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If your audience needs an instruction manual, you’ve already lost them

Ever get totally thrown off by something that should be simple? Like trying to do laundry for example.

The other day, trying to wash some darks turned into a small life lesson about communication—and why it’s so easy to lose your audience when you assume they know more than they do.

I’ll admit it—I’m selectively attentive to the extreme. If something doesn’t interest me enough, it practically vanishes from my radar. I know, brutal. And that’s the case for doing my laundry. I don’t care enough, so I—still to this day—really don’t have much of a clear idea of how that’s supposed to work. Not ashamed to say it.

So, here I am, staring at this new washing machine, looking for my old go-to setting: cottons.

It was all so simple, clean, easy. My world made sense.

But here, ohhh nooo. What I got was a bunch of VERY specific temperature settings: 40°C, 60°C, “Delicates,” “Synthetics,” “Spin” (my head definitely was spinning) you name it. When all I wanted was to push “cottons” and let it do its magical thing.

I didn’t want a laundry science lesson—I just wanted clean clothes. What would you do at a restaurant if you wanted a simple cheeseburger, but all you got from the menu were cryptic blurbs like "seared at 400°F," "lightly simmered at 140°F, and "gently fluffed to 30% moisture."? You’d either have to ask the staff for help or get annoyed and leave.

So, as most of us now do, I asked ChatGPT. It walked me through the options, and I finally found a setting that worked.

But it got me thinking: This machine assumed I’d know exactly what each temperature means for different fabrics. Spoiler: I don’t. And it’s the same in copywriting—if we assume our audience knows the ins and outs of our product or industry, we’re setting ourselves (and them) up for a lot of confusion and missed connections.

What’s their version of “Cottons”?

In copywriting, we have to start by meeting people where they are, not where we wish they were. Just this week, one of my clients, a company in data management, shared how they envision their product as the solution to the “death march”. It was a new term for me, so I wanted to dig into what that means exactly and if it really makes sense to our target audience.

Enter Voice of Customer (VOC) research, and the treasure trove of insights that is Reddit.

Chris Silvestri @SilvestriChris Feat your eyes on some of the best VOC I've stumbled on recently. "6 years, millions of dollars, no one can put a silver bullet headshot into this shambling zombie death march of a project." 10:6 AM • Nov 14, 2024 0 Retweets 3 Likes Read 2 replies

​

Here’s how a post I stumbled on ended: “6 years, millions of dollars, and no one can put a silver bullet headshot into this shambling zombie death march of a project.”

Brilliant.

“Death march” wasn’t just a term to them—these guys were living it. It hit home. They could picture it. That single phrase captured every pointless meeting, every budget overrun, every “why are we still doing this?” moment they’d ever had.

Compare two headlines:

“Get your death march project done efficiently.

vs

“Finally put a silver bullet headshot into that shambling zombie death march of a project.”

Which one do you think would work best?

I’m pretty sure the descriptive, vivid, tangible, slightly disgusting image of killing a flesh-eating monster that’s been feasting on your resources for years, will likely resonate better for this audience than an empty promise of “efficiency”.

But I can say it because they’re saying it.

Now, before doing anything with it I will still want to validate my assumption. One thing I can do is to ask a specific question in my customer interviews. Something like:

And then follow it up with:

Notice I didn't want to lead them into the "death march" term, but rather gradually explore how they see it.

Don’t assume your audience is already in sync with you. Figure out what their “cottons” is—the words or phrases that make them feel, “Yep, that’s me.”

Remember, you’re joining a conversation they’re already having.

What the laundry debacle taught is simple but easy to miss: real connection starts way before engagement. Before you can truly connect, you need to understand your audience’s mental shortcuts, frustrations, and expectations.

The greatest compliment your audience can give you isn’t, “I understand you.” It’s, “You understand me.”

DISCOVERY

Your point of view matters now more than ever

Loved this piece on how, even UX design, is actually a persuasive argument. It also shows why relying on AI for it will never work as well as when you inject your own personal perspective into it.

What happens when you put ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini in a room together?

​I ran an interesting experiment this week as I was trying to get a more unbiased and objective perspective about the ideal junior copywriter candidate to select for Conversion Alchemy.

After asking 3 large language models (ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini) for the same objective perspective on two candidates, I then asked each of them for an opinion on the other two AI's responses.

Each LLM exhibited different "character" and style. Gemini proved to be the more consultative almost "coach-like" helping me think broader but also giving me its opinion. ChatGPT and Claude were both more one dimensional in their feedback with the latter being more "selfless" by recommending Gemini's response as the most useful one.

Understanding what style each AI tool innately has and which use cases one is best for compared to others, is very useful. You're free to use your own expertise and intuition in collaboration the tool, rather than having to think of what to use and when.

RESONANCE

Scott Galloway, The Algebra of Wealth

Wanting a better life is just the entry ticket. What matters is the work you put in and how valuable that work is to others. Care about the work and the work will take care of you.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Chris

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