My copywriting clients care about 5 things
We (entrepreneurs, business owners, start-up founders, freelancers & all otherwise self-employed) are always thinking about who we want as clients. I mean, we want people who will pay us and aren’t horrible. As business evolves, we add more criteria. 15+ years into this, and I’m still narrowing and shifting my ‘niche’. Is this the same for you?
Every time we work with someone new, we enjoy it or we don’t, the experience is satisfying or it is not, and then we ruminate on how we can work like that more, or less, often.
Case in point: I help my clients come up with sales copy.
I’ve moved away from tv scripts and speeches — spoken-word isn’t my strength.
I’m not a journalist freelancing for publications — objective fact-finding be damned!
I don’t help with fiction, memoirs, dream capture, biographies or morning pages — I lean (currently) more to left-brained logical persuasion than right-brained artistic creativity.
My clients are in business, so our work together fulfills some kind of sales role. It’s not always a direct “ask-for-the-sale.” It may be nurture or onboarding content (a different part of the customer journey) but it’s not a purely creative exercise.
There is art to what we write together, but my work is not for art’s sake. Writing can for sure be therapeutic, but my work is not for healing’s sake.
So… I stick to a particular kind of writing.
And… I work best with a particular kind of client: hands-on, head-in, heart-forward. I can’t categorize them as being of a certain age, or from a certain place. I work with men and women, organizations and solopreneurs. I help craft copy for all sorts of industries.
What do my clients all have in common? What they want from their words. What they need to see in the writing. What they care about.
5 things my clients need to care about for us to work well together… and what happens when they don’t
1. Substance
My clients are Subject-Matter-Experts who are ready to share their expertise. It could be Astrology, Leadership Development, Employee Engagement, Grief, Engineering Design, Diversity, Performance, Fundraising, Furniture, Wind Power… I know. It’s a crazy range of topics. I told you I wasn’t industry-specific; I guess I’m level-of-expertise-specific. I love working with people who are passionate about their subject, know tons about it, and have strong opinions they feel compelled to share.
When someone comes to me to help them write about a topic they don’t know much about and don’t have personal experience with, then we can’t find enough to say. If they don’t have time to brief me properly, give me an angle, a personal story or their POV, then I’m just googling stuff and writing about it without any special insight. Your people are probably better researchers than I am… I invite you to write about what you know that we can’t google.
Question for you: What do your clients need to KNOW to make them a perfect fit for your work?
2. Style
I work with brands and businesses that have, or aspire to have, a distinct personality to be expressed through their writing. Many businesses “get” the idea of Visual Guidelines that include pantone colours and logo clear space. I build Voice Guidelines instead, developing and documenting attitude, sentence length, reading level, punctuation rules, this-word-not-that choices, and overall degree of cheekiness. This works because my clients want to show up and stand out as distinct, unique and memorable. Distinct and memorable is partly what you say (substance) and partly how you say it (style).
When someone doesn’t care about style, then anyone (or any thing thanks to ChatGPT) can write for them as long as the information is in there. They’re satisfied with getting the information out and don’t require expertise in brand personality expression.
Question for you: What do your clients need to WANT to make them a perfect fit for your work?
3. Relevance
It’s one thing to write about interesting stuff in an interesting way. But you can still miss the mark. Your readers need to care. Like I said above, crafting great copy isn’t a purely creative exercise — ultimately we’re trying to persuade people to buy something, try something or do something new. Addressing what your reader feels and thinks about is key. You’re putting words in front of them and asking for their attention: what’s in it for them?
When someone doesn’t care about relevance, then they will explain what they do, without connecting with clients’ needs, experiences, or state of mind. That’s when your copy crosses over the line into salesy, braggy, irrelevant, and/or off-putting.
Question for you: What do your clients need to THINK & FEEL to make them a perfect fit for your work?
4. Consistency
This is about turning up relentlessly, sticking with your message (even to the point where you get bored), staying consistent in substance & style, putting it out there over and over again, so people can find you. This is not about skill but about discipline and UGH it is hard! Especially when you don’t enjoy writing. It’s like doing laundry, washing the dishes, sending invoices or mixing cocktails. You don’t get to do it just that once and say you’re done. You have to stay on top of these things.
When someone doesn’t care about consistency, they turn up, get the words, and they’re never heard from again. Which is okay for me as a copywriter because I’m happy to provide a quick sprint that helps you through one block, one challenge or one deliverable. But for you as an entrepreneur, your writing tasks are never done, and it will serve you well to establish a process and practice that makes it easy to write routinely.
Question for you: What do your clients need to PRACTICE to make them a perfect fit for your work?
5. Humanity
Aha! This is a pillar that I’ve recently identified in my work and now include in my “client criteria.” My favourite clients, I realize, have a burning desire to turn up with honesty, vulnerability, and (therefore) courage to be human. It’s a little hard to define, but it’s easy to see when it’s missing.
I discovered this pillar while working with AI. AI has no stake in the game. Sure, it will improve: mimicking style, scraping for better substance, and interpreting your prompts to stay relevant. It’s so fast, it makes consistency a breeze. But it will never, by definition, be human. AI cannot link a story about day care drop off with how a gratitude practice builds a better business. AI cannot empathize with your loss and come up with an analogy for grief that rings true. AI cannot describe writers’ block in a new, insightful, compassionate way.
All entrepreneurs, all writers, all humans can do this. Not all of them will. It’s a choice. It’s harder and scarier, and running a business is already plenty hard and scary.
Not everyone wants to build vulnerability into their work . Not everyone likes seeing human experiences in the professional sphere (just read those LinkedIn comments when somebody cries). Not everyone agrees that business is personal.
When someone doesn’t care about humanity, they won’t reveal anything important about themselves. They won’t risk the judgment. They’ll show up as infallible experts with picture-perfect businesses, offering advice and solutions to the target market, week after week after week. And lots of them will build big, profitable businesses this way.
Those aren’t my clients.
I’ve had those clients. We did effective, profitable, quality work together. But we didn’t connect. It wasn’t fun. And I didn’t hear from them again. Or they didn’t hear from me. (And if you’re on my list or made your way to my website, don’t second guess: this is not you!)
There’s a sub-group of entrepreneurs who recognize that business plays a role in their self-expression, actualization, fulfillment of potential, whatever you want to call it… It’s not their identity, but it’s a meaningful way to express who they are, and they are driven to write about that.
So my last question for you about your “niche” or “ideal client”:
What do your clients need to HAVE COURAGE TO DO to make them a perfect fit for your work?