You’ve heard the expression, “Choose your words carefully.” That’s particularly true in copywriting.
Now that doesn’t mean you need to go back and restudy primary school grammar. In fact—and this may surprise you—some of the most effective copy is often full of grammatical errors that would have been red-penned by your English teacher. Perhaps the most famous example is “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”
If you want to be a strict grammarian, the tobacco company’s choice of the word “like” has to be replaced by “as.” When editors started pointing this out, Winston’s advertising people put a new spin on it, retorting in their commercials, “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?”
So feel free to throw out the rules of grammar. You don’t have to be grammatically correct to write effective copy. That doesn’t matter. Nobody is issuing marks for who has the best grammar. The marks are for who gets the results, and that’s measured in how many people take the action you want them to and in how many sales you make.
Be Active, Not Passive
So word choice is not about grammar. It is about evoking a response with your words. For that reason, one thing that you’ll want to do in your copy is make your language as specific as possible. You’ll want to choose words that create visual images, words that intrigue, arouse, excite, motivate and compel.
Along those lines, active verbs tend to do much better than passive verbs. Instead of writing, “This product is better than that product in value,” you might write “This product surpasses that product in value” or “This product’s value exceeds that product’s.” Instead of saying, “You need to have motivation,” you can write, “Get motivated.” That’s an active expression.
Passive writing relies too much on “to be” and “to have” verbs. Active writing uses “to do” verbs. Look through your own copy and count the number of times some form of the word “is” shows up. Find ways to replace “is” with verbs that indicate activity. “Doing, not “being,” gets the job done.
Be Concrete, Not Abstract
Verbs are not the only words you need to choose carefully. Your choice of nouns can have a dramatic impact on your results, too. In most instances, concrete nouns will serve you much better than abstract nouns.
What’s the difference between concrete and abstract? It’s the same as the difference between ideas and things, mental concepts and physical reality. You can’t imagine abstract words in a wheelbarrow. Because abstractions can’t be clearly pictured in the mind, they are harder for people to grab onto and act on.
As an example, “a list of the top three financial goals for our company” is a specific and concrete way to describe the abstract concept “our financial objectives.” The vague and abstract idea “our strategy” can be made concrete by calling it an “our action plan” or, even better, “ten steps to reach our goal.”
That’s why, where possible, you want to use more tangible language. When you start to use active verbs, concrete nouns and tangibles, it’s much easier for people to relate to. You will get better results, too.
Choose Your Words Carefully