How active is your sales material?

One of the keys to writing great copy is to keep it in the active voice. The energy this gives your sales message will make a huge difference. It will help hold your potential customers’ attention – rather than send them to the land of nod. Here’s an example of the active vs passive voice from Wikipedia:

Passive voice:
Caesar was stabbed by Brutus

Active voice:
Brutus stabbed Caesar

As you can see, the active voice is not only more direct but is often shorter than the passive voice. It gets straight to the point and makes it easier to understand what the writer is saying. So it also helps you say as much as you can as concisely as possible.

Another way to ensure your copy has maximum energy is to use verbs not in the present participle ie shorten words that end in ‘ing’. So imagine for a moment that your tap has developed an annoying leak that you can’t fix yourself. You look up plumbers on the internet. Compare the following is more attractive?

Plumbers
XYZ Plumbing are local plumbers offering services throughout Hornsey. 

 

Your local Hornsey plumber

XYZ Plumbing offers you a fast, local service.

The second example is not only shorter and more direct, it talks directly to you and gets to the point fast. As it sums up the service in fewer words, there’s room for an additional benefit. As a result it sounds more positive and has more energy.  This in turn rubs off on the potential customer and keeps them keen to read on.
 

So make sure your copy actively engages your potential customers. Because the last thing you want is to lose them at the first hurdle.