Copywriter’s secret: Customers Don’t Care About Your Passion
Here’s a tip you can use to write just about anything better: Your customer doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you. Or your passion. Or your company’s mission. Your customers only cares about themselves.
So take a look at your website, brochure or any other marketing copy you are using right now. Do you have a sentence, or worse, a paragraph or page describing why you love what you do, or how passionate you are about your chosen career ?
Strike it out immediately. Now re-write it forcing yourself to answer WHY your customer should care. Voila, your copy is already 100% better.
Doubtful? Check out these examples:
This is the FIRST paragraph of a website selling — get this — sales consulting services:
Howard writes about the art of selling. When not writing, he is consulting, teaching, or coaching business owners and professional service providers how to sell their expertise using the New Media Reality. He has been an Entrepreneurial Junkie since the 1960’s and is passionate about helping YOU sell more.
Now let’s see. The first sentence is about… Howard. The second sentence is about… Howard. The third sentence is about .. well, you get the idea. But, wait! Howard does want to help you, and you know that because he’s PASSIONATE about it. Are you sold yet?
(Howard also mentions a New Media Reality, which must be pretty important to him since it’s in Capital Letters. But since we have no idea what that is, it just sounds like jargony jargon to us.)
Too bad, because Howard looks like a nice guy, who probably knows more than a little bit about the art of face-to-face selling. But he waited until the very last words of his very last sentence to talk about you. Worse, even then, he didn’t give you any reason to believe him.
Ok, that’s an individual, now let’s look at a company website:
GreenPages Directory connects people seeking healthy options in their social, economic and physical lives with inspired innovators, conscientious entrepreneurs, innovative products and services, and the most current information, all aimed at making our world a better place.
When we focus on sustainable solutions together, we can begin to heal our planet at the same time we pursue profitable and ethical business opportunities.
Are you still awake? This writing provides excellent competition for Ambien, but it does absolutely nothing to convince a green business WHY they should pay the directory for a listing. Which, after all, is the whole purpose of this site.
If I run a green business on a tight marketing budget, the FIRST thing I want to know is how many more customers this listing will drive, how affluent I can expect those customers to be, and what kind of results other listers have experienced. It’s entirely possible that information is buried somewhere in this site, but I don’t care, because I’ve already bounced away to something else.
Each of these websites could do a much, much better job of winning new customers, just by telling the people who visit how the service will deliver what the reader wants – RIGHT AWAY.
Try it.
Then come back here and let me know how it turned out.