According to Nielsen, writing for Kindle is a mishmash of writing for print, the web and mobile devices:

• Print guidelines for body text
• Web guidelines for headlines and summaries
• Mobile guidelines for page design and interaction

Linear body text and literal headlines

Unlike writing for the web, writing body text for Kindle should be more linear—think novels and magazine articles, which Nielsen says work best on Kindle. Avoid heavily hyperlinked content, as Kindle isn’t designed to navigate it well.

While body text should follow print guidelines, headlines should follow web guidelines—keep them literal, and remember that people will often read them out of context.

Finally, Nielsen recommends that if you’re trying to sell a book through Kindle, consider front-loading your best material into the first chapter, because you can then give it away as a preview to encourage sales.

More comprehensive Kindle content guidelines should no doubt become available soon. But with growing adoption of new mobile devices (such as iPhones and netbooks), the most important guideline to remember is this: always write for the medium.

As Nielsen admonishes: “For Kindle, it’s certainly unacceptable to simply repurpose print content. But you can’t repurpose website content, either. For good Kindle usability, you have to design for the Kindle.”

Ever since Claude Hopkins dictated that "people don’t buy from clowns," humor has been controversial in advertising—and particularly suspect in direct response copywriting.

The latest issue of Inside Influence Report, however, suggests that while people might not buy from clowns, they will buy more from someone who uses humor to generate trust and rapport.

Humor improves returns

The study was conducted by Dr. Terri Kurtzberg from Rutgers University, Charles E. Naquin from DePaul University and Liuba Belkin from Lehigh University.

The researchers wanted to know how humor in the early stages of negotiation might affect the outcome.

So they had participants negotiate a complex contract by email.

Half the group started negotiations by sending a funny, inoffensive Dilbert cartoon to their negotiating partner. The other half didn’t. 

Result? The group that started with a cartoon generated higher levels of trust, resulting in a 15% bigger return and increased satisfaction levels on both sides.

The cartoon also made negotiating partners less extreme when making their first offer, and made negotiations more efficient.

The researchers explain the results by saying that "having some sense of ‘the other side’ as a real person and not just an e-mail address seems to help negotiators build trust and rapport, and thus create better agreements with each other."

Test your comedy

So what are copywriters and content marketers to make of the study?

In my opinion, one important fact is that the researchers tested the cartoon before using it.

By showing it to other businesspeople before using it in the study, they knew it was considered funny and inoffensive by their target demographic.

This is important because not everyone has the same sense of humor.

So it’s probably safe to use humor in marketing content. But always be sure that your target market will actually find your communication funny.

And, as Claude Hopkins would no doubt say, always test to see whether humor really outperforms something more straightforward.

Summary: Learn the basic rules of writing strong headlines in this video featuring Commune Content Specialist Sara Chappel. Discover why you need to appeal to people’s self interest, appeal to people’s love of news and novelty, engage your prospects’ curiosity and include keywords in your headlines. To start optimizing your content’s headlines, watch the video or download a transcript (PDF) now.

Let’s look at a real case.

Today, browsing my email, I saw an ad for Special K in Gmail that read:

HDL Cholesterol
Summer’s On It’s Way
Get Back on Track With Special K
www.Specialk.ca

Did you catch the error? Here it is:

HDL Cholesterol
Summer’s On It’s Way
Get Back on Track With Special K
www.Specialk.ca

With a writing background, being focused on content, I find an error like that makes me less likely to click. If it were a less-known brand, it would make me think the company was unprofessional. (In this case, I just think it was sloppy.)

But what do you think? Do spelling and grammar errors undermine your confidence in a company or an offering? How much do they affect your perception of the company or offering’s credibility?

Does it matter?

If you think the answer’s no, then you’ve never engaged in an argument about the relative merits of "cotton candy" versus "candy floss." Or "couch," "sofa" and "chesterfield."

English is so variable that academics at East Central University in Oklahoma have produced a map of the US that shows the distribution of generic names for soft drinks.

(For the record, I say "pop." My Buffalo relatives say "soda." It turns into a heated debate over Christmas.)

Language is more than spelling and grammar

See, people are sensitive about language.

Variations in spelling, phrases and slang are really symbols of a greater cultural identity.

Canadians, for example, can be squirrelly about the whole language question.

Ever seen Joe Canadian and heard his rant?

"I speak English and French, not American … and it is pronounced zed. Not zee! ZED!"

It’s a perfect illustration of the potential pitfalls of choosing an appropriate language for your website.

Use the wrong one, and you cause friction for your users—which means you could end up losing customers.

How to optimize content for language

Luckily, this very subject was the topic of Jakob Nielsen’s December 1st Alertbox posting, "American English vs. British English for Web Content."

Nielsen’s excellent points all boil down to the marketer’s mantra: "Know thy audience."

Not only that, but know them well enough to predict what language variants will cause them the least amount of friction.

Here are some points to remember, drawn from Nielsen and from our own experiences with our clients:

1. Choose the right language for your offering
   If you’re trying to emphasize the local-ness of your product, for example, use your local variant. If you sell butter tarts from a bakery in Arthur, Ontario, and your audience is mostly Canadian, you might as well be as Canadian as possible. Colour, neighbour and centre out the wazoo.
    
2. Get used to the idea of American English
   If you’re only targeting prospects in Canada, the UK or Australia, then by all means, use those forms of English. But if you’re like us—an online business, with clients on both sides of the border and beyond—keep in mind that the lingua franca of the internet is American English. Sorry, Canucks. Too bad, Brits. That’s the way it is. If your business is mainly online, and you hope to appeal to a wide international client base, get accustomed to -ize and -er endings on words.
    
3. Be consistent
   No matter which English you choose, use it consistently. Spelling a word differently on the same page is distracting to your readers, which means more friction—and less attention paid to the awesomeness of your offering.
    
4. Become familiar with your local variants
   Don’t take for granted that the English terms you know and love mean the same thing to everyone. Phrases whose meanings seem crystal clear to us are met with quizzical looks—or blushes— elsewhere in the world. In the UK, a play that’s a "bomb" is a huge success, "STD" stands for "subscriber trunk dialing" (and means direct-dial long distance) and "fanny"—well, let’s just say the term is a lot more vulgar in the UK than it is here. (Curious about other terms? Check out more British/American phrases.)
    
5. For videos, podcasts and other spoken media, keep it neutral
   Here’s where Canadians get to shine. ESL students throughout the world prefer Canadian English teachers because their accent is, aside from some regional variations in pronunciation, neutral. Same goes for English speakers from the Midwest and Northeast US. Regional accents can carry strong positive and negative connotations—so if you’re smart, you won’t use voice talent with a Texan accent if you’re trying to appeal to Democrats. And if you sell used cars, the Queen’s English just doesn’t fit. Know your audience when you pick your voice talent.

Remember: friction—any friction—distracts your prospects from your message.

So it’s worth paying attention to all these little details—because your audience certainly is.

Have you had language issues with your website? Leave a comment and let us know. Start a debate. Join the discussion!

Meanwhile, it turns out that swear words might make you more persuasive.

So reports Noah Goldstein in the latest Inside Influence report (a free and worthwhile subscription if you’re interested in marketing and copywriting).

Just one minor swear word can make the difference

Apparently, research shows that—at least for speakers delivering presentations—obscenities can increase the perception of passion and enthusiasm. 

Goldstein reports that social psychologists Cory Scherer and Brad Sagarin had participants watch a taped five-minute speech.

For half the audience, the speaker uttered the phrase "damn it!"—once. For the other half, the presentation was kid-television friendly.

The result? Participants found the speaker more passionate about the topic and more persuasive when uttering the obscenity.

Experiment (carefully) with tame obscenities in your content

Does that mean your website content should read like a Chris Rock monologue?

Not necessarily. Goldstein notes two important factors: the swear word was tame, and it worked best for people who already agreed somewhat with the speaker.

The takeaway?

Experiment first with minor swear words (like "damn" and "hell") to people with whom you already have a relationship (like those on your mailing list).

Otherwise, you might find yourself swearing up a storm when sensitive prospects and customers give you the finger.

So, think you’ll give swear words a try in your marketing?

The concept, borrowed from neurolinguistic programming, is a form of emotional reframing called "meta-states." Developed by L. Michael Hall, it describes a process all too common to human experience.

Have you ever been angry with yourself for being jealous? Or upset with yourself for feeling anxious? When this happens, the emotions become intertwined and difficult to unravel.

So why bother?

Wrap it up

Since emotions become wrapped in other emotions, instead of trying to pull negative emotions apart, you can just wrap them all up in a positive emotion.

It sounds kind of crazy, but try it. Think about being happy about being depressed. Maybe you’re happy because it gives you time to reflect. Or because it gives you a new perspective on life. Or because you know you’ll look back on it from happier times and they’ll feel even better.

Whatever the justification, you can wrap up just about any negative emotion in a positive emotion, which provides a complete emotional reframing.

But negative emotions aren’t all you can wrap up in positive emotions.

Higher and higher

When writing copy, we often try to get prospects excited at our offer. Ideally, so excited that they follow our call to action.

Rarely, however, does copy compel readers to higher and higher states. Usually, it’s enough to suggest one. For example:

Relax knowing that our widget will take care of your problem.

But applying the principle of meta-states, we don’t have to accept just one positive emotion. We can wrap them up to increase interest and excitement:

Feel safer when you relax knowing that widget will take care of your problem.

Best yet, there’s almost no limit to how many positive emotions you can intertwine:

People will wonder why you’re so happy when you feel it’s safe to relax, knowing that widget will take care of your problem.

I’m first to admit these aren’t the best examples, but hopefully they convey the point.

And hopefully they make you at least a little curious about how much fun you can have with emotional matrioshka.

If you're new, you've likely never heard such terms as "swipe file" (a file of others' effective copy you keep for "inspiration"), and never searched back issues of magazines to research competitors' ads. If you're a veteran, you likely find it hard to restrain your creative impulses. After all, it's the innovative campaigns that win awards, not the "me too" copycats. Right?

But if you care most about results, the fastest way to success is to imitate before you innovate. In short, to let competitors do the hard work, then copy their success and experiment to exceed it.

With a looming recession, results are paramount. And in this holiday season, competition is tough. With that in mind, this post guides you step-by-step through a process you can use right now to leverage competitors' Google ads to optimize your own ads' success-a process that can work even better in highly competitive markets.

Step one: Know the theory

The theory's simple: do what works, and let competitors pay to find that out.

In direct-response marketing, advertisers constantly analyze ads to find the best-performing words and phrases. The goal is to get the best return on investment for every dollar.

In print, direct-response copywriters can determine a competitors' best-performing copy by identifying the ads they've run most frequently-thereby pinpointing which content delivers the most cost-effective results.

Google AdWords—the most popular and important search marketing system—is just another form of direct-response marketing. Ads rank higher on a page depending on factors like the amount an advertiser's willing to bid for a click, and on the ad's overall quality-judged in part by the percentage of people who click when it shows up.

Bottom line? In AdWords, a highly ranked ad is more likely to be an effective ad. This is for two main reasons. First, highly ranked ads typically cost advertisers more per click. So you can be sure they've made the necessary effort to make every click count. Second, highly ranked ads achieve high ranking in part through quality. So bad ads slowly fade into obscurity.

There are certainly some confounding factors that I won't go into here. But in general, it's safe to assume that in AdWords, higher ranked ads outperform lower ranked ads.

And typically, the more competitive the environment, the more this applies. For this reason, you can learn a lot about AdWords by simply reviewing results for highly competitive keywords like "insurance" and "weight loss."

Step two: Google your keywords

So let's exploit this knowledge to help you optimize your ad content.

Next time you Google keywords you're targeting, pay attention to the ads that show up.

In particular, pay attention to the ads at the top of the page, or the top of the list on the right.

For example, here's a screenshot for a search on "life insurance"—one of the most competitive keywords:

[insert screenshot here]

Here, the ads at top (in beige) and the top ads at right are likely the most effective at driving clicks for the keyword you're searching.

Again, there are confounding variables (like some advertisers actually wanting a lower position), but in general you can assume that ads appearing either in beige or-for a highly competitive category like this-anywhere at right are effective.

To be more certain, repeat your search a few times and see which ads show up most often.

Step three: Analyze high-performing AdWords text

Now that you're seeing some high-performing ads, you can:

• Subjectively review the results based on your understanding of your market and your marketing. With this approach, you can quickly identify copy that might perform well for you. Your biases, however, might undermine your review. For example, you might not want to consider applying the word "free" to your marketing, even though it's making your competitors money.

• Objectively review the results using a statistical text analyzer. With this approach, you can quickly find words and phrases that effective ads use repeatedly. While density alone doesn't guarantee success, it certainly helps guide you in the right direction.

Let's talk about the second approach, which in my opinion and experience is one of the best ways to start an ad-writing campaign. (If you're going with option one, skip ahead to step four. But you might want to read this before you do.)

For example, I fed the ads from four separate "life insurance" searches into the free (and fun) Textalyser, filtered out brand names and stop words like "and," and found these to be the most common words in top-ranked ads (note that "canadian" and "canada" are due to a search from a Canadian location-and highlight the importance of location to insurance quotes):

• insurance
• life
• quote
• affordable
• canadian
• term
• rates (tied with term)
• canada
• save (tied with Canada)
• get

Step four: Create control ad with high-performing text

After performing your analysis, you'll want to write an ad to serve as your control for future testing-so you can create variations and test their effectiveness.

To do this:

1. Use what you learned from your analysis.
2. Filter it through your knowledge of web writing and persuasion.
3. Adapt it to your offering.

For example, if I were writing a life insurance ad, my analysis above might lead me to a control like this:

Free Life Insurance Quote
Affordable Canadian Term Insurance.
Save on Rates-Get a Quote Now.
www.canadainsurance.com/LifeQuote

Every word here, with the exception of "free" (which almost always drives up clicks) and stop words (like "on" and "a") comes from my statistical analysis of high-performing life insurance ads.
Step Five: Test Variations Against Your Control

While your control might perform well, it might also just be an average performer-after all, if you used a statistical analysis, it's built from an average density across all ads analyzed.

So you'll want to test it against variations. And here's where you can get creative.

For example, a variation for my insurance ad might look like this:

Fast Life Insurance Quote
Affordable Canadian Term Insurance.
Save on Rates-Get a Quote Now.
www.canadainsurance.com/LifeQuote

The switch from "free" to "fast" might have an impact on performance, and if the variation beats the control then I might want to add "fast" to my word arsenal.

Unless you adhere to stringent guidelines (about 143, to be exact), your emails likely aren’t effectively servicing customers, building trust and strengthening relationships.

Worse yet, they might just be junked in the spam folder.

Challenges for transactional email content

The findings come in a transactional email study from the usability doctor, Jakob Nielsen.

It compared results with a similar study from five years ago.

And it concluded not only that email usability is still "appallingly" low, but also that users demand even more than five years ago because they’re more skeptical and more rushed.

That’s not entirely surprising, since transactional email must compete in clogged inboxes, and few people have time to relax and review messages in detail.

Rather, we take shortcuts to determine what’s important.

To cut through the clutter, you need to use proven email content optimization tactics.

Unfortunately, according to Nielsen (whose group analyzed 92 transactional messages for this study), emails often consist of "copy written by the programmer late at night."

Either that or sledgehammer marketing content written by aggressive salespeople.

Neither of which do much to build long-lasting customer relationships.

Content optimization for automatic email messages

The latest study confirms the findings from five years ago, but nearly doubles the number of recommendations due to more challenging users.

Your goal with transactional email is to avoid being mistaken for spam, be a customer service ambassador and reduce calls from customers by anticipating and addressing their questions.

But you’re competing against tough obstacles. Nielsen notes that processing email is stressful, users see fluff as a waste of time, and they’ll ignore (or junk) anything deemed inessential. In fact, only 12% of users in this study opened spam messages—and 80% failed to open a legitimate message from Walgreens because a vague subject line made it appear to be spam.

So here are some ways to cut through the clutter:

1. Convey your brand name and purpose in the "from" field. For example, "JetBlue Reservations" and "BestBuy Online Store" were highly effective in this study. Because they told the user the email was from a reputable source, and explained their reason for arriving. And here’s an important tip: Keep your "from" line between 20 and 25 characters because most email programs truncate the rest.
2. Relate to customer-initiated transactions in the "subject" line. For example, "TiVo Rewards Program Ends May 28" performed well while the spam-like "Important Information" performed poorly.
3. Keep the body brief and user-focused. Provide the information that matters most to users up top. (Keep any overt marketing messages, if you must have them, to the end.) Examples of user-focused information include tracking numbers, order descriptions and information about how to deal with any problems.
4. Send fewer emails. For an online purchase, for example, one email confirming the purchase and another confirming shipping would be ideal. The more emails you send regarding a transaction, the more confused you make your customers.

Is it worth the effort?

As a highly personal medium, email enables one of the most direct relationships you can have with customers. So poorly optimized email content is a missed opportunity to create happier customers, build stronger relationships and reduce support costs.

And for transactional emails that you send out regularly, that’s an opportunity you’re missing again and again.

If you’re like most web readers, you’re probably nodding in painful recollection.

In fact, a recent study by Jakob Nielsen and crew found that overall satisfaction with “About Us” content has declined in the past five years.

More users can now achieve goals like finding out who runs an organization (79% compared to 70%). And even more can find contact information (91% compared to 62%). But people’s expectations have also increased. So satisfaction with “About Us” content has actually decreased from 5.2 to 4.6 on seven-point scale.

Worse yet, in Nielsen’s latest study, fewer users (81% compared to 90%) could determine from “About Us” content what a company actually does.

“In place of a frank summary of the business,” Nielsen writes, “marketese and blah-blah text ruled the day on many sites.”

Optimize your “about us” content

So let’s talk about content optimization for this essential element of your website.

Based on Nielsen’s recommendations and our own experience, here’s how you can write better “About Us” web pages:

1. Have a clear link to your “About Us” section. It should read “About Us” or “About <Company>,” for example. Avoid cryptic names like “Info Center.”
2. Include a tagline that meaningfully describes your organization. The key is to answer important questions like what your company does. We also consider it important to clearly explain your company’s benefits.
3. Provide a longer summary of your organization at the top of your “About Us” page. This should flow logically from your tagline content. 
4. Elaborate on key points and essential facts after your summary content. 
5. Move supporting information to separate pages. For example, create a page specifically for investor-related questions, as this is a subset of content for a very specific group of website visitors.
6. Consider using short videos to support your primary content, such as to showcase the personality of your CEO.

Follow general content optimization guidelines

As for general content optimization tips, be sure to follow the inverted pyramid hierarchy of information, flowing from a tagline, to a summary, to details, to supporting information for specific user groups.

Also, be sure to keep your content scannable, personable and objective. Readers will likely skim your “About Us” information, so consider putting much of it in scannable bullets. Also, speak directly to readers, be friendly, and avoid any hyperbole (“best,” “greatest” and so forth) that might undermine your credibility.

No matter the size of your company, these rules apply.

As Nielsen notes, even if your company’s world famous, not everyone knows who you are and what you do.

And some of those people just might want to work for you, invest in you or buy from you.