Immerse Readers Into a Coherent Narrative

Copy should have linguistic continuity.

Customers read copy by imagining a series of mental images, so you should strive to maintain this unbroken sequence:

...subjects try to integrate each incoming sentence into a single coherent mental model (Ehrlich & Johnson-Laird, 1982, p. 296).

Keep the Same Protagonist

Sometimes a business will depict the purchase journey with images of different people, perhaps to illustrate the diversity of their customers.

But this approach can backfire. Within a series of steps, display the same person to reinforce a consistent narrative.

Same with written copy. Be careful intermingling subjects:

• Customers can get...
• You can get...

Changing the subject will break the unfolding sequence of mental images.

Keep the Same Visual Perspective

Read these sentences:

• Mary was reading in her room; John went in to talk to her.
• Mary was reading in her room; John came in to talk to her.

The first sentence is harder to read because you immerse yourself inside Mary's room, but it quickly forces you to imagine the outside of her room.

Selling hotel rooms? A single collage of different locations (e.g., pool, lobby, beach) can make it difficult to imagine a consistent narrative because of these shifting perspectives (Jiang et al., 2014).

Linguistic Tips

• End Sentences With a Concrete Image. Avoid ending sentences with prepositions: What time are you leaving at? Prepositions often imply that an object is appearing next, so an abrupt ending feels jarring. Plus, it's harder to expand this imagery in the proceeding sentence because there is nothing tangible to expend.
• Begin Sentences With the Previous Object. Imagine this setup: The knife is in front of the pot. The glass is behind the dish. The pot is on the left of the glass. Confusing, right? But you can ease the readability by swapping the last two sentences: The knife is in front of the pot. The pot is on the left of the glass. The glass is behind the dish. Start sentences with the ending idea from the previous sentence so that you maintain an unbroken flow of imagery (Ehrlich & Johnson-Laird, 1982).

• Jiang, Y., Adaval, R., Steinhart, Y., & Wyer Jr, R. S. (2014). Imagining yourself in the scene: The interactive effects of goal-driven self-imagery and visual perspectives on consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(2), 418-435.
• Kamalski, J. (2007). Coherence Marking, Comprehension and Persuasion on the processing and representations of discourse (Doctoral dissertation, Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics).
• Langer, E. J., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of ostensibly thoughtful action: The role of" placebic" information in interpersonal interaction. Journal of personality and social psychology, 36(6), 635.