The one piece of feedback that'll sink your marketing in an instant
I'm sorry. Nobody cares what you like.
Picture the scene. You’ve hired a copywriter to create something. Maybe it’s a white paper, maybe it’s a line for a billboard advert, maybe it’s a sales letter.
You’ve invested into this. Not just the money, which could be significant. But your time too. Your expertise.
There’ve been briefing meetings. Long, drawn out conversations about your ideal customer, the problems they face, how you solve them. You might’ve gone through a full branding process, tone of voice workshops, learned all kinds of TLAs1 like VOC2, SEO3 and MVV4.
Then, the quiet. Your copywriter’s disappeared for a week or so to craft the output you need. They’ll have considered your readers, where they are in the user journey, the desired actions your prospect needs to take.
They’ll have pored over competitors in your sphere, sifted through existing assets for inspiration, and have screwed up and tossed out half a dozen ideas that don’t quite work.
Now it’s on your desk. In front of you. And the next words you say are going to kill the whole process dead, sink your marketing ambitions, and burn down any chance you had of a decent return.
I don’t like it.
Oof.
Swing and a miss.
That doesn’t tell your copwriter anything. They’ll go and re-write it, but it’s just a case of throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks, what might hopefully tickle your fancy.
Tell a lie, it does tell your copywriter something.
That you’re not taking this seriously.
It’s not about what you like. It’s about what works for your readers. What drives attention.
If you want better results, you need to leave personal preferences out of it. Don’t ask what you like.
Ask what works.
Something mint - this French ad for the Women’s World Cup
If you’ve not seen this, give it a minute of your time. If you have, you knew exactly which ad I meant as soon as you got to the subheading.
To drum up viewers for the Women’s World Cup, Orange put together a compilation of highlights. You’ll see Mbappe and his teammates strolling through opponents, burying screamers and looping in headers with Gallic insouciance.
But aha! It’s not Antoine Griezemann and Les Bleus at all! It’s Sakina Karchaoui and Les Bleues! Les femmes, pas les hommes.
Technically, it’s a great bit of trickery and VFX. But none of that would matter without the key message underpinning it.
“Women’s football is just as exciting as men’s.”
If that won’t have soccer-starved fans tuning in while they wait for this year’s gruelling second division campaign to start, nothing will.
Three Letter Acronym
Voice of Customer
Search Engine Optimisation
Mission, Vision & Values