How the right words impact your bottom line

What’s the ROI on tone of voice? Can you put a figure on good brand writing? We get asked these questions a lot.

The answer? Well-written copy has a positive impact on your bottom line. Because well-written copy is more likely to get read and resonate. And as a marketer, salesperson or brand manager, your first job is to get people to engage with your content.

Let’s look at some evidence, from scientific research to our own client work. (Scroll down if you want to skip straight to the juicy client stats.)

The Significant Objects project is a wonderful case study in the power of good writing. In 2009, writers Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker bought 100 fairly worthless second hand trinkets. They enlisted the help of fellow writers to pen a fictional story about each piece, to test their theory that “narrative transforms insignificant objects into significant ones”. Then they stuck them all on eBay, each one paired with its tall tale.

The result? The junk they’d bought for $128.74 sold for $3,612.51. Compelling narratives increased the objects’ value by 2700%. It’s a fact: people buy good stories.

Another eBay-based experiment found that the words used in listings had an impact on whether items sold, and for how much.

Analysis of over 68,000 items by academics from the School of English at Birmingham City University revealed small word swaps make a big difference: shoppers will pay more for a “gents” watch (£70) than a “mens” watch, and fragrances described as ''genuine'' sold for less (£21) than an ''authentic'' perfume (£34). Findings also showed that bad grammar, like missing apostrophes and “internet speak”, had a negative effect on the prices people were willing to pay.

An academic study in the Journal of Consumer Research looked at the power of sensory language to persuade people to part with their cash.

Results showed that people were more likely to buy items from influencers when they used words that stir the senses – like “crumble” and “juicy”. Whether truth or trickery, the perceived authenticity from carefully chosen words made people more inclined to believe the influencers actually used the products they were endorsing.

Good copy isn’t just for the people who pay you – it should be for the people you pay as well. Businesses that write better work more efficiently. Think about how much time you spend reading or writing emails each week. How much time could you save if those emails were all concisely and clearly written?

Creating internal comms that employees actually want to read is about more than good grammar and clear formatting. Adding a personal touch can make messages more engaging.

If this all feels a bit too theoretical, let’s look at some firsthand ROI stats Reed Words’ clients have seen from our work over the years.

• We renamed sustainable beauty startup UpCircle, and gave them a new tone of voice, messaging and packaging copy.

• Following the rebrand, UpCircle's success skyrocketed.

• They went from being a two-founder team to £3.5m turnover in five years, with 3,000 stockists in over 30 countries.

• Of course, not every uplift can be traced directly back to the words – but they certainly helped.

• Our UX-led rewrite of a beneficiary direct mail for Standard Life led to a roughly six-fold increase in online signups – from ~3% to ~17%.

• We also rewrote and simplified the application journey for their Active Money Personal Pension.

• Previously, about 20% of people who started the journey completed it. Standard Life was hoping for a 5–10% increase in that number. We increased it by 35%.

• We created a new tone of voice for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the UK’s membership organisation for pharmacists.
• We then rewrote various print and digital comms in the new voice, and trained teams in how to use the voice themselves.
• ​​The result? The transformation in copy led to more members, more renewals, more money in the bank.

• Audience figures for Formula 1 had been decreasing since 2012.

• Following the rebrand by Wieden+Kennedy and Reed Words, viewing figures in the UK increased from 2.11 million average viewers in 2017 to 2.16 million in 2018.

• Bluebeam is one of the biggest construction tech firms in the US. We helped them localise their tone of voice for other markets, and build their brand worldwide.

• We created a copy-led OOH campaign which led to a 47.6% increase in Bluebeam trial downloads.

While the stats are compelling, the return on investment for brand writing goes beyond what can be tangibly measured. Good copy gets talked about – for the right reasons. It can even make you famous. Look at Innocent, Oatly, Monzo: brands that are as well-known for their distinctive tones of voice as they are for their products.

If you want your brand to cut through the noise, you can’t ignore the words. They matter. Poorly written copy – in your ads, on your website, wherever it shows up – looks like an afterthought. It makes your brand look sloppy. So next time you’re wondering how to tell your story, you know where to come.