Be Your Own Control
Man Bites Dog I guardianmarketing.substack.com
This article is written for people who run their own business and need to write their own copy, or at the very least need copy written for them.
(Copywriters doing the writing can still stand to learn some important lessons)
What I'd like you to come away with is an understanding that allows you to move forward constructively in creating marketing assets for yourself, no matter how good or bad you think the copy is, no matter how much you believe or don't believe you can write copy.
I'm going to show you that the idea of "good copy", is worthless ...
And that you've got everything you need to move forward right now.
We've got to walk through a few parts in order for us to come full circle ...
First,
The Marketers Marketing Marketing Trap
There are two main 'problems' or perhaps more accurate to say 'experiences' that people in your shoes have.
And both of those center around this:
You're being tricked into thinking you need copywriting at a certain level, that copywriting in your business can and/or needs to be at a certain level, that your copy is probably crap, that the reason you aren't selling is because your copy is crap, and all the variations therein.
In other words, you're lead to believe that you have to look OUT THERE for the answer to what is ultimately an internal problem.
Here are the two ways the problem tends to manifest - you likely experience one of these two:
First,
The problem of not doing anything (or being slowed down) because you don't have good copy. Or, because you think you have bad copy. Or because you don't know how to write copy.
This is a problem where you're efforts are stymied, distracted, or outright stopped completely because you aren't a copywriter and therefore you don't know what the correct words are to say.
Maybe you've assumed this because you don't see yourself as a copywriter.
Maybe you've seen what a copywriter calls good copy and thought "I have no idea how they wrote that" or "I have no idea how I'd write that for myself."
Maybe a copywriter told you your copy is crap.
Maybe the idea of writing marketing copy is just an overwhelming black box of uncertainty and you assume you can't do it because you can't explain what copy is or what “good” copy looks like.
All the above and it's variations.
Where copywriting is a big damn mystery and so you think "I need good/better copy before I can continue." Or "How am I supposed to do this if I don't know how to write copy?"
etc.
SECOND
The other way this manifests tends to show up once you start understanding what copy is and what it can do for you - you've seen different words have different outsized results on your efforts.
So you believe that good or better copy can help you. But you believe you don't have it. That your copy is not good and you can't (or don't know how to) make it better.
You may even have gone to the lengths of hiring a copywriter(s) and have not seen the results you hope for.
You think, 'what I'm doing should be producing better results.'
So, this one is more sinister and difficult to see ...
You're actually being blinded by the potential for "what copy can do."
"You should be getting X results with your copy."
Let's take landing page opt-in rates as an example.
It's easy enough to find marketers and copywriters out there boasting 40%+ opt-in rates on an optimized landing page. So they'll stress that anything less than that is bad.
However.
I've had a 15% opt in landing page be a part of a 30x ROI ad campaign (ad to that landing page to email series and offers beyond).
If I allowed the potential for "what copy can do" to blind me, I'd chase trying to improve that Opt In Rate and would have missed the actual results being produced by the work.
Side note: Many people looking at this situation will say increase the opt in page rate and you'll vastly improve your results downline - that's not strictly correct. In a vacuum as numbers alone it makes logical sense, so it's easy to fall into this logic trap, but scrutiny of the entire system might reveal that the 15% opt in is actually critically optimal for the desired result (that's for another article altogether).
The Problem Summary:
The problem is complex and shows up different for everyone, so I just want to make sure it's clear -
If you experience believing that your copy sucks, that you can't write copy, that you have to figure out your copy before you proceed, etc
This is for you.
"The copy is really bad"
Before we proceed, I need to take the mask of marketers and copywriters out there, for your benefit.
This is stemming out of a conversation I ran into the other day, between two marketers, one interviewing another regarding his experience writing website copy. And the one being interviewed states how he'd visit prospects websites and note that "the copy is really bad."
And throughout the interview he's tearing into these websites with bad copy and how all they really need is better copywriting to succeed.
This frame is a very common occurrence. So much so that I think it's pretty normalized behavior and just accepted as truth.
A (seemingly) skilled copywriter takes a look at a web page, an ad, an email, a series, etc ... and states that the copy is not good or could be improved, and their word is taken as truth because of their experience.
(Side Note: obvious power in proof and testimonial carrying and building accepted authority)
So, a copywriter will list all these things someone is doing bad and copy will be one of the biggest ones.
"They don't have good copy."
"They aren't making sales because they don't have good copy."
And,
The sinister nature of this is that they probably aren't wrong, to a certain degree.
It's just that the copy is a layer masking the real problem.
It's not that they don't have good copy.
It's that they haven't got a clear understanding of what the person they are speaking to is really interested in and why they are at the point of reading their words.
Someone coming in sprinkling magical copy dust on the business's marketing assets is not going to solve that problem (unless the person in question doesn't want to spend the time and effort to understand their customers and how to speak with them about what they are offering/doing/selling - but this is also a conversation for a whole 'nother article)
Back to the copywriter,
Because what they do is take advantage of the uncertainty, the unknown, and your desire for an easy obvious answer to your problem, to point to your copywriting as the issue.
They'll pull on the lever of doubt,
To make you believe your copy sucks, you don't understand copy, you can't write copy ... and since you are not a copywriter this is a very easy sell.
And this is everywhere.
MOST copy and marketing out there speaking to this problem is talking to people who are lost, new, and/or don't understand all this.
So most of the stuff you end up seeing or paying attention to speaks to people who are in your shoes ... who aren't familiar with the craft, who are trying to grow something, who are possibly a bit stepping into desperation to make their thing work because they don't want to go backward they have to go forward, they don't want to slow down they want to go faster
And so it's easy to say …
Your copy sucks, your biggest lever is to make sure you have great copy on your website.
And then you either need to go become a copywriter or hire one.
To provide an added perspective as a copywriter who has coached/critiqued other’s copy …
Outside of a few fundamental structures and principled understanding of copy, it's very hard to give valuable, useful copywriting feedback.
I've given copywriting "critiques" before as I've coached copywriters through Lukas Resheske's New Email Masters program and my own AI Email Masters.
And I always start off by being explicit about this challenging dynamic:
My critique of copy is MY perspective (assumptions based on my past experience) - and what matters most is how the market reacts to the copy (the actual data from the copy itself).
It almost makes a critique useless if the goal is to say what is right or wrong, and so I take the approach of "here's how you did and didn't address the principles" and "here's what I've seen work and why" and "most notably, there's no way to know if I'm right without running the copy to a market."
I've seen what many would call 'crap copy' perform so well it can't be beat by "good" copywriters.
Yet, in the situation you may experience as a business owner where you aren't getting the results you need or want *it's so very easy for a copywriter to come in and say "well yea, that's because your copy sucks."*
(There is a side lesson here on "The Linchpin" which we'll be revealing here on Man Bites Dog soon)
What you don't realize is that some of the best copywriters in the world are not "copywriters" and you'll never (or at least rarely) see them talk about copywriting, because what they understand is this:
Who they are speaking to
Why the person they are speaking to is at their doorstep reading (or listening to) their words
All the nuance of the thing they are selling and how it helps people in the various different ways
How to talk about the problems, solutions, desires surrounding their work in a way which connects back to the person who is at their doorstep right now reading (or listening to) their words
That's all copywriting is.
It's a bridge.
A connect the dot drawing where most people look at the page and see a thousand dispersed dots, the copywriter draws the connections so the average person looking at the page can at least see a picture.
A business owner who understands their people and what they are doing for their people can also see this image and connect the dots.
You do NOT need to be trained as a copywriter, or even know what copywriting is, to understand this for your business. Those hidden 'best copywriters in the world' can take that crown for their own business but will often really suck at applying the skill to another business.
(Yet another side note, the only reason to "become a copywriter" is to gain the skill of applying this understanding across multiple businesses and markets)
So YOU too can write copy. And you can write really good copy.
You've just got to have a clear understanding of who you are speaking to, what they desire/need, how you serve that desire/need, and then write to those things.
The funny thing is,
It's probably something you already do.
But since you don't consider yourself a copywriter, and possibly someone who *is* a copywriter convince you your copy sucks, you don't think you do this (or at best, you believe you do this poorly).
And the way to figure this all out?
The reason someone can become an amazing copywriter for their own business without knowing a thing about copywriting?
ENGAGING THE FIELD.
It's not something you know,
It's something you become by doing.
You have to take action, reveal data, adjust your course, take more action, reveal more data, etc.
You've got to do your own work with your own ideas and your own words in the field with the market to get the data to see what works.
You have to sink yourself into the process of discovery and becoming and not get stonewalled because right now you don't "know."
Most avoid this,
Because it's all so uncertain.
Certainty v Uncertainty
As a copywriter who has traversed many businesses in dozens of markets, I've observed this happen with clients, where they will hamstring their own progress because they can't lean into the process of figuring out the right words for their business.
You want certainty and when you're dealing with copywriting and marketing what you have is unavoidable uncertainty.
Because copywriting and marketing is all entirely a science experiment.
"I think if I say this in the headline, it's going to get the attention I want."
So you test it and find out.
Science
Hypothesis
Test
Observe
New hypothesis
Test
Observe
etc
Skilled copywriters may look at copy and say "that's bad copy" or "that's not a good headline" when the truth of their statement and their current position, it's more accurate to say "I would write the headline differently" ...
But critically that doesn't mean it would be better.
Skilled copywriters who don't have their head up their ass will realize that their opinion is essentially worthless without data (but they know most people don't realize this, so they lean on their results to point out how correct they must be --- I've got loads of testimonials about my landing page results, so I must be correct in my assessment of your copy!)
Here's something few copywriters talk about much at all:
Good copywriting is always a hypothesis tested against a control.
That's it.
Because what matters is the change towards the result that you want, and the only thing a copywriter can ever do is make their best guess about what is going to get a result. And the only way to make a more informed more accurate guess is if there's already data to guess against.
A masterful copywriter is going to have a lot of contact with reality to understand, consciously and unconsciously, what can be said, how, and when in order to elicit the kind of response and activity that is desired ...
But even with all the knowledge and experience in the world, what they are doing is still a hypothesis and means nothing until data is returned.
Why?
Because if you have no data that means you have no results.
And ANY result is a good result when you have no results.
You can't know what the potential is of a system if there is no system. Any comparison when there is no data is being done to external data that in reality has little to do with you.
(That's where copywriters trying to sell you on their work get a foothold - "oh you're only getting 10% of people clicking your ad to opt in? I can make that 40%, easy")
You can't know how many people are going to comment on your ad for a DM if you aren't running ads asking people to comment and send you a DM. (And then you have to test a lot of different ads with different words to slowly unveil what people respond to see how that aligns with your understanding and expectation, etc)
You can't know how many people are going to opt in to your email list on your landing page until you make it and see what happens - and you certainly can't know the value of those people until you do all the subsequent work to be able to reveal the value of those people.
If your situation is that you aren't running ads or making posts asking people to comment to send you a DM, then spending your time trying to figure out the right copy to make that happen is wasted time because you have no way of measuring the value of the time or money spent on that effort.
We can start by seeing other people getting results - the external data - but it's important to understand this doesn't tell us what we should be achieving. All this tell us is that it's probably worth gathering our own data in the arena (if it fits our goals and our temperament).
When you have no data, ANY ad you run will give you a result. ANY landing page will give you a result. ANY email will give you a result.
And if that result is zero, then you can start testing ideas that will get you a number larger than 0.
If that result is 1, then you start testing ideas that will get you 2.
And so forth.
It’s not “whats the best copy for this ad” its “the last ad I ran got these results, I’m going to try this headline change and see if that gets me more conversations”
Without existing data, any effort that you put in no matter how subjectively good or bad is objectively good because it gets an infinite change in result for you.
Good copywriting is hypothesis tested against control.
If you have no control, doing anything is a good start.
But it's certainly a mistake to take external data as your control. What someone else is able to do is not something we can test against for ourselves.
You don't want your first focus to be "great copywriting" you want your first focus to be "any result for myself that acts as a control" so that you can have something to measure your efforts up against.
You need to make your own control.
It's always a ratio
Always a comparison.
Don't ever let someone tell you your copy is good/bad if they don't have full access to the data, and if they do have full access to the data and they are a "good" copywriter they will understand that writing great copy is not something you do once, it's a process over time of discovering the words that resonate most with the audience for your intended goal, a process over time that creates emergence of the best outcomes.
If you write your own copy,
Forget about writing great copy.
Forget about what anyone else says.
Your data is the only data that matters.
And it only matters when compared against your own data .
Your observed reality trumps what everyone else says can, could, or should be the case about your situation.
Be Your Own Control.
Because that's all copywriting and marketing is. It's testing ideas against a control. And if you don't have a control you must make one.
And the best way to make one,
Is to do it yourself because your data, your experience, and your understanding are what matter to you.
This isn't to say it's bad to hire a copywriter.
You can hire a copywriter to make your control. But then I would highly advise you to aggressively work to beat it.
Because you still need to establish your own data, your own understand.
And if you value understanding your own business and the work you do, you owe it to yourself to understand what makes the control work in the first place.
Who are you talking to and why?
What do they want and why?
How are you helping and guiding them toward the outcome they desire and why?
On and on. Understand them first. Then speak to them in the context of that understanding.
Now you're gathering your own data, based on your own understanding.
And THAT is the most valuable thing to test against.
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