Summer is swimsuit season, which also makes it weight loss season for many self-conscious individuals. But while you're subsisting on salads and watching the scale like a hawk until you're rescued by the return of sweater season, ask yourself whether your marketing content could stand to lose some extra flab as well. Here are some tips for helping your writing lose weight.
Go On a Verbiage Diet
The English language has an astonishingly huge number of words, most of which you'll never need. Heavy words make for heavy writing, which in turn makes for heavy reading. You can't take that risk when you're trying to spark excitement in your audience. Luckily, for every slug-like five-dollar word in the vocabulary, there are plenty of smaller ones that can do the same job. Use short, simple, peppy words to give your readers a tasty, low-calorie experience.
Remove the Fat...
Okay, you may not be concerned enough about your waistline to consider liposuction just yet, but that doesn't mean you can't perform some beneficial, (mostly) painless surgery on your marketing content. Go nuts in the draft -- that's what drafts are for -- but then examine the results with a surgeon's eye and cut anything that seems redundant, overstated, or just plain unnecessary. You'll see your writing grow more slim, attractive, and compelling right before your eyes -- and before your prospective customers' eyes as well.
...But Leave the Muscle
One problem with starvation diets and other radical weight loss strategies is that they can weaken you by robbing you of energy and muscle mass. Similarly, it's possible to starve your writing in your efforts to make it more compact. If you're cutting content, make sure you retain all the information you really need to convey. If you're too close to your products or services, it's easy to omit a critical detail out of an assumption that readers will know what you're talking about -- when in fact they haven't a clue.
Get Active
Most doctors and fitness gurus would agree that safe, effective weight control depends on a combination of healthy diet and regular exercise. Does your marketing content need to get moving? Inspect it closely to see how many passive verbs you've stuck in there, replacing them with active verbs wherever possible. The more dynamic you can make your writing, the more engagement you'll get from your audience.
Once you've restored your marketing content to its ideal weight, keep an eye on it in the months to come. Consult a professional copywriter if you need help producing slim, trim, effective content all year round. The marketing calendar doesn't include a sweater season!
