How long should today’s copy be?
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You’re developing a landing page for one of your company’s offerings. How many words should you use? What about a blog post? A white paper? Something for social media? A script for a training video?
Many people have strong opinions about the optimal length for various forms of marketing content, but most are expressing their personal preference or learned prejudice rather than offering constructive expertise.
The simple answer is that the correct amount of copy is exactly what it takes to accomplish the objective. Sometimes, that may be a sentence or two; other times, it may demand a book-length manuscript. Marketers obsess about length, but readers don’t. They’ll read every sentence you use, as long as they believe your words to be meaningful and worthy of their time. (That’s how search engines evaluate what you post today, too.)
It is true that typical copy lengths have been shrinking over the past generation. Compare today’s magazine articles, product brochures, or ads with counterparts from several decades ago, and you’ll see they’re significantly shorter. One reason is that our attention spans are shrinking, driven largely by television and the web. I can remember several TV shows of the 1980s that were considered at the time to be intense. When I watch a vintage scene on YouTube, I yawn at how slowly the story moves. The show hasn’t changed, but viewers have. We’ve all been conditioned to consume content faster and more visually.
Am I worried that professional writers are about to be rendered obsolete? Not a bit. You see, lower word counts mean every word must count for more. There’s no room for waste or fluff, and making words work their hardest is where professional writers excel. Even if you’re not a professional, you can benefit from using the strategies they employ to deliver information more effectively.
If you’re creating copy for a website, a blog post, or something else that will be viewed on a screen, make sure that your opening sentences contain the information that’s most important to your target audience. Don’t waste busy and easily distracted readers’ time with lengthy introductions or sharing the obvious, as in “ours is a very competitive industry, and product users need to make the choices that best suit their needs.” Get to the point!
When you really have a lot that you want to say, structure it so the reader gets the most important message right away. When they want more depth about a particular aspect, use navigation to help them find it quickly. Put another way: you don’t need to say everything on the first screen, but make sure it’s readily accessible. That way, the skimmers who simply want a quick once-over won’t be forced to wade through pounds of material that isn’t important to them.
If you’re developing copy-heavy pieces such as product brochures or white papers, accept the fact that nobody is going to read every word. Today’s readers skim, so cater to that by breaking large subjects into smaller chunks. Use subheadings, lead-ins, shorter paragraphs, and other techniques to guide skimmers through the document. They’ll read less of what you’ve developed, but the portions they do read will be more relevant to their needs.
Finally, when posting on a social channel, don’t feel obligated to use every character available to you. If you can convey your key message in just 80 or 90 characters, that’s a sign that you’re an effective communicator. Padding it just because additional space is available will actually make it less effective.
Don’t waste words or the reader’s time trying to satisfy misguided ideas of how long or short copy should be. Just make sure everything you write is exactly long enough to accomplish the objective. After all, that’s the perfect length.
Scott Flood creates effective copy for companies and other organizations. To learn more, contact him at sflood@sfwriting.com or 317-839-1739, and visit his blog at sfwriting.com/blog.