Readability costing sales?

Is Poor Readability costing sales?

Recently, I received a product promotion from a professional supplier. The product is great. But the information was hard to read. The readability was poor.  I searched online for descriptions of similar products by big name non-professional use brands. Their descriptions were much easier to read.

Readability, or lack of, it is hurting the professional product marketplace. Readability refers to how easy or hard a sentence is read and understood. Long complex sentences are harder to read.  Big blocks of text are slow the reader down. Complex word choices discourage reading.

In today's world, we are bombarded by information. Junk mail, emails, newsletters. We go online; lots more words. Sensory overload. We are in a hurry. We want what we are looking for quick and easy. Potential customers want the same thing.

Every written piece you put out there needs to be easy to read. Website pages, emails, newsletters all need to be visitor friendly and quick to read.
In 2014, Hubspot Marketing reported that you have less than 15 seconds to engage your reader. A surprising 55% of them will click off your page in that period.

Readers are in a hurry

If the reader is on a page that doesn't quickly answer their question or need - they leave.

If they are looking for something you offer, you need to help them stick around and find it. You need to make everything you put out there simple, clear and readable.

Think about opening your email box first thing in the morning. You may have 30 or more new emails waiting. You have the time it takes for that first cup of coffee. Automatically, you look for the obvious ones to delete. Check, check, check, delete - done. Then you start with the rest.

You don't read them completely. You quickly skim them to determine their importance and your interest. If they are hard to read, it bogs you down. The harder it is to read the copy, the more apt you are to hit delete.

The sender loses a potential client. You may miss important information.  It wasn't presented in a user-friendly way.

There may be a few you will flag to read later. But later may never come. You see that file still sitting in your inbox several days later. Without reading beyond the subject line, you hit delete. Lost potential sales.

Your potential clients are doing the same thing with what you send to them and when they visit our web pages. Help them with simplicity, clarity, and readability.

Judith Culp Pearson is a trained marketing specialist with over 30 years in the spa industry. Spa/wellness copywriting with a higher EQ.  To improve the return on your business marketing: [email protected] or call 541-543-3070.