The Small But Mighty Marketing Show – Episode 08

How To Write Copy That Flows (& Why It Matters So Much)

Does your marketing copy pass ‘The Breath Test’?

Are you inadvertently putting in stop words, which rip your reader out of their emotional state, and plonk them firmly back into analytical mode?

(aka ‘Nuh-uh….something doesn’t feel right about this….I’m outa here…’)

There are two critical things you MUST do when writing marketing copy to make sure it flows well, and guides the reader to take the action you most want. 

Without them you risk causing ‘hard stops’ in your copy, which will leave the reader frustrated, confused…and more importantly unwilling to commit to the very thing you wanted your copy to entice them to do…

Watch this episode of The Small But Mighty Marketing Show to find out if you’re getting potential buyers snarled up in traffic jams with your copy, and how to help them glide through right to the Buy button instead….

Feel free to hit the ‘Share’ arrow on the video if you’ve found it useful.

And if you want help untangling your copy …get in touch.

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Here’s the transcript of the video of you’re a reader rather than a watcher…

Hi, it’s Tanya Smith Lorenz from More Business Buzz and in this week’s Small but Mighty Marketing Show, I want to talk to you about copy that glides.

So I’m going to use the analogy of going on a journey. Last weekend we had a family get together and I had to drive from where I live in Pembrokeshire down through Carmarthenshire and along the M4 to where we were meeting. Normally when I do this journey it’s maybe in the middle of the day and there are certain spots where I always get held up on that road. And this time we were meeting quite early in the morning so I got up really early and I did that journey and I was there by half past nine. It was so smooth, it was a pleasure to do the journey, which is not like me – I don’t normally like motorway travelling, but it was an absolute pleasure.

And this analogy can and should be applied to your marketing copy as well.

Does it pass the breath test?

When I’m writing a long form sales page, I read what I’m writing, I read it all through. And there’s something that I ask myself, which is a phrase that was given to me by one of my mentors, Amy Posner, and it’s this:

Does it pass the breath test?

Sometimes we’re trying to fit a lot of ideas into a certain section and you find that your sentences have run on too long. When you’re just writing it or reading it in your head, you don’t always notice it.

But when you read it out loud you’ll instantly see that it doesn’t pass the breath test because basically you run out of breath before the end of the sentence, which means that it’s too long. And that means that it’s tiring for the reader to be reading that copy and also it doesn’t flow smoothly.

Are you inadvertently creating sticking points in your copy?

Another thing that you want to look out for are things which create confusion or stop words. For example, if you start a sentence with but. I do actually do this sometimes and it works well, but when you’re reading through your copy out loud, you’ll see that there might be certain phrases that you stumble over or certain points where the copy doesn’t flow. You might think, well, it doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to produce the next award winning novel.

But it does matter, for the person at the other end who’s reading your copy and hopefully going to buy something from you. Because every time they have to stumble over something in the copy or something doesn’t flow quite right, it doesn’t sound like it would if you were speaking it, then you’re causing them to pause.

You’re causing a sticking point in the copy.

And what happens is that it takes them out of the moment. Their logical brain kicks in and thinks, well, that doesn’t sound quite right. Or they’re trying to untangle what you’re saying.

Every time they hit one of these blocks or sticking points it’s like a snarl up in traffic. It affects their mood, it affects how they’re feeling, and it affects their emotions.

It takes them out of that emotional buy-in that they’ve got with your copy where they’re hanging on every word. And it pulls them out of that state and it kicks their logical brain in where they’re thinking this doesn’t sound quite right, this doesn’t read right. And that’s the last thing you want in your copy, because then you’ve broken the magic spell that you’re trying to create when you write good copy.

So here’s what I would encourage you to do. Anytime you’re writing copy – when you’ve finished, read it out loud. It’s just to yourself. You don’t have to feel crazy doing it, but read it out loud. See whether it passes the breath test to make sure that your sentences aren’t running on and on forever and they’re too long. And look out for sticking points and bits that don’t quite run smoothly – and rewrite those to make them run more smoothly.

And these two things will help your copy be better and hopefully convert better.

So there we go. There’s a tip about getting good flow through your copy. I’ll see you in the next episode. Bye Bye.