When working on a marketing project, I can guarantee the last thing you thought of was the copy. Especially if we’re talking about websites and brochures.
I get it all the time. Clients come to me and need content (whether that’s web copy, brochure content, sales letters, case studies, articles, scripts, white papers or reports) there and then.
When I tell them, it’ll be a week to turn their request around they sound disappointed. Someone’s even commented: “But it’s only writing.”
The thing is when I do a job, I want to do it well. And that means I need time.
With time comes accuracy
I’m about to make a confession.
I make mistakes as a copywriter, but that doesn’t make me a bad writer. It means I am a normal human being just like you.
Trying to turn around copy in hours or a day or two is, quite frankly, a potential disaster waiting to happen. If we’re only talking a short piece of content, it is doable. But if you want something longer or more complex, you have to give your writer time.
Time is the most valuable commodity in the creative industry.
Copywriting (like design) demands a lot of thought. A writer doesn’t get a brief and then sit down a start writing. There’s a lot more than that that goes on behind the scenes.
- Who is going to reading it?
- What voice will be appropriate?
- Is there a stylebook to follow?
- What is the personality of the company I’m writing for?
- What is the client looking to achieve through this piece of copy?
- How should it be paid for the most impact?
And that’s just for starters.
If you impose a ridiculously short time scale on your copywriter, she won’t be able to do her job properly.
Even once all the research has been done, after writing there will be errors.
The best way to spot them all is to put the content away for about 48 hours before reading through again. This way, your eyes are fresher.
We’ve all been there. You’ve written an article and read it through. Sounds OK. Spell checker hasn’t thrown anything up, so you publish.
Later you find umpteen errors that you missed.
The bottom line is if you want to get the best from your copywriter, it’s imperative you give her the time; she needs to perfect her craft.