One of the most important things to get right when writing your ads, your ezine articles or your e-books is the ‘tone of voice’. You want to catch your readers’ attention – so that they don’t delete your message out of boredom or immediate lack of interest – but neither do you want to be ‘in their face’, so that they still delete your message but this time out of annoyance or irritation.
The advice most experts will give about tone of voice – particularly to people who are trying to build up a list of subscribers – is that you need to write in a way that engages your readers, that makes them feel they know a bit about you and that you have some kind of relationship with them. While I think that this is generally sound advice, you still need to remember that you don’t actually know most of your readers and potential readers all that well – and that what some people may find friendly, others may find less than friendly or even offensive.
I think I’m a fairly open-minded, relaxed sort of person when it comes to interactions with people over the net. I don’t get too bothered over unsolicited e-mails (they’re easy enough to delete) and I subscribe to quite a few ezines, many of which I enjoy and at least skim through, so I think I’m a reasonable sort of person to test reactions on over tone of voice. When I consider the particular ‘tones’ I don’t like, my list includes:
people I really don’t know who go on and on about what their family members are up to, how many exams little Tommy has passed, how many operations Grandma has had, how many sorts of jam they’ve made today and so on – a bit of personal information is fine, but I don’t want to read a whole book about it (at least not until I’ve exchanged a few personal e-mails with the writer and we have begun a genuine relationship);
people who shout at me, saying things like ‘I can’t believe you haven’t accepted my offer yet – are you really stupid?’ I guess that’s an obvious thing not to like, but it’s surprising how many times people try to get somewhere with that hopeless marketing ploy;
people who tell me their offer’s really new and I mustn’t miss out on it – and then follow that with a message absolutely identical to hundreds I’ve already read (another obvious ‘tone’ to avoid – but an easy trap to fall into, particularly when you’re in a hurry to get your message out);
people who are over-familiar in the way they address me (a particular example that always irritates me is the publisher of an ezine who starts out ‘Hi Gang!’ – I always feel like writing back to say ‘Just because I subscribe to your ezine doesn’t mean I’m part of your ‘gang’ or of anybody else’s’);
people who attempt to personalise their messages, but the coding hasn’t worked properly so that I’m addressed as ‘Dear #First Name’ (and while writing this article I received an e-mail which began ‘Hello Dear’ – very affectionate but not from a family member or close friend, so again I presume this wasn’t quite what was intended!).
So, assuming you manage to overcome the obvious pitfalls mentioned above, what tone of voice is it best to adopt in your marketing efforts? – and how will you achieve it? I think a friendly, but polite and not too pushy, tone is the best, and the most sensible way to achieve it is to write as if you were writing a single e-mail to an acquaintance – but not a close friend. Imagine your reader as the kind of person you would like to get to know better, the kind of person you can imagine getting on well with and sharing the same interests – but not as someone you know intimately already. Remember that, metaphorically speaking, you’re still at the stage of trying to get an invitation into their house, and barging your way into their living room without waiting for that invitation is not going to get you anywhere in the long run. Imagine you’re writing to a business colleague, perhaps, someone you greet courteously when you see them, but not someone you necessarily fling your arms around. That way you may come close to writing in a tone of voice that engages the reader without making them feel harassed.
Virginia Rounding is a published writer whose website of
Internet Resources for Writers looks at additional ways for
writers to earn money, in the hope of making it possible
for them to keep writing without having to resort either to
full-time employment or to destitution. For a selection of
free resources or to subscribe to her new ezine Poetry
Competition Updates, go to
http://www.virginiarounding.com/links.html