Persuasive Verses:
How Outreach & Marketing Copy Are Like Poetry

4. Be original and interpretable
If you use the same phrasing as thousands of others before you, your readers will not be moved and will instantly forget what they’ve just read, so find creative and original ways to express your message. However, in trying to be original, it is easy to get too abstract and create writing that includes obscure references or can be interpreted in myriad – and even conflicting – ways. Remember that some words have multiple references and varying associations for different readers. For instance, you may love winter and feel oppressed by summer, but don’t assume others feel the same. Write copy that makes readers imagine all you love about winter, even if they personally dread it. Try to think of other interpretations for your writing, or better yet, ask others to do so, since they are not as close to it. Revise to exclude any interpretations that you don’t want in readers’ minds.

5. Use sensory language and specific details to bring your message to life
Dry writing is immediately forgotten. Marketing and outreach are like poetry in that you want readers to see and touch what you are talking about in their minds, so you need to evoke their senses. For instance, a homeless shelter could say, “Minnie’s Place provides meals and beds for the homeless”, or it could say, “Minnie’s Place brings homeless people in from the cold and welcomes them with hot, savory meals and soft, warm beds.”

6. Create an atmosphere
It is all too easy for a poet to get caught up in creative descriptions and forget to use emotions purposefully to create a consistent atmosphere. The result can feel chaotic, or fail to evoke feeling at all. Persuasive writers can’t afford to make this mistake. You can envelope readers in an atmosphere of whatever emotions you wish by choosing words with particular emotional associations, and even words with particular rhythms and sounds. In the Minnie’s Place example above, the imagery of savory meals and warm beds is nurturing and comforting, matching the feeling of welcome. There are pairs of words starting with the same letter to create a sense of harmony. The harsh “k” sound is used to describe the harsh cold, but elsewhere mostly avoided in favor of gentle sounds. After the downbeat of the word hot, the following “savory meals and soft, warm beds” has a soothing, sleepy rhythm to match the comforting atmosphere.

7. Use white space for emphasis
Poets often place a line or word apart from the rest, using the white space around it like a spotlight for emphasis. This is a great trick for marketing and outreach, but, as in poetry, it loses its power if used too much in one piece. It works best if the format otherwise follows a pattern of denser blocks of writing, then suddenly one important word, phrase, or sentence (less than one line long) stands apart on its own.

8. Avoid exclamation points
They’re just not classy. They also stand out visually more than other punctuation marks, distracting the eye away from the text. In copy, they cheapen your voice to the well-known and seldom-trusted style of the stereotypical used car salesman. You can express enthusiasm easily without them, and as an added bonus, clear enthusiasm without exclamation points reads as heartfelt, humble, and genuine.

Use all of these techniques and you’ll be on your way to stronger outreach or copy writing, as well as stronger poetry. Good methods are frequently applicable across multiple platforms, so dexterity in one area of writing can spill over into ease in another, as long as you don’t get stuck on how much they don’t share. After all, even polar bears and toucans have a lot in common and could give each other a few pointers.

Use the buttons below to share this article on social media.