How to add warmth to your words

Below is a transcript of the video.

In this lecture, we want to give you a strategy for warming up your business writing... with power pronouns!

Pronouns are those little words that stand in for people or things.

For example, ‘She’ instead of ‘Clare’, ‘He’ instead of ‘David’, or ‘their dog’ instead of ‘Clare and David’s dog’.

But not all pronouns are equal. The best pronouns are the ones that suggest a conversation between me, the writer, and you, the reader.

We’re talking about first and second person pronouns like ‘you’, ‘me’ and ‘we’.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

EXAMPLES

Here’s some text from a website:

Customers should enter their credit card details in the form below.

How could you say the same thing in a warmer, friendlier, more direct way?

How about:

Please enter your credit card details in the form below.

Notice what a difference that pronoun “your” makes to the tone of the text?

Or how about:

The organisation is seeking feedback from clients.

How could you say that in a less cold and distant way?

How about:

We want to hear from you!

Those pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ make the whole thing sound much friendlier, don’t they? Much more dynamic too.

Or how about:

All feedback on the recommendations gratefully received.

How might you use pronouns to say this in a friendlier, more personable way?

How about:

Please let me know what you think of the recommendations.

Again, notice how the second version sounds warmer, friendlier, more direct? More like a conversation. And that’s because of those little words ‘you’ and ‘me’ - which imply a relationship between reader and writer.

Of all the power pronouns, the most powerful one of all is ‘you’.

As a professional copywriter whose job involves winning people over with words, I probably use this word more often than any other.

In fact, a good rule of thumb that copywriters live by is that in any piece of business writing you should use the word ‘you’ more often than you use the word ‘we’.

Let’s take a look at another example.

Here’s a typical piece of text that might appear on an investment bank’s website:

At GloboBank, we aspire to be the leading financial adviser to our clients, providing best-of-breed capital-raising services on transactions that will help our clients grow.

Now it does use pronouns but - they’re all pronouns that refer to the bank.

The whole paragraph sounds like an organisation talking to itself because it’s so focused on we, us, GloboBank, and our aspirations as an organisation. There’s not a single ‘you’ in there. The reader has become ‘our clients’, rather than ‘you, the reader the owner of a business seeking to grow.’

Now, this “we” focused writing might be ok if the intended reader were Globobank’s employees.

But if the audience is clients, a better approach might be to say something like. 

If growth matters to you and your business, get in touch. We’ll give you advice on expanding into new markets, and help you raise the capital to make your next deal happen.

Notice how we now have five times as many you’s or your’s to we’s?

We’ve switched from our, GloboBank’s desire to be the best to your desire to grow your business.

The whole tone of the piece has changed from an organisation that simply claims to care about its clients to one that sounds like it really does.

OVER TO YOU

So, it’s that time again where we hand over to you!

Our challenge this time is to take a look at an example of your own business writing -

it could be something you’ve written previously, or something you’re writing at the moment.

Whatever it is, can you identify opportunities to make the writing friendlier and more conversational - by including some pronouns.

And if you have included pronouns in this piece, try counting them.

How many references are there to we the organisation or I the writer?

And how many references are there to you, the reader?

Have you included more you’s than we’s ?

And if not, is there an opportunity to do so?

Could you make the writing more reader-focused?

For more writing advice, enrol in my online course, Writing With Confidence, available at the Doris and Bertie Writing School.

Cover photo credit: Oscar Sutton, puppyhero.com

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