Tips for writing engaging texts
Marketing
Posted 04 May 2021
At no point in time has the writing of good texts been as important as today. Due to blogs, social media and web presences, almost every company now needs new, meaningful texts on a regular basis. Regardless of what type of post it is, there are some key principles for successful writing. After all, these texts should be eloquent and have an appealing effect on the reader.
An old marketing maxim says that the bait must attract the fish, not the fisherman. This saying can be applied to the writing of texts as well. Authors often have a profound understanding of the subject matter and are familiar with even the most complex details. Too many technical terms used in the text can then be incomprehensible and confusing for the reader.
It is true that technical terms emphasize knowledge and expert status, which is especially important for thought leaders. Yet, they cause the reader to feel out of place and it might trigger them to no longer feel the desire to finish reading the article. Whereas when writing for a group of experts, you should take care of not writing too informal and do put the emphasis on technical terms. Otherwise, your own expert status will quickly be lost on the reader.
Depending on the medium, you can vary your own way of expressing yourself. On such platforms as Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as on your own homepage, you should maintain a certain seriousness and thus a formal form of address. On Instagram, on the other hand, you can switch to a more personal tone when addressing customers and formulate your texts more colloquial. When writing expressive texts, it is therefore always important to keep the target group in mind. After all, the text is ultimately intended for them.
Knowledge of the motivation, thoughts, and desires of a target group, ideally the buyer persona, is necessary to be able to control what should be emphasized and what should be avoided. This often removes the biggest obstacle to successful communication.
Worth reading as well: Making your marketing more efficient with Buyer Personas
A good text is as long as needed and as short as possible. Especially in the web it is difficult to find the right text length. Firstly, you want to announce as much information as possible, and secondly, in the fast-moving media, users are not keen on reading for a longer time. Services like Twitter restrict your characters in tweets and only allow a total overall length.
But even when the opportunity presents itself, you should not write too much. Readers often spend only a few seconds on posts and are not interested in longer descriptions at all. This is due to the fact that social media are very visually oriented towards images and videos. Furthermore, online readers usually have a relatively small screen at their disposal (smartphone or tablet), and reading long texts is simply exhausting.
To shorten texts, it is important to formulate them as precise as possible. Platitudes, filler words and repetitions are dispensable when writing contributions for the Internet.
If all of the above has been followed, texts are aligned with the target audience and are of an optimal length, there are merely a few steps that need to be taken in order to write an appealing text. The following mistakes often happen when trying to sound as serious and professional as possible. These are to be avoided at all costs.
In principle, nominal style should be avoided in all texts. It makes reading more complicated and unnatural. In common language usage, many verbs and adjectives are used, but nominal style is hardly ever used. Make sure to use verbs and adjectives to make your sentences sound more lively.
Filler words quickly sneak into texts and are among the redundant phrases you hear everywhere but can happily do without.
Negative wording is bad in any text for two reasons:
First, negative words trigger negative associations, even if only subconsciously. Second, double negatives must first be unknotted in the reader’s mind. As an example:
‘not strong enough’ can be replaced with ‘weak’, ‘not consider’ with ‘forget’.
In written language, there is a tendency to formulate sentences in the passive form. This happens unconsciously not at least because passive writing already begins with the use of the word “one”. The effect on the reader thus remains rather closed and the statement does not address them directly. Instead, address your readers directly to reach them on a personal basis.
If all these aspects are taken into account, nothing will stand in the way of an engaging text.
Marketing Assistant at HBI Helga Bailey GmbH – International PR & MarCom
Lukas Huber has been part of HBI’s marketing team since 2020. As Marketing Assistant, his responsibilities include the development of marketing campaigns, social media management and the creation of specialized articles
