Does this sound familiar?
The goal of Company ABC is to help its customers grow their businesses and impress their clients.
Or how about this?
Dear valued customer,
Company ABC is here to help Company XYZ achieve its goals and generate new business.
What’s wrong with these marketing sentences? Ok, a lot. But the number one thing wrong is they are written in third person. Writing about yourself or your company in third person is annoying and weird. Only Elmo gets to talk in third person, and that’s because he’s so cute. You’re not cute enough.
There’s actually a name for this (I just learned). It’s called illeism, defined by dictionary.com as referring to oneself in the third person. Here are a few reasons why illeist writing just doesn’t work:
1. It’s impersonal. You are trying to build a relationship with your potential customer, why are you putting a barrier between the “you” and the “me.” Just say “Hi, I want to help you succeed, here’s how.” Just talk like normal people and you’ll go much further toward creating that relationship.
2. It’s awkward. Imagine walking into a networking event and saying, “Hi, Cara McDonald is happy to be here. Would Bill Smith like a cocktail?” I think Bill Smith would edge slowly away from me, thinking I might be a robot, or just a crazy person. No one talks like that so don’t write like that!
3. It’s confusing. Are you talking about someone else, or you or…? See how this can tragically play out in this Seinfeld episode when Elaine agrees to go out with Jimmy, when Jimmy says “Elaine is just Jimmy’s type.” Elaine thinks he’s talking about another person she is actually interested in. Don’t let this happen to you.
4. It’s passive. Good marketing copywriting is active, it’s exciting, it makes you want to jump up and do something about those nagging roadblocks standing in the way of your success. Illeist copy necessitates lots of passive wording and “its” and “that’s” that just junk up the copy and get in the way of the excitement.
Writing in third person is a bad habit, but it’s easy to break once you see it for what it is. When you break it you’ll feel free. You’ll connect with your readers more, you’ll find your writing is clearer and more interesting.
For some more fun with Illeism, read this post from mental_floss on 11 famous illeists. Remember Bob Dole? It didn’t work for him either.
Photo credit: Tiffany Terry via Flickr