Recently, I had to wake up to one of the worst feedbacks of my life ever.
I’ve been writing for some years now and I have to say, this topped the list of ‘the worst feedbacks I’ve ever received from my clients’ list.
And it came directly from the CEO of the company…
Here’s what it read: ‘… the English is not so good… can you rework and send them’
And that almost sums up the entire feedback.
No other suggestions, no constructive opinions on the copy to support their feedback. Just that.
We have three lessons to learn from this:
Lesson 1: Most feedbacks suck
If you’re a copywriter, understand that 9 out of 10 clients will have no idea how copy works.
In the above case, I was working on a series of sales emails. The point was to get people to pick their cards up and pay up for the product.
Not to impress them with my English prowess. “Oh, what a grammatically well written sales letter! I should definitely buy their product!” Not gonna happen.
What would you do if a salesman showed up at your door and began talking to you like he was a goddamn Shashi Tharoor? “Wow, I had to use my dictionary just 10 times to understand what you said, your product must be really good”. Not gonna happen.
If those things worked, every copywriter would attach their university English degrees in every sales letter they write to sell more products.
People are simple and copywriting is much simpler.
It’s not the words so much as the emotions a copy is able to evoke in the target reader’s mind.
It’s all psychology. The words are just a layer, the meat is in the subtext.
Lesson 2: Develop a thick skin
I’ve been making a living writing and when I receive an ego-bruise wrapped up as feedback, I do nothing.
I don’t even flinch. The most I would do is to see if it would make a worthy fodder for my blog.
And writing is a subjective phenomenon, right? You like sci-fi, I like thrillers? So, who cares if you get feedbacks like this once in a while?
WRONG.
While ‘writing’ is subjective, ‘copywriting’ (especially direct response copywriting) is results-oriented. Sales numbers don’t lie.
The idea is to be 'objective' about feedbacks and not get too attached to your words just because you thought of them in your head. They aren't your babies.
Lesson 3: Reality Check
Get a reality check. Read through your recent stuff. Make an honest self-evaluation if there’s a drop in the quality. Find out the weak spots and try working on them. Your clients will love you for that.
If a drop in the quality doesn’t seem to be the case, then ask more questions to your client about why they think what they think and if it will add value to their business in any way.
And if you find out that the feedback has nothing to do with the goals and results that the business is aiming for, don’t hesitate to educate your client.
That’s all for today. See you in another useful blog :)
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