Perfect Copy
Let’s talk about perfect copy.
It’s easy to think that you can perfect your copy. Especially when you work with the higher end clients and it’s all about beating a control or getting that conversion rate from 2% to 2.5% because that’ll generate a ton of money.
And recently I worked with someone who said something about some piece of a piece of writing I did.
They thought it could be better worded.
And it probably could be better worded, but let’s just jump off at the deep end here, because this is an incredibly common copywriting mistake.
It Doesn’t Have To Be Perfect
There’s one time that your copywriting has to be perfect: When the offer is terrible.
When the offer is terrible, you are walking the tightrope between selling a terrible product on the one hand and legal trouble on the other hand. It’s not a fun hobby.
I recommend not selling terrible products. It’s a nightmare and your copy has to be very good because it’s making up for the bad product.
But let’s assume your product is good.
You don’t have to be perfect with your copy, and to be honest… you can probably do with not being perfect.
Let’s jump into an analogy here.
Hot Girls
Everyone loves hot girls. Guys jump over themselves for them. Girls begrudgingly compliment them through their teeth.
And let’s face it, there are a lot of hot girls who are totally without positives otherwise. No personality, no intelligence, and they treat people terribly.
And let’s be honest, far too many people still give them too much leeway.
(By the way hot girls, I don’t. I’ll tell you to piss off like I would an ugly guy.)
But here’s the thing.
If a sweet, attractive girl comes up to you and you’re a guy… does it really matter how she sells herself?
Probably not.
Let’s say this girl is beautiful, but she has a weird laugh. Or wears stupid shoes. Or comes up to you and with no social calibration, tells you about how she is obsessed with some weird TV show you’ve never heard of.
If we’re honest guys… you don’t care about that.
You’ll look past her stupid style choices or encyclopaedic knowledge of Love Island.
Because a hot girl who isn’t a total pain in the arse represents a good offer.
And that’s the thing with a good offer and copy.
If the targeting is right and you know how to talk to your audience, you can get away with a lot. Think of a hot girl talking to you (if you’re a guy or otherwise into girls – if you’re not, you can do the switching yourself.) She can say some stupid nonsense and you’ll forget about it.
And you shouldn’t worry about this – again, imagine you talking to your crush. You’re probably going to say some stuff that doesn’t exactly work – it’s ok. Keep talking.
Knowing The Audience Matters
The key thing really is the boring thing that nobody wants to hear: the more research you do on the front end, the better.
Knowing your audience is key when talking to hot girls when writing copy.
If you know your audience, then you can get away with more “mistakes” and weird turns of phrases.
But if you don’t know your audience, it just exacerbates the problems you’re already having.
For instance, literally nobody in the world actually cares about typos and grammatical errors.
“But Jamie… I see tons of nerds on the internet EVERY DAY complaining about grammar and spelling.”
Yes you do… but have you ever seen someone say something like:
“Hey man, I totally agree with your point 100% but you know you spelt “knowledge” wrong.”
You’ve never seen that.
What you’ve seen is people pointing out errors as a way of undermining their “opponent” when they disagree.
Let’s say you’re on a Pro-Trump forum.
You can absolutely get Ivana Trump and Ivanka Trump’s names mixed up. It’s an easy mistake.
Providing you’re knowledgeable about the Zeitgeist.
If you say, “Once Trump wins in 2020 I’ll be voting for Ivana 100%” then people will agree with you. Some might say, “I think you mean Ivanka” but you’ll still be in with the crowd.
If you say, “I hope Trump gets beaten up by a bunch of Mexicans and Ivanka cheats on Jared with an immigrant,” then 100% the audience will hate you… even though you’ve got her name right.
If you are selling a self-defence product to law enforcement and you say, “Does the idea of being alone, surrounded by thugs make you soil yourself?”
Then you have lost the audience. Immediately, because none of them would experience that nor would they admit it if they did. Your room for error is low.
If instead you say, “You want the respect of your community but sometimes, lowlifes want to ruin your community and ruin your face. You need to be prepared.”
… then you have a lot more leeway because you’re talking to them in their language. You can spell things wrong and they’ll stick with you because you understand them.
Final Thoughts
If you do the big stuff correctly, then you don’t have to worry so much about the small stuff.
Ironically, people who aren’t experts on copy or direct response think it’s the other way around.
I’ve never seen someone look at an ad and say, “This doesn’t match the target audience at all!” but I have seen plenty of people say, “nobody would fall for that sales speech!”
Even though the former is a much more egregious error, copy-wise.
People fall for sales patter all the time, but the wrong audience targeting is a death sentence.
And people are forgiving about the little stuff if the copy speaks to them and the offer is good. You don’t have to be perfect. And a lot of the time, it’s better to not be perfect.