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Writing and Speaking > Copywriting > An Important Copywriting Secret Straight out of the Holy Bible
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Ben Settle
I'm not a big fan of the "spelling police". And I actually think
it's funny when someone desperately tries to convince
others that spelling errors and grammatical screw ups will
kill sales, when in fact they have very little to do with
response. (Except in rare cases)
But just because a misspelled word here or there won't do a
lot of damage doesn't mean you shouldn't make your writing
"clear". By "clear" I mostly mean using common, every day
language.
Now, you have probably heard about the importance of
clarity. But what you may not have considered is common,
"every day" language is not necessarily the same for
everyone.
Case in point: People in England have different figures of
speech than people in the United States. Just like people in
Texas have different figures of speech than people in
Illinois. Just like people in New York City have different
figures of speech than people in Kansas City. And so on.
Let's take the Bible for example. If you told someone in
ancient Hebrew, "You're in hot water now, my friend!"
he'd probably look around to see if there's any water around
him, then look at you like you're crazy. Because that's not a
common figure of speech in ancient Hebrew.
On the other hand, if that same guy told you "not to
uncover your father's nakedness", you may think he's
telling you not to look at your dad when he's naked -- when,
in truth, he's saying not to sleep with your father's wife.
What's my point?
This: Make sure you understand the way your readers
"talk". Because it just might be different than the way you
do. And if you start using every day "talk" you're familiar with,
but your readers aren't, you're probably going to confuse
them to no end.
I've made this mistake before in my own sales letters,
where I assumed the people I was writing to would
immediately catch on to what I was saying, but they either
weren't familiar with my "common" talk or didn't have the
patience to try to decipher it.
Unlike a misspelled word or misplaced comma, making
this particular "language" mistake probably will kill your
sales.
Ben Settle is a seasoned freelance copywriter and
direct marketer. If you liked this article then check out
Ben's website at http://bensettle.com -- where you'll find
over 500 pages of advertising ideas, strategies and
tactics just like this one -- as well as rare swipe file ads
and hot marketing information not easily found
anywhere else.
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