The 5 C's of digital communication

Today’s a really straight-forward one.

Let’s talk about the quality of websites (of all digital communication, really). And let’s do it in a little bit of a fun way, by talking about your digital presence like a diamond.

Except instead of only four C’s, there’s five.

What are the 5 C’s?

Over more than a decade working with websites, especially the content parts, I’ve come up with a little group of tests that I run on them before we launch. I make sure that they can pass the 5 C’s tests. Are they:

• Clear

• Credible

• Coherent

• Consistent

• Compelling

Let’s go through them one by one. For fun, pull up something you’d like to judge and following along. This could be a post you wrote or your website. Give yourself a point for each one you “pass”.

Clarity: The major test

If people don’t know what you’re talking about, they’re not gonna read it. So, the first test demands that your site (or any digital communication) does the following:

• Who you’re talking to is easy to see,

• The main purpose is easy to understand,

• It’s easy to understand how to take action,

• It’s easy to understand what they’ll get by using your service,

• It’s easy to navigate the page, it’s not confusing to find what they need.

How’d your site do? Let’s move on to the next one.

Credibility: Can we trust you?

After they understand what you’re saying, the first question is whether they can trust you. Well, can they? Does your site do the following:

• Make you and your company look legit,

• Give lots of evidence of your past work,

• Instill trust and confidence in the way you write,

• Showcase your past success with reviews and testimonials,

• Present yourself as a trusted expert with the right skills and experience,

How’re you doing so far? Let’s move onto the third C.

Coherence: What’s the big idea?

While this one is a little different than clarity, they come from the same root. Can a person spend 1-3 seconds and understand your point? Let’s see if you do the following:

• Open with a cohesive message,

• Has simple, clear, to-the-point language,

• Messaging avoids the “word salad” problem,

• Everything seems written by the same person,

• Your language is the same “tone” throughout (for more on this, see this post),

Still hanging in there? Great, let’s move onto the fourth C.

Consistency: Do you instill trust?

Even if you’re the smartest person in the room, if you’re not “put together”, people won’t trust you. That means having consistent everything. Do you have:

• the same colors and brand elements across everything,

• the images (both icons and photos) are in the same style,

• the same fonts and icons in similar weights across everything,

• problems and benefits are talked about in the same tone and style,

• all parts seem like they are from the same whole, they feel cohesive.

This is really table stakes to presenting yourself professionally. If your vision and mission are different in different places, it introduces doubt, which isn’t what you want in a customer! Let’s get to the last C.

Compelling: Do you seem like THE solution?

If you have a 5/5 on everything else, but don’t hit this one, there’s still room for improvement. So, let’s carefully pay attention to, does your site:

• speak directly to the ideal user,

• make that user want to take action now,

• make it clear what the problem is and how to fix it,

• make it clear that you’re the one to solve that problem,

• use language on buttons to make people click (for more on this, see this post).

Making the need clear and how you can help are the last hurdles to clear!

How’d you do?

This is a fun little test, but if you were keeping score, here’s my back-of-the-envelope scoring system:

1-5: Uh oh, start building a better brand now,

6-10: Good start, but you have room to grow, choose one thing to work toward,

11-15: Still room to get better, concentrate on the areas that you had the lowest points,

16-21: In the upper tier, investigate that lower C and see what you can do to add points,

22-25: GREAT job! Now go validate this opinion with your favorite customer (outside opinions help a lot)

Hope that was helpful, see you next time,

Christine