The 10 most common mistakes companies make with copy (and how to avoid them)
1 Forgetting your audience
Comms 101 for any medium – know your audience. Think about who you’re talking to and who you want to engage, with every single word. Make it relevant.
You wouldn’t rock up to the PETA Christmas bash and give a speech about top tips for tasty turkey. Before writing any copy, research your current and target markets. Tailor your content and adjust your tone of voice for each group.
2 Relying on ChatGPT
In inexperienced hands, generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude will simply spew out bland, unengaging, generic (and often factually incorrect) copy. They might seem like the answer to all your prayers, but Large Language Models have serious limitations, aside from ethical and environmental concerns. If you want to upskill yourself or your team, to get the best out of these free new tools, and use them in an informed way, I deliver one-to-one and small group training on copywriting with AI. Get in touch.
3 Skipping the basics
Remember that informative copywriting needs to answer the basic questions – the who, what, where, when, and why. Basic journalism 101. Give readers context for your copy, and make it relevant. In our time-poor culture, we don’t have long to convince readers that our copy is worth their while. If people have to work too hard to understand your message, they’ll quickly move on.
4 Walls of copy
If you’re writing online copy, remember to make sure it’s scannable – it’s vital to break copy into bite-sized chunks and include plenty of visual cues to help the reader navigate and scan your content. As Hoa Loranger of Nielsen Norman points out: “Bulleted lists attract attention, support scanning, shorten text, and reveal the relationship of items.”
5 Inconsistency
Most firms have a very strict style guide for design, to ensure logos and branding are applied consistently, but fewer seem to consistently use a style guide for copy. This creates a chaotic array of tones across comms channels, diminishing customer confidence in your brand. Adopting a copy style guide is an easy way to transform the way your whole business communicates, internally and externally.
Once you have buy-in from everyone, it can quickly become a valuable quick-reference bible, and all written communication becomes more consistent and professional. From internal staff emails and customer letters, presentations, or reports, to promotional emails, adverts, social media and your website copy – it’s worth investing in for cohesion and clarity across all channels.
6 Writing for Googlebots
Keen to climb up the Google results? A good rule of thumb when it comes to search-engine optimisation (SEO), is that copy which is useful and interesting to people is usually viewed favourably by search engines. It’s vital to carry out thorough keyword research in line with your content strategy, but avoid over-using keywords in body copy and continue to tailor writing for your (human) audience.
Google ultimately values good quality content that users respond well to. So in order to rank, your copy needs to show EEAT:
- Expertise
- Experience
- Authority
- Trust
7 Using jargon and clichés
One of the golden rules of quality copywriting – avoid clichés like the plague. Same goes for jargon…unless you’re writing for a very specific niche industry or technical publication, where you can be 100% certain that your audience will understand every single term. Explain technical terms at their first mention and don’t assume all your readers will be familiar with acronyms, no matter how common or obvious they might seem to you. Cliches are a major pitfall of AI-generated copy (because it’s essentially mimicking the most common phrases that appear through the history of English writing). All copy, everywhere, should be as clear and simple as possible.
8 Being overly friendly
Many firms are thankfully starting to realise that a friendly, conversational tone of voice makes them much more approachable. A minority have taken this too far and adopted a tone that spills over into creepy territory in a desperate bid to be amusing and likeable. It’s crucial to strike a balance – keep it informal but professional, and never betray your core brand principles.
If you’re keen to refresh and modernise your company’s tone of voice, go back to basics. Think about your brand, service or product – how is it currently perceived by customers and potential customers? How would you like to shift this image? How far do you think you can shift it without alienating your core customers?
9 Broadcasting, not engaging
Things are improving, but this is another common fail for businesses when it comes to social media copy. Shouting about themselves and their products without engaging in a dialogue, or listening to feedback.
Stimulating conversation is a two-way affair. How many times have you been introduced to someone only to discover with horror that they are a ‘broadcaster’… harping on about themselves and failing to ask a single question or show any interest in you? We have so much to learn by listening, and all communication has to be reciprocal to be truly effective.
Social listening is essential for any brand. And ignore negative feedback at your peril – address concerns, look at improvements and show humility.
10 Assuming people won’t read online
We used to be told to keep it short when writing online copy, based on the belief that users simply wouldn’t read long articles online. But time and again, research shows that this just isn’t true. Businesses are increasingly reaping the rewards of investing in quality long-form content.
Standard advertising is becoming less effective, so investing in useful, valuable, intelligent content is becoming a key way to get your company’s voice heard. It’s also another way to demonstrate that all-important Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust that Google loves.
With AI, voice search and rapidly shifting tech, the landscape for online copywriting continues to change and develop. But there will always be demand for human stories and valuable, relatable content.