10 questions NOT to ask a copywriter (+ the answers)
We are copywriters. Of course we are happy to answer all your questions, but if it is one of the few below you can expect a glassy (or murderous) look back. You have been warned.
1. I’ve changed some things in your text, so I’m sending it back to you now to make it readable again. Okay?
Oh yeah. You couldn’t control yourself to mess with that perfect copy I sent you and now I can fix everything, can’t you?
2. Nobody reads that, right?
Indeed. This is just copy fluff. Let’s delete everything, then your customer will be quickly convinced to do business with you.
3. Funny. But can your write it more professional?
More professional? You mean more boring? Because your customers are boring people who just sit in the office and have no other life?
4. Can you remove those last three paragraphs?
Of course. That was just some nonsense I used to fill the page.
5. We could have written this copy ourselves.
Then why didn’t you?
6. Can you make the copy really flashy?
Flashy like in fireworks that make you say ‘ohhhh’ and ‘ahhhh’? Flashy as in language hipsters use among themselves? Or flashy as in a language that you think young people use and that you actually didn’t like? Anyway, the answer is almost certainly ‘no’.
7. This job has been on my desk for two weeks, so can you pick it up quickly?
So there was plenty of time to make good copy, but that was fourteen days ago. Now there’s barely enough time to think before you start calling whether it’s ready yet. And for some reason that’s my problem now.
8. Can you add more information and shorten the copy?
Of course. In the meantime, I also reject the Pythagorean theorem, launch that rocket in my backyard, and take my house dinosaur for a walk in the park.
9. Nice words, but did you know that there are a lot of spelling mistakes?
And you let me know that in an email laced with the pincer constructs and grammatical misses?
10. You can get all the information from the emails below.
Yay! So before I start, you expect me to struggle through a mass of hastily typed messages with mega-sized attachments? To decipher what exactly I should write? And how soon did you want it again?
