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Episode 191 - Why Bad Grammar is Costing You Business
1.1k Plays1 year ago
Copywriter Sarah Klongerbo joins me on the podcast today, to discuss why bad grammar is costing you business and what you can do to easily fix it. I give Sarah a lengthy intro in the episode so I'll spare you that here but suffice it to say that Sarah is someone that I highly trust. One thing I really appreciate about this episode is that Sarah did a ton of research so that people can understand the tangible benefits of paying a little closer attention to their copy.
As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check ‘em out at https://daveyandkrista.com/ And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts.
Recommended
Transcript
Impact of Grammar on Perception and Business
00:00:05
Speaker
And one of those is that it really makes or breaks your first impression. I was even finding the other day that there's this study that they did of people who, just bear with me, these online dating profiles. And they did a study of
00:00:20
Speaker
those that were written with typos and other grammatical errors and those that were grammar free. And they found that it made like a huge impact on how people perceived the attractiveness of the person based on their photo. And I just thought that was fascinating.
Introduction of Guest and Topic
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show where we help creative service based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:47
Speaker
Copywriter Sarah Clongerbo joins me on the podcast today to discuss why bad grammar is costing you business and what you can do to easily fix it. I give Sarah a lengthy intro in the episode, so I'll spare you that here, but suffice it to say that Sarah is someone I highly trust. One thing I really appreciate about this episode is that Sarah did a ton of research so that people can understand the tangible benefits of paying a little bit closer attention to their copy.
00:01:15
Speaker
If you're interested in learning more from Sarah, consider subscribing to her weekly newsletter, The Weekly Wink. As always, links and resources can be found in the show notes. Check them out at davianchrista.com. And if you enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review over at Apple Podcasts. Now, on to the episode.
00:01:38
Speaker
Since we're talking about grammar today, I do think the most important grammatical question I could come up with is whether you're on team Oxford Comma or not. This is an important question. I might have to end the interview afterwards.
00:01:52
Speaker
Well, I think I'm going to guess we're on the same page because I think you were an English teacher at one point and I believe most English professionals would agree that the Oxford comma is the only way to go. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I just don't understand why it's a debate. I think for clarity, it just doesn't make sense not to include it.
00:02:11
Speaker
I know. I think it goes way back to when newspapers actually had physical limitations and they had to count every individual character. And in that case, they were like, oh, let's just get away with this little gamma. But I mean, in this day and age, we don't have these limitations. That's right. And it's so small anyway. Why would you not just throw it in there for clarity?
00:02:31
Speaker
I agree. Just, just hit the comment button. I will tell you though, sitting next to me, not to put anybody in the spot, but Krista does not use the Oxford comma.
Sarah's Copywriting Journey
00:02:41
Speaker
So I know, I know we need counseling, but moving on from there, Sarah, I am, I'm really excited to have you on the podcast.
00:02:48
Speaker
for those of you who do not know Sarah, you're going to get to know her over the course of the next 30 minutes or so. But Sarah, we know on a few levels, we got to hang out at show its conference this past fall, which was exciting. But Sarah has been working as a copywriter for a till agency for a few years now. So I've got to know Sarah and her work over the last few years.
00:03:07
Speaker
And let me tell you, I'm always trying to convince Sarah to do more work for us. I'm always trying to increase her scope of work because she does such a great job. She's a very, very skilled copywriter and we feel very grateful over at Till Agency to have her. And I feel like you have a great relationship with a lot of our clients and they really trust you with their copy.
00:03:28
Speaker
But beyond that, you also own your own copywriting business. And so we've got to know you on another level as well. You are probably one of the copywriters that we refer the most work to of design clients who want to work with a copywriter. We've just come to, again, really trust the work that you do. You're super organized. Something that speaks to that is the, I think, I don't know, if you can hear the pages,
00:03:49
Speaker
the six pages of notes that she sent over for this episode. We won't go through all six pages, I'm sorry. But you'll have to check out Sarah's website and blog for additional information along the lines of this topic. But I guess a website to call out that we've recently collaborated on together is the Gin Hotel.
00:04:08
Speaker
It's one that I show off a lot. It's a semi-custom website that we did. And we also did the brand for it as well, but then you did the copywriting for it. And I just think it's a great example of a lot of different things coming together for a good website. So that's a lot from me. I'm going to turn it over to you, Sarah. If you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, besides your loyalties when it comes to the Oxford comma debate and how you got started as a copywriter, like what led you down that path?
00:04:35
Speaker
Sure. Well, gosh, thank you for that intro. I mean, I think you kind of covered it all. No, I do love English and grammar. I always have ever since I was a little girl.
00:04:46
Speaker
major bookworm. I went to college for creative writing, and that's what I graduated with. And what the heck do you do with a creative writing major? I soon found out I did some copywriting and editing on the side while I had a couple of part-time jobs.
Shift to Freelance and Agency Work
00:05:01
Speaker
And then I ended up getting a full-time job at a marketing agency. And I was there for six years writing content, learning all the insights of digital marketing,
00:05:11
Speaker
eventually became our marketing manager there but kind of just felt this like itch that I needed to scratch for lack of a better term like more of a creative itch I would say because we were working with loved our team loved our clients but I was writing a lot of automotive ad copy for auto dealers so it was just a little drier than I was loving as a creative at heart so I eventually just kind of broke off and started my own thing I had been doing some
00:05:41
Speaker
website design on the side. My husband actually owns a separate marketing agency from the one that I worked at. And he would get clients all the time saying like, Hey, do you know anyone who designs websites? And he always was turning them away. And finally, he was like,
00:05:56
Speaker
Sarah, do you just want to give this a try? I know you do some landing pages for your clients at the agency I worked at. And I was like, sure, why not? I'll try it out. And found out that I loved it. I loved pairing the design and the words together to create something awesome, like you were talking about with the JIN hotel. I just think.
00:06:14
Speaker
when you have fabulous design and well-written words, it's like magic for a business. So I just fell in love with that and kind of started my own business, which I do do some website design, but my passion is the copywriting side of the business, specifically for websites. So yeah, now I've been working with you guys, Davey and Krista, along with some other designer partnerships I have, but doing a lot of
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, web design. And then of course,
The Role of Quality Copywriting in Business Success
00:06:41
Speaker
like you mentioned, my copywriting role with Till too is wonderful, doing some more ad copy and email copy as well. So all things copy, I love. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I got to imagine that over at Till at least maybe a step in the right direction for you personally, in terms of the types of projects you would want to take on. Oh, for sure. Just because it is mostly creative businesses over there. Even the bigger businesses, the software businesses that we work with, I think are in the creative industry.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, I should have clarified that. I went from one agency to another. People are probably like, why did you do that? But it was largely, yeah, the clientele, the team, the work environment was just a little bit different from what I was used to. And of course, on more of a part-time basis that allowed me to pursue my other stuff too. But you're exactly right. I mean, I remember showing my husband a couple of the clients
00:07:29
Speaker
projects that we were working on. He's like, this stuff is so up your alley. Are you kidding me? So yeah. Well, you know, and again, I think in all your various work, that that creative aspect, I think really comes through. And something you said about copywriting, which I think is worth repeating, something I've said in the podcast before, but I say on pretty much every discovery call that I do, a lot of people, they want to know maybe the difference between a semi custom website and a fully custom website. And semi custom, we start with one of our templates, right? And we customize it for the brand.
00:07:57
Speaker
But it still reflects the brand at the end of the day. And what I tell people is that really, I think what separates a good website from sort of a May website is the copywriting and the visual brand and how those elements come together in the design. So how those elements come together is the design, of course. But when you don't have good visual, static brand, good images, or if you don't have good copywriting, it's really hard, I think, to take your website to the next level.
00:08:25
Speaker
So I really do. I tell people on calls, we've never referred somebody to a copywriter and they work with that copywriter and have regretted it. Nobody comes back to us and says,
00:08:38
Speaker
Really wish I didn't invest in copywriting. So I really do think it's something that makes a big difference. Now, today's episode, why bad grammar is costing you business. At first, when you sent this topic over, I was like, I don't know. Grammar is boring. And this is coming from an English teacher who loved to chart sentences, to diagram sentences. So I appreciate grammar, but I'm just thinking people are like, okay, what does this have to do with my business?
00:09:05
Speaker
But I think that one of the things that I think I get in the way when it comes to writing for your business are people that feel that they're just not good writers. They don't have great grammatical usage and skills. And so I thought this episode I think is going to be important for anybody who feels that way because writing is just a part of your business that you're going to have to do on some level. And maybe you can void it
00:09:31
Speaker
here and there. But I think if you're a good writer, you're that much more dangerous of a marketer. So if you can learn a few skills, and just make sure that you're not doing anything that's going to make you sound like you can't read. I think that kind of thing is going to go a long way. So I'm excited to jump into this topic with you. But maybe you can tell us a little bit of why business owners should care about this topic. What difference do you think grammar specifically makes when it comes to copywriting?
The Business Cost of Grammar Errors
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And I completely agree that the concept of grammar in general does not jazz most people up the way it does for me. However, I will say I have started sharing like just even over on Instagram and I have like a
00:10:16
Speaker
weekly newsletter where I send out writing tips. And I've been blown away by the number of people who have reached out and said, Oh my gosh, thank you. Like, I feel like we covered this in English class way back when I don't remember how to how to do this. And so I'm glad we're, we're resurfacing this so that I can brush up on this because everyone knows. I mean, I even had a
00:10:37
Speaker
a police officer who reached out and said, I had to write this report and I referenced your tips and yada yada. So anyway, like you said, everyone uses writing and grammar in their daily usage. So I think that's a why it's important is because it's so ubiquitous. Like, like you said, I mean, you can't, you almost can't get away with running a successful business without being at least a competent writer.
00:11:03
Speaker
I have a couple of reasons why my grammar and obviously writing in general are important. And one of those is that it really makes or breaks your first impression. I was even finding the other day that there's this study that they did of people who, just bear with me, these online dating profiles. And they did a study of those that were written with typos and other grammatical errors and those that were grammar free.
00:11:29
Speaker
And they found that it made a huge impact on how people perceived the attractiveness of the person based on their photo. And I just thought that was fascinating because it's so true. Without realizing it, really do care about how professional someone comes across. It makes them look sloppy if they've got typos here and there.
00:11:53
Speaker
That is such an interesting study. Isn't that fascinating? It is. It really is fascinating. And I've got to imagine if it's true of dating profiles, how much more true is it of somebody's website or marketing collateral? Exactly. Because I, for one, would be way more lenient on someone if I were just perusing their dating profile than if I'm actually looking to hire a business to do something for me.
00:12:18
Speaker
I even found a couple of studies that were more pertaining to business. For instance, one, and maybe take this with a grain of salt because I don't know exactly how the study was conducted, but it found that businesses that had bad grammar and spelling mistakes on their websites will lose almost double the number of potential customers as those with type O-free sites.
00:12:40
Speaker
It follows common logic too, at least for me. If I'm going to visit a website that I'm considering, I'm either hiring someone for a service or I might be buying a product, especially maybe some of those e-commerce sites. If I see typos, there's no way I'm putting my credit card information in there because it doesn't look legit. It really actually can not only be damaging your reputation and your credibility, but it can actually be turning away business from your business.
00:13:11
Speaker
Awesome. What's next? Well, I know a lot of people here probably care about their brand image, this being the brands that book podcast. And so it really does, it affects how people perceive your brand. An analogy I kind of like to use, I think we have a lot of photographers listening here. So something I would like to akin it to is like, say you have, you've got a beautiful eye for photography.
00:13:35
Speaker
And you've captured some gorgeous images for a bride and groom on their wedding day. And you even edited them beautifully. You deliver the image. The bride has spinach in her teeth. That's the first thing she's going to notice, even though the image could be as beautiful as possible. All it would have taken was just a little bit of editing to get that spinach out of her teeth.
00:13:58
Speaker
And you would have like a beautiful product. And so grammar is very similar in that way. Like one bad typo or a series of typos could really just cause someone to like their eye to be caught. And like, regardless of whether they consciously think this or not, they are going to have a slightly lesser view of who you are because it just makes you look a little bit, a little bit more lazy, a little more ignorant, maybe even incompetent. So.
00:14:27
Speaker
I think in general too, part of what you're getting at is it just makes your business more credible to the person who's perusing your website and considering whether they want to work with you or not. And for most of the businesses listening, it's not like they're hiring somebody to work on utilities around their house or something like that. When I'm looking for an electrician, for instance, a lot of times I'm just going to call the first guy.
00:14:48
Speaker
that pops up in Google, and then if he can come out, and that's fine. But if you're looking for a wedding photographer, and maybe a more, certainly a more luxury level, you're probably going to be comparing one vendor with the next. It's one of those things that I think is so simple to avoid, but really could cost you business at the end of the day.
Common Grammatical Errors in Business Writing
00:15:10
Speaker
One of the things that's interesting is just around why we should care is that it earns you more business. And in your outline here, you can tell me which ones you feel like are most relevant or if there's any in particular that you want to speak to. I'll try to list these out in the show notes for people to reference. But it's just interesting to me that there's all these different studies and statistics around just making sure that you are avoiding some of these errors can earn you more business.
00:15:37
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So one that's pretty relevant to probably most of these listeners, including you and I, obviously one of our biggest factors in our businesses is the amount of website traffic we get, right? So we're always trying to increase our website traffic and increase the conversions on our website.
00:15:55
Speaker
And one study showed that if you have sloppy spelling and grammar on your website, that actually increases your bounce rate by 85%. And so those, if you aren't familiar with the term bounce rate, that means people who visit your site just look at the one page and then leave immediately and don't take any further action. So basically you're turning away up to 85% more people that you could be converting by not having good writing and grammar on your website.
00:16:24
Speaker
And it's the same with Google ads too. You know, people aren't going to be clicking on these Google ads that have typos in them. And that we've all seen them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that in turn hurts your rankings, like either organically or it causes your Google ad costs to increase because Google wants to reward people who have high converting websites. So it's just kind of a downward spiral.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah. And what's so interesting about a lot of these studies is these sort of extreme statistics, 85%. That's a huge number. Even if you were like, hey, this typo is going to increase your bounce rate by 20% or whatever, I'd be like, oh, no. That would still be enough to take action. That's been really eye-opening for me. Maybe we can transition from
00:17:09
Speaker
talking about why people should care. I got to imagine at this point, and even people who've turned on the episode, they probably bought in on that now. Maybe we could talk about some of the more common grammatical mistakes that businesses make, and then we could talk a little bit about how to prevent those mistakes and write more polished copy. What are the most common mistakes you see businesses make?
00:17:30
Speaker
Sure. And I just want to throw this out there too. I mean, these studies are probably talking about websites that have horrible errors. And I'm not trying to come on here and say,
00:17:40
Speaker
you all are terrible writers, clean up your copy ASAP. Yeah, don't read that in what I'm saying because I hope, you know, from the beginning, I made it clear too that I love the creativity part of the writing too, right? So like these rules are in place so that you can break them if and when you want to, if you know what you're doing. So yeah, so a lot of these errors that I see, it's kind of, it's a little bit more nuanced because, you know, most of us, we're professional to an extent. Many people are more educated and
00:18:10
Speaker
at least have some basic knowledge of grammar and writing, if not have hired copywriters and copy editors themselves. So it's kind of hard to pick out very overarching errors that I see, but here are a few of the ones that I tend to run across. I won't really cover spelling errors because those are just so obvious, right? Aside from the ones that are a little bit trickier, such as
00:18:35
Speaker
you know, the three theirs. We call those homophones in grammar where it's like, they sound the same, but they're spelled differently. So that is one of my biggest pet peeves. So I'm talking about T-H-E-I-R, T-H-E-Y, apostrophe R-E, T-H-E-R-E. And people mix these up all the time, even though, I don't know, I feel like that's one of the basic things that we learned. But please, please always double check. You're there.
00:19:06
Speaker
I am on a family, I have a family group text. And I will say that whenever I make an error along those lines, I get just hounded, you know, so I, I feel like the grammar. Exactly. You know, as a former English teacher, and I will say, I mean, I think what you said beforehand is important for me to mention as well. I mean, I was a former English teacher, I was actually reading some old blog posts that I was reworking, they still get a good amount of traffic, and they're like 10 years old, which is
00:19:33
Speaker
which is great. So I was revisiting those and as I was reading them, I was just thinking, man, I used to be so much better and more careful of a writer as I was coming out of teaching English. I'm reading this blog post, I'm like, I've got sloppy, which is funny. And of course, I think, and you know this in the ad world too, people are so quick. If you make a grammatical error in an ad, for instance, people will comment on that ad so quickly. So I definitely am guilty of making some of these errors. Oh yeah, me too. Hand up.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I'm not perfect. So anyways, so moving on, I think this next one, you're going to talk about capitalization errors. That's an interesting one because I feel like there's a lot of people struggle with really type case, I guess. So I'm interested in hearing what you have to say about that. Sure. Yeah. So there are basically four different ways to capitalize. You have all uppercase letters,
00:20:25
Speaker
That's the all caps, kind of sounds a little bit screamy if you're not careful. You know, I would caution against using too much uppercase, you know, except for very small instances. Maybe it's a stylistic choice or something. So you've got uppercase and then you've got the opposite, which is all lowercase, which might be, again, more of a stylistic thing. It's not, you know, technically correct.
00:20:48
Speaker
And even just as a little aside, you've probably noticed this baby, I actually use lowercase in my Instagram, my social media myself. I've been doing that like since high school. It's one of those things that I should probably just start using actual correct capitalization in my social media.
00:21:06
Speaker
I can't break it. It's like a stylistic thing. It's now almost like a branding element. And I feel like I also like to do it because I already come across so elitist. I want to be a little more down to earth on the IG. So anyway, feel free to use lowercase in some instances. You're just like one of us using all those lowercase letters. Oh my gosh, no.
00:21:35
Speaker
To your point about all caps, I was just actually reviewing a website this morning and I see this a lot in the testimonial canvas of different websites, you know, so as people include testimonials on the website, a lot of times I think there's a temptation to put those in all caps and I'm not sure why, but it's hard to read, you know, anything more than like a line of all caps, really difficult to read. So highly recommend, you know, like emphasizing what you need to emphasize, but then using just a normal case for everything else.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Punctuation and Formatting for Clarity
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah. And then the other two, cause yeah, just going along with that, one of the other capitalization styles is using title case where you capitalize just like the first letter of every word, aside from articles and small propositions. But that as well can be kind of hard to read. I think a lot of us are tempted to use that in headings, but it's actually been proven that the easiest for readability
00:22:30
Speaker
studies have shown is sentence case where you just capitalize the first letter of the sentence and then go from there. So anyway, that's all a little bit nitty-gritty, but my main thing here is just being consistent with your choice of capitalization, especially on a website. That's one of my pet keys is when I see
00:22:49
Speaker
especially within one page, if you have, if you start off with title case where you're capitalizing all the letters and then you move down and you're suddenly doing sentence case where you're just capitalizing what, and then you go back to the title case or upper case, it's just, it's all over the place and you want to maintain as professional and consistent of a style as you can.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think that goes back to what you're talking about with, again, just putting the best foot forward and maintaining brand consistency for all your different marketing collaterals. One of the things that I do appreciate as we go through this is that you're coming in with the stats, the research that, oh, this is proven. This is the easiest way for somebody to understand. It's not just my crazy brain. Yeah, yeah. So no, I really do appreciate that. So moving on to the next one, punctuation errors.
00:23:35
Speaker
lots here. There's lots here to talk about, and I will be the first to admit that it's an it's. I understand conceptually the difference, right? It's with an apostrophe and it's without an apostrophe, but it is still one of the most common mistakes that I make personally.
00:23:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yup. I know. And it's it's very, very ubiquitous. Don't worry. I've obviously done it in the past myself. But the easiest way to remember is to just think of that little apostrophe, like, you know, you just add a little line underneath, and then it forms the words it is, you know, yep. And so it's hard to visualize without Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that is one of the most common errors I see.
00:24:14
Speaker
The nice thing about you sending over this outline is that we can make sure a lot of this goes in the show notes so people can visualize what we're talking about. We already talked about the Oxford comma a little bit. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about what the Oxford comma is just so that people understand that a little bit better. Sure. Good call. There's a great song, by the way, by The Empire Weekend. Have you heard that? I have, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, maybe we can also go in the show notes. Yeah.
00:24:38
Speaker
But the Oxford comma is, I guess I don't have a technical definition in front of me, but when you have a series of, of things in a list, it's that last comma before the last item in the list. So it usually goes before the end. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Thank you. Right before the end. And I think it's AP style guide, which is what journalists often use, recommends not using it. MLA style guide does recommend using it. The reason I love using it is for example,
00:25:07
Speaker
in how it creates clarity. You could say something like, I love my parents, comma, Beyonce, comma, and Abraham Lincoln, right? I love all three of those, or well, four, I guess, if you're including both parents. I love all those people.
00:25:24
Speaker
But without the Oxford comma, you're essentially saying, I love my parents comma, Beyonce and Abraham Lincoln. My parents aren't Beyonce and Abraham Lincoln. So yeah, it just creates clarity. That's why I like it. It takes no extra effort to add a comma, might as well do it. Some of my favorite memes are around the Oxford comma. So I'll have to find a few of those, throw those in the show notes as well.
00:25:48
Speaker
The other one that you mentioned here that is a pet peeve of mine is exclamation marks. Krista, this is another marital dispute is sometimes when I'm talking to Krista, I'm like, listen, every sentence can't end with an exclamation point. It just can't. That's where I'm a little more like Krista. You want to sound friendly, but at the same time, you don't have to be shouting at the person for a whole paragraph.
00:26:14
Speaker
So that's, I think, of this list that she sent over, maybe one of the ones that really stands out to me. Yeah, for sure. And to that point, I mean, multiple exclamation parks are, I would say, never necessary. I think that's a big pet peeve of mine. And if you're just having fun on social media or whatever, like, yeah, go for it. Throw in a couple extra exclamation weights or question marks or whatever. But in general, exclamation marks are not needed as much as we think they are.
00:26:44
Speaker
For this next section, formatting errors and grammatical errors, maybe we could talk about those to a certain extent together. But what are a few of the formatting and grammatical errors that you really want to call out that you see people make often? Yeah. And this is kind of treading almost more into like the design aspect when we talk about formatting. But one thing that's a pet peeve of mine, no need to double space between sentences. I know many of us were taught that in school, like when we were writing academic papers that
00:27:13
Speaker
between every sentence, we would double tap that spacebar, absolutely no need. And then another really big one that actually can help a lot of business owners on their website specifically is the use of bold and italicized text.
Tools and Practices for Error-Free Writing
00:27:26
Speaker
That can be really useful to help call out certain words, especially because we live in such a skimming world where people are just kind of
00:27:35
Speaker
scrolling your page pretty briefly. However, make sure you're not overusing bold and italicized text either because that can come across, I don't know, almost like you're trying too hard and you're not letting others speak for themselves.
00:27:52
Speaker
No, I agree. I'm looking through these and I'm wondering, you know, which ones, the double spaces between sentences, that was a hard habit to break back in the day. Yeah. I forget even how that came about. Because even in academic papers now, you don't have to do that. Right, right. It actually dates back to the typewriter world, where the way the type was set, having two spaces helped visually differentiate the sentences. But now that we don't use typewriters anymore, there's absolutely no need.
00:28:20
Speaker
I love that you know the answer to that question. Amazing. Nerd, I'm pushing my glasses up. Well, maybe we can move into some of the tools that creatives or resources that creatives can use to avoid some of these, some of these grammatical mistakes. And so for somebody who's just, okay, none of us are probably going to hire a cop writer for every single social media post, every single blog post, every single piece of marketing collateral we're going to create. So what can we do to avoid some of these issues?
00:28:50
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And I would not even recommend that as a copywriter. I'm not here to tell everyone to gotten higher.
00:28:57
Speaker
one for every single piece of copy in your business, obviously for the more significant things, like maybe your website copy, that would be very helpful if you can afford it. But it's really important, like you said at the beginning of the episode, for all of us to be aware of some of these, quote unquote, rules so that we can be better copywriters. So, I mean, the first thing that you could do is just kind of brush up on your knowledge. I'm not gonna, I don't expect everyone to go out to Barnes and Noble and buy books.
00:29:26
Speaker
But they can subscribe. You have a great newsletter that focuses on that. And I think the great thing about your newsletter is that it's in the context of being a business. So the weekly wink, and we'll definitely link to that as well and give that a shout out. Oh, well, thank you. I do send that out every week. But aside from that, one of my biggest tips is to write first and to edit later. So having two separate times for any piece of copy,
00:29:55
Speaker
you almost never want to write, edit, and publish in the same sitting. And that allows you, A, to be more creative, more free, write faster while you're drafting, and it just gives you a set of fresh eyes. So once you're done drafting, free writing, take a break. And by break, I mean more than just go get a cookie and come back to your desk. I mean, ideally, you're sleeping on it.
00:30:21
Speaker
and approaching the copy with fresh eyes the next morning or next week, whatever it may be. And that will just allow you to, again, be more free and write more creatively upfront and then be able to edit better later on.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that this is such an important skill to learn and one that I am just really struggling to learn. I was actually chatting with a friend of ours, Dylan, who's also a copywriter, and he writes an incredible amount of words each day. He's also writing novels as well. And that's something that he's found has made a huge difference. And I've been trying to do that, but I feel like I'm such a perfectionist. I even hesitate to say that because I think like Chris is looking at me right now. She's like, but you're not perfect.
00:31:03
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Another trick that I have found too, that actually helps me anyway, is because I am so, like you said, kind of more perfectionistic in my writing is actually just like speaking the copy into like an audio format, like just like the, what's it called on your iPhone? Yeah. Like voice memo type thing. Yeah. Voice memos. Exactly. Yeah. So that can be a trick if you struggle with that. Cause that has helped me
00:31:30
Speaker
just like actually verbally speak out loud when I'm thinking that helps me not self edit so much. Yeah, that's a great idea. Another thing that I think is really helpful in avoiding mistakes is to put the copy in a new context. Again, kind of hearkening back to that like speaking, hearing concept.
00:31:50
Speaker
It is super helpful to hear the way your copy is written, actually, like audibly. So having it read out loud to you would be ideal. You know, if you have someone who's willing to read your copy to you, that would be awesome because, you know, sometimes the way we write things is not read the way we think it's going to be read.
00:32:09
Speaker
But if you don't have someone sitting next to you who's willing to do that, you can certainly just read it out loud yourself. And that has the bonus of helping you sound more conversational in your writing, which is really essential, especially for online writing.
Tailoring Writing to Audience and Brand Consistency
00:32:27
Speaker
For the most part, most of our target audiences are someone who's somewhat similar to us as a friend. You kind of want to write to someone who's
00:32:35
Speaker
It sounds more like you're talking to a friend than you're writing an academic paper or something like that.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think what's interesting about all of that though is I think we can confuse coming off as casual and friendly with how we would text our friends, which is different. I don't recommend just because you have sort of a casual and friendly tone when you're texting your friends to bring that style of writing over into a sales copy, a piece of sales copy. So I think that there's a nuance there as well that some people would be, it'd be good for them to realize.
00:33:08
Speaker
And that's where those customer avatar exercises are so helpful because yeah, again, you're not necessarily writing as though you're talking to your best friend in a text. You're actually writing to your target audience and you need to know who that is and what they sound like and what they want to read online in order to convert. So there's that. Another way to put the copy in a new context, something I like to do is to actually physically copy and paste the copy into a different
00:33:38
Speaker
whether it's a different text editor or a platform, maybe you wrote an Instagram post in Google docs, actually put that into Instagram and then visually see what it's going to look like because the margins are different and you might not have as much space and your eyes just able to catch things that you weren't able to catch before. So I always recommend doing that. Yeah, I like that. What's next?
00:34:05
Speaker
Next is to get a second set of eyes on your copy. And ideally, every significant piece of copy, I realize that's kind of a nebulous term, but
00:34:16
Speaker
But yeah, something like your sales page, you're definitely gonna want, if a copywriter hasn't written it already, you want someone who's going to review it. Again, no need to do this with every single thing that you write, but just trust your gut. And it doesn't have to be, again, a professional. It could be someone on your team. It could be your spouse. My husband reviews some of the emails that I send out. And it's not even just to check for
00:34:43
Speaker
spelling errors. It's to check for, oh, are you sure you want this to come across this way? And it helps you understand that, yeah, it helps you remove your own biases, I suppose, and get a more objective opinion.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And Kristin and I always read the emails that gets sent out, especially our broadcast, so we'll both read those. Just because we pick up on different things to that point, hey, you said this, I know this isn't what you meant, but this is how it sounds. And that alone, I mean, grammar aside, can be very beneficial.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yes, yes, for sure. And along these lines with this tip, and I use this with caution, but you can certainly download a grammar checking tool like Grammarly. I can't go this whole podcast without mentioning Grammarly because it is just a great tool for people who maybe don't consider themselves excellent writers or maybe they're good writers, but
00:35:37
Speaker
know, they're not good proofreaders or whatever. So there are a lot of tools online that can help you automatically detect a lot of your errors. I just have found that they're not always accurate. And sometimes, at least for me, I don't use them because, again, I'm such a self-editor that that would be really distracting to me as I was writing. So consider that with caution, but it's definitely something to check out if you haven't tried it already.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, and if that's your biggest concern, then something like Grammarly might really help. I agree though. I like writing a lot in Google Docs because I feel like their grammatical and spell checker is not overbearing, right? Microsoft Word actually, if you want to make sure... If you're writing academic paper, throw it in Microsoft Word because whatever they're using, it will catch everything. But all of those lines that would throw me off as I'm writing. What's next?
00:36:31
Speaker
Really, the last thing would just be to regularly audit your copy. And I'm talking about evergreen, rather, pieces of copy. So that's things that live on your website, even certain blog posts that are highly trafficked. Just give it a review every year or so and just make sure that you don't have any errors in there.
00:36:52
Speaker
This pertains to things like broken links and stuff as well. But if you notice anything that could be rewritten, could be written better, to be either more error free or to actually convert customers better, certainly fix it. One thing I will also say too, though, is if you do notice an error, maybe it's even in an Instagram post you just posted. Unless it's something that's like
00:37:17
Speaker
very egregious or offensive or something, there's no need to call it out. Just move on. No worry. And if you're listening to this episode and you're like, oh gosh, I've been doing this wrong my whole life or whatever it is, it's totally fine. Yeah. And even if you do it in the future, no worries. You're human. We're all human. We can just do
00:37:56
Speaker
you'll get all this copy back and then you'll be able to get basically a starting point for a lot of the copy that you'll write probably for, I'd say, at least the next few months, if not in the next few years. I'd say it's similar to hiring a brand photographer. Once you get brand images, it's not like you use that once or just in one place. You're going to use it over and over again in all these different areas.
00:38:02
Speaker
what we can with the time that is given to us to quote part of the rings.
00:38:20
Speaker
And so I think hiring a copywriter, you get that same benefit. So you can take little bits of copy that you thought was created from a sales page and then spin that up into something else for an Instagram post or whatnot.
Resources and Wrap-Up
00:38:32
Speaker
So when you do have the budget to hire a copywriter, I feel like that goes a long way. And again, if that's one of your big concerns is copy, then that can be a nice little hack for, again, just giving you a place to start that you know you can be confident in.
00:38:49
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, something I'll throw out there too, that I offer and a lot of copywriters offer is like a brand messaging guide. And that goes along with what you were just talking about where yeah, it
00:38:59
Speaker
It's almost like the, you know, you sometimes will get a visual brand guide that has, you know, your logos and fonts and things like that. Consider that for your messaging. So it might have, you know, like a word bank, an emoji bank. Those are like the nitty gritty, but then also is like even more overarching. Like who are you? Who are you trying to attract? Like what voice and tone do you want to use in order to attract and convert those people? So like you said, that can be a very,
00:39:29
Speaker
useful thing to have for business owners because it clarifies their own message and it allows them to be better at their own messaging in the future.
00:39:39
Speaker
And it can also be helpful too if you ever have a team, hire a team, you know, like to make sure you're all getting on the same page about how you talk to your customers or clients. Especially a lot of people who listen to this podcast who may be part of smaller teams or solopreneers or running personal brands. A lot of times we're serving a customer that isn't like us. It's somebody like our we wouldn't fit our customer avatar. And so I think to a certain extent, there's blind spots there.
00:40:02
Speaker
unless you're really going through that customer avatar, those activities really carefully, whereas a copywriter is going to help you uncover that a little bit. And maybe just the natural way you would talk to somebody like you or your friends or whatnot is different than the kind of message that's going to connect with the person you're trying to reach. I mean, Chris and I talk about this a lot. Back when we were wedding photographers, the clientele that we served was a clientele that wasn't us. I mean, they definitely had some similarities.
00:40:31
Speaker
we joke kind of back in the day, we wouldn't have hired us. Not because we weren't great at what we did, just because we weren't the type of clientele that we were trying to reach. I think a copywriter, a good copywriter, worth her weight in gold. We certainly found that's the case over at Till Agency and in our experience working with Sarah on various projects. We will, of course, we listed a lot of different resources here. We will make sure that all of those are in the show notes. But Sarah, where can people follow along? Should they want to hear more from you?
00:40:59
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So my name again is Sarah Clongerbo. I can thank my husband for that last name, which is spelled S-A-R-A-H-K-L-O-N-G-E-R-B-O. And I'm just at that handle on Instagram. That's my website as well, sarahclongerbo.com. And you should be able to find all the resources we talked about on my website. We talked about, yeah, that weekly wink email that I send out with one simple writing tip to
00:41:28
Speaker
improve your business every week. And I also offer a free crash course in website copy where I send throughout a series of five days, how to write each of the five pages that your website needs. So if you're looking for kind of a DIY solution to writing your website copy.
00:41:45
Speaker
That's a fabulous place to start. That's called the five-day website copy crash course. Awesome. I'm going to have to check that one out. And if you're looking for a copywriter, definitely reach out to Sarah, check on her availability. Like I said, we have just for the past couple of years been trying to get Sarah to do more and more work for us. So Sarah, thank you so much for your time and expertise. We really appreciate it. Oh, I appreciate it too. Thanks so much, Davey. And thanks everyone for listening to my silly grammar knowledge.
00:42:16
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to dvandchrista.com.