Whether you run a business online or you’re just online to promote your business, content marketing and copywriting are part of your day-to-day life. Even if you don’t realize it.
Don’t believe me?
Raise your hand if you’ve done one or more of the following in the last 24 hours:
- Shared a product image on social media with some sort of caption
- Responded to an inquiry via email or direct message
- Sent an email alerting customers to a sale or item restock
- Wrote a blog about why you are the best at what you do
- Asked someone for feedback on your business or to leave a review
All of this (and more!) is considered content marketing or copywriting. And that’s a good thing!
Content marketing is one of the most important aspects of marketing in today’s Internet landscape, and HubSpot agrees with us.
Content marketing allows us to find our red-hot center people, build trust with them, and show them how we can improve their lives without making promises we can’t keep. It lets us add some personality to battle the boring business blues.
But we can’t do this successfully without adding a little structure to the mix.
The secret weapon we funnel every single piece of content we produce through can improve your copywriting and content marketing skills dramatically. And today, we’re sharing it with you.
Ready for it?
Whenever possible, write in the active voice.
I know, I know. . .You’re thinking, “Stephanie, I didn’t sign up for a grammar lesson.”
I beg to differ. No matter what you sell or who you’re selling it to, writing in the active voice attracts attention and gets things done.
And like Pablo Picasso once advised, you need to learn the rules to break them. ?
So what exactly is active voice? Thinking of it as putting running shoes on your sentences.
Before you lace them up though, you need to get your subject, verb, and object into agreement. That means everything in your sentence matches, whether it’s plural or singular, past or present.
Here’s another way to break it down:
- The subject can be a person
- The verb is the action the person takes
- The object is the item receiving the action
Some examples:
Correct
She writes the blog post.
Incorrect
She write the blog post.
Correct
They made a decision at last night’s meeting.
Incorrect
They make a decision at last night’s meeting.
See what I mean? All of your sentence parts need to match up to make sense. Now, here comes the fun part! (Humor me).
Writing in the active voice means the subject of your sentence performs the action, or verb, instead of the verb performing the action on the subject.
That sounds like a whole lot of copywriter speak, so let’s use examples again:
Active
The author wrote a book.
Passive
The book was written by the author.
Active
Dogs chew squeaky toys.
Passive
Squeaky toys are chewed by dogs.
Notice how the active examples paint a better mental picture than their passive counterparts? That’s because the subject is out in front doing whatever needs to be done in the sentence.
When you write in the active voice, your sentences become stronger and more direct. Plus, you reduce the chance of your readers becoming confused or–even worse–bored by what you have to say.
Well, you know our secret to writing copy that sizzles and sells more stuff! I’m willing to bet you start noticing active and passive sentences in everything you read from now on. It’s kind of like a scavenger hunt, at least for our team here at SizzleForce Marketing.
Speaking of our team, did you know that you can schedule a FREE 30-minute consultation with us? It’s true! We’ll help you with everything from SEO to Video Strategy. So don’t hesitate to schedule a call today!