A few years ago while researching the power of simpler copy – something I have preached for decades, I came across a great Princeton University Research Paper titled: Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.

The paper is well written, but a tad long. Essentially it proves a few things:

1.)   Our over-communicated society today craves simplicity.

2.)   The smaller the words you use, contrary to popular belief, the smarter you appear to your customer and prospects alike.

Sure, people with deep vocabularies still impress us, but when communicating with people, as is the case with advertising and marketing, people want you to cut to the chase and that begins by writing in a basic, declarative style that we can process quickly. It’s not that we cannot process more complex language, it’s that we have to work harder to do so.

Those who discover how to communicate this way are also perceived as more honest, and as our society becomes more and more skeptical of marketers trying to sell them, that alone is reason enough to re-write your copy from a more pedestrian perspective.

Apply this knowledge to the explosive growth in digital advertising, use of video as a sales tool, and in all the social media outlets your clients and prospects use and you are sure to have a recipe for increased results.

Personally, here at JD, we strive for the simplest form of copy whenever possible. Of course, as measurable marketers, we are always testing and re-testing our theories and challenging best practice assumptions in order to gain the highest ROI possible for our client campaigns.

As most measurable marketing is copy driven, including banner ads, email, web, microsite, landing pages, SEO/SEM, Social Media etc., it is vital to test simpler copy and evaluate the results.

If you need a help with your integrated, multi-channel campaigns, reach out and we will be happy to lend a hand.