So yeah babes.
This is sometimes what comes out from my prospective customer’s mouth:
“Right… I really, REALLY know I need to have copy that converts…
But on the other hand…
I need my marketing to FEEL like me, so it’s not just some icky writer
wreaking havoc and making me look bad.”
Not verbatim, but that’s the gist of it.
Alright, I get it, every business owner wants to have their very personal stamp on their marketing. Understood.
Let’s get to the style part in a minute, but first:
“Excuse For Asking Me Sir/Ma’am, But…
Are You In Business To Look Good Or To Sell Stuff?”
Because if looking good comes first for you, I bid you good luck and good night.
You’re in for some rough realizations somewhere down the line, not too far away now.
Now about that intriguing personal style/feel thing.
In the past year alone, I’ve had two perfectly wonderful and intelligent clients who for some weird reason decided – against my best recommendations – to change the copy I wrote them to ‘better suit their style’…
And in each case, the resulting franken-copy promotion duly bombed. I could only shake my head and ask them to reconsider.
Luckily, one of the two had the good sense to run my version after that experiment, to much success.
But here’s the more important point most people overlook:
A Good Copywriter Can Mimic Your
Personal Style Perfectly (When Asked)
The two clients I mentioned failed to realize one crucial detail.
That messing with expertly created finished sales copy in favor of some stylistic idiosyncracies… ALSO tragically messed with its ability to produce results for them.
Here’s the thing though: you CAN have both.
Effective sales copy can – and should – be in your own voice.
Getting copy in your own, personalized voice almost never turns out to be the real problem.
This is a skill great copywriters pretty much invariably possess.
The problem typically is that you – as the business owner – think you know better.
Sorry to be so direct, but I’ve seen this countless times.
You think this because you DO know yourself and your business better than the copywriter, obviously.
But it does NOT translate to knowing how to relate it to your customer, a.k.a. sell it better – in print, no less!
In a good 95%+ of cases, knowing your style better does NOT mean you know best how to sell it.
You are NOT your own customer – EVEN if you originally created the product or business based on your own needs.
By the way – I’ve humbly come to the same conclusion testing marketing in my own businesses over the years. Every entrepreneur without exception goes through this phase.
What matters is knowing the market, and how to present who you are and what you have to offer them… so they’ll be fulfilled.
That’s a completely different vantage point.
A viewpoint you cannot have by definition as the product owner and centerpiece of your business.
Why not accept this, and let the copywriter bridge the gap and make you the dough.
So… enough with the lukewarm launches
that supposedly ‘pick up over time’
Yeah sure, when did such a thing ever happen? Really? 🙂
Your launch/campaign either works out of the gate… or it doesn’t.
Then you lick your wounds and take another crack at it later and get it right. Maybe.
Even if you were to take the long view and keep tweaking it, you’ll need even MORE conversion power to make it work.
Unless… maybe if you have celebrity status at the level of Oprah.
And even THEN people won’t buy what you offer automatically.
Think the big movie stars never have duds? Think the same doesn’t apply to big time marketers? If so you haven’t been paying close enough attention. Now in conclusion…
If you want your campaign or launch to actually work, you do need copy that makes sure there’s a true message-to-market-match and your messages translates to high conversion. You can even do it in your very own style… if you have one your customers will recognize and respond positively to. But you MUST do it by design… ‘fixing’ copy to suit your style after it’s written is not the way to get results. Now go forth and succeed! 🙂
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