Copywriting ‘in the black’
April 12, 2008
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One of the biggest issues I’ve faced in recent months is explaining the lay basics of both copywriting and grant writing to one of my clients. Both are incredibly complex processes, if you don’t have the right ‘mindset’ for it, and more importantly, if done wrong, can cripple your business.
So, while you’re still in tax season mindset, how about auditing your copy, and make sure you’re all in the black.
Check for your phrasing - does it leave a deficit of understanding? Does it make your clients see red?
Look for clumsiness, badly phrased, unclear or confusing promises, and ensure that you’ve explained your service in terms of the solution it offers. Also ensure that your copy has less colour emphasis and more actual content - no one likes bells and whistles that are unncessisary and the trend towards flashy sales pages that scroll on forever should probably be curtailed.
Spruce rather than retool - keep those books in shape
If it ain’t broke, don’t break it, even if you’re sure you’ve got a better idea. Remember that split testing, though time consuming, is a sales letter’s freind. Those split tests will also allow you to track where you’re succeeding, and keep your balance sheet nice and interesting.
Ask the expert - audit or rehaul?
If in doubt, don’t second or third guess yourself - ask an expert - the money you pay for advice will probably cost less than the time you’ve wasted trying to work out where you went wrong. Consider it as an outside audit. Sometimes people are ‘too close’ to a project to see why its not working.
Keep in the black
Don’t overextend yourself - though its great to run sale after sale, sometimes its just as good to make sure you’ve got a good base to work from. Analyse that great page of amazing copy and use bits of it again - there’s nothing wrong with adding your OWN work to a swipe file!
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