An Honest Copywriter?

[Kevin Kimes]

Salespeople, marketers, et al., are not known generally for being among the most honest in the world.

When writing, as with all my endeavors, I strive to not be dishonest - above perhaps all other considerations. As I begin to add copywriting to my services, I am exploring the moral implications of working in this area of the industry.

I'm curious to know the opinions of copywriters regarding this question: Is it possible to be an honest copywriter?

I believe it is possible, but perhaps limiting in some ways. The most significant of which would likely be not writing for products you don't actually believe are worth buying.

What other limitations, ramifications, implications, can you think of for one who endeavors to be an honest copywriter?

(Also, some people confuse rationalization with honesty. Rationalization in this context being the act of convincing one's self that they are being honest, when in fact they are not. The ability to come up with a logical trick to hoodwink the conscience is not genuine honesty.)

Discuss.

P.S. I don't mean to insinuate that anybody here is dishonest, nor that the work of copywriting itself is dishonest by nature. In fact, I suspect that the most successful copywriters would prove to also be among the most honest copywriters.

[OutOfThisWord]

Honest is when people keep buying from you.

Doesn't take that much talent to get someone to buy something once.

[Courtney Keene]

I personally believe dishonesty and one-time sales techniques (as opposed to relationship-building techniques) come from having no trust in the product. If you know the product is a piece of junk and won't really help anybody, how can you sell it?

Honest copywriting comes from full endorsement of a product and familiarity, most importantly, with the people for whom it's made. If you know it will solve a problem they have, you can honestly sell it to them.

[HeySal]

That's a tough one, Kevin. The hottest converting sales pages often rely on hype or misrepresentation of some sort or other. Unfortunately, the technique is still the big seller. While you can write an honest page for yourself and settle for the lower return and the more long term advantages, clients want results RIGHT NOW.

Not even going to attempt an answer to the problem -- it's the very reason I don't write anything promotional - just reports, ebooks, and articles. I just don't want to deal with the attitudes that insist on fast sell and hype. I don't mind juggling a little language here and again - and if everyone stuck to that a whole new leveled market would emerge. But I just can't stomach some of the techniques that marketers seem to take to be "must do" any more. I just write my products and stay out of the way of the excrement emanating from the air conditioner.

[GypsyRay]

I think in the world of the web today honest copywriting is the most effective. When my heart isn't behind a product my copy is crap.

When I believe in the product I find that my copy comes easy, almost writes itself.

My best honest copywriting method has been a formula like this:

Intro- "Do you have this problem?"

Main Body- "Well, here's a little piece of content that solves your problem and proves that the author of this email understands your problem and how to solve it."

Outro- "Oh by the way if you really want to solve that problem here's a product related to the content I just gave you that will help you even more."

With that "content is king"/reciprocity approach I think one can't be dishonest and I find it has greater returns then "BUY THIS NOW IT'S THE BEST EVER AND IT'S THE LAST ONE" frame.

[Minbani]

One of the things I have noted over the years is the difference in copy writing techniques between countries. Whether this has anything to do with our different laws is most likely. Consumer protection is taken very seriously here in Australia.

My personal opinion? I seriously don't like copy writing. I find the need to twist and turn people's misery and needs degrading and disrespectful. I also feel that finding someone's greed need distasteful.

If a product or service is good and helpful, please just tell me about it and what it actually does. Over-promising and under-delivering will save you on the refunds that way!

[marciayudkin]

Is it possible to be an honest copywriter?

I believe it is possible, but perhaps limiting in some ways.

Yes, it is possible to be an honest copywriter. I could name dozens of them.

It is not limiting at all, no more so than being an honest accountant, an honest shop owner or an honest web designer or obeying the law in daily life.

Marcia Yudkin

[ThomasOMalley]

Quote: "My personal opinion? I seriously don't like copy writing. I find the need to twist and turn people's misery and needs degrading and disrespectful. I also feel that finding someone's greed need distasteful.

If a product or service is good and helpful, please just tell me about it and what it actually does. Over-promising and under-delivering will save you on the refunds that way![/QUOTE]

I find your comment amusing since you are in the copywriting section of the warrior forum.

Plus, effective copy tells you about a product or service and what it actually does. You have read too many IM sales pages...read some sales pages in other areas.

[MissLauraCatella]

Good copywriters don't lie, we dramatize.

[RefundHost]

yes you're right

[laurencewins]

I actually hate being called a copywriter because so many people associate it with being dishonest. I simply call myself a writer and I believe in honesty at all times. Sure, it might cost me money but I don;'t have a guilty conscience about anything I do and I live happily with that notion.

[Johnny12345]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kimes

Is it possible to be an honest copywriter?

Properly done, copywriting isn't about lying or misleading people.

It's about presenting a product in the best possible light and showing your prospect a powerful benefit that compels them to act.

-John

[Alex Cohen]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kimes

I'm curious to know the opinions of copywriters regarding this question: Is it possible to be an honest copywriter?

There's a more basic question you must answer first.

As a copywriter, you will be asked to write sales copy that persuades people to buy.

And to be effective, you must use techniques that agitate emotions in the prospect and alter his state of mind.

Are you prepared to do that?

Alex

[Kevin Kimes]

Originally Posted by Alex Cohen

And to be effective, you must use techniques that agitate emotions in the prospect and alter his state of mind.

While I'm not a veteran copywriter, I would submit that this statement is not wholly correct. You seem to be suggesting that this is the only way to be effective at writing sales copy.

Avoiding my own urge to get into the semantics ("depends on what the meaning of the word 'is', is" ), I submit that it's possible to be reasonably effective and successful without playing with people's emotions.

There are times when I've been emotionally duped into buying things, but I've learned from those events. I usually tend to be analytical and unemotional in my purchases. Granted, I'm certainly not a good demonstrator of typical consumer behavior, either.

On the other hand, it might be nearly impossible for even the most stoic individual to avoid all emotional involvement when buying things. As a copywriter, at least one striving to be honest, one must be responsible in how and when one pulls on the strings of emotion.

[Alex Cohen]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kimes

While I'm not a veteran copywriter, I would submit that this statement is not wholly correct. You seem to be suggesting that this is the only way to be effective at writing sales copy.

Avoiding my own urge to get into the semantics ("depends on what the meaning of the word 'is', is" ), I submit that it's possible to be reasonably effective and successful without playing with people's emotions.

There are times when I've been emotionally duped into buying things, but I've learned from those events. I usually tend to be analytical and unemotional in my purchases. Granted, I'm certainly not a good demonstrator of typical consumer behavior, either.

On the other hand, it might be nearly impossible for even the most stoic individual to avoid all emotional involvement when buying things. As a copywriter, at least one striving to be honest, one must be responsible in how and when one pulls on the strings of emotion.

EVERY successful copywriter knows: the great majority of people buy on emotion.

It's Copywriting 101 and basic human psychology.

If you hope to have a successful copywriting career, you must accept this fact.

Alex

[John_S]

Hype is often the penalty for having an unremarkable product or service.

Might as well fault the inventor for falling in love with their own product, essentially lying to themselves about market potential. Or dressing up their own ego as a ventriliquist dummy they call "the market" or "the customer." Where never is heard a discouraging word. And the skies are not cloudy, if management says they aren't.

Scratch a marketing lie and you'll find a whole raft of lies told by a deluded business management or inventor. Lies told well before the marketing guy or copywriting gal enters the picture. Build a better moustrap and the world will beat a path to your door? That's a lie.

All Marketers Are Liars has a different perspective.

And the saying is you can't cheat an honest man. Consumers want to lie to themselves, and in a lot of markets they are looking for an accomplice to make those lies seem true. Big house you can't afford anyone? Keeping up with the Joneses?

They aren't upside down on their mortgage, they are upside down on telling themselves what they can and can't afford. They are upside down on truth. They just found banks willing to aid and abet.

Why not have true marketers develop products the market actually wants? Why not have a copywriter write the ideal sales piece first? Get inside the mind of the customer, and let that guide your development. Then lift the business out of the muck of self-congratulatory self-admiration of mediocrity and build something that matches the copy?

With copy as the blueprint, the problem is solved. Lies gone. But that's not what clients do with copywriters, now is it? That is not what copywriting clients are buying, now is it?

I was just reading about HP (Hewlett flipping Packard) liquidating their tablet after 49 days of competition against Apple.

Now there is a bitch slap of truth. Learn from something like that -- which HP will not be doing -- and this problem largely goes away. Have companies start hiring market analysts to do post mortems in order to improve? Why? Nothing is wrong in corporate wonderland.

Now shut up and Make People Buy Our Stuff.

[Hugh Thyer]

I write copy to help businesses sell their products and services.

Every business has to sell, or they go broke. Whether sold by sales copy, over the phone or over the counter doesn't matter.

Are you implying everyone in business is there because they're dishonest?

[John_S]

Read All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin.

It is not an anti marketing book.

Are you implying everyone in business is there because they're dishonest?

A psychological study found the ONLY difference between entrepreneurs (the entrepreneur type) and anybody else was a reality warping egocentric delusion.

Essentially, they view their own decisions as less risky. Probably not the definitive study, but interesting.

When you can pass a lie detector test and actually believe what you're telling yourself, it's hard to use the word dishonest.


P.S. I develop marketing and copy that puts whoever isn't hiring me out of business. I kill small businesses, one way (by out competing them) or another (by growing their small business so it's not so small).

That's my job. Not copy. Not ads. Not coddling small businesses by catering to their comfort zone or drinking their koolaid.

[Jake Gray]

Originally Posted by John_S

Read All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin.

While we are on the topic of Seth Godin, read anything and everything
by him. Seth is absolutely brilliant.

[yecall]

I think this is a well-considered and important topic. My opinion is that it is always not only possible but necessary to stick to the truth in writing. The reason for this is that there is an authenticity that comes through in good writing. Without this authenticity, the writing is not good anyway.

[Ken_Caudill]

Lying isn't selling. Its just lying.

[pronetwriter]

Honesty should be about telling people the advantages without lying to them or stretching the truth.This explains why it's important to choose a good product or service.Just make them see why they need it,that it provides a good solution to their problems.

[timtam991]

I think that copywriters are and should be as honest as any other person (at any other job), because like every other job in the world, if it's done right and professionally and truthfully, it is done in the best way possible for everyone's interests.
Truth sells, and that is obvious especially in advertising. People can spot a lie a mile away.
When I write articles about a product, for examples, then sure - I can say things that are not true and give magical qualities to the product (Apple...?), but I believe it is better to make the truth sound good instead of making a lie sound even better. It usually defeats the purpose.