Show, don’t tell is the most common advice for fiction writers. It’s also an excellent – and often overlooked – tool for business copywriting.

Consider the company that claims to be a leader in its market. At best, an unsupported statement like this gets a dismissive shrug from the reader. At worst, it suggests the company is anything but. Does it mean they’re in the top three? Top ten? Which market? The UK? The world? Vagueness increases suspicion and reduces credibility.

In business copywriting, showing is the answer

The only way to convince with statements like this is to show that they’re true. State your market position, your share, your growth rate. Be clear which countries or regions you’re talking about. If you’re writing an annual report, set out who your competitors are and how you’re differentiated from them. Showing helps the reader understand your business and generates trust.

The same approach applies to all the other adjectives that companies use – innovative, values-led, sustainable, passionate, committed. If you can’t show us that they’re true, we won’t believe you and we certainly won’t care.

Some of these claims, such as those about values, defy statistical evidence. For these, you’ll need to use case studies. But make sure the examples you use are really representative of your business. The outside world might not know any different but your employees will, and they’ll judge you for it.

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• Business copywriting: why your solutions are actually problems

Every business copywriter has clients who love abstractions. Competencies, verticals, footprint, added value – these words are so common that businesses use them without thinking.

I’ve let plenty of these through myself, both in business copywriting and when I worked in corporate communications. It’s time, though, to be more vigilant.

So when do your solutions become problems?

1. When there’s no fixed meaning

What’s an IT solution? Is it hardware? Software? Perhaps it’s both, with some consultancy and a free iPhone thrown in.

You may have a clear idea of what you mean but there’s no guarantee your audience will, unless you spell it out for them. There’s no shame in being clear about what you’re selling.

2. When you sound silly

Want a dispense solution for the office? Probably not. But you might want a coffee machine.

Using abstractions to make a simple product sound clever achieves exactly the opposite. You’ll confuse and irritate your readers and make yourself look daft into the bargain.

3. When you sound like everyone else

Here’s a common defence for abstractions: ‘Everyone in my industry speaks like this. They know what I mean.’

Maybe they do speak like that. And that’s a problem in itself. Because how are you going to make your company stand out from the competition, if you sound exactly the same? Copywriting is not the same as copying.

And don’t be so sure that everyone knows what you mean. See (1) above.

4. When you sound disingenuous

The problem with euphemisms is that your readers aren’t stupid. They see through you. They think you don’t respect them enough to give it to them straight. And they trust you less.

5. When it sends the wrong message

It’s great that you want to sell me some added-value services. But if your standard services don’t add any value, why would I want them? Don’t accidentally disparage the bulk of your business.

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• Copywriting tips

It’s easy to believe that good writing has gone the way of the vinyl record. Whether it’s content mills churning out filler for the tight-fisted and undiscerning or video’s plans for world domination, there’s plenty of gloom surrounding the written word.

In the business world, though, good copywriting still counts. It’s not just Leeds Building Society that thinks so. In Freshword’s survey of business leaders, almost all the respondents believed that ‘poor writing poses serious risks to their reputation, and affects [their] financial and legal risk’.

The message is clear: bad writing costs businesses time and money. It also damages the writers, affecting the way they’re perceived by their bosses, customers, colleagues and everyone else who has to wade through their dreck. Banging out a video on your iPhone isn’t going to fix that.

So what is good writing?

Let’s be clear. Good business copywriting is not about meeting an arbitrary ideal of grammatical correctness. While grammar is important, some so-called ‘rules’ are pointless and lead to clunky writing.

Good business copywriting is about communicating effectively. That requires three things: thought, clarity and engagement.

1. Thought

Much of the vague and waffly writing that circulates in business results from the author not knowing – or caring – which points are worth making.

To write well, you have to:

• understand your subject
• think about what your audience wants to know
• decide the order in which to say it, and
• know what to leave out.

It’s tempting to skip the thinking stage because thinking looks like slacking off. Don’t give in. Thinking is the most important part of the copywriting process. Look at it as the foundation on which your writing is built.

2. Clarity

Clarity is essential for credibility but a cogent argument will only get you part way. True clarity requires the right words, deployed in the right way.

There are a few tricks that can help, such as:

• avoiding jargon
• using the active voice, and
• stripping out words that don’t affect your meaning.

Ultimately, though, clarity comes from rewriting and perseverance. Question everything you’ve written and keep honing your prose until it says exactly what you want it to.

3. Engagement

Good business copywriting creates a bond with your readers. It draws them in and makes them want to read to the end. So how do you do this? Thinking about what your audience wants is part of the answer, as is expressing yourself clearly. Real engagement, though, requires your writing to create the right emotions in your readers.

If you want to inspire trust, for example, try an authoritative tone. Removing qualifiers that weaken your arguments, such as ‘could’, ‘can’, ‘might’ and ‘often’, will take you in the right direction. Claim too much authority, though, and your readers will see you as patronising, arrogant or simplistic. The trick is to find the right balance, considering at every step how your readers will perceive what you say and the way you’ve expressed it.

The importance of practice

The final thing you need for good copywriting is not a characteristic of the writing itself but of your approach to it: you need to practice. Like any art or craft, your writing will improve if you work at it. If you want a head start, get some training. And if you really don’t have the time to hone your own skills, hire someone who already has them.

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• Copywriting tips: writing for more than one audience
• Copywriting tips: length matters
• Copywriting tips: why business writing has to be tight

Read any book or blog about copywriting and you’ll be told that one of the keys to copywriting success is knowing your audience. This is sound advice. You can’t write well if you don’t know who you’re writing for.

But what if you’re writing for more than one audience? Much of the time you will be, even if you don’t immediately realise it. Your corporate brochure might be aimed at your customers but your current and potential employees will read it too. Suppliers, the media and investors will also take a look – anyone, in fact, who wants to know what your company’s about.

How do you write for multiple audiences?

First, there will almost certainly be a primary audience for your project. Work out who that is and write for them. If you don’t meet their needs, then your project will fail. If you conclude that you don’t have a primary audience and that all of your readers – and their differing needs – are equally important, then you probably have more than one project on your hands.

Second, be consistent in your messages: writing for one group doesn’t mean you can contradict what you’ve said to others. You can’t tell investors that you’re reducing headcount if you’ve just told your staff that their jobs are safe. Boasting of higher profits won’t play well with suppliers, when you’ve just asked them for bigger discounts. Keep your messages straight and you won’t go far wrong.

Finally, even if you’re writing in private to a single audience, think hard about how your other audiences will react if it gets into the public domain. Unless you can guarantee that what you say will never leave the building, you may be writing to more people than you realise.

If you liked this, try reading…

• Copywriting tips: length matters
• Copywriting tips: why business writing has to be tight

Ever notice how many companies are busy being active? If they’re not actively reviewing their strategy, they’re actively looking for acquisitions or actively considering quitting the UK for tax reasons.

What they’re also doing is actively using redundant words. None of these things can be inactive.

Of course, this use of actively is all about emphasis. Companies want to get across that these are things they’re thinking hard about or that they want to happen. But it’s a dull, lazy and imprecise way of making those points, and we’ve all had enough of dull, lazy and imprecise business writing.

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• Don’t hate the hyphen
• Three grammar ‘rules’ you should ignore