How to Help Your Reader Remember Your Messages

7 ways to be memorable in your writing

At a seminar many years ago, I sat, intrigued, with my best friend while Sherilyn Shackell from the Marketing Academy spoke about how to be memorable.

She strolled comfortably in front of us. She didn’t seem nervous. She made us laugh. She shared stories about her kids. She spoke honestly, with humility, and humor about her f*ck-ups. She made us think. She inspired us.

She spoke casually, swearing a lot (she was British), as if she spoke to a friend. She didn’t use the typical PowerPoint slides filled with texts, only images.

I couldn’t believe a professional presenter could deliver such a memorable talk by being so casual.

Later, I emailed her and shared how much I enjoyed her session. I asked her how she became such a great speaker. Wasn’t she self-conscious at all? She must be an extrovert. It’s tougher for us introverts. I was looking for a reason to excuse myself from ever having to speak in public.

I was also curious because writing often feels as daunting as public speaking. We’re told to be ourselves, to share ridiculously personal parts of our lives with strangers — dangling ourselves out there like a bloody piece of meat, our hearts rocketing to space, our hands clammy and shaky.

I’ll never forget her reply:

“I’m not an extrovert — honestly, I used to throw up before any speaking gig. Until someone very special said ‘what are you so afraid of,’ I answered that I was afraid of looking like a dick, that they’d think I was a fraud, forgetting my words, being found out.

Sherilyn, it’s not about YOU, it’s about the audience. You can’t control what people think of you, but you can control whether you care enough to share things that might help at least someone in the audience.

Concentrate not on you, but on what you can give.”

Here are seven ways to give to your reader. To be memorable:

Write conversationally
Write simply
Be vulnerable
Use repetition
Share stories
Format your writing
Use analogies

Write Conversationally

Conversation glides off our tongues. It’s how our readers communicate with others during their days. It’s easy. They don’t have to think. They understand instinctively, as they’re immersed in it all the time. They practice it.

Conversation is what we do every day — it rolls off our tongue. And we easily understand other people in conversation.

It’s casual, filled with personal stories, shared with unique expressions — and it’s easy to take in.

It can be tough to write this way when we’re used to writing formal essay papers, submitting work proposals, or emailing colleagues. It seems like bland writing is professional. But who told you it has to be that way? And why do you believe it?

French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne sums it up nicely: “The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along.”

Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s dare to change the way we think and do something different, shall we? After all, who’s ever complained about writing that’s too easy to read?

How to write conversationally

Use transition words
Notice the unique expressions you use often in conversation (leave out the umms)
Drag yourself away from academic and corporate writing
Use plain language (more about that in the next point)

Write conversationally.

Write Simply

Have you ever tried explaining a tough concept to someone else? You quickly work out how well you know a topic, don’t you?

Smart people can break down complex ideas and explain them to a person outside their field.

You see, simple doesn’t mean stupid.

Perhaps you’re worried that people will think you’re stupid if you write simply, rather than by using impressive words. Well, the best way to impress your reader is by writing in plain English.

Even experts prefer plain language.

It makes sense no matter who your reader is because of the principle of least effort, a principle discovered by the French philosopher Guillaume Ferrero. The principle of least effort tells us that when we need to seek out information, we’ll choose the path of least effort. This is true for animals, people, and even well-designed machines.

Smart writers use simple words — because no one will ever complain about writing that’s too easy to understand.

How to write simply

Use conversational language (often we use simpler words in conversation than in writing)
Write to a broad audience at an 8th-grade reading level — or a 12th-grade reading level for a more specialized business-to-business audience.
Choose simple words over complex words with the help of the Plain English Campaign’s The A-Z of alternative words

Write simply.

Practice Vulnerability

I’ve become wary of random advice from people who appear to know it all. In university, my mates and I had little respect for academics who taught practical subjects without having any experience in the field — for instance, lecturers teaching business who had never run businesses.

On the other hand, I’ve learned far more from people who have admitted to making mistakes and failures.

Each of us can relate more deeply to each other through our dark moments, even more than through success. Because these are the times we feel most alone. It’s not easy to open up about our dark, weak moments. But there’s power in vulnerability. We crave human connection and vulnerability is the thread that weaves us together.

It’s excruciatingly tough to show vulnerability. It goes against how many of us have grown up. We’re told confidence, strength, and power are good. Vulnerability needs to be hidden.

Yet this is what makes the difference between blah and brilliant writing. This is what helps us choose one business over another — what we really want to do is choose people we can relate to. People we trust.

Let’s harness the power of vulnerability.

“People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses.”

— Research Professor Brené Brown in Rising Strong

How to practice vulnerability

Jot down your doubts, fears, and failures
Think about what you’ve learned from them and how it can help your reader
Put yourself out there constantly: it gets easier with practice
Notice the positive responses from readers and use that to spur you on

Practice vulnerability.

Use Repetition

So far we’ve connected with our readers by writing conversationally and simply. We’ve touched their souls by daring to be vulnerable.

To help our readers remember, we’ve got to repeat what we’ve just told them.

See what I did there?

Research has shown: repetition is the first principle of all learning.

When you sit in on a presentation or attend a meeting, how often do you pay full attention to every word?

More likely you gazed wistfully outside and thought about the weekend. Or impatiently hurried the speaker in your mind so you could head back to the office and get through your to-do list.

Or perhaps you zoned out because the speaker covered too many topics far too quickly, and you’ve stopped trying to keep up.

Millions of thoughts wander through our minds each day. Much of it is unconscious.

Well, just like you, your readers are distracted. They’re busy.

Give your reader the path of least effort. Use repetition.

How to use repetition

Say what you want to say
Say it
Tell them what you said

For instance, at the start of this article, I outlined the topics I wanted to share. I delved into these in more detail. I reminded you about what topics we’ve covered along the way — and at the end of the article, you’ll find a summary of the seven topics.

Use repetition.

Share Stories

After I graduated, I spent four months living in beautiful Boston. I interned at a marketing research and technology assessment company by day and made small talk with customers as a hostess at a California Pizza Kitchen by night.

One of the highlights of my stay was an invitation to watch the Super Bowl with California Pizza Kitchen colleagues. As the snow swirled outside, we happily licked greasy, hot fried chicken off our fingers washed down with bottles of cold Budweisers.

We laughed, chatted, and marveled at the brilliant array of creative, witty, multi-million dollar ads that were as highly anticipated as the game itself.

On Super Bowl Sunday, USA Today asks readers to vote for their favorite commercials on a one to ten scale, then ranks the votes on their Ad Meter.

Well, scientist and author Paul J. Zak wanted to see if there was any correlation between a participant’s ranking of an ad with the response in their brains. So three days after the 2014 Super Bowl, his team took 16 participants into his lab to watch ads while they measured neurological activity. What they found was so surprising, they ran another study — yet the results were the same: what they ranked and what their brains showed had zero correlation.

People can’t say what they like or don’t like — but their brains revealed what they liked.

When their attention wandered, people lost their emotional connection. Paul concluded his research paper, Why Inspiring Stories Make Us React: The Neuroscience of Narrative with newfound respect, and a challenge, for creatives:

“Even with millennia of practice, creating a great story is difficult. The emerging science of narrative can guide the art, but it cannot replace it. Humans are just too complex for an algorithm to generate art. And this is where the artist comes in.”

How to share great stories

Practice writing about your top three most significant life experiences
Appeal to your reader’s senses with sensorial words (preferably proven highest-rated sensorial words)
Notice what stories you remember or pass onto others, keeping in mind why you connected to those stories and aiming to create that connection in your own stories
Write stories with a WIIFM focus (WIIFM: What’s In It For Me, your reader)
Aim to include stories in your writing, your presentations, your marketing, and conversations with friends

Format Your Writing

Make it easy for your reader to glide through your writing.

If your reader gets tired and frustrated because they get bogged down by walls of text, they’ll leave.

You see, while you may read a book from front to back, it’s much easier to get distracted when reading online. Web pages only have ten seconds to grab our attention. Many times we get much less than that.

“People tend to minimize interaction cost and maximize the benefit they get from the work they do. Economizing on time means fewer fixations — looking at fewer words.” — Nielsen Norman Group

Human short-term memory is limited. To help your users remember your messages, pack information into meaningful chunks.

How to format your writing

Create obvious headlines and subheadings
Use bulleted or numbered lists (like this one)
Shorten paragraphs with white space to separate them
Shorten your sentences
Group related items together

Find Powerful Analogies

My friend Maria recently got a remedial massage. It started off with her visit to a Ju-Jitsu club. The owner saw her in action on the mat and quickly picked up a problem in her hips. Her left side wasn’t moving well.

Later, he informed her that he did remedial massage treatments and could help her. She was impressed that he picked up her problem and booked an appointment immediately. He obviously had great knowledge of the body and could give her targeted treatment.

I picked her up afterward, excited to hear about the massage. “Was it good?”, I asked, eagerly looking forward to her report.

“Nah,” she said, disappointed.

“Darnit!”

Clickbait headlines are like this dude. They’re deceptively appealing from first impressions — yet their content fails to follow through.

This is an example of an analogy. Analogies clarify concepts in an unusual, relatable way by putting tough ideas alongside simple examples. They’re also fun to write and add personality to our writing.

How to write analogies

Be aware of your surroundings and experiences: note similarities (and differences) between these and concepts you want to explain
Decide if the similarities are strong enough to create an analogy (if it’s not strong enough, you’ll confuse your reader)
Make it unexpected
Keep it simple so your reader is more likely to understand it
Get a second opinion if you’re not sure whether it works

Summary

Years later, I realize what was memorable about Sherilyn’s talk wasn’t just what she said. What was memorable was how she said it. And most memorable was how she made us feel.

Like Sherilyn, let’s stop worrying about our insecurities and letting our fears hold us back from writing. Instead, let’s focus on what we can give to our readers, who may be our prospects, our customers, or our colleagues. Let’s work on how we want to make them feel. Here are seven ways to be memorable to our readers:

Write conversationally
Write simply
Be vulnerable
Use repetition
Share stories
Format your writing
Use analogies

Have fun and be yourself. Strangely, it takes practice to do this in writing, but like anything, it gets easier with practice.