Marketing copy is only as strong as the foundation on which it’s built. Persuasive emails, sales letters, and landing pages don’t manifest from thin air, overcoming an inherent lack of substance with “power” words or important-sounding but meaningless jargon.

To be truly persuasive, marketing copy needs to do much more than simply present logical reasons to buy. The most effective campaigns tap into our unconscious motivators, pushing the buttons that create automatic responses and triggering the hidden drivers that move us to action.

In “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” Robert Cialdini details the unconscious motivators (reciprocity, commitment/consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, contrast) that drive human behavior. Understanding these triggers will help you write more persuasive and effective marketing copy.

Small text may be costing you money.

The smaller the text on your website, the harder it is to read, and the fewer visitors you’ll convert into customers.

Do you have more than one person writing copy for your website, social media channels, and content marketing? While a mix of unique styles can help make your content more interesting, minor differences in tone, usage, punctuation, and formatting can add up over time and create distracting inconsistencies.

A simple writing style guide can solve this problem, giving freelancers and internal contributors creative flexibility while helping you maintain a coherent voice throughout your content.

Here are a few style guidelines to help get you started.