An eNewsletter worth signing up for

Harry Beckwith is the author of some great books such as Selling the Invisible and What clients love and others. He has an email newsletter that comes out about once a month and each one is well worth the time.

One of the notes from this latest one:
The 40 Percent Rule

American business has a weight problem: its communications are obese.

Unintentionally, I recently documented the size of this problem.

In December, we began work for an investment firm. Curious, I compared their old website with our new version. With no loss of meaning, every new section was 39-41% shorter.

In February we began helping a commercial real estate company. Again, we compared their old and new copy. It, too, was 40% shorter.

Last week, we pruned a Silicon Valley tech company's home page, and you guessed it.

These experiences reminded me of John Wanamaker's well-known quote. "Half of my advertising is wasted," the famous retailer said. "The problem is, I don't know which half."

With few exceptions, over half of sales and marketing copy today is wasted. It's stuffed with flabby claims and pronouncements of philosophy, corpulent adverbs and adjectives, and slow waddlings toward ideas rather than beelines to them. No doubt I fail, too. And when I do, you stop reading.

The next time you look at your communications, look harder. See those ten lines of copy? Shrink them to six. Five paragraphs? Shrink them to three.

Shorter copy is clearer, and people buy clarity.

Follow the 40 percent rule. Cut all of your copy in half, and then a little more.

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