Attention newbs: opinions are like a$$holes, and this place is full of 'em

It depends. It depends on what you're selling. A demo video may be the optimal way to sell the product or service. Or it might not. As far writing copy... it depends on how much you want to maximize your sales. A number of marketers are happy using "good enough" marketing for their business.

I didn't start out planning to be a copywriter. I was a brick and mortar business owner who realized that if I wanted to make sure I covered my marketing and advertising costs of getting new business, then I had to write stuff that was better than what I had been producing. And if I wanted to make sure I turned a profit from my marketing, then what I wrote had to be top-notch.

Eventually I became quite good at writing marketing. So much so that other business owners I knew started asking me to write their marketing for them. I refused to do it until one friend blackmailed me into doing it. Seeing that he was the guy who introduced me to my future wife and the future mother of my children... well, he had a lot of leverage.

Long story short, I completely fell into the copywriting industry. I quickly realized that if I didn't want to stay at entry level fees forever... if I wanted to deliver bigger and bigger hits for my clients with more consistency, then I was going to have to up my game and keeping upping it.

The same is true with the other copywriters in this forum. If they want to command higher fees and be in demand then they have to be serious about honing their skills and delivering marketing that makes their clients more money.

Is there anything wrong with not wanting to write copy on a pro copywriter level?

Not at all.

Just realize that when you wander in here, you're surrounded by a good number of pros who take their livelihood pretty seriously. And the nature of their work makes them pretty proactive on squashing things that can hurt response rates or sales. Like bad advice being tossed around like it's something that should be followed to the "T".


IMHO, it never hurts to be upfront with your credentials. That you're not a copywriter and don't aspire to be one. Most of the copywriters here, IMHO, will treat you nicely or even fairly. The ones who don't... try to read their posts as emotionally detached as you can. More often than not, IMHO, their intentions to help were probably there but their delivery was different than what you expected.

Anyone who wants to learn the basics of copywriting, I highly recommend checking out the recommend books thread stickied at the top of this forum.

Sorry, you lost me on this one.

What I will say is that I don't post as often on this forum as I used to. I'm busy as heck with client work and my remaining time is consumed by family obligations. If I'm looking at a finite number of working hours in a given day (like all of us are), then in the best of interests of what brings in the most income for my businesses (copywriting and info-product), it's rarely participating in a marketing forum. It's quite common that what starts out as a single post turns into a series of posts to answer further questions, explain points more, rebute accusations, prove my case, and so on.

I hope you find your beach lifestyle in the near future.

I do agree with Angie on this, plenty of people come here and find themselves being advised by a wide variety of people. However some of the advice is backwards and won't benefit the business owner.

Are their intentions good? ...yeah, totally.

But I think the fact that there's a computer screen in front of them, makes them think less about the consequences of their words.

By having the protection of the screen, anyone can give advice (again, in good will) which hasn't been thought through. It's an 'off the cuff' opinion, that they will never have to see the consequences of.

And I don't think this will ever stop, so Angie's post is well needed.

It's up to you business owners to sort through the good from the bad.

Chris

P.S. As a tip - liked posts tend to be good posts... especially when they've been liked by the top posters here (which there was a link for but I can't find it .)

Not sure I agree.

Say for instance, "I found this part offensive." I've actually had people tell me that on a few occassions. And if I didn't have the confidence to test it anyway, I'd have left a lot of money on the table.

Personal opinions are very often just semantics - until there's data.

For newbies, they might be easily persuaded by someone's personal preference, rather than realizing, "Hey, this is definitely worth testing - whether you like it or not."

Copywriters... or anyone in direct response... are really just data collectors. The more data you can collect, the tighter you can make your campaign.

Sure, sometimes people post stuff here that's just atrocious.

I've also seen people (who can write) flip flop on revisions because of different people chiming in with their takes. It becomes a, "Who the heck am I supposed to listen to?" kind of thing.

My own wife has said, "I'm in your target market and I wouldn't fall for that" when she read some of my copy. And my oh my, it out-performed the control in-spite of her opinion. ;-)

My point is...

When a bunch of rabid copywriters are given limited information to work with.... and are coming from different styles (not to mention different levels of exposure to lots of data,) sometimes our feedback helps. And sometimes it just confuses whomever posts.

I'd love to see more people come back and say, "Your advice was spot on Angie. I knew you were right the moment I read your feedback."

Or...

"Damn Brian, the critique you gave me made sense, but it bombed like my dog dropping a deuce."

Also...

A lot of threads are totally hijacked by copywriters bickering amongst themselves. Like that helps.

Sometimes I feel like I can't take y'all anywhere.

Mark

P.S. "Sensitive reading" can be useful. I've gotten good ideas from people with zero advertising experience that amazed me. It's just not a sound business strategy.

The participation of newbies could help all copywriters because all experts have the chance to correct their mistakes. The discussions become more interesting when there are many contradictory opinions.

On the other hand, a newbie on copywriting can be an expert in other fields, and pay attention to different aspects that could make a difference.

And the truth is that the business owners who try to save money by asking the opinion of various copywriters (and newbies) in a forum are not wise at all (as explained by Mark).

From what I could understand copywriting depends on research. So, opinions can be misleading and dangerous - even if given by experts, because the necessary research is missing.

Therefore, it would be better if the copywriters here had the chance to help even those who are not serious about their business - perhaps because they cannot pay a copywriter, and at the same time attract paying costumers thanks to their brilliant solutions, without being bothered by contradictory opinions.

Experts may be able to help many business owners based on their experience even without research, but if the newbies keep defending different tactics, their superiority becomes obscure. This is irritating for the experts, and even worse for the public.