Is your brand potty trained?

In my last post (which, if you missed, you can check out here) I talked about how we can thank the Romans for so much sucky, corporate drone-y copy.

This post is going to be a bit of a riff on that same topic, but look at how it manifests itself in copy all the time in a way that I like to call incontinent copy. 

Why do I call it that? Well, for starters, because my sense of humour hasn’t matured since I turned 10. But also because incontinent copy is where companies “we” everywhere.

Too often, I’ll go on Instagram or Facebook or a website (About Pages are really bad for this) and I’ll see these phrases pop up everywhere:

At XYZ, we believe…

 Because we know ABC, we do DEF…

Here at XYZ, we…

Our company motto is…

That’s incontinent copy.

They’re we-ing everywhere and forgetting to make their customer number one.

(Two pee puns in one sentence there. I’m not going to top that all week.)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth that a lot of marketing forgets: aside from a few, very special customers, the customer doesn’t care at all about you, what you believe or what you do.

Not initially, at least. (Once you’ve built a fan-winning brand, things are a little different.)

In the first instance, customers care about themselves and what you can do for them.

They only care about your brand in the context of how you can help them accomplish their goals. Outside of that, they couldn’t give two hoots about you or what you believe.

So your copy needs to tap into those goals and desires and place yourself as the bridge between them, their problem and their goals.

In other words, all of your copy should focus on the customer. It sounds basic. But you’d be surprised how easy it is to mess up.

To demonstrate my point, here’s an example from the last UK General Election.

(If you’re in the UK and can’t handle reliving the last General Election, maybe sit this email out…)

Also, quick side note: this was the last general election at the time of writing this post. It’s entirely possible that between the time I wrote this post and send it out, another will have been called or we’ll have had a civil war or something…

All matters of politics aside, take two minutes to check out the speech that Theresa May gave after the last election:

Now, bearing in mind the fact that you’ve literally just watched it, write down three things that she said.

I’m willing to bet that you can’t think of anything other than ‘Now, let’s get to work’.

And that’s for a good reason. Theresa is crazy incontinent.

She uses ‘we’ five times, but only to refer to the government. Never to the population of the UK.

She uses ‘I’ four times.

The words you or your? Zilch. Nada.

Nowhere to be found.

To be fair, she does refer to her audience as “the people”. Which is actually worse, in many ways, because it makes the audience feel like just another number.

The only — ONLY — redeeming feature is “let’s get to work”. It implies togetherness, it breaks the pattern of stiff, formal language and it’s conversational. It speaks directly to the listener.

But it’s still far from perfect.

How much of your copy does the same thing?

Don’t feel embarrassed. Theresa May does it. Huge brands do it. Pretty much all of my first drafts are guilty of it, too.

Writing is really hard. When faced with the blank page and a looming deadline, it’s only natural to talk about yourself.

But, as we’ve seen, this insular, corporate-focused copy does nothing for customers at all. They won’t pay it any attention whatsoever.

So, what do you do if you find yourself we-ing all over your website? Well, you’re in luck. (Urine luck, heh.)

The cause of incontinence is usually that you don’t know exactly who you’re talking to.

You don’t know what makes them tick or how they speak, so you’re not sure what to say to them. You’re like the person who always tells personal anecdotes because they’re not sure how to have a real conversation. (We all know that person.)

If Theresa May — or her speechwriters, to be fair — knew WHO they were talking to, how they felt about issues, how they spoke about them, they could have written a much better speech.

We know you’re concerned about [issue] so we’re doing [whatever] to fix it for you and your family…

Instead, they wrote a sucky speech that felt important to them and sounded grandiose but actually appealed and spoke to nobody.

So, if you’re fully incontinent or feel like you’re we-ing a little too much, spend some time thinking about your ideal customers.

Use Facebook Insights, Google Analytics and any other audience data to get a rough idea of your audience if you’re not at all sure of who you’re targeting, and then ask yourself:

What do they like? What keeps them up at night? What do they worry about? How do they want the world to see them?

Get real weird with it too.

What music would they listen to? What would they wear? How would they talk? What food do they like? What car do they drive?

Once you’ve got a clear idea of your audience, write down how your brand helps them achieve their goals. Write it as if you’re talking directly to them.

And Before you go, here’s a final copywriting rule to help keep your copy fully water-tight: The 80/20 rule.

Count how many times you use “you” (or any other second person pronoun for that matter) vs. “we” (or any other first person pronoun).

You want to be aiming for a 4:1 ratio of you to we to stay continent and make sure your copy is speaking directly to your customers.

And that’s when the magic happens.

Catch you next week,

Pee-ace out,

(That was the last pee joke, I promise.)

Pee-S. I’ve managed a ratio of 3.7:1 in this post. Close enough.