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Whether you want a sales or introductory letter, it can be incredibly tempting to just copy the letter used by another business.
We all get sales letters and emails sent to us all the time, surely the letter works for those businesses so it will work for yours too right?!
When faced with a copywriting quandary like this, bosses are often inclined think "I got this the other day from x, why don't we just copy it!" where x is probably some high profile, successful business.
There is something to be said for this strategy, as presumably, business x is doing something right since they are huge and famous!
I guess that business x will have spent a bit of money on someone crafting the perfect sales letter, so it's bound to be great!
But copying other peoples work isn't always the best strategy to follow, and indeed it potentially has many pitfalls.
Why copying can FAIL
Copying fails for two major reasons:
1. The letter that you're copying may not actually be that good! We have worked with (and for) these big successful businesses, and to be honest they don't always know what messages work in their letters and what doesn't work! Copying them could be just the blind leading the blind!
2. The messages and copy might well work for business x, but they are in a different market to you, and are probably trying to engage with customers that act and behave differently to yours, so the context of the messages will not be relevant for your business, and your letter will fail.
The best thing to do is to do exactly what we do; start from scratch, understand the reasons why you need to write the letter and fully understand what you're offering and in what tone/personality you need to write the copy, then let your creative juices flow.
If all that just sounds like hard work, or you have tried and not got very far, then get in touch with us.
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