The other day, I was kicking around ideas for starting an ad agency with my copywriter and best friend, Tom Burns.
We’ve wanted to do an ad agency together for AGES.
We’d build a “Mad Men” style office … sit there smoking and drinking scotch … and bouncing headline ideas off one another.
(Okay, so maybe no scotch or cigarettes.)
And as a joke, we decided to come up with the worst possible “description” for our agency we could.
Tom suggested we call it:
“Features & Benefits Copywriting”
And I wrote a bit of copy to sell our services …
“At Features & Benefits Copywriting, copywriting is our passion. And we love sharing that passion with our clients.
Our process starts with writing ads that grab eyeballs and get clicks.
Then we follow that up with copy that converts, so you can have a rush of hungry buyers, eager to part with their cash.
That means you have more cash in your bank account, so you can take more cash out of your bank account. That means you can afford more nice things, so you can actually buy those things. That means you’re buying things that make you happy, which means you’ll be happier.”
😁
Hopefully you can appreciate why that’s terrible copy.
And so, today’s copywriting tip is simple:
Don’t do anything I did in that paragraph 😂
Especially the over-spelling-out of benefits at the end. It’s something I notice rookie copywriters doing and it irks me. Don’t treat your reader like an idiot. They can come to conclusions themselves.
And lest it isn’t clear:
No, Features & Benefits Copywriting is not a real agency.
(For now.)
Nor do I really do much client copywriting anymore.
I do, however, offer coaching, via my Inbox Detonator coaching program (join my email list to get on the waitlist for that).
And I have also been taking on copy consulting jobs, where I spend an hour reviewing your copy and giving you a plan for what to change — which you can give to a cheaper writer.
These sessions aren’t cheap, but they’re much cheaper than hiring me to write the whole page.
I don’t have a sales page for this service yet. That’s on my to-do list.
For now, if you’re interested, just reply to this email.
(Which means I will get your email. Which means I will read it, so I can write a reply. That means you’ll get a reply, so you can work with me. Which means I’ll do your job, which means your copy will convert better. Which means more sales for you, so your cash registers will start ringing. So you will make more profit, which means …)
Daniel Throssell