Top copywriting tip-avoid dense

How does the prospect of reading this make you feel?

I’m a UK freelance copywriter currently on a New Zealand road trip. Enough of a copywriting saddo to be obsessing over copywriting along the way.

While I want to read this (it was alongside a beautiful mural on some building hoarding) there was no compelling headline to make me stop.

To give it the time it needed to read it.

So while the decent side of my nature wanted to read it, my brain automatically started flitting about to try and capture the salient points.

My heart races a little as I try to quickly snatch a few key points.

And I can’t. ‘Cos it’ll take me too long to read it.

No short line lengths.

No compelling ends of lines or ends of sentences to get the main draw.

No.

Single.

Words.

No intentional punctuation. To control, the, speed, the, reader, reads…

See?

Dense blocks of copy can send the reader into a spiral. They need short, sharp compelling elements they can capture quickly, so the brain can filter whether it’s relevant, important, intriguing enough or not to commit the time - we’re talking seconds - to read it in full.

We start with scanning while our brain gets to work filtering out whether it’s relevant to us.

So, how does YOUR copy make your reader feel?

And my tip?

AVOID big, dense blocks of copy.

They’re not good for busy, distracted brains and they’re no good for impact.