Convince yourself
Sometimes, when I’m reading through a website or a brochure, I wonder what the writer was thinking about.
I’m not sure it was about the job in hand because more often than not it feels as though the writer doesn’t believe in what they are selling.
Which would be fine if they weren’t a writer.
Consumers are allowed, expected even, to be cynical about a product.
Writers aren’t.
They must be the most gullible people in the world because they have the hardest job.
They need to convince themselves that a product is the best thing since sliced bread.
Sometimes that isn’t easy.
But really, when you think about it, it’s something we all do. A lot of the time at least.
Look in the mirror in the morning and within a few minutes you’ll have convinced yourself you are the best looking dog in town.
And you’re not. I’ve seen you and believe me, you’re not.
Not that it matters what I think of course. It’s your face and if you think you’re the best looking dog then you’ll find it a lot easier to convince others of that.
Copywriting is the same.
We get all manner of products thrown our way and many, on the surface, seem a little, well, rubbish.
We can’t tell the client that of course. The evil mercenary in us just wants to take the money and run.
So we have to look a little harder and find what it is the client sees in their own product.
Along the way we’ll produce a list and perhaps end up seeing more than one great thing about it.
We’ll have convinced ourselves.
Convincing others is easy.
I think the problem is often that writers aren’t given the freedom to write about things in a way that reflects true confidence:
1. When they believe in the product they are often hampered by the hundreds of things expected as mandatory by clients who (rightly or wrongly depending on the case) want to cover all the available points.
2. When they are told to talk up a product in a way that isn’t truly relevant it must make it very difficult to sound confident. If you know a product is cheap and good value, but are forced to talk about it like there is nothing better around for twice the price; it can’t be easy to reflect that.
Very true Rob. It can be difficult when the client leads the writing process in the way you describe. I suppose I ought to change the post to “convince the client”