The Italian people out there know what it's like to cook with your mother. She can't keep her eye/hands off whatever you're doing. If you're chopping the garlic while she's grating the onions, she'll stop grating the onions to correct your garlic-chopping technique. There can't be TWO right ways to chop garlic, CAN there!?
That's more or less what it's like to write copy for small business clients. Only in this case, it really is THEIR copy and so what happens is, they add their two cents to what you wrote, there's nothing you can really do about it, and that's how errors are born. You put in the parsley, they added MORE parsley, and now there's too much parsley. Too many copywriting cooks... you know the old cliche.
The challenge with small business clients is that they only want to pay so much, and that is reasonable and understandable. However, being on the copywriting side of things makes this a somewhat excruciating experience if you look for too long. Make no mistake - the copy that I write is manipulative in every way. I did all that stuff on PURPOSE, to help you sell things.
The headline at the top is written so that the search engines will find you. The length of the sentences is purposeful so that people will remain glued to the message as they read. The bolded subheads were crafted like that to hold attention all the way down the page. The lack of redundancy will keep your copy crisp and readable.
But copy is so easy to tinker with. ("Oh, I'll just edit this sentence just a wee bit." "Oh, I don't care for this particular word, let's change it.") The clients can't help themselves, and is how errors quickly creep back into the draft. And since the client already paid for a set amount of hours, there's little I can do after the fact.
I can't very well be like your Italian mother, smacking your hand away from the parsley, hollering "No, do it THIS way!" That's not very professional, and the fact is that you can piss off a copywriting client by being too much of a control freak. After all, it's THEIR project. THEIRS!
(But GAH - your badly written copy reflects poorly on ME!)
So, my ongoing struggle as a marketing copywriter is to look away once the final draft has exchanged hands. It's not my business what the client's homepage says in the end. After the client says thanks for your advice/help, here's your money, I have to walk away and not look back unless I'm asked to look back.
But GOD, it can be PAINFUL!!
Email dina@wordfeeder.com for a copywriting or website marketing quote today.
