Do I talk too much?

Maybe the better question is, “Does your landing page talk too much?”

Yesterday evening on my drive home I was tuned to Sirius Radio Stars 102 (now you know a very deep dark secret of mine—an unnatural obsession with the Sirius Stars channel—please don’t make fun of me). Dr. Laura’s radio call-in show was on the air and a husband called in to ask Dr. Laura what to do about the fact that his wife of 30 years decided she doesn’t love him anymore. Of course he wanted to win her back and needed Dr. Laura’s help. 

He began to rattle off what he had done in his attempt to win her back.

“I told her blah, blah, blah”

“We sat down to talk about blah, blah, blah and I said blah and she said blah”

This went on for a minute, while Dr. Laura was continually interjecting with “That’s the worst thing you can do”, “Don’t do that again”, “Stop doing that”.

And when the gentleman stopped going on about his attempts to tell his wife how much he wanted her back Dr. Laura said simply, “People talk too much”. After a brief pause to let it sink in, she went on to tell him that he needed to stop talking and start showing her what he felt—have some fun, stop being so serious, and just demonstrate his love. 

Yes, Dr. Laura, I can agree with you. People do talk too much. And this means we write too much, and we overcomplicate things. Of course, I am no longer talking about estranged husbands but about marketers. In our attempt to make sure something is very clear we often radically overcomplicate things with our words and concepts. 

So today might be a good day to stop for a moment and think about how you can clarify & simplify your message. How you can demonstrate instead of inform.

Can a single picture represent the essence of what you are trying to communicate? Can video share your message in a more effective way than a long page of copy & pictures? Can interactive Flash take reams of information and condense it into a simple user interaction? Can you just pare down what you are saying to a single thought?

Today I am going to say less and communicate more. How about you?