“Do, or do not. There is no try.” -Yoda
I’m a big Star Wars fan. Not a standing-in-line-with-a-costume fan, but still. I like the movies. Good versus Evil is always worth checking out, in my book, especially if it’s set in space. I know- geeky.
But think about this: Geeks are only geeks because they’re raving fans of the highest order. Evangelists. They’re excited about something that someone has created, and they are willing- no, eager- to tell the world.
So what will it take to get someone to geek-out on what you’re offering?
It’s a lot more than just writing, for sure. But what your copy says about you, and how you say it, is hugely important. After all, the entire Star Wars opus starts with the words, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”
Those words are never spoken; they’re written. And still, everyone knows them. Writing is powerful stuff.
First, to write something powerful, you’ve got to have focus. Focus brings power. Careful- it’s easy to write a message that sounds powerful. TV ads do it all the time. So much of that kind of marketing is full of cliche, and shouting, and the info is just packed in there.
Those messages just bounce off most people. It’s not focused. And they certainly don’t create geeks. If anything, they repel geeks. They’re not focused; they’re not powerful.
Second, use the space around your message to draw attention to it. It’s why most titles are set the way they are. But you don’t have to stop there. Space and structure allow your message to become powerful, and not jumbled up with other information.
Let’s go back to our “A long time ago…” example. What did that sentence look like? Thin blue letters, surrounded by, um, real space. But you get the idea. Designers can help with this, but you can do it in a Word document while you write, too. Stand out.
Third, tell the truth. Bold. Plain. The more you tell the truth, strangely enough, the more “edgy” your marketing is going to appear. The more you “jazz it up”, the closer to plain you get. Can you afford to just be plain? Let your writing be who you are.
So, that’s the Jedi version of writing content: focus, create space, and find truth. It doesn’t make much sense out of context. But if you think about how to write messages with those attributes, you’ll be a hell of a lot closer to meeting a bunch of geeks.
And we’ll thank you for it.
Tags: business relationships, content marketing, Copywriting