Getting good copy
Here at work, I’m in charge of the web site (part of the reason I applied for the job!) and have spent a lot of time improving it, adding things, making it look smarter etc…
As a popular reseller, we deal with quite a large number of manufacturers (well, publishers in our case) of the products we sell. With some of these publishers, we’ve set up pages for them with some branding and something about a special offer we’re doing with them, or perhaps a page focused on something that isn’t highlighted very well on the actual product pages, like demo’s for example.
There’s a bit of a conflict of interest there. On the one hand, the publisher wants us to make out like their product is the best ever, while we’re an independant reseller, and are a bit more cautious. If we go putting in everything the publishers want us to, then every product we have would look like the best product ever, and hurt our credibility.
I do however ask for images and copy from them when doing these pages. Something I can use, and at least base things on, if it’s a little over the top, then I’ll tone it down a bit. Like I try and avoid making the word “Free” huge, uppercase, bright red letters with exclamation marks all the time.
I have begun cringing at asking for copy now though. To start with I was being supplied with amost identical wording to what we already have on individual product pages, which is useless! That’s already there guys, if we’re going to add something, lets at least make it something worthwhile, else I’m wasting my time duplicating what our database already does.
Then most of it is appallingly written. They will miss our obvious crucial details, like what a product actually is and does! It will be full of over the top, bog standard marketting stuff that people have grown weary of.
The latest one was just appaling English. Something along the lines of “Buy this triple site license to license….”. Again, I cringed, and started from scratch to reword it, and not have the word license repeated like that!
Spoke to someone in our Product Information team to make it sound a bit better, and cover the points that needed to be covered, ending up with something that was decent enough.
Sent a link to the publishers for some feedback. They wanted to add something to our rewording. Something that is blatently obvious because it’s WHAT WE DO!!! If someone is browsing the site, they know it already, picking fault in our rewording (and actually the only bit we reworded in the end I think) is so annoying, especially when what they sent originally was a pile of crap.
Honestly, it’s only when I get silly feedback like that, that I know many of these publishers even think about the content. I just don’t think they get it. They are perhaps too close to their own product, and can’t see the bigger picture.
Someone seems to be sitting down and blurting this stuff out, without really thinking about what’s it saying, or what they even need to say. Just coming out with what they want to say, regardless of what the customer wants to know.
There’s often no call to action. It’s jsut some meaningless information about a product with no real drive to prompt someone to sign up for the trial, or buy the software.
It’s just so frustrating, especially when I’m a lowly IT Manager, who also does the website, and some of these people are meant to be professional marketters.