Writing to customers (marketing copy)

`1:16:05`

pithy clever headline or something I'm like and then I'm like would I ever say that out loud to anybody to describe Basecamp? And I'm like no I wouldn't so why would I say it here? And I find that like there's this there's this feeling of like writing clever copy and head and I love writing headlines I it's probably one of my second favorite things to do besides these letters I love it but it really has to be something I would say out loud otherwise it feels disingenuous. Yes. And then it's like this mark then you're in this marketing mode exercise where you're almost trying to impress yourself with your cleverness but you're just like not communicating anything in a in in a real way so I'll often just say like would I ever say this to anybody? Or or if I'm trying to describe Basecamp like how would I describe Basecamp and I would just say I'm like that's better than any I spent an hour trying to write

`1:16:50`

out how to describe Basecamp versus I just said it in 12 seconds and like that was better than anything I've ever written basically. But you know this happens all the time it's so easy to fall into this trap but it's telling that you do too after all these years. The challenge is at work and you're kind of talking all your co-workers about about what's going on and then it's really musicians do this all the time where they start making music to impress each other or like think of your classic sort of film festival movie it's like made for other people who are interested in film and not just made for your average person who for you is just buying software. And this is a real trap that when you're writing marketing copy or trying to communicate anything about your product it's so easy to fall into. it's like it's the jargony side of it it's it's the it's the you're forgetting

`1:17:38`

who you're writing this for. There's this sort of feeling that you're writing it for your company but you're writing it for customers and these people know basically nothing about you. And so you really have to keep saying would I say this to someone I met on the street If I'm in an Uber and someone like what do you do or what do you like how would I say it? And why is that inadequate like what why can't I just put that on on the page? Because there's there's a sense of like well it's just like it's words like it's not professional that's the other thing it's like not professional to describe your product the way you describe it to an Uber driver but but what why not? Like why not just get to the point? Right. And part of the problem is and this is where I want to get to the website thing website design

`1:18:26`

is part of the problem that websites have a there's many different ways to do them but they have this format where there's like blocks of text and a picture and another block of text and a block of color and there's like it's it's all it's all shattered. You know you can't read you don't read a website usually these days there's not a cohesive story that's being told there's like these little pieces and people are scrolling through them and you browse the web you don't read it in a sense. So I think people don't think about communicating which is why what's nice about writing a letter is if I have a letter format people are familiar with what a letter format looks like and and it's short enough that someone's going to read it or they're not. But if they start they're almost

`1:19:11`

certainly going to finish because it's not that long and hopefully I'm pulling them through and it's you're able to read a letter you're it's hard to read a website how should it be different? I like long-form like more of a long-form old-school like direct mail style letter kind of style. Uh which we've experimented with in the past and and I've tried to do that. Our current site's not quite like that, but there's longer paragraphs. People are used to reading things in a certain way. Human race has been reading in a certain It could be right to left, left to right, but it's top-down usually like in a way where there's a sentence and it makes a paragraph, there's a space, there's another We don't We know how to do that. We know how to consume that. Right? I think the more you write that way, the better off it's going to be. Imagine like reading a