You wouldn’t believe who I sat next to on my flight to Atlanta …
EVA LONGORIA!!
… No, I didn’t.
But I once got Jillian to believe it for a few seconds before confessing that it wasn’t true.
As always, she didn’t think my childish game was as funny as I did. And she became even more cross when I continued to fool her with other false celebrity sightings.
Now, she doesn’t trust anything I say. And all because Lindsay Lohan refused to take a selfie with me.
So, you can imagine how much convincing it took before Jillian believed my friend David and I write letters to each other. Actual words on actual paper, mailed in actual envelopes with actual stamps. Just like the pioneers did.
David is my oldest friend. He used to manage my father’s beauty salon. Today, he’s sweating out his retirement in Phoenix, Arizona.
Now pen pals, we write about his medical procedures, my house projects, and how we both managed to live through the Drambuie and single malts we used to drink every Tuesday night when we both lived in Pennsylvania.
(That’s us before I reached the legal drinking height.)
Unless you’re writing from prison, composing a letter to a friend is a relaxed exercise. It’s completely free of ceremony and complexity.
We use simple language because it feels natural and relatable. And because it’s the quickest and easiest way to pass a thought from one person to another.
So, why do some of us insist on using linguistic pyrotechnics in our marketing communications?
(Notice how “linguistic pyrotechnics” made you want to slap me?)
Big words don’t impress anyone. Big ideas do.
Why obscure them in a tangle of industry jargon and fancy phrasings you’d risk pulling a muscle to read?
Even if you work in a sophisticated industry, that’s no excuse for using sophisticated language. If you don’t believe me, watch any TED Talk.
TED speakers are masters at translating complex concepts and topics to a mass audience with no mental friction. Their job is to take something that matters to them and make it matter to someone else.
They make the cerebral feel personal.
That’s what you should strive for, whether you write your own copy or review your team’s work. You want to make it seem like you’re writing to one reader, even if you’re speaking to thousands.
The best way to do this is by pretending you’re writing a letter with one specific person in mind. I got this advice from Warren Buffett, the world’s most famous fund manager. He said …
“When writing Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report, I pretend that I am talking to my sisters. I have no trouble picturing them: though highly intelligent, they are not experts in accounting or finance. They will understand plain English, but jargon may puzzle them. My goal is to simply give them the information I would wish them to supply me if our positions were reversed. No siblings to write to? Borrow mine: Just begin with ‘Dear Doris and Bertie’.”
He told me that on an airplane years ago. Good thing I wrote it all down.
Here’s a song to play you out >>>
See you next time. — Matt
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