The other day I was asked the fol­low­ing ques­tion: “Should I use active or pas­sive voice in sales copy?” My answer may sur­prise you.

The premise behind this ques­tion is sim­ple. Tra­di­tional rules of good writ­ing state that we should use active voice. When it comes to copy­writ­ing, it makes per­fect sense.

For instance, active voice engages the reader and makes it easy for them to quickly under­stand the copy. They don’t have to sort through a sen­tence to under­stand it.

For those rea­sons, writ­ers are told again and again to focus on using active voice. But I’m telling you that, in some cases, you shouldn’t. And here’s why…

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“If you only have time for one clue this year, this is the one to get: We are not seats or eye­balls or end-​​users or con­sumers. We are human beings — and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”
— From “The Clue­train Man­i­festo,” Harper Collins, April, 1999.

“One of the best kept secrets in Amer­ica is that peo­ple are aching to make a com­mit­ment, if they only had the free­dom and envi­ron­ment in which to do so.”
— John Nais­bitt, author of “Mega­trends” and “High-​​Tech, High-​​Touch”

My ini­tial intent wasn’t to write this report. It’s the result of a post I was envi­sion­ing for my blog at MichelFortin​.com. The prob­lem is, the blog post be-​​came so long that I felt a need to do either one of two things.

I had to either: edit my post and shrink it down to a bare min­i­mum (prefer­ably around 500 words), or break the arti­cle down into sev­eral installments.

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Copy is all about words. Or is it?

Copy is about using words to describe the ben­e­fits of your offer. About using words to paint vivid men­tal imagery. About using words to stir the senses, press all the “hot but­tons” and push the reader to take some kind of action.

But is it really ALL about words? I mean, just words? No.

Some copy­writ­ers claim that graph­ics, for­mat­ting and pho­tographs should NOT be added to a saleslet­ter because they dis­tract. They can take the reader’s focus away from the message.

I agree. But not entirely. Here’s why…

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