It’s a blast from your schooldays, but pull out your pronouns to make your copywriting sing!

Remember Pronouns? Back when we were at school they seemed so vital. Whole days were spent thinking about pronouns – what they are are and how we should be using them. Now they hardly cross our minds at all. And that’s a shame, because when it comes to copywriting they are incredibly important!

Why? Well, it’s perfectly simple. Great copy shouldn’t be talking about you. Great copy should consider your customers and talk about them. After all, nobody is that concerned with you, their interest is in how your company’s products or services are going to improve their life. It doesn’t matter whether they’re viewing a piece of your advertising, some content you’ve written or a video you’ve posted, the one thought continually going through the back of your customer’s mind is: “Is there anything in this for me?”

To put it another way, whenever you’re writing something, think of the acronym ITAITFM.

Ok, it’s not snappy, but it works.

A quick refresher

So, lets go back to school for a minute. Do you recall your world-weary English teacher standing at the front of the class and talking about how to describe everything in first person, then second person and, finally, third person. Those pronouns make a huge difference to the way your potential customers respond to your messages.

If school is a bit of a distant memory, let’s just whip through the basics. First person (eg: I, me, we, us, my, mine, our, ours) is the one who’s speaking – that’s pretty obvious. Second person (eg: you, your, yours) is the individual that you’re speaking to – also fairly simple. However, this is the key part, it’s extremely important that the copy you write never speaks speaks at the customers you’re trying to reach, you should always be talking to them.

Plus, just like any good conversation, it should never be only about you either.

Keeping all that in mind, the point is that the second person should be used in all the copy you write. By way of an example, which of these sounds better: “We will deliver your new shoes inside 24-hours” or “You can wear your new shows tomorrow”?

The first example does a great job of focussing on the company and promoting its fast delivery times, but is impersonal. It might strike the customer as convenient, but it’s the second version of the idea that will excite the customer. Who wouldn’t be excited to think of where they could wear their new shoes the next day? It has a personal quality and addresses the world through their own eyes. That makes it much more effective.

Don’t forget: by using the second person to convey your message, your customers make a fast connection between the words and their own life. Once that connection is made, it’s an easy leap for the customer to personalise the content to their wants/needs.

Always keep the 80-20 guide in mind

Naturally, sometimes you’ll want to say ‘you’ in your content while at other times only ‘we’ will do. Like all things, it’s all about balance. Luckily, there is a simple 80-20 guide that you can use.

After finishing the words for an advert or any other piece of marketing, take a few moments to scan it over and take a tally of the amount of times you’ve used ‘you’ (or any other of the second person pronouns that we listed earlier) compared to ‘we’ (or assorted first person pronouns). As a general guide, all will be well if you’ve managed to keep the second person pronouns to approximately 80% of your writing and limited yourself to less than 20% first person pronouns.

Think from your customer’s perspective

We’ve all been to parties where we’ve had to nod politely in a conversation while the person we’re stuck with has only talked about him or her self. We stand there, wishing we were anywhere else, while pondering if he or she will ever stop for breath. In short, its not a nice feeling. We tune out.

By the same token, we’ve also all met people who have been so genuinely interested in our lives that it’s quite beguiling. They reveal a little about their own world and then actively draw you into conversing with their pertinent questions and a sincere interest in what you’re saying. To put it another way, the conversation is balanced so you significantly more invested in participating.

It’s absolutely the same when it comes to writing copy.

If the material you’re putting together only talks about what your company does it’s never going to be as engaging for your audience as content that recognises their viewpoint and inspires their imagination.

Adapted from Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps.