Before I got married and moved to Idaho, I was a teacher’s aide. I worked in special needs classrooms in schools all over California’s Central Valley, and loved (almost) every minute of it. I adored getting to know the students, and learning all about what made them unique and special and funny and difficult and lovable.

One of my favorite classrooms of all time was Teacher Mary’s preschool classroom (Hi Mary!!). My coworkers in that room loved the kids like their own and I learned so much from them. I still can hear their voices saying cheerfully to the kiddos, when they just wanted to use the point and grunt method: “Use your words!” It’s so stuck in my head that I find myself saying it to Poppy and to my nieces and nephews and randomly to random kids.

Flash to creative business.

Maybe it’s a stretch, but a twist on this phrase is what comes to mind when I think about one major way you can make your clients feel at home and welcome in your marketing and copy.

Use their words.

It’s really easy for us, as the brains inside our businesses, to only talk about what we do in terms that make sense to US. We often use insider lingo, shorthand, and all kinds of jargon.

Anddd…. it’s one of the quickest ways to lose our clients.

Even the people that are close to our industry, need our services, and *mostly* get what we’re talking about—if we use words they don’t immediately understand and quickly resonate with—will do the typical “glaze over and swipe down” thing… and we’ll miss the chance to make a connection.

So instead of using YOUR words?

Use your clients words.

That means internalizing phrases from their questions, their reviews, and their frustrated Instagram stories. Adopt the language THEY use to talk about what you do, and use it yourself to market your things. Write your copy with their voices inside your head.

(Of course I don’t mean plagiarize, just because I know someone will ask.)

But shifting your mindset to writing copy in a way that comes from inside your CLIENTS’ heads, instead of just your own, will be one way they know that your brand has a place for them. It will signal that your business is about serving them, not just carrying out your version of what YOU think they need.

Get help writing down what you do

If this all sounds exhausting and impossible and complicated to you—I get it. As a copywriter, I’m here to take the stress of writing words for your brand and website OFF of your plate. I’ll help you understand your clients and write copy for your business in a way that resonates with what they need. Inquire today to kickoff your own fall copy project.