When it comes to copywriting, you must assume all readers are in the stance immortalized in Missouri’s unofficial state motto: Show me! Overcome my skepticism! While bringing forth your best arguments, you also have to avoid dozens of documented persuasive pitfalls.

The most common weakness I see in sales material is too little information. It’s just as prevalent on the web, where there are effectively no space limitations, as it was in print, where adding an extra page, or even an extra line sometimes, has definite costs. Studies show over and over again that the more you tell, the more you sell. Minimalism doesn’t sell – a point important enough to appear in the title of my new book, Meatier Marketing Copy.

Six other devastating copywriting pitfalls to stay away from are:

1. Jargon – terminology that may not involve big words yet still is unfamiliar to the target audience. An insurance ad in my local paper begins “For Personal Lines.” Translation, please? I’ve also seen real estate ads headlined “Not a drive-by!” and I always wonder whether that means that you wouldn’t want to drive past it or you can’t, because it’s not visible from the road. The best way to detect your insider lingo is to have an outsider who’s not afraid to admit what they don’t understand look over your copy.

2. Preaching, which we hated as kids and still resist as adults. As kids, we hated to be commanded to eat our lima beans. As adults, we don’t respond any better to pitches of products, services or information that claim to be good for us. Watch out for the words “should” or “must” in marketing copy, which may backfire because of an evangelistic attitude that closes rather than opens the minds of readers.

3. Hype, in the form of overblown claims, an overexcited tone, unsupported superlatives and wild exaggerations. To avoid a hyped-up tone, use exclamation points sparingly and never more than one at a time. Also find superlatives in your copy, such as “most advanced” or “leanest,” and ask yourself whether each is puffery or a fact. In the former case, restate your point so it’s unquestionably true. For the rest of your copy, use the Supreme Court Nominee Test. Is there anything else that the opposition party could challenge as exaggerated, unsupported or downright false? If so, change it or take it out.

4. Forgetting to include a way for shoppers to contact the company with questions. No matter how thoroughly you believe you’ve explained your offering, people inevitably have additional issues and concerns you didn’t consider – sometimes very fundamental ones that you overlooked. At least one way to get questions answered helps save the sale in many instances.

5. Questions that send the reader into trains of thinking quite irrelevant to your purpose. Beginning copywriters are especially prone to rhetorical questions that show off their powers of imagination. Did you ever wonder why some homeowners never complain about tradespeople? Does your software creak with age instead of race to the finish? Unfortunately, such queries send the reader off the reader into a cloud of thought, away from your message. Statements, promises and invitations work far better.

6. Research that seems to bolster credibility but collapses upon closer examination. I once marveled at this bold statement atop a fresh pad of personalized checks: “Checks are TWICE AS SAFE as Credit or Debit Card Purchases.” Wow, I thought – a strong motivator for folks to favor checks, shrewdly deployed to fatten the coffers of check printers. Yet when I looked up the research footnoted in this promotion, it talked about research on losses for merchants. Nowhere could I find support for the “twice as safe” claim for those writing the checks.

Author Bio: Marcia Yudkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including 6 Steps to Free Publicity and Meatier Marketing Copy, from which this article is adapted. Learn about her Marketing Insight Guides series on finer points of copywriting, persuasion and marketing: http://www.yudkin.com/guides/index.htm

Category: Marketing
Keywords: copywriting,tips,persuasion,pitfalls,mistakes,jargon,minimal,long sales letters,preaching,hype