We’re indebted to our friend Dr David Hillson aka The Risk Doctor for the following wise words.
He applies them to reducing risk in business and seizing opportunity, but they’re also a great guide to copywriting.
David’s a real pro at making risk management sound lively and engaging, and we love his IKEA approach, based on the instructions in their self-assembly furniture!
He says:
Managing risk would be much easier if we adopted the IKEA approach. This means that we should:
- Provide a checklist of what is needed at the start, and clearly describe the intended outcome
- Use the minimum number of words, with diagrams illustrating the most important parts of the process
- Ensure that all instructions can be understood by a normal person, with no specialist jargon or technical language
- Design the process logically so that it is obvious what to do next
- Use high-quality components that have been well tested and proved to work
- Check that nothing essential has been left out.
When you’re writing for your website or brochure, we’d also suggest you work with a customer-focused checklist, keep words to a minimum, cut out jargon, use high-quality copy and cover all the essentials.
We know David would approve (we edited his book Exploiting Future Uncertainty) and we recommend his regular briefings on www.risk-doctor.com
