Keep your language simple, founders
Americans, in general, can't read well. Consider that with your company's copy.
Trending on Indie Hackers
Americans, in general, can't read well. Consider that with your company's copy.
One of my degrees is in journalism and I can still remember the moment a professor told us we had to write at a 6th grade level. I was so appalled. But I'm so glad I've known this when writing copy for the last 15 years. It's not that people can't understand a complex message, it's that it takes them a fair amount of energy and attentional capacity to do so. Making your message as easy to consume as possible is important in today's attention economy...even though the writer in me hates it.
15 years! That's a respectable amount of time. Do you have any advice? It might be possible to turn the advice into software for everyone to use.
On this point, I strongly recommend "On Writing Well", by William Zinsser. It really helped me clear up my language when writing my dissertation. As a non-native English speaker, it was invaluable. And I think native speakers would benefit even more, because they're more used to expressions that make things complicated.
One thing I remember from that book, which I still use, is the parenthesis trick. You take a sentence and look for parts that could go in between parenthesis. Then you read the sentence, skipping the parentheses. If the meaning doesn't really change, you drop the parenthesis, and repeat the process. Great tip to trim down a paragraph to its essentials.
Great book and a great point! This nugget of advice pretty much eliminated my use of parentheses. If it's important enough to put on the page, then don't hide it within a sentence. If it's not important, cut it.
I would also recommend the book "Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath. It's fantastic for professionals in literally any field. I still think about the acronym they employ to organize some of the book's arguments: SUCCES ....
I heard about this book a little while ago and it slipped out of my mind, thanks for referring to it here, won't miss reading it this time.
I've never thought about this. It makes sense that buzzwords don't land well, they don't make sense to people! There is no need to beat around the bush and use fancy words, just get to the point.
A great tool that grades your copy and suggests how you can simplify it is https://hemingwayapp.com/. Check it out!
Not just founders. But everyone who writes, essentially.
The curse of knowledge is the #1 thing stopping us from doing this.
I found that getting feedback early (from your target market) helps a lot here. You're bound to discover A LOT of insights/unexpected feedback after talking with the first person. This has been my experience.
Maybe that is why video is winning?
Good point! And it's generally perceived to be more trustworthy and "authentic."
I hate the idea of dumbing down for people. Just read something and improve yourself! That said, I use the same approach. I write as though I'm addressing a 3rd grader who's just starting to read.
I know what you mean; although, I'm not a sophisticated writer. But I certainly have to watch the length of what I write.
A pretty sad reality to consider: More than half the U.S. has a reading level below a sixth-grader. i.e. an 11 or 12-year-old. Founders with a B2C product should keep this in mind when producing content for their audience.
In this research analysis of Department of Education data by Gallup, it shows that about 130M adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills. This means more than half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 (54%) read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.
The TechCrunch article notes the Hemingway app, which is a solid tool for analyzing the complexity of your copy and offers alternatives to make it clearer (a la Ernest Hemingway). Might be useful in studying how complex your site or app's copy is.
I know transactional campaigns.Transactional texting for businesses is sent in response to an event or action. https://sempico.solutions/ offer information that is time-sensitive and relevant to the customer, such as an appointment reminder, delivery notification, or password reset. Because these messages are timely and relevant, they have a high open rate and can be very effective in increasing conversions.
Yesterday was the first time in my life I had to write copy. I think that's what it's called.
I've only ever wrote big emails to colleagues or people I worked with before in a very "problemsolvey" way.
I had to write the landing page for my webapp and was surprised how difficult it is to convey even my idea. Can you understand what I'm trying to build?
This is a challenge! Tks for sharing, a lot to apply
It's hard to do! Here are some solid tips.
Also watch out for the curse of knowledge. One of the best ways to turn it to your advantage is to create a content hub and link to supporting articles.
Totally agree. Rewiring myself to be 3x more concise.
Use https://hemingwayapp.com/ to simplify things
Use simpler language but don't dumb it down.
One thing I did with WBE Space was to immerse myself in the indie maker's culture and really understand their lingo and buzz words. That way I can easily use them in my content and landing pages
Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!
Interesting, I had just written a similar thing here, on Indie Hackers.
What a good time to ask for people to take the poll:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/writing-greener-posts-9ec1ae70ec
We run copy thru a Flesch Kincaid calculator to better aim content at its intended audience. This step is listed in our pre-publishing checklist.
Americans can't read good. ... So dumb down your product.
Bleak but probably good advice to follow.
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