seriousness and authority; and that adding adjectives makes copy more powerful. Neither of these beliefs has ever been true.

But things have changed. While each brand is doing it slightly differently, our clients are asking us for a much more relaxed style. They want copy that talks directly to their audience without fuss or embellishment. Have we writers finally managed to convince everyone that its possible to be both authoritative and concise? And that all those adjectives dilute the message?

Possibly; but I think the change really stems from accepting that people don’t expect, or want, to be addressed in a radically different way when they walk into work. It may never be appropriate to address the CIO or IT manager of a target company as if they’re your mate; but (in the UK and US at least) it’s become acceptable to address them as real human beings. That’s a trend we can only encourage.