If you're like me, you're not writing that banner ad, website, or landing page to impress your English teacher. You write to get people to buy.
If you also get a "A," that's great. Don't count on it, though. You'll have to play around with the English language to get people to click, call, or buy.
Herschell Gordon Lewis, a direct-response legend, said it best when he said, "Grammar is our weapon, not our god."
Even though Strunk and White would tell you to do something different when writing copy, don't throw away your grammar books just yet. Before you break the rules, you should know what they are.
Here are some rules to follow and some to break or bend. First, though, an important rule.
Clarity
The next time you have trouble with grammar, ask yourself: Which way of putting words together will be easier for the prospect or customer to understand?
Clarity comes first because it helps people understand quickly. Copywriting that makes it hard to understand what is being said (which can happen even when the grammar is perfect) slows down reading and hurts interest and sales.
WARNING: This does not give you permission to mess up the English language. Literacy has to win out. Here are some rules to follow.
"Rules to Follow"
Subject and verb agreement. Whether you're writing an infomercial or "War and Peace," you should use singular verbs with singular subjects and plural verbs with plural subjects. Always. A simple rule, execution is sometimes problematic. The key is to figure out what the sentence is about.
The voice that's in charge.
Use the active voice whenever you can if you want your writing to have the most impact. The sentence was written by me. I wrote the sentence in the passive voice.
Use of modifying words. There are many problems that can be caused by modifiers. There are questions about which ones to use and how many. Again, make sure you're clear. Also, putting modifiers in the wrong places leads to confusion, which is your enemy. Put words that change the meaning of other words close to the words they change.
Rules that can be bent or broken
Huckleberry Finn: His Adventures
by Mark Twain marked the beginning of a new time in American literature. Twain's use of everyday language was a big reason why. He wrote the way people talked, which was different from the stiff, formal English that was common in the 1800s.
It is very important for copywriters to write the way people talk.
Why? Because friendly, casual, and conversational copy is more likely to get people to click, call, or buy. Which is why it can be in the copywriter's best interest to break the following rules.
Putting a preposition at the end of a sentence.
Some people think it's a bad idea to end a sentence with a preposition, but it can make your copywriting more interesting. Which sounds more friendly to you: "Here's the info you asked for" or "Here's the info you asked for"?
Put a conjunction at the start of a sentence. Even in journalism, it is becoming more common to start sentences with "and, or, but, or nor." Not only is it how people talk, but it can also shorten sentences, which is helpful when selling something.
Other ways to talk informally.
Use contractions to make your writing more friendly. Also, use sentence fragments. They not only make sentences shorter, but they also give them more rhythm. And drama.
Punctuation. Use punctuation to your advantage when you are selling. I might add more dashes, exclamation points, and ellipses to the sales message to make it more exciting and dramatic. People have different ideas about commas, so I tend to use the fewest possible to keep readers moving through my writing as quickly as possible.
Parting Reminder
Keep your grammar book, style guide, dictionary, and other writing resources close by. Still, you will need them.
But don't worship grammar either, or your next online ad could be a huge sales failure.
(c) 2005 Neil Sagebiel
