Aug
11
One of the hardest things to achieve with your website copy, sales letters or brochures is to give the reader a clear impression of what you're talking about.
Regular readers of this blog know that it's important to write for your reader, not for yourself or your boss. It's the customers you're trying to reach who matter. Of those, the ones who have never stayed at your hotel before are particularly important.
Key features of these people are that they've probably never heard of you before; they might not have visited your area before and they certainly don't know much, if anything, about your business.
So you need to tell them. And that's when it starts to get tricky...
Regular readers of this blog know that it's important to write for your reader, not for yourself or your boss. It's the customers you're trying to reach who matter. Of those, the ones who have never stayed at your hotel before are particularly important.
Key features of these people are that they've probably never heard of you before; they might not have visited your area before and they certainly don't know much, if anything, about your business.
So you need to tell them. And that's when it starts to get tricky...
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You see, the hardest thing to do is to explain to someone who doesn't have your experience of an item, what that item is, does, looks like or feels like.
In copywriting circles, this is sometimes known as "the curse of knowledge"...
...you know what you mean because you've experienced it before or it's sitting in front of you. The person to whom you're giving the explanation has no idea what you're talking about.
You need to keep it simple. There is a fine line between being descriptive or giving enough information and losing your reader because they don't know what you're talking about.
The easiest way to illustrate this is to use one of our pet hates - jargon. Hotels in particular use a lot of jargon. If they're not using jargon, they're using words that only hotel people use:
A la carte; table d'hote; reservation; accommodation; food and beverage - examples of words that your customers understand as: menus; booking; rooms and stuff to eat and drink.
The problem is that you know what you mean - your reader is often left behind. Try explaining what a circle is to someone who doesn't know what a circle looks like.
Whe you're writing your next bit of promotional copy, just remember you know things your customers don't. Don't let that become a curse on your marketing.
You see, the hardest thing to do is to explain to someone who doesn't have your experience of an item, what that item is, does, looks like or feels like.
In copywriting circles, this is sometimes known as "the curse of knowledge"...
...you know what you mean because you've experienced it before or it's sitting in front of you. The person to whom you're giving the explanation has no idea what you're talking about.
You need to keep it simple. There is a fine line between being descriptive or giving enough information and losing your reader because they don't know what you're talking about.
The easiest way to illustrate this is to use one of our pet hates - jargon. Hotels in particular use a lot of jargon. If they're not using jargon, they're using words that only hotel people use:
A la carte; table d'hote; reservation; accommodation; food and beverage - examples of words that your customers understand as: menus; booking; rooms and stuff to eat and drink.
The problem is that you know what you mean - your reader is often left behind. Try explaining what a circle is to someone who doesn't know what a circle looks like.
Whe you're writing your next bit of promotional copy, just remember you know things your customers don't. Don't let that become a curse on your marketing.
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