Lately,
I’ve been thinking a lot about headlines.
Namely, how the media uses them in newspapers, articles, and gov’t’s videos to grab so many people’s attention and create fear, spread false information, or highlight one of their campaigns’ success.
And it’s one sneaky thing that the best journalists do, but fledgling copywriters tend to forget about.
Even though it’s the basis of all persuasion and making people pay attention to you.
And that is, speaking their language and about what might interest them.
I have seen this messed up so many times.
For example,
I did this in the good ol’ days when I still had the eggshell on my butt and I was spreading my wings with my first clients.
He tasked me with writing a landing page.
“Ohohoh, I’ll finally make some money with copywriting”
Then, I proceeded with writing.
I spent like six or seven hours on that “masterpiece”, and when I presented it to my client, he told me that we should speak about it this coming Friday.
I thought that he wanted to praise me in person for the swift delivery of an awesome piece of copy.
Friday came.
After picking a barrel full of plums, weeding out my garden, and watering my tomatoes and pickles, I hopped on the computer, launched zoom,
And waited for him to enter the call.
I sat there, excited about the praises he might tell me.
He came online and after the usual greetings and all that, we started dissecting the copy….
Truth be told,
I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life..
I got a lesson FROM MY CLIENT about HOW TO WRITE COPY.
He started lecturing me about all kinds of personalities and what language I should use and how I should word my copy so it won’t repulse the very people that it intended to convince.
It was the longest 1,5 hours of my life (After having to hold back my BM when I had diarrhea. That was a WAAAY longer experience I might tell you one day)
Thankfully,
He recognized my passion and good qualities so he gave me another chance.
And this time, I got it right.
How right?
I don’t know, all I know is that he didn’t change much about the copy after he put it on his site, so it must’ve been a good one.
But it taught me a vital lesson about how easy it is to fuark up headlines and an entire piece of copy by not adhering to the core principle of speaking the language of your audience and writing in the voice of your client.
Never forget this.
To get my ebook with similar lessons about mistakes fledgling copywriters can make, visit theprybar.com