Last week I got an email from a long-winded friend who used that email as a vehicle in which to cram every last tidbit thought, felt or simply “needed” to say into the monologue. As much as I truly adore my friend, I skimmed the last ¾ of it because it was unfortunately too tedious for me to read.

All I could think of was the relationship between that and marketing. All too often people, writing marketing material, seem to miss the boat when it comes to clarity of messages and effective communication. I’ve been hearing “less is more” all my life – and it truly applies with the written word in marketing. Allow me to illustrate with four valuable points of wisdom:

1. Make your points for your audience, not for you. Avoid using technical wording whenever possible – unless of course, your audience is that of your peers, where they will fully grasp it.
2. Make your most attractive, most TANGIBLE point, first, to draw in your audience. Then once they are fully engaged, EDUCATE your prospect on other details. For example, Vision Advertising creates, implements and manages profitable web sites. We also do a hundred other things. It’s the hundred other things that aren’t so readily tangible. Like market positioning? Sure – its necessary and highly valuable – but web sites are really tangible. Everyone on earth by now either has one, knows what one is, or has at least heard the phrase. We save the “heady” stuff for the right time, leading with web sites and other tangible ideas whenever possible.
3. Don’t talk above your audience – Just like I shouldn’t bore you with the finer details of industry-specific jargon, you shouldn’t either. Simple is good.
4. Don’t make all your points at once. Make the most important one and save the rest for when your audience has really grasped and gotten engaged by your FIRST point. Relax and the opportunity to get it all out there will come.

In conclusion, the theory that less is more may not be true for all situations, but it’s certainly true for the written word in marketing. The less your prospects have to filter through to get to the core of what you’re saying, the better off you are. If you simply offered up your core message up front – what would happen?