I’ve just opened an email for a course I was a little bit interested in buying, and after getting 50% of the way through the sales page I felt like I’d been punched around the head with the ‘actually’ stick 100 times.

I checked – it was on the page 14 times.

On a page of around 1,000 words, the word ‘actually’ appeared FOURTEEN times. FOURTEEN!!!!

1% of the words on the sales page were ‘actually’.

I did not buy the thing. I closed the page, took some calming breaths, and channelled my frustration into this blog post, in which I’m covering:

• How the word ‘actually’ damages reader engagement.
• Why the word is bloody everywhere right now (even though it’s hurting sales more than helping them)
• How to find and eliminate surplus ‘actually’s in your sales copy and marketing content.

‘Actually’ damages reader engagement – here’s why

‘Actually’ is usually (almost always) a correction, or a criticism, about….

How you’re already doing things.

What you already believe.

How competitors are doing it wrong.

The status quo.

The direction the conversation, or your train of thought, was going in.

‘Actually’ is a correction.

You, the reader, are wrong. And the writer is correct.

It is a finger-wag in text form.

And if you, like me, feel a little jolt of irritation every time you stumble across the word, that’s because your brain perceives this impending correction/criticism as a threat, and prepares itself to respond.

And that little jolt:

• Makes it hard to concentrate on the other words
• Tells your body to get the hell out of here
• Associates that writer/website with this unpleasant feeling.

None of those are good for connection-building, engagement, trust…. you know those things we need before we feel ready to buy from someone.

Actually in my inbox right now

Some examples from the emails in my inbox today, just today:

Message: If you don’t have this tool, you’ll get the costing wrong.

Triggers: Fear.

Message: Without this system you will only be pretending to be excited about your trip.

Triggers: Doubt about true feelings.

Message: Without this resource you aren’t enjoying your life.

Triggers: Doubt, fear, shame.

Message: You were cheated by someone who sold you a workbook and it was crap.

Triggers: Annoyance, anger, regret, embarrassment.

Message: Without this, you’re such a mess you’ll just faff away the week and won’t turn it into actions

Triggers: Shame, regret, fear.

I don’t believe these writers are horrible people deliberately generating feelings of shame and fear in the reader so that they can get the click/sale they want.

I doubt they are aware of the impact the word ‘actually’ has on the reader.

I doubt most readers are aware of the impact the word ‘actually’ has on them.

They don’t feel a huge flare-up of these emotions – just a micro-dose of irritation every time they get poked in the eyeballs with an ‘actually’.

If it’s so crap for reader engagement, why is the word ‘actually’ chuffing EVERYWHERE????

I’m not the first person to grumble about the word ‘actually’:

This is your brain on the word ‘actually’ – Sally Adee, Last Word On Nothing – 2018

“Actually” Is the Most Futile, Overused Word on the Internet – Claire Carusillo, The New Republic – 2014

So if writers have bemoaned the use of the word ‘actually’ for more than 10 years, why is it more pervasive now than ever?

LLMs (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) – they bloody love it.

And they don’t know that it’s crap for engagement, connection and conversion.

They only ‘know’ that their data models show historically the word ‘actually’ shows up with a certain frequency in text, and so it will repeat that frequency when you ask an LLM to generate text.

The LLM is not creating a blog post, or sales page, or marketing email – it’s regurgitating words it’s already consumed, in an order dictated to it by a mathematical model.

But LLMs aren’t the sole source of the proliferation of ‘actually’.

Humans write it too.

Because they see it everywhere, they mistakenly assume it must be a ‘good’ word to use in copy, so they liberally sprinkle it about the place, like it’s sea salt.

But it’s not sea salt. And it is most definitely not making the dish more palatable.

How to tackle your own ‘Actuallys’

Start with the most recent blog post, social media post, marketing email or sales page you wrote.

Find your ‘actually’s. Ctrl+F on Windows. Command+F on Mac.

For each ‘actually’ you find, ask yourself:

1 – What is the function or purpose of the word here? What does it add to the text?

2 – Is this building connection and engagement with the reader? Or putting them down? Holding them away from me? Putting me above them?

3 – What happens if I take it out? Is anything lost?

Connection Over Perfection

Please remember, I’m not aiming for perfection and neither should you.

Every piece of marketing content you write is an opportunity to build connection with the reader and move them closer to buying from you.

But you don’t need to get it perfect before you hit publish.

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