They’re not stupid, stupid.

"To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity." - Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the biggest challenges we see on an almost weekly basis – is overwriting. Pages and pages of re-hashed, repeated, re-phrased content which says the same thing over and over in different ways.

Why do we do this? Because we’re scared. We’re scared people won’t understand what we’re trying to say. We overwrite out of fear. We want to be a hundred percent sure that the audience we’re talking to know EXACTLY what we mean.

But, and this is another challenge we come across all the time – that doesn’t mean addressing your audience like you would a room full of kindergarteners. Your consumers, clients, partners, audience – they’re not (for the most part) stupid. They’re just like you and I. We figure things out. We build on what we already know – and we know more than we think we do.

When it comes to copywriting, there will always be a temptation to fully explain yourself, your services, your vision, but sometimes we need a little trust. If you do the groundwork and make sure your key differentiators and brand values are highlighted (the reason to choose you, over others, essentially) then your target audience can fill in the rest.

And here’s the clincher – curiousity is a POWERFUL motivator. You don’t want to give people everything, every last shred of information – you want to INTRIGUE. You want to pique interest, spark engagement and get them to pursue YOU in search of more.

If you know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and what to say about it – you don’t need to panic, you don’t need to overwrite.

Also – why market the lowest common denominator? Why spoon-feed your products and services in propositions aimed at the slowest of the bunch? Don’t you want to attract a more savvy audience? Those who possess initiative, intuition and basic knowledge? Think about it.

While there are many things that can lead us to think our world is overrun with stupidity – try not to market to these folk. The people you want to talk to, they’re not stupid, stupid.