If the purpose of your marketing strategy is to reel your audience in, then the copy you write is the bait.

But your audience won’t take just any bait you put in front of them—you have to use irresistible copy that instantly gets them hooked.

One sure-fire way to do this is by using an Active Voice instead of a Passive Voice. Doing so can increase your conversion rate and improve your business' overall performance as it encourages your audience to meaningfully engage with your business.

But First, What's the Active and Passive Voice?

These are the two main voices used in writing.

The active voice is used to show the subject of a sentence performing an action while the passive voice is used to show the subject experiencing an action.

For example: We sell coffee (Active) vs Coffee is what we sell (Passive).

The difference between the two might not seem significant at first glance, but they produce very different experiences for your audience because the active voice prioritizes the subject while the passive prioritizes the object.

Why the Active Voice is Better for Marketing

When it comes to marketing your business, the goal is to create content that gets your audience to interact with your business, whether that be following your account, checking out your website, buying a product, you name it.

Essentially, you want your audience to perform an action, not experience an action. So, your audience needs to be front and centre— which means your writing needs to clearly reflect this. The only way you can do so is by using the active voice.

Keep in mind that the passive voice is still very important in writing, but it's just not the right fit for marketing.

In the marketing world, the active voice always comes out on top and here's three reasons why:

1. An Active Voice is More Direct and Gets to the Point Quicker

Take a moment to read the two following statements, “Click the link below to start your free trial” (active) vs. "A free trial is available if you click the link below” (passive).

What one makes you want to click the link more? The first one, right? That’s because the passive sentence sounds more like a suggestion instead of a clear instruction. It's also unclear what you, as the reader, need to do until you get to the end of the sentence. This can be a problem if your audience is skim-reading your content.

2. An Active Voice is More Concise

Using an active voice forces you to cut out all the fluff and focus only on the essential information. Not only will this save you time, but your readers will gravitate to your copy more as it’ll be easier to understand.

3. An Active Voice is More Engaging & Exciting

The subject of your copy is almost always your audience. That means your audience’s perspective will be prioritized whenever you use an active voice. This makes it easy for them to imagine themselves performing the desired action and want to keep reading.

How to Make Sure You're Using an Active Voice

It's not always easy to identify which sentences are active or passive, especially if you're new to writing. You can use these simple formulas to help you:

(The subject) + (verb/action performed) + (object) = Active Voice ‍

(The object) + (verb/action performed) + (subject) = Passive Voice

‍

Alternatively, you can think of zombies. Yes, zombies.

The Zombie Test was created by Rebecca Johnson, PhD, from the Marine Corps University to help you weed out the passive voice from your writing.

All you have to do is add "by zombies" after the verb in your sentence. If it still makes sense, that means it's time to go back to the drawing board to get rid of the zombies.

For example,

"Kärna creates (by zombies) first-rate marketing content". This sentence doesn't make any sense, so it's active. No zombies here.

"First-rate marketing content is created (by zombies)". Uh-oh, now you've got a zombie problem that needs fixing.

Conclusion

The active voice is a simple but essential writing technique you need to use to create exciting and engaging copy that attracts your target audience. Doing so can bring your business another step closer to achieving your customer engagement and sales goals!

Looking for in-depth copywriting and marketing assistance? Look no further! Contact our team to schedule a FREE phone call with our experts to see how we can help your business grow!

Contact Us Today!