How would I write this? #No.1: Does RightMessage.io send the right message?

The topic of messaging is close to my heart having given my life to personalizing content and storytelling. I stand against anything that diminishes content; I embrace advances. Is RightMessage an advance? It can be an incredible advance.

Brennan Dunn and Shai Schechter are the founders of RightMessage. I met them both at the Double Your Freelancing Conference in Sweden last June, and on again soon.
This new software can personalize copy to every reader of your email campaign and websites. Changing copy in real time to suit every reader is invaluable. But it means original copy has to be sharper and clearer than ever so that it presents smoothly for the reader wherever they may be.

Content Teardown: RightMessage.io

I prepared a teardown (well, my own version) of the RightMessage website. Right messaging is essential for this product. The main areas I worked on :

• Where copy was waffly and old-fashioned.
• The impact of not personalizing needed sharpening (and needs more).
• It doesn’t need coding but it’s unclear how it works. i.e what do I need to know to use this? This needs personalizing!

Edited version

Sell more by personalizing your website for every visitor.

Personalizing your website to your visitors’ unique needs is ‘critical’ to sales. That’s according to 94% of businesses we surveyed.

Yet most companies do little, or nothing, to personalize their website. They create a monoculture for the masses.
What do customers and prospects do when they experience a bland web environment? They click away and they don’t buy.
Messaging that seeks to reach everyone reaches no one. That’s right. No one!
So if personalizing the visitor experience is critical, why does it happen on so few websites?
Well, personalization is hard. Content management systems are inflexible. They offer no easy way to change the content depending on who’s looking. Until now!
If you wanted to personalize your company content in the past, you had to build your own system from scratch. Customizing your content to every type of visitor demanded a ton of writing.
According to Mark Yolton, Senior VP of Digital at Cisco, targeting just three types of buyers requires the creation of 30 times more content!

Let’s say you have five types of core customer that fall into three groups:

• Knowledgeable about your products
• Little knowledge of your products but an understanding of the problems they solve
• No knowledge of your products or why people need what you offer.

To reach all types and groups of customers with three levels of knowledge, you’d need to create 15 pieces of content. And with more than one page needed on your website, you could need at least 15x more content than you have now!

“Screw it. I don’t have the time for this.”

Little wonder companies that personalize content are the exception!

But if you accept this conclusion, you are saying it’s OK to lose out on sales. Seriously?! Is that really OK?

With RightMessage you can personalize your website — without coding!

Our software sits on top of your website’s template tailoring your content (copy and images) to each visitor, we take into account information the viewer’s browser shares with us such as:

• The website your visitor came from
• Interests based on the kind of content your viewers have engaged with before
• Subscriber data that you store in 3rd party apps.

Best of all, RightMessage needs no programming. It works with any content management system, and even if there is no CMS.
You simply point to the element you want to change, click the option you want to change, and tell us how you want it to change. That’s it!

RightMessage will never slow down your website. All personalization happens within your client’s browser. So even in the unlikely event our site goes down, yours stays up. The only difference to the end user is that general (bland!) copy will display until normal personalized service resumes.

Existing version

Sell more by personalizing the experience visitors have on your website.

94% of surveyed businesses say that personalizing their website to suit each visitor’s unique needs is “critical” to success. But most companies do little to personalize the experience of their prospects and customers.

If personalizing a website visitor’s experience is so critical, why do so few companies invest in it?

The simple truth is that personalizing is hard. Content management systemsdon’t include a way to change the content loaded into the website depending on who’s looking, so companies that do personalize need to invest in building their own system from scratch.
Customizing your website to speak directly to each visitor often requires writing a ton of content. Mark Yolton, Senior VP of Digital at Cisco, said that trying to target just three types of buyers required Cisco to create 30x more material.

Let’s say you have 5 types of core customers. Each of these customers falls into 3 different groups: highly knowledgeable about your products; little knowledge about your products, but an understanding of the problems your products solve; or no knowledge of your products or why people need what you offer.

If you wanted to speak to each of these types of potential customers (5 types of customers, each with 3 levels of knowledge about your product) you’d end up needing to create 15 pieces of content. And since you have more than one page on your website, you’re looking at 15x more content than you have now!

“Screw it. This is hard. I don’t have the time or energy to personalize my content.”

Unfortunately, this is the conclusion a lot of companies have come to—and it’s why so few personalize.

But by accepting this conclusion, you force yourself to be OK with losing out on sales of your products. Why? Because people want content written for them, and if you’re speaking to everyone you’re speaking to no one. And when there’s a disconnect between what people want and what you tell them, you’re losing people and sales.

RightMessage allows you to personalize your website directly from the browser—no coding required.

Here’s what our software does:

It sits on top of your website’s template and dynamically tailors your content (copy, imagery, etc.) depending on who’s visiting. We take into account:

• Information the viewer’s browser shares with us (like what website they came from.)
• Interests based on the kind of content of yours the viewer has engaged with in the past.
• Subscriber data that you store in 3rd party apps.

Best of all, no programming is required and it works with any content management system (or lack thereof). Point on the element you want to change, tell us who you want it to change for, and tell us how you want it to change. That’s it.

And because RightMessage personalizes within the client’s browser, your site won’t slow down and if we were to go down, the end user wouldn’t notice anything (except that they’d be reading bland content written for a general audience.)

Copy Verdict: RightMessage.io promises an exciting future. Content personalization and how it might work is new so it needs to be explained clearly. The site left me with questions about how it works. Will RightMessage reduce your need for creating original content? As a writer who has spent three decades personalizing copy, I am saying no. Obviously!
People are perceptive. They responded to authentic stories and messaging specifically for you. Readers switch off copy that:

• Rambles on
• Is all about features and not benefits
• Is about a generalized user
• Is bland.

Good writing and editing were always the answer so software like Right Message puts even greater onus on us to script original and creative copy from the outset. We don’t want poor content going out to every viewer’s individual browser. Every piece of content, every story starts with empathy for your reader or end user.

This is where I help.