How to Apply Public Speaking Principles to Written Copy
Liam Sandford
Liam Sandford is a Head of Marketing, public speaking expert, and 2x Best Selling Author including the book Effortless Public Speaking. He helps ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs communicate with impact to get noticed, grow their career, and build their business.
The skills that let a speaker hold a room, clarity, structure, rhythm, signposting, are the same skills that make written copy land. Most marketing writing fails because it has none of them. It is polished and grammatically fine, but it has no voice and no shape, so the reader drifts off exactly as an audience would if you stood up and read them your service list.
I have spent 10 years in marketing, and the fastest way I know to improve someone's copy is to get them to write the way a good speaker speaks. This article walks through the public speaking principles that make written copy stronger, and how to apply them to landing pages, emails and social posts.
Why Copy That Converts Has the Same Shape as a Good Speech
A good speech opens with a hook, a line or a moment that makes people think "this matters to me." It builds a case in the body with examples, evidence and reasoning. Then it closes by telling the audience exactly what to do next. Copy that converts does the same three things in the same order.
The difference between copy that gets ignored and copy that converts is almost always structural rather than stylistic. On an email, the subject line is your open, the body is your case, and the call to action is your close. When that structure is clear, the copy works. When it is muddled or missing, the copy fails, however nice the sentences are. This is the same open, body and close of the Nano Speech, the framework I built for public speaking, applied to the page instead of the stage.
How the Nano Speech Structures Your Website Copy
Apply the open, body and close to your homepage and the whole thing sharpens. Your headline is the open, and it has about three seconds to answer why this page matters to the person reading it. Your value proposition and your proof are the body, building the case for why your solution works. Your call to action is the close, telling the visitor exactly what to do next.
Most websites confuse people because that structure is scrambled. They never really open, they bury the value halfway down, and their call to action is vague or buried. Running the page through the Nano Speech fixes all three at once, because it forces you to decide what the open is, what the body proves, and what single action the close asks for. A visitor should never have to hunt for any of the three.
Why Your Email Subject Line Is Your Open
Email is won or lost at the subject line, because the subject line is your open and it competes with dozens of others in a crowded inbox. You have a second or two to earn the click, which calls for exactly the hooks you would use to start a speech. A question: "Are you making these pricing mistakes?" A promise of value: "The three numbers that decide whether you are profitable." A curiosity gap: "The thing nobody tells you about positioning."
Get the open wrong and nothing else you wrote matters, because the email never gets opened. This is why the craft of the subject line rewards thinking like a speaker rather than a marketer, and it is part of the wider skill of learning to write marketing emails the way you speak, so the whole message, not just the subject, sounds like a person the reader wants to hear from.
How Storytelling in Copy Works Like Storytelling on Stage
Storytelling is the most powerful tool in both public speaking and copywriting, and it does the same job in each: it makes a point memorable, builds emotional connection, and lets the audience see themselves in the outcome. A dry list of benefits slides off the page; a story sticks, because the reader casts themselves in the lead role.
The structure is identical too. On stage you set a scene, introduce a character and a challenge, show how they resolve it, and land on the lesson. Good copy does the same: it opens on a recognisable person or situation, shows the problem, reveals the solution, and ends on the transformation. If you want the fuller method, it is worth learning how storytelling in marketing connects and converts, because the story is usually doing more persuading than any feature you could list beside it.
Why Clarity Beats Clever Wordplay
Good speakers are clear. They use plain language, explain any jargon they cannot avoid, and repeat their core idea so the room remembers it. Good copy follows the same discipline, because a reader who has to work to understand you simply stops reading. Clever copy that confuses loses to plain copy that lands, every time, because clear beats clever whenever the two compete.
Compare "we help sales teams close deals faster" with "we optimise your pipeline velocity." One is concrete and instantly clear; the other is fog. The rule I use for any piece of speaking works just as well on the page: if you can say it in five words, do not use 10. Strip the sentence back to the plainest version that still carries the meaning, and it will convert better precisely because more people understand it.
How Specificity Builds Credibility
A weak speaker says "our clients see great results." A strong one says "we worked with a firm that lifted its customer retention from the low seventies to the high eighties inside six months." Specificity builds credibility, because a general claim sounds like hype while a specific example sounds like something that genuinely happened. The detail is the proof.
Apply the same test to your copy. Instead of "we deliver results," give the shape of a real result. Instead of "our team is experienced," name the specific experience that matters to this buyer. You do not need to inflate anything; you need to swap the vague claim for the concrete one, because people believe the concrete claim, not the vague one. When you are writing example figures, keep them honest and grounded in what you can genuinely stand behind, because a specific claim only builds trust if it is true.
Why Your Copy Needs One Clear Close
Plenty of pages and emails either lack a call to action or pile up several competing ones, so the reader does not know which step to take. That is the opposite of a good speech close, which gives the audience one clear next move: "sign up for the workshop," "book the consultation," "download the guide." One instruction, unmistakable.
Your copy needs the same clarity. Choose one primary call to action, make it visible, and make it obvious what happens when someone clicks. "Book a call" beats "learn more" because it names the actual next step. If you must offer a secondary option for people who are not ready, make it clearly less prominent, so the one action you most want is never in a tie with another.
How Pacing and Objection Handling Transfer From Stage to Page
A speaker varies pace to hold attention, speeding up here, pausing there. In writing, paragraph length does the same work. Short paragraphs create pace and land emphasis; longer ones let you develop an idea. Use only short ones and the copy feels choppy; use only long ones and it feels dense. Mixing them gives your writing the rhythm of good speaking, and that rhythm keeps a reader moving down the page.
A good speaker also anticipates the questions a room is silently asking and answers them before they are raised. Do the same in copy. If your price is a stretch, name it and explain why it pays back. If your solution takes time to implement, say so and set the expectation. Addressing the objection head on builds trust faster than pretending it does not exist, because the reader can tell you are being straight with them.
How to Write Copy That Sounds Like You Speaking
The best copy reads like a conversation, in the language you truly use rather than a stiff, flowery register you would never say out loud. The simplest test is to read your copy aloud: if it sounds awkward spoken, it is too formal, so adjust it until it sounds like something you would genuinely say. That conversational tone makes writing feel authentic and trustworthy.
This is the same instinct behind the idea that content marketing starts with how you speak: your spoken voice is the raw material, and the closer your writing stays to it, the more it connects. It is also the whole premise of public speaking for business growth, that the way you communicate out loud is the engine underneath everything you publish. Learn to speak well, and your copy improves on its own.
Frequently Asked Questions About Public Speaking Principles in Writing
Should my website copy match my speaking voice exactly?
It should be close, though it can be a touch more polished. People forgive small bits of conversational filler when you speak that they would notice on a page, so tidy those up, but keep the tone, the word choices and the personality the same. If you are warm and funny in person, that should come through in the writing; if you are direct and plain spoken, your copy should feel that way too. A mismatch between how you sound and how you write quietly erodes trust.
How do I know if my copy is clear enough?
Test it on someone who knows nothing about your business. Ask them to read your homepage or email and tell you what you do and what you want them to do next. If they cannot answer both clearly, the copy needs work. Clarity is hard to judge from the inside, because you know your business too well to see the gaps; an outside reader shows you exactly where the confusion sits.
What is the best way to structure a sales email?
Open with something genuinely relevant to the reader, a problem you know they face or a specific detail about them. In the body, share one useful insight or result that speaks to that. Close with a single clear next step, usually a short call. Keep it to a few short paragraphs, one idea each, and one call to action at the end. It is the Nano Speech again: open, body, close, just sized for an inbox.
Should my copy use active or passive voice?
Lean on active voice. "We helped dozens of firms grow their revenue" is stronger than "revenue was grown for our clients," because active voice feels direct and carries the energy of good speaking. Passive voice has its uses, but sparingly and on purpose; most of the time the active version is shorter, clearer and more persuasive.
TL;DR: How to Apply Public Speaking Principles to Written Copy
Written copy works the way a good speech does: it earns the reader's attention paragraph by paragraph by speaking to what they care about.
Readers behave like an audience, deciding every few seconds whether to keep paying attention.
A clear open, one core message and a purposeful close work on the page exactly as they do on the stage.
Paragraph length, rhythm and pacing shape the reader the way pauses and emphasis shape a listener.
The reader is quietly asking "is this for me?", so every line should be earning that yes.
Treat the reader as an audience and you write copy that converts; treat them as a passive consumer and you write copy that gets ignored.
More From Liam Sandford
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