On meeting a few different people recently, and introducing myself as a copywriter for small to medium businesses, I’ve been interested to note that I’ve been asked the same question – “so, what do you actually write for them?”.
It’s a fair question. Writing the things you need to say on behalf of your business – the web content, the social media descriptions, the blog posts, the advert content – is just one of those things that you feel you really ought to be doing yourself.
You know your business best, and you know what you want to achieve with this piece of writing. Why would you pay someone else to do it for you? What do you actually get for your money?
1 – We don’t know your business like you do
This sounds like a bad thing, in principle – but it’s so difficult to write about your own business! Distilling everything that is amazing about what you do, and what you offer, down to a few short sentences that need to grab your ideal customers’ attention and keep it, can be a huge challenge. You’re too close. How do you begin to decide on what to leave out, what to emphasise, how to phrase it succinctly?
A good copywriter will get to know your business, of course – we have to – but not in the same way you do. They will get to know it not just from your perspective, but from your customers’ point of view, as well – and will then be able to combine what you want to say, with what your ideal customers want to read.
2 – We are voice chameleons
Good copywriters change their tone for every client they write for, and not two businesses have exactly the same tone of voice. In getting to know your business, we listen for how you describe it, the phrases and particular words you use, and how you talk about your ideal customer – and then we can create what you need to write as if you were writing it.
We can also change what we’re saying depending on the medium. How you describe your business on your website needs to be done completely differently in a half-page advert, to have the greatest impact. You’ve invested in these promotion platforms, and you need to give the best chance of returning that investment. Cutting and pasting the same words between everything you publish is unlikely to give you the best results.
3 – Writing is our business
Getting the right words on your website is essential for every business, but let’s be honest, rewriting your website is unlikely to be top of your list of jobs (even if you write for a living). Then there’s the blogging – you know you ought to do it regularly, and you may even enjoy it, but time can be so short. Unless you have your own writing business, it’s unlikely that writing is going to be your top priority on a Monday morning.
If you give it to a copywriter – the one you know you can trust to get it right, because they can “chameleon” into your voice at the drop of a hat – it’s done. Words in place, blog published, advertising deadline met – and you get to dedicate your time to doing what you went into business to do.
So to answer the question that we started with: anything. Everything. Whatever someone needs writing – whether it’s to attract new clients, keep the ones they’ve got, or to extend their reach with blogging – I can do it for you, in the timeframe you want it, and give you back your time to do what you do best. That’s the long answer.
This is the short one: My Portfolio