Some prospective clients want to immediately know everything about what you can do to help them. All the details, the entire process, and as much proof as you can provide.
Others don’t.
When they first encounter you, most people simply want to know if you have something to say they want to hear. If looks like too much work to find out, they often don’t stick around.
One solution is to write shorter pieces so visitors can see at a glance what you have for them.
For longer pieces, the simplest thing to do is to fashion your marketing documents and website content with an inverted pyramid. Newspapers used a journalistic style to do this, with the most important information at the top, followed by increasingly less important details.
Use a headline to capture attention and give readers the big picture and follow that with the “Five Ws” (who, what, when, where, why) in descending order of importance. This way, the passing reader can quickly get the gist of your message and move on if they aren’t interested, while others, with more interest in your subject, and more time, can continue reading and learn more.
In the digital age, you have other options than they did in the 1800s when the inverted pyramid structure was first used. You can link to additional pages, use call-outs, charts, photos, and other visuals such as larger or colored fonts, and other graphic flourishes, to call attention to elements you want to emphasize, “hide” others from immediate view (and link to them), or “stage” how and when certain information is delivered to the reader.
Pay attention to how bloggers and online publishers make it easier for their readers to consume their content and emulate them.
No matter what you do, if you want more people to read your words and decide they want to talk to you about representing them, follow this rule of thumb: don’t tell them everything at once.
