Ep 19: Does Your Copywriter Want Sales for You or Praise for Them?

In today’s episode I am asking the question, do copywriters need to make sales?

I’m exploring the idea that copywriting and sales are inextricably linked and looking at opposing views to this argument and thoughts about the purpose of my trade.

I will be considering the following:

• Is there a distinction between being a salesperson and a copywriter?
• What motivates copywriters?
• Why wouldn’t copywriters want to sell?
• If not to generate sales, what is the purpose of writing copy?
• Is persuasive writing regarded as a bad thing?

I’d like to shift perspectives in this podcast by showing you how I view sales copy as a gift, a bridge over a gap and a solution to a problem. I’ve thrown in a couple of sketches based on experiences from my past to emphasise my points – the tunnel digging war scenario may be a little far-fetched but I feel it captures the essence of those early days of professional copywriting beautifully!

I hope you enjoy this one and that it helps you to view persuasive writing in a different light so that you can go on to write better sales copy and have the confidence to experiment with your words as tools to make conversions happen.

Links:

• Register for the Thursday Q & A session 
• Register for the Write with Influence course

Show Transcript:

Amy:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Write with Influence podcast, a dinky, delightful collection of tips, tricks, and sketches to help you write better copy so that you can sell yourself, sell your products or sell your service. Now, today’s episode explores the question; do copywriters need to make sales? Which may sound strange – I’ve just told you this is a podcast all about making sales, but the reason I’m asking is because every now and then something happens that makes me question my assumptions. I’ve always associated being a copywriter with making sales. Personally, I was drawn to those ‘direct mail’ style campaigns. Whether you kind of mock that over the top “Buy now! Wait, there’s more!” style or not, what I really admired was that those campaigns had to work really hard to make someone buy and there was no hiding the results. You know, a writer knew if he or she had failed depending on what orders and sales were brought in.

So, what has made me question my assumption? Well, a couple of things. A few years ago, I was speaking at a conference somewhere in Europe, I can’t remember exactly where but it got to the Q & A portion, which I admit I always hate (I’d rather talk and then chat to people afterwards). I think Q & A sessions very rarely work well in a conference because you can’t always hear the questions, the questions are usually too specific to the individual to give a proper answer and there are also some people that just like to stand up and say things instead of actually having a genuine question! The question I received, I think fell into this last camp as a guy stood up, put his hand up, waited patiently for the microphone, and then said to me, “You don’t sound like a copywriter; you sound like a product seller.” And if I’m honest, he sounded a little sneery about it, like it was an insult, which completely confused me because I had just spent the last 30 minutes talking to a room full of people representing businesses that wanted to know how to sell more products through online marketing. So, I explained in my answer that, to me, they were the same thing – copywriters should be there to sell products and services – don’t all copywriters want to sell? It really surprised me that he had made a distinction between being a copywriter and being a salesperson. Later on, talking to some friends who have digital marketing agencies, reinforced that one of the biggest problems for them was finding copywriters who really wanted to sell. They could find people who wanted to write, people who really identified with being a writer, but they weren’t necessarily interested in really researching a product and writing to persuade people to buy it.

I couldn’t personally help a lot of the people at this particular conference because it was within Europe and they needed native speakers, but it did really surprise me because I couldn’t understand why copywriters wouldn’t want to sell when there are such good opportunities out there for people who want to write for a living. Then something else happened, which again made me question my assumption that all copywriters want to sell – I discovered an annual survey that was done by The Professional Copywriters’ Network (a really good organization that supports UK copywriters). As I was looking through it, one of the sections was all about motivations and the question that caught my eye was; what do you enjoy most about being a copywriter? The top result at 45% was ‘being paid to write’, at 29% it was ‘being creative’ and 15% said it was ‘getting results for clients’.

Now, OK, sales is still in the top three of reasons that copywriters enjoy being copywriters, but it still struck me as quite a low number. I was thinking, say I’m an agency and I’m looking to interview a UK copywriter – if I’m interviewing 20 people, only 3 people are going to be there because their primary motivation is to get me results. And this just really surprised me because if I’m not driven by getting results from my clients, I don’t get more work! Then I realised that maybe my journey as a copywriter has biased my opinion on this and I’d be really interested to hear what other people think about it. . .

So, when I started to work for myself, I pretty much had to make money right out of the gate and it didn’t come easily. There were many, many interesting years of hit and miss and trial and error but I remember talking to someone and I mentioned that I was starting out as a copywriter and this lady had said to me,

“Oh, that sounds wonderful because my friend is a copywriter and he just sits in a cafe with his laptop and watches people go by waiting for his muse! Is that what it’s like for you?”

I sort of smiled and said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s just like that!” But on the inside, I was thinking, it’s kind of like that, except I can’t afford the coffee and I’m not waiting for my muse, I’m waiting for the mortgage payment. I think because I was under pressure to have to sell, I had to sell myself and I had to sell my client’s products in order to get repeat business and build my reputation as a copywriter. This idea of waiting for my muse before I wrote any copy, it just seemed a bit odd because, you know, we don’t expect our accountants to sit and wait for inspiration, we don’t wait for our plumbers to wait for their muse before they go in and fix a problem and for many, many other business professions, we expect people to perform by a deadline and be driven by a deadline because sometimes you just can’t afford to wait for inspiration.

[New Scene]

Soldier: Quickly, this way, the unit’s waiting for you at the end. We’re so glad they sent you.

Veronica Fullofit: No problem, what do you need?

Soldier: We got caught behind enemy lines. We need a way out. The way you came in is to expose, to get everyone out safely. We estimate the opposing force will be here within the next 30 minutes so we’ve got to act fast.

Veronika Fullofit: OK, sure. So, you’re telling me you need some good ideas?

Soldier: We need nothing short of a miracle.

{Opens door}

Everyone, this is Veronica Fullofit, she’s been sent to get us out. She’s a genius apparently . . .

Veronica Fullofit: I am a genius. So, we’re in here, but we want to be outside and we don’t want anyone to see us. Is that right? Is that the 30,000 foot view?

Soldier: What do you need us to do? We have explosive experts, someone is skilled in telecommunication, Lisa our new recruit is excellent at hand to hand combat, but ideally we want to avoid that.

Veronica Fullofit: OK . . . absorbing it . . . breathing in the situation . . .

Soldier: I don’t mean to push you Veronica, but . . .

Veronica Fullofit: I know, but let’s just, let’s just think a moment OK?

Have a little free form brainstorm – if everyone wants to just stand up, shake it out. . .

Gosh, sometimes you’re just not feeling very inspired. Do you know what I mean?

Soldier: Not really.

Veronica Fullofit: {Typing} Sometimes the best way to take definitive action is to go online and research lots of other people who’ve done what you want to do – you know, spend a few hours comparing yourself to them and then despairing because they actually did it.

Soldier: We don’t have hours. We have 25 minutes.

Veronica Fullofit: You don’t want to rush this. OK. Someone rushed Van Gogh once and he lost an ear so you don’t want to make that mistake, it just makes you look unprofessional.

Soldier: We just need to escape.

Veronica Fullofit: Why don’t we order in some sandwiches? I find that the vegan platter from Prett is just brain food to die for.

Soldier: We don’t have time.

Veronica Fullofit: I get it. You’re in a hurry. But really we shouldn’t take any action without looking at some data. So, here’s what we could do if we want to feel like we’re doing something, but without committing to anything, we’ll do an AB test. So, half of you go one way, half of you go another way and then we meet up and see who escaped. How does that sound?

Soldier: No. Look, why don’t we build a tunnel?

Veronica Fullofit: I don’t know. Why don’t you?

Soldier: Cause that’s why they sent you. They said you were an expert in building tunnels.

Veronica Fullofit: Tunnels? Oh, I see what’s happened . . . no darling funnels, sales funnels. I build sales funnels. Oh, he wanted a tunnel! I thought the deadline was tight, I mean, I am used to ASAP and yesterday, but I thought you were just exaggerating.

Soldier: We’re doomed.

Enemy Soldier: Give yourselves up, you’re our prisoners now. Veronica?

Veronica Fullofit: Vladimir? I didn’t recognise you in your Kevlar and balaclava . . . nice face paint, very edgy!

Enemy soldier: Thank you. We like the NFL. What are you doing here, it is dangerous.

Veronica Fullofit: I know. Do you know where me and my friends can find a way out?

Enemy Soldier: Anything for you.

[End]

OK, I’m joking about waiting for inspiration and sticking to a deadline and I do recognise that my opinion is probably very much shaped by the fact that my career and my journey as a copywriter has always been closely associated with having to make sales and having to meet those deadlines. And I want to make it clear that when I’m talking about selling, my passion for selling is not about selling anything to anyone, it’s not about using the persuasive copywriting techniques to make someone feel under pressure to buy something that they either don’t want or don’t need. I remember Zig Ziglar saying that someone who claims to be able to sell anything to anyone isn’t a salesman, he’s a con man.

One of the things I love about copywriting is that you spend so much time researching your customer, their problems, what they want, and then being able to bridge that gap with the product that you have and offering them a solution to something that they’re going through. To me it really feels like helping as opposed to pushing something on someone. Whilst I understand that not everyone may share my close association with being a copywriter and wanting to make sales, I do believe that if you want to be a great copywriter, you have to want to make the sale more than perhaps you want to write. And here’s my reasoning behind that:

One reason is that if writing is your focus, you can become really precious about your words. You can feel very sensitive if a client wants to change things as you fall in love with your sentences or the way something sounds as you read it out loud. But when the sale is the focus, you realise that your words are really just tools to make it happen and you feel a lot more comfortable picking and selecting the right ones until you figure out that perfect combination for converting someone from a prospect into a lead and then from a lead into a sale. You know, when you feel that comfortable with your words being used in this way, you see selling more as an experimentation and writing copy as an experimentation. You realise that an individual piece of writing that you produce is just one piece in a very large sales puzzle. Just because someone visits your sales page for example and doesn’t buy, it doesn’t mean that he or she doesn’t want your product. It might not be the right time, that person might need to see it from a different angle etc and this is one of the reasons why I think a lot of copywriters shy away from selling because they think that if someone says no to a piece that they produce, they are rejecting them as a person and they’re rejecting their writing as well, which definitely isn’t the case. And again, I think if you tend to focus on the sale and the results, you become less personally tied to your writing. As I say, your words become tools to facilitate the end. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be very proud of the work that you do. I’m very proud of some of the pieces that I’ve done but I understand that if someone else comes along and can write a better headline that connects better with our audience, I’m absolutely happy to give up my version because my overall aim is to help the business that I’m working for.

I think another reason that makes copywriters feel uncomfortable positioning themselves as salespeople is that a lot of people associate selling with ‘pushing’. You know, copywriting is persuasive writing. We are encouraging someone to do something or to think a certain way and that can feel a little bit manipulative. We can feel like we are asking someone to do something and pushing something on someone. Again, this can make people feel uncomfortable. So, I think this is perhaps one of the reasons why there is a disassociation between people who are copywriters and that desire to make sales but I still don’t see persuading someone as necessarily a bad thing. If you feel uncomfortable about the idea of selling and you do want to be a copywriter, I want you to think about a time that you recommended a restaurant to a friend. You’d just been somewhere you’d had a fantastic experience, you knew that your friend would like it, you were probably quite excited to tell them about it and you probably didn’t just say, “Hey, you should check this restaurant out”. You probably went into detail of where it was, the type of food, what the service was like, what the décor/ the ambience was like etc and that is basically copywriting. That is persuasive writing – we’re persuading someone to do something, to go and try out this new restaurant. But in a situation like that, we don’t feel uncomfortable, we feel excited by telling them this because we know that they will love it – we are doing our friend a favour by introducing them to something that they may not have been aware of that we know they will love. We do it all the time, we do it with Netflix recommendations or podcasts etc because we want to share the gift of what we have with other people. I see that as being exactly the same thing when you write sales copy, and one reason it feels a little bit more difficult is because when we’re marketing, we’re often primarily focused on the fact that we’re asking for something; we’re asking for that sale. But if you think about our restaurant recommendation, we’re also asking for something; we’re asking them to trust us and to try out this restaurant. So if you are interested in the idea of selling but maybe feel a little bit uncomfortable about it when it comes to your marketing or writing copy, I want to shift your perspective a little bit and instead of thinking that you’re asking for something, I want you to ask yourself what you’re giving that person. For example:

• You’re not asking them to sign up for your course, you’re giving them access to valuable lessons.
• You’re not asking someone to donate to a cause, you’re giving them an opportunity to build a better world, to feel fulfilled, to be part of something that’s exciting.
• You’re not asking them to join your newsletter, you’re giving them information that they can use to stay informed, give them tips that they can use to make their life easier.

So, do copywriters need to sell and should copywriters want to sell? Personally, I think they should because I think it’s a great thing. I think when you see your marketing message as a gift that someone should get excited about, it’s really easy to be enthusiastic about that. And what I’d say is, if you are a copywriter but you’re not interested in selling, that’s absolutely fine, I would just encourage you to make sure that clients have the right expectations when you are pitching for work. There are some excellent writers out there who do fantastic content, manual instructions, technical writing etc which are all very valuable. However, if you have a client or you’re joining an organisation that is expecting you to sell as a copywriter, you want to make sure that that’s clear so that they’re not disappointed and you don’t feel under pressure to do something that you’re not comfortable doing.

That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to subscribe and comment. Let me know if there’s something you want me to cover in particular and remember, if you’re feeling uncomfortable about selling because you once got rejected, just remember that ‘no’ often means ‘not yet’. I wish I had realised this when I was younger because I recently stumbled upon some archive footage of an early youth theatre audition and as you’ll hear in the next minute or so, they didn’t really mean ‘no’, they just meant ‘the world wasn’t ready for me’.

[New Scene]

Judge: Amy, come in, just stand on that spot there. My name is Chester Montague, one of the senior directors here at The National Youth Theatre. Joining me on the panel of judges today is Sir John Gielgud, Sir Michael Kane and soon to be national treasure in some years’ time, Miss Keira Knightley.

Amy: Wow, they’re good.

Judge: Now, Amy, you’re auditioning for Cormac McCarthy’s latest play, it’s called ‘Bleak – that Sunday evening feeling after dinner’. The part you’re reading for is that all Tabitha, a lady who is wistful and has breasts and dies.

Amy: OK, so, what would you like to see first?

Judge: I’m sorry?

Amy: The song, the dance or the acting bit?

Judge: This is a three-part narrative about the Sunday sadness you feel before you realise the weekend is over and you have to return to a desk job that you never envisioned yourself doing. It is about a realisation that you are not an astronaut. You are not a vet. You are working in a leisure centre on a bank holiday. There is no singing and dancing.

Amy: You’re saying that the acting is probably the most important part?

Judge: The acting.

Amy: Then, let’s save the acting for last.

{Music starts}

Judge: What is this?

Amy: I’ve written a song and you said that the play is pretty bleak, so I have written a country song . . .

Five six, seven, eight . . .

{Singing}

I am just a girl from Hull, East Yorkshire,

My daddy wasn’t a coal miner, he was a quality assurance manager for Seafish . . .

Judge: Stop!

Amy: Yeah, I know, you really only need just a little bit to go a long way with that. OK, let me just put my jazz shoes on.

Judge: Really, there’s no need . . . just the acting.

Amy: Five six, seven, eight . . .

Step ball change, step ball change, pivot step, turn, sashay, sashay, pivot turn and . . .

Judge: Please . . .

Amy: Let’s keep this good time going and move on to the acting part! I have chosen the passage that begins after they finished eating, that starts ‘There was too much gravy on the chicken’

Judge: As soon as you can.

Amy: One minute.

Judge: Why is she taking off her shoes? Is that to sock puppet?

Amy: {In a character voice} There was too much gravy on the chicken, but that’s not gravy, it’s the meaty tears of our regret.

Judge: That’s enough.

Amy: I’ve got the part?

Judge: No.

Amy: Oh. . . Sir John? Sir Michael? So Keira . . . you’ll get a title one day, what about you?

{no reply}

Amy: Huh?!

[End]