Education

Why Context Is Everything In Copywriting

Sarah is seven years old, and she has a brown dog called Mr. Furry.
Furry and Sarah seven is years has old, Mr. dog called brown she a.
These two sentences use the same words. The first one makes sense. The second one doesn’t. The first one is easy to remember. The second one is virtually impossible to remember. The first one is satisfying. The second one is aggravating. The first one lets you imagine a child named Sarah with a brown (and presumably, furry) dog. The second one doesn’t let you imagine much of anything.
So what’s the difference here? After all, they use the exact the same words. Everything is in English. So on a technical level, they contain precisely the same information. So why is the first one qualitatively more understandable and satisfying than the second?
In a word: CONTEXT. That is, your understanding of sentence structure allows you to make meaning of the first sentence. You can grasp the context.
Context is everything in copywriting; and for that matter, in all communication, whether it’s written, verbal or non-verbal. With context, communication happens. Without context, communication doesn’t happen; or if it does, it’s invariably misunderstood and often counter-productive.
This breakdown manifests in many different ways. In the most blatant sense, it leads to non-communication, which is like saying that a car won’t start when you turn the key. And if you’re trying to sell that car, or build a relationship with the person in the car so that they buy something from you at some point in the future, a car that doesn’t start is a very bad thing.
Yet most of the time, things aren’t that blatant. That is, you rarely come across business copy that is so irredeemably bad, that it’s incomprehensible and dysfunctional. Yes, it happens – but not often.
What typically happens is that some communication happens – that is, the car starts – but it doesn’t perform at optimal levels. It’s flawed and incomplete, and full of internal and external inconsistencies.
And how do target audiences react when the experience isn’t optimal? That is, what do they do when the copy they engage hasn’t been crafted with the right context in mind? They feel frustrated, annoyed and bad. And they associate those negative feelings with your business, your products, your services, and really, to you, too. It’s human nature. We associate our moods with things that happen to us at the time when those moods manifest. It’s called anchoring.
Now, all of this sounds pretty daunting – and that’s part of the story, yes. Yet there’s a positive side to this anchoring thing, too, which you’ve certainly figured out way ahead of me (slow down, I’m writing as fast as I can!). Here’s the insight:
When your copy is optimized for the right context, you’ll inspire good feelings and foster positive perceptions which, indeed, will be associated with your business, your offerings, and you.
So, put all of that together, and the question becomes: how do I optimize my copy for the right context? Good question. Here’s how:
Clearly understand your audience.
Identify their motivations, the pain that they’re in (i.e. the problem that won’t let them get to sleep at night, or the one they wake up thinking about first thing in the morning), and how they expect to be engaged. Uncover their stated and un-stated needs. Understand how they perceive alternatives to your offering, and why they would be willing to choose you – and why they wouldn’t.
Ultimately, when you clearly understand your audience, you discover the context through which your copy must be crafted. You understand the angle, the velocity and the frameworks.
Clearly understand how your audience (i.e. people in general) process information.
An incredible number of businesses are guilty (unintentionally, it must be said) of drilling too soon and too fast into the details of what they offer. This is a mistake.
It’s essential to provide an overview and an introduction to information before it’s presented. This is not meaningless babble. Nor is it your copywriter’s attempt to bill you for extra words or time (at least, let’s hope not!).
Rather, it’s about how people process information. We need context before we can make sense of information. And again, if you need a reminder of this, flip up to Sarah and Mr. Furry. Or, better, yet, try this example:
Johnson launched into Smith and crushed him to the ground, much to the shock of the stunned onlookers who couldn’t believe what they saw.
So, let me ask you: what happened here? Well, if you read the above in a news report about a brazen afternoon bank robbery that involved the culprit Johnson and the bank guard Smith, then you derive meaning from that.
And if you read this in an article about yesterday’s football game, and Johnson is a linebacker and Smith is (the unfortunate) quarterback, then you derive meaning from that.
The sentence is the same. The words are the same. The context changes – and that changes everything. Therefore, your business copy has to create the context before it provides the details. It has to establish the framework, set the scene, and provide the foundation upon which the message will be understood.
Now, does this take pages and pages of copy? No. Context can be created quickly through intelligent headlines, sub-headlines, and introductory copy. It can also be created (and/or advanced) through word choice and sentence structure.
This is an article and not a book, and as such I won’t supply you with a list of technical ways to make this happen (please, keep your cheering to a minimum).
The important thing to remember is that your copy must respect how your audience processes information, which is: big picture first, little picture second. Always – and in that order, regardless of whether your marketplace is b2b or b2c.

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