If you want the information to be as accessible as possible, you’ll have to dial down the Greek, and think like an educator.

Sometimes, the simplest solution is also the best solution; use fourth grade writing. If you find yourself opening a new tab and searching “fourth grade writing prompts”, then allow this guide to save you the trouble with three, simple tips!

Guide To Writing for Any Reading Level

1. Understand Your Audience

Who are you writing for? It might make sense to use complicated language when writing a physics report to your peers, but your followers on social media are going to have a harder time grasping the material.

2. Put The Thesaurus Away

For some, this is a habit from the early years of grade school, when learning to use different words to avoid repetition. For others, it’s simply too tempting to show the reader an impressive vocabulary. Casually including “antidisestablishmentarianism” in your content might feel good, but it’s also a dyslexic’s nightmare (and you probably had to re-read it a few times or skipped over it entirely).

Don’t be afraid of repeating the same word a few times, if it means your content is easier to understand.

3. Utilize Common Knowledge

What constitutes as ‘common’ knowledge is sometimes up for debate, but if a fourth-grade student can grasp the general idea, then you’re on the right track.

This isn’t limited to topics either; you can use commonly understood concepts to bridge the gap of understanding between basic and complex. For example; “search engine optimization” can be described as making it easier for users to find your website when they search for something online.

In a word; simplify.

Everyone likes to feel intelligent, and nobody likes to feel unintelligent. Write so that your audience can understand in a way that won’t alienate them. This is especially important in the realm of marketing when you want to convince your audience to take some sort of action.

It might be helpful to think of it like this; you are writing a cookbook, and your audience is in the fourth grade. You can’t list to a fourth-grade student the ingredients to make a New York cheesecake and expect them to understand what they need to do. At the same time, too much detail and technical language will confuse them. You need to take them step by step, using basic language, and explaining each step as it comes up.

For users, your content should feel like a learning experience, not a frustrating one. If they can already get something out of just reading your content, they’ll feel more inclined to follow up on your call-to-action.

Did you know we’re on Facebook and Instagram? For more of OUR content and marketing tips like this, visit us HERE.

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Originally considered as strictly an art, then also as a social science over time, the technical definition for “marketing” has evolved over the years, and fairly frequently, just as marketing itself does. It is at this ‘speed of marketing’ that you will learn a slice of its history, starting from the development of its latest forms and ending on its earliest.

The term ‘digital marketing’ hadn’t become vocabulary until the 1990’s, but digital marketing has been in development since as far back as the 1980’s. Back then, businesses employed ‘database marketing’, using databases and analysis to track customer information and send potentially relevant promotional materials. This could be by email, telephone, or physical material.

Both during and before the digital age and computers, the primary method of marketing was ‘direct marketing’. Born in 1920, advertising executive Lester Wunderman is considered the “father of direct marketing”, having defined it in 1967.

Having said this, direct marketing as a practice has existed since at least as far back as the 15^th century, typically in the form of catalogues, sent by mail. Starting in the late 1660’s, mail order catalogues became a popular form of advertising, and were commonly used by merchants to advertise lists of available seeds and their prices to farmers.

Still in use to this day, there are many sub-categories that fall under direct marketing, including telemarketing, email marketing, newspaper, radio, and television.

One particularly notable example that dates even further back is that of a catalogue of books, printed by Aldine Press founder Aldus Manutius (also the creator of the italics typeface), mailed out in 1498. This is also called ‘print marketing’, or ‘print advertising’. Print is possibly the oldest known form of non-verbal marketing.

The oldest known marketing campaign came from a time when the art of writing was considered divine. Sometime in ancient Egypt, a fabrics seller hired a scribe to send out papyrus offering a reward of one gold piece to anyone who would return his escaped slave to him. In this papyrus, he included a decidedly favourable description of his wares.

Below is a translation of this papyrus, by James Playstead Wood.

“The man-slave, Shem, having run away from his good master, Hapu the Weaver, all good citizens of Thebes are enjoined to help return him.

He is a Hittite, short, of ruddy complexion and brown eyes. For news of his whereabouts, half a gold coin is offered. And for his return to the shop of Hapu the Weaver, where the best cloth is woven to your desires, a whole gold coin is offered.” — Hapu

While the slave was apparently never found (probably a good thing), this clever- albeit archaic- marketing campaign was enough to secure the success of the fabric seller who was able to expand their business.

That was over 5,000 years ago, the papyrus itself dating back to 3,000 BC.

Marketing may be young in name, but it is quite ancient as a practice. For as long as there has been a need or want, there is marketing; ready to lead consumers and businesses alike to the right place, the right product, the right people, and at the right time.

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