One of the fascinating things about working with a range of clients is seeing how differently they each approach marketing and the process of putting together the copy – the words – for their campaigns.

Some know exactly what they want to do and just get on and write it themselves, often to a high standard.

Some put some words together on their own but then request the reassurance of a second (professional) opinion because they’re not sure if the copy will work.

Some really hate writing copy and they’re much happier to leave it to someone else to do.  (Which, if you think about it, makes sense because you’d do the same if you didn’t like doing the book-keeping, the website design, the product delivery and fulfilment, sales calls, and so on).

But I’ve noticed with a couple of clients recently that they don’t seem to know when to stop.

One was writing the copy themselves and wanted my opinion.  And after the feedback they made some changes and then wanted more feedback.  They made more amendments.  Then they wanted to know if it was worth changing the headline size, or the font, or whether one of the words should be CAPPED.

The other client had asked me to write a landing page for one of their paid-for products.  The feedback by email was that they were very happy with the first draft and a second tweak.  When there was a phone conversation about the next stage, suddenly there were more changes wanted.  One part of the conversation was even about the size of the “buy” button.

Now don’t get me wrong.  It’s good to go through your copy and check it, and look for improvements.  One change could make all the difference to the results achieved.

But it was as if these people wanted “perfection” when (a) there’s not really a thing called perfect copy and, even if there was, (b) you don’t need perfect copy.

The Purpose Is To Influence And Persuade

The words are there for one purpose – to influence and persuade so that somebody takes the action you’d like them to take.

That action could be to visit your website, sign up to your newsletter, read your blog, buy your product, attend your workshop or seminar. become a member of your mastermind group, or simply to “Like” you on your Facebook page.

So, your copy doesn’t have to be pretty or perfect.  It just has to be good enough to make that happen.

And once you’ve put something out (on its own or as part of a campaign) you can analyse the stats.  If things are working, great.  Stick with it.  If the results are not what you were hoping for, then you can go back and review things.  And if there are some copy tweaks that could help, then that’s the time to consider all the finer details.

When you’ve made some changes you can test it again (and again) to steadily improve your results.

So, yes, aim for great copy (but don’t take so long writing it and changing it, worrying about every minor detail, that you waste valuable weeks with “nothing” out there for your customers, clients and prospects to see).