corporate speak vs natural language: finding and aligning your voice

Great Language Feels Good,

Works Good Too

PG Bartlett

12 July 2013

My Groundhog Day Surprise…

“We need a new voice”

Why?

Buyers rely on content for 70%-100% of their process

“We sound the same as our competitors”

– Stuffy, boastful windbags

“Even our fans criticize our #$%@& content”

So what?

“Our language is hurting our business”

What they did

Hired consultant (thewriter.com) to help them:

Define their voice

Develop before-after examples

And train their people

Results so far

…

How would you measure results?

Impact on language: metrics?

Impact on activity:

– Web traffic

– Support calls

Impact on business:

– Revenue?

– Satisfaction?

Something else?

Third-party research

All: +124%

Concise: + 58%

Scanable: +47%

Objective: +27%

“Users detest marketese”

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/

Language Matters!

We knew it

Our contacts at our customers knew it

And maybe we can get executives to know it too

We Decided to Humanize Our Own Content

Our action plan:

Define our voice

Rewrite our website

Modify our software

Define Our Voice

Start with the end: audiences & goals

People who

love

language

Their

bosses

• Connect

• Motivate

• Educate

• Follow our example

• Language matters to their business

• How we can help

• Follow our example

Our new voice

But what good is it if you can’t find it?

Taboos

Buzzword-laden

Jargon-filled

Complicated

Boastful

Equivocal

Impersonal

Long-winded

Irrelevant

Unapproachable (walls of text)

What makes a web page good?

Scanable text

Highlighted keywords

Meaningful sub-heads (not “clever”)

Bulleted lists

One idea per paragraph

Start with conclusion

Half the words

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/

Scanning – NOT Reading

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

Rewrite Our Website

acrolinx.com: Before & After

www.acrolinx.com

Does Great Grammar = Great Language?

http://www.wimp.com/frylanguage/

Change Our Software

Measuring Dimensions of Voice

Trend or blip?

Content Marketing

Every key measurement depends on good content.

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34080/Why-Marketers-Need-to-Rise-Above-the-Deluge-of-Crappy-Content.aspx

What Happens When Volume of Crap Soars?

Better language will matter more than ever

So what did I learn?

Executives may start realizing language’s power

In deluge of crappy content, language matters more than

ever

Content strategy includes:

– “Right voice”

What problems remain?

Assessing scale of problem

Internal alignment

Voice definition

Remain distinctive

Localization

Measurements

PG.Bartlett@acrolinx.com