This is the sixth in a 12-pack of simple, short and useful tips to help you write more better today.
Tool Six: Write in the Language of the Customer
Monday, my wife and I had a medium-rare date night at our friend David's place. He has great
cuisine!!!
No. Wait. He doesn't.
He has great
food.
After more than a dozen years as a professional storyteller, I'm firmly convinced
no one uses the word 'cuisine' except bad ad writers.
Same goes for 'experience' as a verb. Same goes for contractions - I know, I know, but you're writing ads, not term papers, so you can forget what your ninth-grade teacher told you and go ahead and use 'em. We do when we talk.
There are countless others.
Want to connect with new customers?
Use the language of those customers. This may be the simplest of all the tips, but it's often the most overlooked.
Your writing's stickiness will improve:
-
each time you speak to your client's customer
-
each time you hear their voice on a voicemail
-
each time you read an online review or
-
read a feedback form.
It's not hard, but yes, it requires a little effort.
You have a problem with that? Maybe you should switch jobs to fulfill all your laziness needs.
(Oh, before I forget - stop with the exclamation points. Louder isn't better. It's just louder. Thank you for your attention in this matter. For that matter, simply saying he has great food isn't much better, but we'll discuss showing vs. telling tomorrow.)
Tool One: Listen.
Tool Two: Use Better Verbs.
Tool Three: Study Great Writers.
Tool Four: Three Shots of Adrenaline
Tool Five: Embrace Notebook Moments.
Tool Five Redux: Notebook Moment Hall of Fame
 Read About Tim Miles
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