About this column
Photo by jennandjon courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.
Time for another open thread blog post.
I’m curious about what my readers are looking for, exactly, when hiring a copywriter with regards to voice of the copy.
When you bring on a hired pen, are you hiring the voice of that copywriter, in the hopes that he’ll bring the voice, tone, and style he personally writes in to your business?
Or are you wanting her to use her writer’s ear, her marketing savvy, and her read on the fine shades of interesting-ness and specific nuances of your business to craft an unique voice for your business?
This difference can be subtle, but noticeable.
Whose voice are you buying when you hire a copywriter for your creative enterprise — the copywriter’s voice, or your voice-to-be?
I’d like to hear your take on this as a creative entrepreneur. Go ahead and lay it on me in the comments.
Hello, you.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I should start by saying that I do my own copywriting now, though I intend to delegate a lot of it in the future. And when I imagine hiring a copywriter, I’m looking for someone who can write in the voice of my business.
I don’t want my copy to sound like someone else’s. It needs to sound like a conversation with specific, real people, not a slick offer made to some generic “audience.” So there’s a sense in which the voice needs to not only communicate a point of view, mood, and value system but also anticipate and respond to the voices of the readers.
In other words, I want visitors to my Web sites to recognize themselves in the copy, to feel seen and heard as they read it. I want the voice that shows up to be one that not only tells a compelling story, but that invites an engaged response.
So well said, Molly. And thanks for taking a twirl through my comments and setting the tone for this open thread conversation! :)
I find that most of my clients have never worked with a copywriter before and need a bit of education around how the relationship goes. Your explanation above is, I think, what all of us are hoping that clients come to us understanding.
Abby:
Interesting question. When I was doing my website for my store a few years ago, I ran into this dilemma with the people doing my site. Long story short, I ended up writing the copy because I knew what I wanted my store to “feel like” and sound like and look like…It was disappointing that they didn’t dig deep enough to connect with me on that.
I believe that if a copywriter “spends time” with a client, and “digs in”, they can do both: “use her writer’s ear, and read on the fine shades of interesting-ness and specific nuances of your business.”
Maybe I was just being a “brat” but the fact that they just weren’t “getting it” or wanting to get it, frustrated me to the point where I did it myself (as I mentioned), and let them do the design etc. (I am being nice here, it really did piss me off!)
I think there has to be a lot of give and take. The copywriter has to connect with you and “buy into” what you’re doing before you can “buy into” what they do. Hopefully, as a result there is a successful, harmonious convergence of your business’s voice and her expertise.
Absolutely, Onequeensfolly {Jane}. :) I agree with you that it’s the copywriter job and responsibility to dig into the client’s brand and get to the heart of it. It’s her job to understand the entrepreneur’s mission. It’s her job to understand her client’s right people. It’s her job to find out what the client wants the copy to do — all copy should have a mission — and who the copy is talking to. There’s really no other way to write spot-on copy.
Sorry you had a negative experience with your previous web developer/designers. I was there myself with a design firm {years ago, not with my current team} and was disappointed to find that they more interested in banging out something “good enough” and crossing my project off their docket than they were in helping me bring my brand identity to life.
Hi Abby! When I’ve thought of hiring a copywriter, what I want is someone who will make me sound as good in my voice as I think they do in theirs.
That is a good way to say it, Karen! {In fact, can I borrow that line?} Kidding, kidding.
Abby,
This is really interesting. This morning I was listening to an online dating podcast about how tow write a profile. Anyways, the guy doing the podcast made reference to copywriting concepts which I found interesting. Then I thought “I should just hire a copywriter to do this for me.” But right after he said that he said that it really needed to be something that you have written because people could see through that. So I would say that if I’m looking for a copywriter I would want that person help me write in my own voice, but help me with the things that a copywriter knows that somebody like me might not.
Srini — Your last sentence reminds me of this: there’s stuff we all know about our industry, our business, our niche that we totally take for granted and think “everyone” knows. Like, for instance, I sometimes forget that my clients don’t know that you shouldn’t try to optimize a simple four page website for 100 keywords. But that goes against intuition — unless you’ve studied SEO, you’d assume that you should try to get Google to recognize your site for as many keywords as possible, and the more competitive the keywords {NFL football, internet marketing, online dating}, the better. Not so, it turns out.
Good reminder for me and any other copywriters reading this: we need to point out to our clients the reasons certain copy works, and other copy doesn’t. It’s not always intuitive.
Online dating podcast, huh? ;)
I knew you’d have a comment about the online dating podcast :).I”m sure I’ll write about it at some point. HEHE
Abby,
I love the question and I would love to answer from where I am at.
I have hired copywriters in the past and what I am looking for is actually someone who can learn my voice and write accordingly. I have not yet thought as far as the voice that I would become or the voice of who they are. Both of those aspects are highly interesting to me. They seem to open up a lot more possibilities that I did not think of before.
So in short I would say I am looking for someone to be my voice. I am looking for someone to fill the gaps and help me communicate and translate without eliminating my voice.
Question – As a copywriter, what do you want to do? Is it an bad or wrong to have you help keep my voice?
Hey, Tim —
Glad you’re here, thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I’m glad you asked that last question.
The whole reason I wrote this post is because of a conversation I had with a copywriter friend of mine. My copywriter friend — we’ll call him Alistair — has a very distinctive voice. Instantly recognizable. Appealing. Even addictive.
Alistair recently took on a new copywriting client. His client {we’ll call him Doug} described the voice he wanted for his business. The voice Doug described wanting sounded very similar to Alistair’s voice {even down to exact phraseologie Alistair uses in his own business — but it’s important to point out that Doug himself is not a copywriter}. Alistair took all this into consideration, analyzed Doug’s business and right people, and wrote a first draft for Doug with a bang-on voice. Alistair shared the draft with me and I agreed — thought the voice was spot-on for Doug, based on what I saw on his website. So Alistair sends the first draft to Doug and waits. Gets back a vitriolic message lambasting him {which is just plain wrong in any case, seeing as Alistair hadn’t wronged Doug in any way}, saying the voice was all wrong. Turns out Doug had wanted Alistair’s OWN voice as the voice of his copy. In other words, he wanted Alistair to LEND him his voice {as if copywriting were the same as doing a voiceover spot for a commercial}.
Alistair explained to Doug that this isn’t how copywriting works. You don’t hire a copywriter so that you can have THEIR voice. You hire a copywriter so that they can work with YOU to find YOUR voice.
Copywriters are the written version of actors — we take on roles and play them, except we write the lines instead of speak them. And you can’t play the same character in two different movies. {Unless, of course, one’s a sequel to the other.}
So this is the scenario that prompted me to write this post. Wondering how many other people may feel the same about hiring a copywriter as Alistair’s client did.
What do you think?
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in
it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home
a bit, but instead of that, this is wonderful blog. An excellent
read. I will certainly be back.