Life is crazy when you’re a business owner balancing building a successful business with all other aspects of your life. Maybe you think outsourcing something like copywriting is “cheating,” or not worth expending your limited budget.
Sure, you’re passionate about your work, but do you know how to write about it so that your ideal customer just has to have whatever you’re selling?
If you’re nodding your head ‘yes,’ I’ll tell you a secret: you might be right!
What?
Why would I, a freelance writer trying to sell you writing services, advocate for you to write your own copy?
I got into writing copy, and writing in general, because it is an incredibly clarifying and motivating exercise. Finding your brand voice is one of the most gratifying things about the discovery process. And having someone to help you do it doesn’t mean you walk away from the experience with a shiny new website and no idea what your company is about anymore. Quite the opposite.
Take my recent client, Rachel Lynch of Therapy by Rachel. I worked with her to develop website copy that encapsulated a playful, compassionate tone for her expressive therapies and family systems practice. We pulled apart and explored analogies that she raised in attempts to describe her experience as a behavioral health practitioner and client. While we workshopped the copy, Rachel said this:
“I definitely want to go through and insert more of my own voice throughout. I love what you did with my suggestion[s]… It would be great if I could go through and add more things like that and then have you run with it.”
And that’s what we did.
Rachel was responsive and involved in the process. And after we worked together, she felt confident enough to change some things about the copy on her site to make it fit her desired client base and practice even better, all by herself.
This is where the “Without Ego” bit of my business values comes in. Of course I know that after my initial work with a client ends, they are likely to change things about their digital presence as their businesses evolve. Notwithstanding any changes Rachel made to the site after I signed off, the opportunity to utilize me as a sounding board, to express her wants for her business, and to hear and see language in context was invaluable. While we were in process, she expressed that she loved how I took the time to make her site easy to skim, as a large part of her client base lives with ADHD. She suggested certain terms and phrasing that she felt described her practice, and I had the fun of distilling it all into something that made her the ideal therapist for her preferred clientele.
After all, she had this to say:
“Hi April! I finally published the website and everyone is loving it! Thanks for all your hard work!”
You can visit Rachel and see the results of our collaboration over at Therapy by Rachel.
If you want to make your website sound like you and no one else, contact me for a web copy quote!