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December Coordinator’s Club: Writing for Clarity and Persuasion

Posted by [email protected] on Dec. 16, 2022 / Program Recap / Subscribe 0

December Coordinators’ Club: Writing for Clarity and Persuasion

As marketers in the AEC industry, creating a coherent tone across all content can be difficult. Whether you’re repurposing content or receiving content from multiple sources, we’re always reworking our content to fit different needs and styles.

In our December Coordinator’s Club, Liana Berrus, Marketing Manager at Apogee Consulting Group, and Joanna Allsbrook, Executive Assistant at Apogee Consulting Group, shared their insight on how to write persuasively and with clarity to elevate your marketing collateral and increase proposal win rates.

Writing for Clarity

In order to write effectively, we must understand genre and genre conventions. Genre determines the way in which content is communicated and how the audience will approach and interpret the text. Genre is made up of specific parameters that your audience explicitly and implicitly expects, and these expectations are what makes up genre conventions. Five genre conventions are essential to meet your audience’s expectations and accomplish your goals for that text: language/voice/tone, medium/format, purpose, content/tropes, and audience.

Language/Voice/Tone: The first genre convention, language/voice/tone, is how the content is written and spoken. This determines how formal or casual your tone needs to be throughout your writing. The expectations of the formality will affect the genre of the writing.

Medium/Format: Medium/format refers to where your content is being published. The medium your writing will be published on also affects the tone. Writing content for a social media post and writing content for a proposal will likely result in two different tones. The medium also affects the length of the content. When pulling together a proposal, it’s essential to identify any page limits listed in the RFQ, since this will affect how much content can be included.

Purpose: It’s important to acknowledge the “why” of what you’re writing. When working on a proposal, we need to make sure our content includes answers to the specific requirements in the RFQ and continue to tie our evidence and arguments back to this purpose throughout.

Content/Tropes: Think of what unique features you can include in your content. If you’re making a LinkedIn post, take advantage of embedding links, and tagging people and companies in your content. In proposals, use infographics to condense content and capture the readers eye.

Audience: Audience is necessary to consider in order to create appropriate content for your genre. Identify who the intended, primary audience is, but also take the secondary audience into consideration. The secondary audience is those who might read your content, but are not the primary, intended audience. For example, when a company publishes a blog, their intended audience may be their clients, and their secondary audience includes their own employees, and competitors. Additionally, when writing a proposal, acknowledge that not every member of the selection committee may have technical knowledge. It’s important to write in a way that explains technical terms to the reader, so all audiences will understand.

Principles of Clarity

Use the Active Voice: Using the active voice is a great way to make your sentences more concise, while using the passive voice makes sentences longer and more detached. In the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs an action; in the passive voice, the subject receives an action.

Passive: My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me.

Active: I will always remember my first visit to Boston.

Omit Needless Words: Another method to create clarity is to omit needless words. Using too many filler words can cause the reader to experience boredom and confusion. Remember, more isn’t always better; sometimes it’s just more.

Use Topic Sentences: The first sentence of your paragraph should introduce the main point. This is the best way to immediately get your purpose across so readers don’t question what the purpose is midway through reading.

Use Concrete Language: A final method to create more clarity in your writing is by using concrete language. Be specific and use examples to drive the point across. As A/E/C marketers, we’re often apprehensive to use firm language, especially when it can suggest a binding obligation is being made. To avoid making promises, while still using concrete language, try using phrases such as “we anticipate these results”.

Writing Persuasively

In addition to writing clearly, writing persuasively is important to become an effective writer. Rhetoric is at the heart of persuasion, it’s the art of speaking or writing effectively. The four main forms to appeal to your writer are pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos.

Pathos appeals to the audience’s emotions. Create a feeling of connection among the writer and the reader by establishing common grounds and feelings of humanity. When writing a proposal, utilize the humanity side of the project being proposed to appeal to the selection committee. Ask yourself, who will this project benefit, and how can I connect with the readers through that experience?

Ethos appeals to the author’s credibility. One of the best methods to establish credibility as an author is to utilize the methods for establishing clarity – cut out needless words, use the active voice, use topic sentences, and use concrete language.

Logos is the logical appeal of writing. Establish logos by stating facts and logical arguments, and connect this evidence back to your purpose. Providing evidence and linking it to your purpose will back up your credibility, making your writing more persuasive.

Kairos appeals to the timeliness of the issue. In the A/E/C field, appealing to the timeliness of projects is key. Whether you’re going after a project with a strict timeline, or a project addressing problems that have arose from natural disasters such as hurricanes, acknowledge that timing is essential, and use examples and direct language to emphasize how tasks will be completed on time.

These writing strategies shared by Liana and Joanna will your make your content stronger through clearer and more persuasive writing. Using these tips can help to elevate your marketing collateral and increase proposal win rates. And remember, always use the oxford comma!