Should an Experienced Copywriter Still Write Their Own Sales Copy?

19 replies
Hello Fellow Warriors ,

If you were launching a new product, would you write your own sales copy or would you hire another copywriter? Or do both to split test?

The reason I ask is because I am an experienced copywriter and I often have clients too close to their projects and dilute their sales copy with information overload.

I started off writing sales copy for my own product launches but I am wondering if anyone has noticed increased or decreased conversions by writing their own sales copy?

Is it a myth? Are we too close to our products to be able to effectively write high converting sales copy ?
#copy #copywriter #experienced #sales #write
  • Steve…you might be safer just answering the question rather than doing what you are about to do…

    …FFS - if you insist on doing it - at least start with a prologue.

    Ok.

    Decades ago I read "Magic Words That Bring You Riches" by Ted Nicholas (nowadays he is known as the grandfather of direct response marketing).

    One of his many copywriting tips had a huge impact on me back them and to this very day…

    What was that then Steve?

    Delete the word "that" from your copy as many times as possible because it'll make it flow much better.

    With that said (oops).

    I'll just go and hide for cover.



    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author marleymae
      Originally Posted by Steve The Copywriter View Post

      Steve…you might be safer just answering the question rather than doing what you are about to do…

      …FFS - if you insist on doing it - at least start with a prologue.

      Ok.

      Decades ago I read "Magic Words That Bring You Riches" by Ted Nicholas (nowadays he is known as the grandfather of direct response marketing).

      One of his many copywriting tips had a huge impact on me back them and to this very day…

      What was that then Steve?

      Delete the word "that" from your copy as many times as possible because it'll make it flow much better.

      With that said (oops).

      I'll just go and hide for cover.



      Steve
      Thank you Steve No need to run and hide for cover. I can handle constructive criticism and to be honest I didn't realize that I used the word "that" so often.

      I appreciate the advice.

      Thanks,
      Marley
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  • Yes, it is easy to miss.

    Especially when you write your own copy.

    Often you just don't see or realise (that) they are there.


    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author marleymae
      Originally Posted by Steve The Copywriter View Post

      Yes, it is easy to miss.

      Especially when you write your own copy.

      Often you just don't see or realise they are there.


      Steve
      Thank you Steve
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  • Ha!

    That is so cool!

    Problem with prohibitorials is that they can run the roost — an' that is a bad thing if you take them on board at the expense of meanin'.

    Gotta be choosy about rules an' stuff: that way, you figure on what is functional.

    But this is a cool kinda double point we got goin' on here.

    We all got our own style, an' that is jus' how things are: habitual repetitions an' absences brought to bear on the next Big Thing.

    I would always wanna be self sufficient that way, but I understand I am no ubermistress of eternal copyin' zen, an I guess bein' flexible sometimes means buttin' outta the deal.

    That is all I gotta say right now, an' I am only seekin' here to rib Steve a little. It is not my intention to diss Ted Nicholas an' that — I guess that deal gotta fall to someone else.

    Thing I love about word prohibitions is how they breed rampant in bestsellers an' high profile copy without no one eyeliddin' a bat.

    Or a that.
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  • Talking of old man Nicholas.

    He always said a headline should never be more than 17 words.

    (to be fair he tested this himself on $millions of promo's)

    So for 15 long years my headlines were 17 words or less (in those days it was all press and magazine Ads).

    Slowly but surely the next generations of guru's rode into town - and everyone raved about their 3 mile long headlines.

    So I f***** about with my epics. From <17 to > 47 (or whatever).

    More or less the response stayed the same.

    And that as they say is that.


    Steve
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  • Hey, that's fashion.

    Sounds crazy, but one day, loon pants gonna live again.
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    • Profile picture of the author marleymae
      Originally Posted by Princess Balestra View Post

      Hey, that's fashion.

      Sounds crazy, but one day, loon pants gonna live again.
      Everything in fashion, repeats itself. Someday even fanny packs will make a comeback. Well, probably not.
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      • Originally Posted by marleymae View Post

        Everything in fashion, repeats itself. Someday even fanny packs will make a comeback. Well, probably not.
        I figure they had somea those in Cologne over New Year.

        But this is a serious point.

        Originally Posted by Raydal View Post

        Often I will make adjustments over long periods of time to tighten the copy.

        -Ray Edwards
        Because the world is in a state of perpetual flux, the 'fashion' of meanin' can change in an instant.

        If you got a handle on alla your own stuff, you can keep tabs on that, refinin' an' adjustin' as you spin through time's magnitude.

        Client work is done until they ask you for a reboost, same as novels hit the shelves edited an' finished.

        But we are not like that, an' neither is our input, output, throughput an' wahooput.

        I wanna stay adaptive that way, my hand on the tennis racket as the balls fly.

        (I trust my detractors — who regularly mistake me for some sex-obsessed nutzo — will understand that I am not tryin' to make with the innuendo here, but the only way I am draftin' in Rafael Nadal on this baby is if he strips to the waist an' fixes my hairdryer.)
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        • Profile picture of the author Oziboomer
          Originally Posted by Princess Balestra View Post

          Because the world is in a state of perpetual flux, the 'fashion' of meanin' can change in an instant.

          If you got a handle on alla your own stuff, you can keep tabs on that, refinin' an' adjustin' as you spin through time's magnitude.
          This is so true...

          But how to keep on trend.

          Is it a statistical decision or a gut feel?

          For a client it is possibly driven by economics...but for a copywriter is the driver more emotional due to the attachment of what has worked and what has been proven or it is it linked to the feeling I wrote it then so it must be good.

          What attachment do you have to past projects whether they are ongoing or finalized?
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  • If you start any kind of marketing campaign to bring those back…

    I'll never speak to you again.

    Please don't use this as an incentive.


    Steve


    P.S. You could revive denim jackets (the ones with the 2 pockets on the front) I never had one, and apparently at the moment its uncool to wear them with jeans.

    P.P.S. What do I know about fashion - the copywriters uniform is and always will be jeans and a white T shirt. With a blazer in the summer, coat in the winter.
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    • Originally Posted by Steve The Copywriter View Post

      If you start any kind of marketing campaign to bring those back...

      I'll never speak to you again.

      Please don't use this as an incentive.


      Steve


      P.S. You could revive denim jackets (the ones with the 2 pockets on the front) I never had one, and apparently at the moment its uncool to wear them with jeans.

      P.P.S. What do I know about fashion - the copywriters uniform is and always will be jeans and a white T shirt. With a blazer in the summer, coat in the winter.
      Mebbe we could market some special skincare air for goin' around the flesh on people's legs, an' throw in the purpose made 'cover' for free.
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    • Originally Posted by Steve The Copywriter View Post

      If you must...

      We can.


      Steve
      On a serious point, it is best if we can be self-sufficient wherever possible: Bolt did not win gold by proxy.

      So I aim to muster my own linguistic stallions wherever possible, even if I am unsure of where they are to run, or I am uncertain of which saddles to strap upon them.

      Every new copy opportunity must bring sumthin' new to the table in terms of learnin' or we become mere ciphers for our own prior knowledge, unable to witness our own stagnation until alla our faculties have ossified.

      But I guess there is a point at which the slack you cut for yourself rolls into a potential noose.

      In spite of your general skills an' your specific niche knowledge, the horizon of unwritten copy before you may demand another heroic type to fill it with the right kinda super discrete clouds.

      But I do not believe this applies to writin' your own sales copy.

      I would mebbe wanna a 2nd opinion, but I would not wanna hired factotum.

      Tellya, a good friend had a hired factotum a while back, an' she is still takin' the meds.
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  • Yes...get somebody else involved in the hardcore work and you may well need an express delivery service from the local pharmacy.

    Many say, DIY or just pass the whole shebang on.


    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Raydal
    Originally Posted by marleymae View Post


    Is it a myth? Are we too close to our products to be able to effectively write high converting sales copy ?
    Hard to say because I have written all my copy. But I know for sure that I write
    better copy for my clients than I do for myself because I think I can always return
    and fix it later. Often I will make adjustments over long periods of time to
    tighten the copy.

    -Ray Edwards
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    • Profile picture of the author marleymae
      Originally Posted by Raydal View Post

      Hard to say because I have written all my copy. But I know for sure that I write
      better copy for my clients than I do for myself because I think I can always return
      and fix it later. Often I will make adjustments over long periods of time to
      tighten the copy.

      -Ray Edwards
      Hello Ray,

      Thank you for your input. I feel that I write better copy for my clients too. I guess I was wondering if I was overthinking it. Often I will also make adjustments over a period of time. However, I tend to overthink too. I guess I am still discovering the fine line between "overthinking" and necessary adjustments.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bengr86
    Originally Posted by marleymae View Post

    Hello Fellow Warriors ,

    If you were launching a new product, would you write your own sales copy or would you hire another copywriter? Or do both to split test?

    The reason I ask is because I am an experienced copywriter and I often have clients too close to their projects and dilute their sales copy with information overload.

    I started off writing sales copy for my own product launches but I am wondering if anyone has noticed increased or decreased conversions by writing their own sales copy?

    Is it a myth? Are we too close to our products to be able to effectively write high converting sales copy ?
    It all depends, really, on how close I actually felt to what I was writing about. If I was brought on to a company merely to write, I wouldn't have a problem doing just that, writing (same applies for freelance work). If it was something I'd been working on for ages, had invested by skin and blood in, and knew backwards and forwards, I'd probably let someone else do the writing.

    It's the same as when I do website QA. If I was too heavily involved in the actual development of the website, I can't do proper QA, because I know where all the bugs are and how to tweak the website to get around all the tiny issues that interfere with the conversion process. If I have never encountered the website before, I've got no problem doing QA.
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  • Originally Posted by Oziboomer View Post

    This is so true...

    But how to keep on trend.

    Is it a statistical decision or a gut feel?

    For a client it is possibly driven by economics...but for a copywriter is the driver more emotional due to the attachment of what has worked and what has been proven or it is it linked to the feeling I wrote it then so it must be good.

    What attachment do you have to past projects whether they are ongoing or finalized?

    Woo hoo, Ozi — that is some hevyweight ball you jus' bowled there.

    An' you are right to figure on the emotional aspect.

    Like if you are writin' on the beach in the Bahamas (which I never am), surrounded by twinkly fish an' birds an' boats, then unless you are runnin' some kinda sensory firewall, alla that info is gonna find its way into your copy via your unified hooman intermediary mechanism, even if only as a subliminal trickle.

    Certainly, it will figure on your memory, an' throw up information invisible to the eventual users of the copy.

    Mebbe the experience will infuse your end product with no more than a real intangible kinda 'feel', rumblin' away under the hood of the brief, or mebbe you will hit on somethin' very specific from the environment an' embed it in the copy — some random guy who flips a spin on a sentence, an' whose presence is a genuine turnin' factor in the end product because his intervention as an amblin' stooge helped you choose X insteada Y.

    Alla that is super important because it is inseparable from the process, an' prolly possessed of more 'hooks' than the project or the client in terms of subsequent attachment for you as a memory-haver.

    Your client gets the words, but you retain touch of where you did the work — the mood an' shift of the day, the specific interruptions, the fish (if you happened to be on the beach.)

    From a professional point of view I guess there is a difference between finished products that are done an' dusted, an' ongoing stuff bloomin' an' dying back like a rosebush as the seasons propel any biz relationships forward.

    Thing here, I guess, is to think of planets orbitin' the Sun.

    That old project from way back is idlin' way out in the periphery, outta sight an' mind most of the time, kinda like Pluto.

    You can train a telescope on it, peer at its curiously dated runes, an' if need be, reel it in for closer inspection whenever you wanna.

    But mostly, you don't wanna, cos you are necessarily more attached to the current orbital swoop.

    Newer projects are real close up to your Sun's flames.

    They got moons, satellites an' spacestations, regular commutes of beings to an' fro, an' there is a real need to keep tabs on evrythin' up there in mission control so nuthin' crash lands or goes AWOL.

    Fleet of traffic might hover near a coupla moons for a while, then disappear for months.

    But you watch 'em, cos you know they are comin' back.

    It is a stronger an' more active attachment you got than with the distant Plutos.


    The stats vs feel is also a cool question because both provide information to help still the tip of your pen on a workable start point.

    Face it, we have all written brilliant irrelevances in our time because our specific flourishes hit on entirely the wrong place in time an' space.

    *hand fires into air on a routine spasm*

    Gotta tellya, I am no metrics person, an' my ability to metabolize numbers mirrors my talent for carbonizin' pizzas.

    So that puts me in the feelo camp, lookin' out alla the time for shifts in mood an' color, stuff in the news, trends, interstin' new tech an' boy bands, the kinda stoopid stuff people talk about in bars.

    That kinda stuff is less easy to measure than somea the stats, but it is real, visceral information, blarin' loud in its innocence.


    Woopy doop, there is so much here to consider — the whole question of attachment is a philosophical monster, an' in generatin' copy we are always seekin' to have our message land smack on the reader's close-up sunny side cos they are not interested in stuff that tickles their Pluto.

    I gotta hope that in promptin' me to cogitate, you are not now gonna regurgitate.

    Especially if you are on a beach.
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