Elmore Leonard’s writing rules were meant for fiction, but B2B copywriters can learn plenty from his focus on clarity and restraint.
Yesterday I rather ambitiously suggested we heed the advice of a great novelist when writing B2B copy. Be careful with cleverness – a neat phrase can help a point land, but it can also draw attention to itself.
This also means being careful with emphasis. B2B copy often overstates the point because it does not want to use (or does not have) the evidence. Exclamation marks are rare in serious B2B, but inflated adjectives can be just as bad. Everything becomes “leading”, “innovative”, “unique”, “seamless”, or “transformative”.
Inexperienced copywriting often tries too hard and adds too much explanation. Confident copy is more selective. Detail is good when it helps the reader recognise their own situation, but less good when it becomes a catalogue of features. The reader needs to know what the blue widget does and whether it fits their world.
However, we should not copy Leonard’s rules literally. B2B marketing is not crime fiction, even if some campaign reports look like it. Instead, we can borrow the discipline: start closer to the point and cut what the reader will skip. Use plain verbs. Let examples do the heavy lifting. Rewrite anything that simply sounds too much like marketing copy.
In the end, the best B2B writing feels like someone useful has finally got to the point.