Business Writing With Buzz

Clients often ask me, “What do you think about bullet lists?” The question usually comes when they are writing a proposal or a tender, or copywriting a website or brochure. They come to read their work, only to realise it’s full of endless bullet lists.

I find B2B documents with lots of bullet lists hard to read and tend to skim over them. By zoning out, I probably miss some key messages.

Yet bullet points are great when they are used well. Here are 5 tips to make your bullets more readable.

1. Turn a bullet list into numbered list, just like this one. Numbers make the list seem more important, and more likely to be read.

2. Put a box around the bullet points, with or without shading, or just use shading. Highlighting your bullet points makes them stand out for your readers.

3. Bold or underline some of the key words for emphasis and to attract your readers’ attention.

4. Make each bullet point a stand-alone sentence so your readers get the message quickly. It saves them having to refer back to the lead-in sentence.

5. Start each bullet point with a verb in the present tense, where possible. That’s what I've done in this list. It’s punchier and faster to read. 

There's an 80/20 rule for everything, including copywriting headlines. Read anything about copywriting and you'll discover that the headline, or subject line, of your email, article, brochure or letter is where you need to spend 80% of your writing time. That's right: only 20% left to copywrite your article or brochure.

It does depend on what you're writing, of course. When you're writing tenders and proposals there's rarely time for a catchy headline, whereas writing headlines or subject lines for your letters, articles, emails and brochures gives you time to play.
 
Like most things in life, there are a few good tricks to help you write a great headine or subject line.

The most accessible ones are:
 
"How to..." suggests we'll learn something useful without much effort.

"The Secrets of..", or "Revealed..." hint at something a little mysterious that we really need to know.

"Discover the..." means we'll find something useful.
 
5, 7 or 10: we're all used to Top 10s. Five and 7 are great too and more credible than even-numbers except 10. But when you're writing about large numbers, it's more persuasive to use the precise figure than a rounded figure.

Don't forget, you can combine these for even more attention-grabbing headlines and subject lines. For example:

• Discover how to...
• How my aunt saved $46,729 on her tax bill
• 7 deadly copywriting sins...how to avoid...
• Copywriting secrets revealed
• Discover the 7 secrets of copywriting
• Revealed: the 7 secrets of copywriting
• How apostrophes can get you arrested
• Top 10 tender mistakes

Why are these so useful? Because they work. They're simple, straight to the point, attract attention and make your reader curious about what's coming next. In my article Is This the World's Most Attractive Headline?, I've written about other attention-grabbing words for headlines. Put them together and you get:

• Discover 7 easy ways to write for a living
• Revealed: 5 simple tricks for younger looking skin
• How to get the haircut of your dreams - for free!
• Faster, better copywriting in 5 easy steps
• Save $2,397 a year with this foolproof money-saving tool

Another useful headline trick is to ask a dramatic question. My free guide, Do You Make These Mistakes in English? is very popular because people wonder what mistakes they might be making. 

You can download the guide right from this website.