So What, Justifying each step or word of communication. (photo by Paolo Mazzo click to link)
I learned a great concept in copy-writing that I call justification. The person who really seared this in my mind is Jeff Walker the renowned copywriter.
I remember in one of the video trainings he was talking about how to write great headlines. He said that after you write your headline you want to go through it word by word and make each word justify itself. Take out words, if it read the same or had the same impact keep it out. Each word has to beg, borrow, and steal to literally be included in your headline.
When you put this into practice you end up with a very concise and hard hitting headline. A headline where each and every word has proven it deserves to be there.
I believe this concept can be used for more than just headline writing. I’ve used it time and time again. This is even more important in this fast changing and every time crunching world we live in. Where capturing peoples attention or keeping people interested is getting tougher and tougher.
A process
We all have processes to the way we do our business. Take a process on the way you sell what you do or sell your product. What are the steps? Have you gone through each and every step and justified its purpose. How about the way you bid out a new job to a client or a prospect? Have you justified each and every step and method to doing that?
Your Website
I come from the less is more approach to web development. Go through each one of your menu items and justify why it has to be there. Is it in the best benefit of your visitor? Or how about other elements of your website. We are doing this for our website now and over the next few weeks you will start seeing some changes.
One is our logo, when we rolled out this design we wanted to showcase our logo. But as I went through this exercise myself I realized that I couldn’t justify the size or placement in our logo for you our reader.
Even Your Content
These days people are busy. The way people consume and read content is changing. Some would argue that there needs to be an updated version of how we classify quality (great read, I agree with most of what is written there). Justify each section and level of your content. Does it serve a purpose.? Does it add to a point you are trying to make?
Added Question – So What?
If you haven’t read the book So What? by Mark Magnacca I would suggest you pick it up. It’s a quick read and really gets right ot the point. In each thing you do ask yourself So What… why should I care?
Now think about your audience. I recently started doing more presenetations and presenttaions in front of groups. On my powerpoint slides I have asked myself for each and every slide… So what, why should I care? Keeping in mind my audience. What started as a bloated presentation was reduced down to a very concise and focused presentation.
This one powerful question once put into practice can make tons of difference in all your communications and marketing efforts. I suggest you put it in your arsenal as well.
