7 Signs That Your Copywriting Is Bad

As businesses, we all use words (or ‘copy’) absolutely everywhere.

Your ads, content marketing, your website, marketing collateral, landing pages, books and so on.
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The thing is, when you do your own copywriting and you work within your business every day, it’s hard to be objective about it (especially if your copywriting hasn’t been refreshed for a while).

Is it inspiring the right audiences to take action? Or is it just space filler?

Here are the 7 main signs that your copywriting may need a tune-up.

Does your website have a high bounce rate?
Are you finding that your audiences ignore your articles?
Is your brand lacking a solid voice?
Do you not get any leads from your content marketing?

The quality of your copywriting may be the reason.
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Words have a big impact on people – and this is so easy to overlook.
So, to help, here’s a quick checklist to help you identify the potential (and fairly common) problems with copy that you need to get your copywriter to fix as soon as possible. 

1. Irrelevant

This is the biggest one – nothing is more damaging to your brand than irrelevant content.

Why? Because copy is there to interest and engage your audience by providing appropriate value that they care about. If it doesn’t, it’s just “space filler”, which makes it harder for your customer to find the copy that is relevant!

Given that people’s attention span today is around 8 seconds, it’s not worth the risk. 
There are a variety of factors that can make your copy irrelevant. For example, if it’s out-of-date with old facts and figures, has broken links, or doesn’t understand (and answer) your customers’ pain points.
 
Regardless of which, irrelevant content gets ignored – it’s that simple.

For more information, see my blog: 7 ways to ensure your content is engaging, relevant and fresh.

2. Poorly targeted

Audience, audience, audience!

Similar to the above – if you have the wrong customer type in mind or you misunderstand them, then your copywriting is going to fail. It’s like firing an arrow at the wrong target – it doesn’t matter how good of a copywriter you are, if you’re aiming in the wrong direction, you can’t win.

Like I always say in all of my copywriting classes: “the best copywriting is written with the intended audience in mind.”

This really is the truth. Every aspect of your content must originate from a single purpose: to provide value for your target customer.

Your copywriting should identify their potential problem or challenge, provide relevant information and then offer them a solution in the form of your product or service.

3. ​Too long and arduous

Don’t waffle on.

If your copywriting takes forever to get to the point or doesn’t keep people engaged and interested, then you’re fighting an uphill battle.

Get to the point, while providing the education and entertainment they actually want.

4. Poorly Edited

Copywriting that has spelling errors and grammar problems presents two issues for your brand.

Firstly, it damages your credibility. 

When you have errors on your website and throughout your content, it looks very unprofessional and can leave a lasting impression that your business doesn’t really care (or has stagnant copywriting that rarely gets updated).

But worst of all – it takes your audience out of your message.

Think about it – you’re reading these words right now, but really, you’re forming a sense of meaning in your head. But the minute there’s an error, such as two full stops, you ‘fall out of the message’ and pointedly focus on the problem instead. This is what happens to your reader – they stop interpreting your message and become distracted.

Today, it’s hard enough to hold their attention – don’t add another challenge to keeping people captivated by having problems in the text which pull focus away from your content’s main message.

Sure – we are all human and copywriting errors happen.

But, read and re-read it again before you post any copywriting into the public domain. Also, get someone else to read it too with some fresh eyes. You may also want to use awesome tools like Grammarly to check over everything too.

5. ​Uses clichés or is cheesy

This one is a hard one to determine, but it doesn’t make it any less crucial.

Great copy is witty and absorbing, but that often finds us getting into territory where we can try to be too clever and it just ends up sounding silly. Nothing turns an audience away or stops them from clicking than cliché copywriting or cheesy sounding titles.

The test for this? If you roll your eyes at your own writing, then your audience will too.

Don’t turn them off with content that sounds naff.

6. Terrible flow

Humans love a good story.

Why? Because stories have a natural progression from beginning to the end which enlightens the reader along the journey. Marketing copywriting is no different.
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If you want to draw your audience towards your brand, you need to give them a compelling story that starts in a more general way and then builds up to a conclusion.

Good copywriting has a user-friendly flow that guides people from the start to the finish. If people bail out or get bored, the flow needs to be improved.

7. Too sales focused

Yes, all content marketing and content copywriting is done to get profitable results, usually in the form of sales. It’s business, after all.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s the same as direct advertising. In fact, the power of content marketing is that it doesn’t sell directly. It earns trust in the form of presenting useful information so that it converts due to a win/win outcome for both you and your customer.

How did your copywriting content go?

Think about all of your copywriting at the moment across your website, online pages, marketing collateral and branding. Does it pass the above 7 problems?

If not…

How Can Melotti Media Copywriting Help You?

To engage your customer and achieve ongoing business success today, you need quality copywriting and consistent content. However, we understand that this is easier said than done.

You’re time poor and spread thin, and writing isn’t your expertise. So, focus on what really matters, while we take care of all of your copywriting and content marketing needs!

For more information or to speak to a quality copywriter to get the results your business deserves, contact me now at chris@melottimedia.com.au.

I can sharpen your words to achieve your goals, today!

Christopher Melotti

Melotti Media Copywriting and Marketing Solutions
www.melottimedia.com.au
 
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