My father had a saying he loved to tout, especially when I was acting especially spoiled, "I complained because I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet." And such was my first lesson in empathy.
Empathy as defined by Webster means, "The ability to understand how someone feels by imagining what it is like to be them." An important emotion in life, but especially important in copywriting.
I think the one biggest mistake beginning copywriters make (and I know because I was once one and did this all the time) is to begin writing based on what the copywriter thinks, believes, and would do. Usually you miss the mark and your copy doesn't "read" true to the actual person or "target" you are aiming to convince. Rarely are you the "target." After all, copywriting is the art of persuasion and as the best salesperson knows, the more you know about your customer, the more you can put yourself in their shoes and know and understand them, the better your chances of persuading them to buy or use your product.
This involves a little research, no, a lot of research actually. It involves sitting back, before the writing begins, and asking questions like "How old is my target?" "What is their lifestyle like?" "What's important to them?" "Where does my target go after work?" "Where does he/she shop, have dinner?" "What is the biggest issue my target faces when it comes to my product?" "What's keeping them from using or taking advantage of my product?" 'How can I convince them it is easier/more affordable/more convenient?" "When my target asks the question 'What's in it for me?,' how do I respond?" And these are just the beginning of the process.
Empathy in copywriting means figuring out how educated your target is and writing in a way they will understand or be the most familiar with. Studies show, we will pick a product, even if we've never used it, based on some familiarity with it, such as the color scheme, the shape of the packaging, etc. When I wrote the brochures and other advertising materials for a public hospital, the writing was completely different than when I wrote sales sheets for a software firm. You have to "talk" in a language your target will understand and believe.
Over the years, copywriting has taught me to be a more empathetic person in general. After years of studying various customers, clients. targets, people in general, I'm a little more mindful of why some people act the way they do, even when I don't like it. I think my father would be proud.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
It's All About Perspective
My mother played Mah-Jongg every Wednesday. She was the only Episcopalian at a table of Jews. But, two of the women she played with weren't ordinary Jewish women. One was the mother of the speech writer for President Clinton. The other had a daughter who was a writer for US News & World Report. And then there was my mother, who had a daughter who wrote without a byline, without a title. My mother couldn't brag about my latest writing endeavor. She couldn't bring "proof" of my writing to the table.
I didn't realize that my mother didn't really think of me as a "real" writer until one day this realization hit me square in the face. We were sitting in her sunny breakfast room. It was a glass enclosure overlooking a beautifully maintained back yard full of the evidence of my mother's green thumb. The flowers were blooming and the birds were singing, nothing to indicate I was getting ready to learn a very important lesson in copywriting.
I can still see my mother, although it's been a scene played out over twenty years ago. She sat in "her chair," her petite legs crossed, her hand flitting like a hummingbird to her mouth to take a drag off her skinny, black cigarette. I was rambling on about my latest brochure job, like a school girl just home from class, rattling on about her classmates. My mother's eyes were beginning to gloss over from the boredom of it all, when suddenly she looked at me and said, "I don't know why you want to write things that just get thrown away." I went speechless. I was dumbfounded, but in a light-bulb going off over my head kind of way. I realized in that moment that my mother didn't understand me at all. She didn't see me as a writer, but as a poor girl writing away at stuff no one ever read and that ultimately ended up in the garbage can, forgotten. My approval rating had sunk to its lowest, and after all, isn't that the basis of any good mother-daughter relationship, that we gain their approval?
I left dejected...
Not too long after this conversation with my mother, I joined a local advertising agency as the only staff writer. I began sitting in meetings with harried account executives and bored graphic artists, laboring over concepts, tone, unique selling positions, new paradigms, Pantone color selection, whether to include die cuts, varnish, or other bells and whistles. Everything hung in the balance. It was all so important. The pressure to please the client, to produce award-winning pieces. was ever present. That is until I would finally sit down, alone in my office, stare out the window, ready to write copy that would be judged and picked apart by the Creative Director, the Account Executive and the Client, which in some cases was a committee of folks, and the immortal words of my mother would coming rushing back to me, "It's just going to be thrown away."
We're not rewriting the Bible here. As a copywriter, my job is as much selling as writing. My goal then becomes to figure out who's going to be reading this and write something they want to read, before they throw it away. I take pride in my work. No, I'm not writing speeches for a president and I'm not writing breaking news that millions will read. But, to my client and to me, I'm writing something that will influence someone, whether it's causing them to buy another brand of furniture or donate to a local nonprofit. My mother's reality check gave me perspective that has enhanced my writing. It's the perfect perspective to write from. It relieves the pressure, while at the same time challenges me.
My mother passed away eight years ago. One of the items I inherited from her was a small pine chest. It was a chest that held our childhood papers. Each one of us had a folder my mother had put our drawings and important papers in. It took me over a year to finally open this chest. I made piles for each sibling. My pile was like the others, past report cards, certificates for this and that, drawings, etc. But, when I got to the last drawer I found something else. Amidst the schoolwork was a slim magazine, folded open to a particular page. I recognized it immediately. It was one of my first articles, written for a horse-themed magazine. After all these years, I felt a glimmer of the approval I had always been seeking. I knew in that instant that my mother was wrong. Not everything I wrote was thrown away.
I didn't realize that my mother didn't really think of me as a "real" writer until one day this realization hit me square in the face. We were sitting in her sunny breakfast room. It was a glass enclosure overlooking a beautifully maintained back yard full of the evidence of my mother's green thumb. The flowers were blooming and the birds were singing, nothing to indicate I was getting ready to learn a very important lesson in copywriting.
I can still see my mother, although it's been a scene played out over twenty years ago. She sat in "her chair," her petite legs crossed, her hand flitting like a hummingbird to her mouth to take a drag off her skinny, black cigarette. I was rambling on about my latest brochure job, like a school girl just home from class, rattling on about her classmates. My mother's eyes were beginning to gloss over from the boredom of it all, when suddenly she looked at me and said, "I don't know why you want to write things that just get thrown away." I went speechless. I was dumbfounded, but in a light-bulb going off over my head kind of way. I realized in that moment that my mother didn't understand me at all. She didn't see me as a writer, but as a poor girl writing away at stuff no one ever read and that ultimately ended up in the garbage can, forgotten. My approval rating had sunk to its lowest, and after all, isn't that the basis of any good mother-daughter relationship, that we gain their approval?
I left dejected...
Not too long after this conversation with my mother, I joined a local advertising agency as the only staff writer. I began sitting in meetings with harried account executives and bored graphic artists, laboring over concepts, tone, unique selling positions, new paradigms, Pantone color selection, whether to include die cuts, varnish, or other bells and whistles. Everything hung in the balance. It was all so important. The pressure to please the client, to produce award-winning pieces. was ever present. That is until I would finally sit down, alone in my office, stare out the window, ready to write copy that would be judged and picked apart by the Creative Director, the Account Executive and the Client, which in some cases was a committee of folks, and the immortal words of my mother would coming rushing back to me, "It's just going to be thrown away."
We're not rewriting the Bible here. As a copywriter, my job is as much selling as writing. My goal then becomes to figure out who's going to be reading this and write something they want to read, before they throw it away. I take pride in my work. No, I'm not writing speeches for a president and I'm not writing breaking news that millions will read. But, to my client and to me, I'm writing something that will influence someone, whether it's causing them to buy another brand of furniture or donate to a local nonprofit. My mother's reality check gave me perspective that has enhanced my writing. It's the perfect perspective to write from. It relieves the pressure, while at the same time challenges me.
My mother passed away eight years ago. One of the items I inherited from her was a small pine chest. It was a chest that held our childhood papers. Each one of us had a folder my mother had put our drawings and important papers in. It took me over a year to finally open this chest. I made piles for each sibling. My pile was like the others, past report cards, certificates for this and that, drawings, etc. But, when I got to the last drawer I found something else. Amidst the schoolwork was a slim magazine, folded open to a particular page. I recognized it immediately. It was one of my first articles, written for a horse-themed magazine. After all these years, I felt a glimmer of the approval I had always been seeking. I knew in that instant that my mother was wrong. Not everything I wrote was thrown away.
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