3 Copy Cosmetic Commandments to Not Break in 2013

It always saddens me a bit when I see otherwise smart marketers neglect a fundamental marketing truth.  If your advertising, marketing promotions and content is physically difficult to read, it won’t get read.

In this day and age of staring at smart phones and computer screens all day, a large percentage of the population need some sort of vision correction and according to one recent study that amounts to over 143 million adults requiring prescription eyewear.

I guarantee a large part of your target market has challenges with farsightedness (e.g. difficulty reading a book) and color blindness, especially if you serve a market that is 40 years and older.

While it’s easy to gloss over this statistic, if you’re serious about marketing response it would be a mistake.  Think about your own marketing for a moment…

• When was the last time you thoughtfully considered and designed your marketing for maximum readability?
• When was the last time you changed your choice of fonts, because you know certain types of fonts are hard to read than others?
• Have you recently decided to forego a “prettier” design in lieu of a more readable layout?
• If you do any type of newsletter, have you considered older readers and their ability to read your typeface choices?

I do get it.

Focus on readability, and what I call “copy cosmetics,” typically is overshadowed by other sexier techniques (and in some cases – gimmicks).  More than once I’ve heard something like…

“C’mon, are you telling me Mike if I simply use the wrong font, I could be affecting my results?”

And the simple answer is yes.  If a certain percentage of your market has difficulty reading your materials, the likelihood of them responding goes down and if fixing these readability issues is easy, why would you take the chance in the first place?

The response-driven marketer understands and adheres to fundamental copy cosmetic principles each and every day.

While there are many copy cosmetic nuances, I want to share three fundamental (and easy to maintain) laws I don’t want you to break in 2013 and unlike “don’t eat pasta” or “never drink beer”, these are much easier to live with.

Commandment #1: Thou shall consider the demographics of your readers.

If you serve a market where most people are 40 years and older, it’s even more important to keep ALL copy cosmetic rules in mind. (I have a theory that the younger generation is going to have even more vision issues as they age given the time spent in front of screens).

The big one here is typeface (aka font) size and to be careful you’re not using a font that’s difficult to read, due to its size.

One example that gets me every month is the recent redesign of the GKIC monthly print newsletter.  For some reason, they’ve decided to use a micro-sized font for their body copy and I know for a fact, it’s a challenge for a large segment of their subscribers to physically read it.  On the flip side, the new design makes good use of other copy cosmetic techniques like subheads and bullet lists, but the really ought to increase the typeface size of their body copy to make it more readable.

Commandment #2: Thou shall use the most effective typeface for your specific media type.

This is simple… for print marketing – use serif fonts (e.g. Times Roman, Garamond, Helvetica) for your primary body copy.

For online and mobile marketing – use sans serif fonts (e.g. Verdana, Arial) for primary body copy.

According to Colin Wheildon, author of “Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes?”…

“It is possible to blow away three-quarter of your readers simply by choosing the wrong typeface. If you rely on words to sell, that should concern you deeply.”

Wheildon conducted a study and showed for print marketing, five times as many readers showed good comprehension when a serif typeface was used versus a sans serif typeface.

Study after study concludes the same thing and rather than worrying about why, keep it simple and use the right fonts for print marketing and the right ones for web-based and mobile marketing.

Commandment #3: Thou shall never place important text on dark backgrounds or images.

You see this mistake every day in magazine and advertising design, where graphic design trumps marketing response.  It’s just plain stupid to place important text over any type of photograph or dark color background, since they both make reading more difficult.

Just today, I saw somebody touting some new software that allows you to place your web opt-ins over videos or photographs.  Design like this can definitely have a negative impact on readability.

The Bottom Line

The correct use of copy cosmetics can increase response (conversely making fundamental copy cosmetic mistakes can lower response).  Online or offline, it doesn’t matter.  You must understand what increases readability and response and what decreases it. If you want to know the right way to improve the response of your copy and marketing, check out my CopyBoosting Profit Secrets home study course.  This is the recording of a one-day workshop where I focused on showing the right way to use more than 20 copy cosmetic techniques to improve the attention-grabbing power, readability and response of your copy.

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For a limited time, save $200 and get it for only $97.00!  Visit www.copycosmetics.net to grab it!