… make it easy.
Whether you’re writing a real estate prospecting letter, a newsletter, a postcard, or a web page, the first rule is “Make it easy to read.”
It won’t matter if your words are brilliant – if you make it difficult, people will never get your message because they simply won’t read it.
How can you make it easy?
First, except for small accents, always use black type on a white or light background. Marketers who spend millions studying such things say that white on black or white on any color is too hard on the eyes. Such copy is more often abandoned.
There’s a trend lately toward gray type on a light colored background. Who thought up THAT terrible idea?
Next, use a font size that can be read without straining. You might get out a magnifying glass to look up a word in a dictionary, but you aren’t going to do it to read a sales letter. Neither will your prospects. At the same time, type that is too large tends to be tiresome and annoying.
Write short sentences and short paragraphs, and leave white space between paragraphs.
Only a person determined to see what you have to say will read a page of copy that’s all jammed together into a “gray wall. And prospects aren’t determined to read what you wrote. In fact, since people are bombarded with so many messages, most of us like a good reason to disregard as many messages as possible. For visual interest and attractiveness, it’s a good idea to vary the length of your paragraphs, switching from one line to 2 or 3 with a few paragraphs with 4 or 5 lines mixed in.
Highlight the main points for easy scanning. Bold type, underlines, subheads, and bullet points do a great job of breaking up a page and making it easy to scan. Don’t over-use any of those functions. Remember that all caps looks as if you are yelling at your reader.
And finally, use common words. Never write to impress with your vocabulary.
