February 27, 2018 2:00 pm
Out of all of the millions of things that humans have written over the millennia, very few can be described as ‘timeless’. And those typically falling into that category tend to be literary or philosophical – think Shakespeare’s plays, Plato’s dialogues, the Bhagavad Gita – rather than marketing materials.
On the flip side, when we think about marketing materials from times past, we often find them comically quaint or embarrassingly retrograde. Think, for example, about all those famously awful sexist and racist ads from the 20th century. (And, yes, you can still find far too many examples of both today.)
While marketing content is written with very different goals in mind than are, say, philosophical treatises or epic scriptures, there are ways to help make it more enduring. And, hopefully, less cringeworthy to current and future audiences. Here’s how:
‘People are using mobile devices more than ever to work, play and live…’
or
‘More than three-quarters of US adults today own smartphones, and nearly half also own tablets…’ (Source: Pew Research Center)
Whatever your business and whatever your brand, your audience expects you to be thinking about their needs, not yours. And that’s as well as the words you use need to reflect that, as BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti recently noted:
“In the past, consumers were loyal to brands – brands created distant, aspirational images and we strived for them,” Peretti wrote. “Increasingly, the balance of power has shifted and consumers have more control. Today, brands need to be loyal to consumers.”
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