How to Use the Pareto Principle in Copywriting
The Copywriter Column #195
Have you ever heard of the Pareto principle?
The Pareto principle is the idea that 80% of outcomes come from only 20% of causes.
Actually, it wasn’t even Vilfredo Pareto (and for whom the principle was named after) who recognized this connection when it came to outputs. That credit is given to an American engineer named Joseph M. Juran.
Regardless, the “Pareto principle” stuck and you’ve undoubtedly seen it applied to all kinds of areas in your world including:
Team dynamics
Time management
To-do lists
Computing and mathematics
Quality control
Healthy and safety
The Pareto principle can be applied to copywriting as well. Though, admittedly, I’m not the first person to see this.
The Pareto principle and copywriting
When it comes to writing, many argue that 80% of your time should be spent on research, wrestling with ideas, outlining, and editing your content. Only 20% should be spent on the actual writing part.
I don’t necessarily disagree with that. Your ability to produce impactful copy is directly related to how well you’ve prepared yourself to create it in the first place. And 100% of the members on my copy team would agree.
But I have another – maybe – controversial take here…
Based on the Pareto principle, it’s probably only 20% of your actual copy that’s responsible for 80% of its impact.
Let me say that another way…
Only 20% of what you write is responsible for 80% of your conversions.
How I’ve seen the Pareto Principle work in email marketing
I can safely say we’ve noticed this with the emails we write for our clients at Homestead.
There’s a reason we stress the importance of keeping the core idea of a message (and call to action) in the hero section of our clients’ emails – it’s because by and large, that part of the email is responsible for driving 80% of the clicks that lead conversions.
But you shouldn’t take my word for it because your audience(s) might be different, they might actually rely on the little bit of copy at the very bottom of an email, ad, or landing page to make a decision.
It’s why it’s so important to test everything like silly and critically analyze the data on a regular basis.
Don’t neglect the other 80% based on this principle
All that said, next time you sit down to work on your next campaign, ad, landing page, blog post, or whatever – make sure you have your core message dialed in.
It’s not that 80% of what you write is worthless (as Juran later noted, it’s still useful).
But know that only 20% of what you write will likely be responsible for moving your readers in the direction you want them to go.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you seen it to be true in your own life?
Micro-Course:
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If you want to transform your writing through a simple principles-based approach, join the waitlist for the free micro-course by clicking the button below.
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