OFF-MUTE 🔈
🚫 TL;DR
💤 Nobody wants to read long-winded content.
🌼 Drop the flowery words and get to the point.
📕 The co-creators of Axios and Politico (Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz) call this concept Smart Brevity. They describe why we need it:
💬 “In a world full of noise, people reward you if you respect their time and intelligence…The opposite is true too: They find you annoying if you chew up their time…If you want vital information to stick in the digital world, you need to radically rethink—and repackage—how you deliver it.”
🆒 🆕 Smart Brevity is the new writing style for reaching sophisticated buyers. It’s changing the future of communications and we’re here for it!
💅 Less is often more and this approach can be applied to just about anything — news articles, social posts, op-eds, website copy, newsletters, plans, presentations, and internal employee memos.
🤩 Recently, one of our subscribers complimented our newsletter for being as good (if not better) than Smart Brevity.
📝 Here is our favorite advice from the popular Axios book:
☑️ Put the audience first. “Imagine your reader as a smart, busy, curious person...A real person with a real job and real needs.” What’s the one, big idea they need to know? This informs your topic.
☑️ Smart, not shallow. “You bring more soul and salience to your writing by being direct, helpful and time-saving.” Stick with the facts and delete the fluff.
☑️ Grab the first seconds of attention. “Whether in a tweet, headline or email subject line, you need six or fewer strong words to yank someone’s attention.” The lede must be direct, short, sharp…and memorable. At Inkhouse, we call these doorways.
☑️ Use lots of short words. “Short words are strong words. A general rule: A one-syllable word is stronger than a two-syllable word is stronger than a three-syllable word.” Avoid soft words that dilute your message (unless you’re trying to break into literary circles). Smart Brevity is a big fan of active verbs. We are, too.
☑️ Give context. “We almost always need you to explain why your new fact, idea or thought matters.” And then give your reader an option to go deeper into your content because it’s “a choice to learn more.” Just remember to “write it in the most provocative yet accurate way possible.”
☑️ Format with care. Use axioms in bold font as “signposts” to guide the reader (Why it matters is the go-to in Axios newsletters); add bullets to “break up the text” and help "explain three or more different data points or related ideas"; never write more than two or three sentences at a time; and throw in a few emojis which “can convey emotion, intent and even nuance.”
👉 Read the book and go to SmartBrevity.com to get your writing score.
