You need powerful marketing messages in order to get your audience interested – and if you’re not delivering the right message, you won’t get the results you want and your words will slaughter your sales. In financial terms, you’re simply losing sales – and money. If you’re a business owner, this is something that you simply can’t afford!

The simple fact is that words are enormously powerful, and you need to use the right words in your marketing message to make them hit the spot – or risk a sales slaughter that leaves you feel bruised and beaten. Hiring an experienced copywriter is one way to create the perfect messaging that makes audiences act effortlessly – but what if you don’t have the budget?

Worse, what if your budget leaves you wondering if you can even trust your copywriter?

That’s not to say that you have to hire a copywriter. There are some things you can learn and integrate into your writing to craft a more powerful marketing message yourself. Here are five ways that you can make sure your words are working for you – instead of destroying everything you’ve worked so hard for!

You Use Too Many Words That Nobody Wants to Read

People today just don’t have attention spans anymore – and research shows that the average attention span has slumped to an all-time low of eight seconds – and in some cases, just five seconds! That’s not a lot of time to grab your audience’s attention.

In other words, cut out the waffle and get rid of the fluff, because a lot of people just aren’t going to read it – which means those wasted words are slaughtering your sales. What they do want is for you to get to the point!  That means wiping out filler words like “very,” no deviation from what you want to say, and being judicious with your red pen. Show those bad words that you mean business, and you’ll have a message that drives your point right home – like a stake through Dracula’s heart!

You Use Jargon That Nobody Wants to Hear

Nobody likes jargon. Unless you’re in an industry where the jargon has to stay in place, just dump it. A great marketing message sticks to words that the audience understands – even if it means dumbing your writing down or losing that little extra precision. Nobody’s going to thank you for feeling stupid or having to reach out for a dictionary.

Always review your writing for big words and jargon, and be ruthless: unless it’s absolutely necessary, it needs to feel the wrath of your editorial pen. I hope you have a red pen because in this process, it’s your primary weapon of choice.

You Use the Wrong Pronouns and Alienate People

This is a simple case of me and you. A marketing message is all about its audience, not so much about the person or company behind that message which delivers the products and services. This simply means using pronouns that focus on the reader (such as you, your, and yours) instead of, well… you (I, me, we, and so on).

It’s important to remember that nobody cares about you – they care about the solutions that you’re offering them. It’s one of the most basic rules of marketing and a cornerstone of engaging writing. Don’t skip this – ever!

Fixing this in your messaging can be tricky and often requires significant rewrites. One of the best ways to fix this up is to take your “me me me” writing and find a benefit of your service that it describes

You Use Passive Verbs and Bore People to Tears

Marketing messages are all about driving people to do something and motivating them to go and do it right now. That means using the active voice (“Greg killed the alligator”) instead of the passive voice (“The alligator was killed by Greg”).  One is punchier and dynamic, while the other lends itself to a more floral kind of writing.

In order to fix your copywriting here, you’ll need to know your customer as well as your products and services – what kind of problems do they have, and what emotions are they feeling? If you can line your product or service benefits up with these emotions, your messaging will become hyper-effective.

You Use Robotic Writing That Leaves People Cold

There are no ifs and buts here – if your writing isn’t emotional, it’s not going to trigger people – emotionally, that is. Emotions dominate humans and often bully us into doing things we likely wouldn’t if we were robots – which is great news for marketers! When people seek comfort, fear an outcome, or desire an outcome, they take action. When all’s fine and dandy, and nothing is provoking them, they do nothing.

Say “No” to the Sales Slaughter Today

Copywriting is a powerful skill that all businesses need, especially when creating a marketing message. If you can avoid the five mistakes listed above and carefully fix your message to hit the right spot, you’ll find that your results improve – and help you to grow your business faster. This process might add an extra hour onto your writing process, but that extra hour can lead to results that make your profits sing and put a stop to the sales slaughter, turning it into sales laughter (groan – Ed).