You may, in your wilder moments, think that your content is neither one thing or another; it’s not that important that your company information is designed so that your clients feel utterly comfortable with what you’re trying to say; it’s not important that your information is absolutely accurate, and says exactly what you want it to say – after all, you’re not clear exactly what your content should be doing.
And therein lies the error.
Company managers are expert at doing what they do, but they have a preconceived idea of what content is, and what content does: it should speak roughly straightforwardly about your products and services; it should state what you’re trying to do – after all, it’s only a sign; a signal to people about what you’re doing. It doesn’t need to convince.
You know, when your teacher at school used to go on about writing a persuasive language, you may have misted over and begun thinking about what you’d be doing once you’d thrown off the uniform, and gone out with your mates. And yet, your teacher had a better idea about what your company content needs than you might have thought.
Language is a strange, perverse, and odd function, It can sell; it can convince; it can advertise. But unless you’ve used content professionals to create your company content, you may not be doing what’s essential to getting you new business.
Most websites, brochures, and company profiles don’t do what your teacher would have wanted; the site may say what you do, but the essential element you may have overlooked is the ability to make that idea fix in your customers’ minds and make them buy. How do you do that? Well, being able to write is very different from actual writing.
You may have a person who can structure effective sentences that talk about what you do and how you do it, but often, the way in which regular people talk about this has been done a hundred times before and is written as a cliché. A hundred, thousand, million times something is used, it becomes stale and uncomfortable; fails to impress and just becomes more verbiage that people understand, but don’t react to.
If you’re looking to make your company content something that will make people buy your goods and services, you need to think carefully about how that content is written, It’s too easy to fall back on the old way of trying to validate your existence through using the tired, old ways of saying things. It’s much easier to take the harder path – with original, fresh and new language – if only you’ve got the courage to do so.
A website needs something new; something to set it apart – and that’s not just a matter of images – although these are vital. Instead, a good copywriter can show you new ways to make sure your message comes across – and is effective in making people sit up and take you seriously. Often, people choose through anti-choice: choosing the least egregious site they’ve found. How much better would it be if people chose you because you say things in a new and original way – not the sad, third-person message that’s mixed with a vision and mission statement, and is very, very, very much the same as everyone else’s site.
The simple message here is plain: write as you’d like to be written to – and in a way that makes you feel like this site is something that feels included in. Don’t exclude. Write brilliantly.