“Pitbulls are like a gun you can pet.”
— Bill Burr
I read a question on a copywriter message board recently:
“Should you write copy the way you speak?”
It’s certainly common advice to do so. And it can help people who fear writing to get over their phobia.
But I don’t agree that you can speak your way to good writing, or even to good copy.
Fact is, copy should use simple words and paint word pictures.
But except for a few talented communicators, most people don’t talk like that.
Sure, when it’s all done and done, somebody reading your copy should be able to convince themselves they might say this when speaking. But they never really would, any more than your random schmuck off the street would deliver a Bill Burr-level rant while jiving with his friends at the bar.
A top comedian like Burr will put in dozens or hundreds of hours of work to polish and perfect a joke that lasts only a few minutes.
And if you want similar success with your copy, you too will have to work harder on your copy than just “writing how you talk.”
Or you can just write daily emails. The rules for those are often different than for traditional sales letters. And if you want to see what I have in mind, you might like to sign up for my daily email newsletter. You can do so by clicking here.