Microcopy or marketing copy? What are we writing here?

Up to now, UX writing, product writing, or microcopy writing — whatever you want to call it — has had a few phases.

First, no one knew what it was. This was phase 1. Good times!

Then, in phase 2, people started knowing what it was, and largely recommended MailChimp as the guiding light in great microcopy writing.

Now, in phase 3, people are talking about UX writing as persuasive writing.

Where phase 1 was exciting (potential!!!) and phase 2 annoying (enough already about MailChimp) this, phase 3, gives me pause.

I have a marketing degree and I’ve spent 20 years writing marketing copy in some form or other, alongside writing microcopy for websites and digital products, and writing and editing print and digital educational products. From what I’ve seen, UX and marketing are disciplines that overlap, and must work together, but are fundamentally not the same thing.

So I was surprised recently when some UX designers I’d asked for examples of bad microcopy sent me a page that invited users to take up a new offering from their brand. Obviously, products include calls to action to users that alert them to new features, services or offerings. But should UXers be writing that kind of copy — marketing copy, rather than microcopy — independent of the business’s Marketing team? I don’t think so.

Phase 3 worries me. Let me explain why.

Firstly, I approach UX writing on the understanding that I’m there to support users in completing actions within the interface. Users have action goals within a product. Sometimes, they’re goals the user doesn’t personally care about, but needs to achieve — for work, for example. Microcopy needs to support users in achieving those goals with a minimum of brain-strain. If there’s a better way to do something, and I can identify that within the interface, by all means, I’ll point it out. But I’d argue against using persuasive language to do so — I’ll explain why in a moment.

Secondly, most of the people I see writing interface text for products right now are UX designers or product owners. In my experience, most of those people have no marketing training. They can struggle to recast a feature as a true benefit, let alone do it in the language of the brand and the user, in fewer than nn characters.

They’re not, for want of a better word, “wordsmiths”, which is what web marketing writers specifically are. The terrible mishmash of tone we so often see online is what results when people can’t separate a communications goal from an action goal, or understand how to express personality — let alone persuade another human being using that personality’s charisma — through text. In this situation, non-writers usually fall back on injecting their own personality as a means to communicate, with potentially dire consequences for the brand-user relationship.

Finally, persuasion involves a kind of human interaction that I think is best left out of everyday brand interactions with a committed audience. When we persuade someone, according to Merriam Webster, we’re moving them to change their belief, position, or course of action by argument, entreaty or expostulation. To me, that says we need to convince the user of something.

But when I’m writing microcopy, I’m the product, and the product is the user’s ally. As that person’s ally, I’m not trying to convince them of any damn thing. I’m there to support them in whatever they’re doing, and help them get it done with the absolute minimum mental expenditure. That’s it. End of story.

People — you and I — face a million marketing messages every single day. We are eternally being sold to. So I advocate an approach to interface text that is generous enough to present information to the user, and allow them to choose whether they act on it or not. Every conversation cannot be a persuasion.

What if I need to tell users about a new feature that will make this task take half the time? Of course I’ll tell them—but not through persuasion. I’ll present the fact as information, not a marketing message. Here’s the difference.

This exemplifies what scares me about the notion that microcopy needs to persuade. The one on the left is microcopy. The one on the right is a marketing CTA.

Another example of phase 3 in action is this article, which describes UX writing as being, in part, about motivating the right behaviours.* Again, I can only agree up to a point.

Yes, your business has overall goals for the product’s direction — features that are slated for sunsetting and retirement, features that you want to grow. And products usually work best when used in the way their makers intended and researched with users (though of course segments of users may see things differently). But I honestly believe the right approach to guiding current users along the path your business sees as best for them lies primarily in education, not persuasion.

That’s not to say that you won’t need empty states or new-feature notifications within your product that do have a more persuasive role. But I’d argue that in those cases, your UXers/PMs-cum-UX writers should work with a marketing writer to make sure the messaging is designed to address the audience segment and any action goals, and enhances the user experience, rather than jarring with it.

Would you get a marketing writer to write your in-product microcopy, all alone? Not unless they’re also skilled in UX. So I don’t think it’s fair or advisable to expect UX designers and product people who are unskilled in marketing to write effective marketing messages for inclusion in your product, all alone. Microcopy is not marketing copy. But this is just my opinion — I’d love to hear what you think.

*It also presents as examples of “UX writing” what I would most definitely call web copywriting. An online sales page is not UX writing in my book. It’s marketing copywriting.