Ah copywriting. The Dark Art. The powerful and faintly sinister air cultivated by stern-faced men with dark glasses.
To listen to them, you’d be forgiven for believing they could hypnotise you into killing and eating your own dog if you so much as glance at a single word of their “killer copy”
And, of course, it’s all nonsense.
And here’s how we know it’s nonsense: if they really could do all this…why would they be trying to sell you a copywriting training course? Wouldn’t they be sending letters to Richard Branson, to, ahem, “compel” him to write them an arbitrarily large cheque? Fig 1 is copywriting as fantasised about by some people in the industry.
Fig 1: Copywriting as imagined by some people I could mention
The Truth About Copywriting
… is… your copy is probably only the fourth most important thing you have to think about when you’re sending out marketing stuff, whether it’s emails, direct mail, or some other form of advertising.
Bit of a blow to copywriters with an ego problem, that, I know, but I call it as I see it.
Because here’s how things actually stack up in order of how important they are:
- Relationship. Ultimately, no one is going to buy from you if they don’t like you, trust you and believe what you’re saying. No matter how lyrical you wax or how silver-tongued you are, if you don’t have a relationship with the guy or gal reading your copy, you won’t sell a bean. Copywriting is not magic or mind control.
- Your List or Market. Reckon you can learn to “compel” people to buy with Mr Guru’s copywriting skills? No, think again. Fact is you can’t even “convince” them. They do that for themselves. You don’t believe me? Well, just imagine Darth “Copywriting Genius” Vader trying to “compel” or “convince” a vegetarian to eat a pork sausage, or a Catholic Nun to pop in to the local Tesco for a gross of condoms. Just ain’t gonna happen.
- The offer you make to them. Reductio ad absurdum — you make no offer at all. What will they buy? Nothing. Which is why what you’re offering is far more important than how you offer it. In other words, if your offer is crap great copy is just polishing a turd. It might be a shiny turd, but it’s still a turd, nonetheless.
- Your copywriting skills. And we get here at last! If the other three things are good, then your fabulous copy gets a chance to do its job. But if they’re not… it won’t matter one whit how good a wordsmith you are.
So where does this leave us?
I mean…
Is learning the art of copywriting a waste of time?
No.
Why?
Because all other things being equal you’ll get better results from good copy than you’ll get from bad copy. And while all things rarely are equal, we can do a hell of a lot to try to make them that way.
And it makes sense for us to do that, because once you learn the skills, it’s no harder to write it well than to write it badly. And it really is a learnable skill.
I’m not saying everyone has the same aptitude for it and there are always going to be those irritating bald bastards who seem to have a natural flair for it. But the truth is you can easily learn the 20% of stuff you need to know to get 80% of the results. And for most of us, that’s a perfectly good trade off.
Fact is, you don’t need all the fancy trick and techniques the “gurus” try and push on you. If you can chat up the guy or gal on the checkout at your local supermarket, then you can write profitable and effective sales copy, because rather than trying to close the sale with one of those humungous sales letters you’ve no doubt seen floating around the ‘net like pond slime, you can sell slowly, over time, by emailing your list short, conversational emails.
If you do that right, then your copywriting skills don’t need to extend any further than being an interesting and decent chap or chappess. The best sales letter I ever wrote was just 360 or so words long, and it converted at 16% or more. It was little more than a call to action.
Why did it work so well?
Because of the relationship built up over time with regular and frequent email.
No magic, no mystery.
Yes, copywriting is important and a vital skill for every business owner to learn, but it is no panacea.
