By Clay Deal- Integrated Marketing Specialist at Xapsis Integrated Marketing
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have
the time.”
The quote above has often been credited to Mark Twain. I found in my research that it was actually
coined by Blaise Pascal. I really like
Mark Twain, so he still gets credit in my book.
This quote can be used to sum up more than one scenario in
marketing communications. So many times
we start off with the best intentions to be Clear, Concise, and Compelling in
our marketing efforts, but before we know it we have written a novella instead
of a paragraph.
We load in too many
superfluous, redundant, unnecessary, needless, extra words that the true meat,
pulp, core, heart, principal, primary idea gets buried or is actually lost in
the wordiness. We keep adding and adding
and either don’t have the time or don’t take the time to edit it back down. This blog post was originally 3 pages long
before I had help revising it.
We love to hear ourselves talk. Especially about our own services or
products. We must, however, make a
concerted effort to analyze what our audience really wants… And that is quick,
straightforward information.
Clear, Concise, & Compelling. It works.
