Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. I recently received my voting cards from Italy. As an Italian living in the UK, this isn't unusual, but what struck me this time was how absurdly hard it was to understand what I was being asked to vote on. Here’s one of the ballots:
And here’s a literal translation for your eyes to bleed on: “Do you want the repeal of Article 8 of Law 604 from July 15, 1966, titled 'Rules on individual dismissals,' as replaced by Article 2, paragraph 3, of Law 108 of May 11, 1990, but only the words 'including between one' and the words 'and a maximum of six,' and the words 'The maximum amount of said compensation may be increased up to 10 months for the worker with seniority over ten years and up to 14 months for the worker with seniority over twenty years, if employed by an employer with more than fifteen workers'?” Yes or No? Honestly... I had no fucking idea what any of this mean, let alone what the consequences of either choice were. That kind of legalese is clearly meant to be accurate, not helpful. It prioritizes technical completeness over human clarity, which is what most B2B SaaS messaging does. Especially when you’re inside the product, too close to the details. You forget how foreign your language sounds to someone who isn’t paid to care yet. One caveat: simple isn’t always clearer. Clarity tshouldn’t s tune the complexity to match where your reader is in their decision journey (apparently too much work for the Italian government). dumb it down,i If they’re early-stage they need clarity, confidence, and the lay of the land. If they’re deep in consideration? They might need depth, detail, and differentiation. In both cases, at the very least, your copy needs to do one thing: remove friction. Messaging is the decision architecture your buyer has to walk through, and when you add too much complexity too early, the response is delay. Indecision. Or worse: defaulting to status quo. Not because your product isn’t great. But because it felt like more work to say yes to you than to say nothing at all. You made understanding feel “expensive”. So if your copy is asking for a decision, but it takes a legal degree, five rereads, and an internal Slack thread to decode... you’ve already lost them. Now contrast all of this with the UK’s ballot for the Brexit vote:
No matter what you think about the outcome, they got the clarity part right. Start where they are. Speak to what they’re solving. Match their mental model, not yours. Make your reader feel like saying “yes” is the most obvious next move. p.s. If you want to see if your current messaging creates motion or stalls decisions—check out the Clarity Sprint or take the Message-Market Fit Scorecard. DISCOVERYStay weird, my friendsLoved this article on how to write better with AI. The premise: AI doesn’t just assist your writing, it smooths it. It replaces edge with ease, friction with fluidity, specificity with statistical average. What the writer calls "weirdness" is that very same thing that in our copy helps our prospects self-identify. That texture is everything. It’s what makes a reader say, “This is for me.” And it’s why real voice-of-customer research matters more than ever when using AI to write. Because without it, you risk sanding off the very signals your ideal customer needs to see themselves in your message. Don’t default to smooth. Choose your texture. What actually makes website copy convert, and how can AI actually help you write better?In this episode of the Growth Architects podcast, I break down the 3-step process I use at Conversion Alchemy to turn customer insight into messaging that moves. We cover:
If you’re a founder, marketer, or designer trying to improve your site’s clarity and conversion, this one's for you. RESONANCE"You can’t know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom." Tao Te Ching Have a great weekend! Cheers, Chris 🙌🏻 Let’s be friends (unless you’re a stalker) When you're ready, here's a few ways I can helpNot sure where to start? Take our free message-market fit scorecard. |
I'm the founder and chief conversion copywriter at Conversion Alchemy. We help 7 and 8 figure SaaS and Ecommerce businesses convert more website visitors into happy customers. Conversion Alchemy Journal is the collection of my thoughts, ideas, and ramblings on anything copy, UX, conversion rate optimization, psychology, decision-making, human behavior, and -often times - just bizarre, geeky stuff. Grab a cup of coffee and join me. Once a week, every Friday.
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. Most teams treat messaging like a moodboard. Disjointed. Decorative. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Each new landing page, sales deck, or onboarding email feels like starting from scratch. They’re mixing and matching taglines, rephrasing value props, rewriting what’s already been written—because they don’t have a system. They think they’re iterating, but...
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. What if your next round of customer research didn’t involve a single customer? That’s the future being painted by a new wave of AI-native research platforms — ones that don’t just automate surveys or analyze reviews, but simulate entire societies of agents who think, talk, shop, and even complain like your customers. I read a piece this week from a16z about this...
Read online Welcome to this week's issue of Unpacking Meaning. If you received this from a friend and enjoy it, subscribe here. It’s 1959. Nine elite Soviet hikers. The Ural Mountains. Level three mountaineering test—the hardest there is. They were young, confident, and experienced. They set off with cameras, carefully mapped routes, and a plan. And they vanished. When the search party arrived days later, they found the group’s tent half-buried in snow. It had been slashed open from the...