“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words” - Mark Twain
Flawless writing is the cornerstone of clear communication. If brand design is the silent ambassador of your brand, creative written copywriting is the one making friends in the kitchen. Your words are your mightiest weapon.
While people might be reading fewer books and relying more on technology and social media, the common complaint that written standards have dropped couldn’t be further from the truth. Our formal grammar may have changed, but top-quality writing is still part of B2B interactions. Well-written copywriting can be transformative for a brand’s reputation, even in the form of social media updates and casual blog posts.
The reality is that people judge everything you do as a brand, even as a small one. And just like in school, you will lose points for bad spelling. One survey indicated that 59 per cent of Britons were unlikely to spend money with a company with errors in their web copy or marketing materials.
When writing for brands, you must be on the ball, publishing pristine, error-free copywriting. Here are some sage words of advice from our writers and editors to help you craft high-quality content.
Clarity is key
Deliver your message clearly and concisely. Don’t ramble or use too much jargon, or you’ll risk losing the reader’s interest. If someone starts reading and can’t see the relevance, they’ll drop you like a hot rock and head straight to your competitors.
Delivering concise and convincing communication is key to productivity and success in business. Many businesses have reported that while we communicate more, we are not communicating more effectively.
In 2021, 85 per cent of business leaders cited a decrease in the effectiveness of written communication. This has led to what leaders perceive as a 43 per cent drop in productivity in 2022 and a 19 per cent loss of business due to poor communication.
Despite this, the time spent emailing, writing text-based chat, and text messaging is steadily rising, with the average worker devoting more hours to written communication than verbal communication in a week. Maintaining clarity and accuracy in writing is more important than ever.
Avoid slip-ups at all costs
First impressions matter. There’s no room for spelling mistakes, low-quality grammar, or complicated words, as these can (and should) put people off. When you’re ready to put your voice out there, it must be flawless.
Bad grammar and punctuation have an immediate negative impact on the reader’s impression of your brand. Mistakes are easily made when writing fast, especially if you’re using a phone. Something as basic as a simple spelling mistake or the wrong verb form can diminish your authority and customer trust. Avoid such slip-ups by double and triple-checking what you’ve written before submission and writing on a real keyboard when possible.
Before publishing branding material for our clients at Contese Agency, our team of writers and editors check every piece of writing several times in a robust process to ensure flawless writing.
The penalty for plagiarism
Does duplicate content hurt SEO? As well as being highly unethical, plagiarising someone else’s work has no tangible benefits. Search engines are now optimised to the point that they can identify work copied from other sources. The penalty from Google and other search engines usually means your website is excluded entirely from ranking results.
Your website’s visitors will likely know the difference, too, having already visited other highly ranked sites you plagiarised from before landing on your own. Visitors that quickly exit your webpage will increase your bounce rate, affecting your ranking negatively.
One of the primary motivations for producing content as a brand is to establish credibility as an authoritative source of information. Your content has to be unique with a fresh perspective to captivate the visitor's attention, and there is no shortcut to success as lazy as copying and pasting someone else’s content. As Tom Hanks said in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own: ‘If it were easy, everyone would do it.’
Put yourself in your readers' shoes
Pride yourself not only on accuracy and literacy but also on integrity. You don’t want to accidentally offend a reader because you didn’t keep your audience in mind or read over your writing for mistakes. Always put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re writing for. Consider every word, every comma, and every capitalisation. Be meticulous because paying attention to the details matters.
Errors and mistakes will turn potential customers off. It conveys a lack of professionalism and makes your reader wonder about the efficiency of other areas of your business. When polled, 74 per cent of UK adults said they noticed poor quality spelling and grammar on a company website, with 59 per cent refusing to do business with a company that had these errors. Even at the final point of sale, a lack of accuracy and clean editing can cost you business.
Writing for your demographic
You wouldn’t want to use the same style or tone in all different publishing mediums. Each communication channel has a different audience with different needs. For example, you’ll find a younger demographic on Instagram and Twitter, but you may see an older crowd on Facebook and LinkedIn. If your demographic is middle-aged men, they might not understand (or appreciate) the latest internet slang. If your demographic is Generation Z, business jargon will put them off.
Every platform has different rules, whether character count or banned topics., so be informed on what you can and can’t do on each platform and find the best way to write for its readers.
The best way to determine your style for a particular platform is by analysing the audience and creating your ideal buyer persona. For example, for Instagram, let’s picture a person in their 20s who wants to buy your product but needs additional information before they commit. Maybe they also like live music, live with roommates, and always post pictures of their cute dog. Using the information readily available to you, you can take them on a journey, exciting them and encouraging them to interact with your words.
Consider your writing style
Once you know your audience and your platform, it’s time to define your writing style. Then keep it in mind with everything you write to ensure a perfect result. For example, using emojis is accepted and encouraged when writing on social media. But don’t pair it up with archaic language or 1990s text talk. You want the words to flow and match with the emojis you’re using.
Find a balance between informal and formal speech. If the topic you are writing about is technical and serious, you may want to stick to a formal tone, but you also don’t want to bore your readers. There’s no problem with incorporating a bit of conversational speech to help your audience to relate to your text.
Remember not to overwhelm your audience with information. We live in a world where content is available at your fingertips, but this is losing its novelty. There is a content overload, so knowing when to cut your texts down to deliver valuable information effectively is critical.
And remember, never forget who you’re writing for. Every word should have meaning for your reader. Don’t lose sight of this.
Avoid an over-reliance on AI in content creation
Anyone even remotely connected to the world of content writing and marketing will be aware of the ongoing debate: will AI replace content writers? Roles such as data entry and data processing are also considered to be vulnerable.
In a recent survey, 33 per cent of marketers said they often generate content by leveraging AI and machine learning software. Currently, content-generating AI can increase business capacity, generate ideas, be harnessed for research, and scale your growing business.
However, the technology comes with significant risks. There are concerns that companies could be penalised for plagiarism, as AI essentially cannibalises different websites for content, pulling it together into a single piece of writing. It’s essential to use a plagiarism checker before publishing, or better yet, use a human editor to rewrite or do a hard editing of any content the AI produces.
Fundamentally, AI is still a powerful tool but only a tool. It requires a human writer and editors to provide prompts and direction and polish the work produced.
Words with a difference
This may sound like a lot to handle, but don’t let it become a source of stress. It’s not too late to improve if you've made these mistakes. After all, Lego’s name was linked to an ad with the slogan ‘So fun, they won’t even know their learning’, and the company still declared 7.44 billion euros in revenue in 2021.
If you’re concerned about how your brand is perceived, or if writing just isn’t your forte, it’s worth hiring a content agency to ensure simple errors do not hold you back.
At Contese Agency, we are different. We put words above anything else and support our clients with high-level creative copywriting, SEO content based on data research, and a passion for writing to perfection. Contese Agency is different. We put words above anything else and support them with high-level creative copy writing, SEO content-based on data research, and a passion for writing to perfection.
If you need flawless writing for your brand, please contact our content agency; We're experts in writing for brands such as Boost.ai and IKOS Resorts, and we will help you find an effective solution that fits your requirements and budget. We'd love to hear from you!
Try our creative copywriting services.