Are you more Berry Blue or Jewel Mix?

If you’re thinking of hiring a copywriter, think about jelly beans first. Then you’ll know how to find the right one who adds flavour to your marketing…

6 min readMay 21, 2019

A jelly bean is just a jelly bean, right? If it’s strawberry flavour, surely it comes from the juicy red fruit that announces Wimbledon every year.
Except it doesn’t.

Just like hiring someone to help increase your leads and make you more sales, there’s more to it when you take a bite.

Look at the list of ingredientsfor the watermelon Jelly BellyⓇbean:

“Sugar, glucose syrup, modified cornstarch, watermelon juice concentrate, flavouring, fruit and plant concentrates (spirulina, carrot, black currant), glazing agents (E901, E903, E904), acidity regulator (E330), colours (E100, E171).”

It’s not really the watery red semi-circle cushioned with a green trim that you picture in your head, is it?

There’s a bit of carrot flavouring in there.
Some E901 (whatever that is).
And some random “colours” as well as an “acidity regulator”.

If I were a nutritionist I could probably tell you how bad all of this is for your teeth and what it does to your gut. But I’m not. I’m a copywriter. I’m the one you want to help spruce up the wording on your website. Or figure out how on earth you describe your product to someone who’s never heard of it before. Or how you make that damned landing page convert.

You know you need a copy pro, but choosing the one who suits youcan be as difficult as finding your favourite jelly bean in a large bag of mixed flavours.

How do you know you won’t pull one out that’s sour, too punchy, or — heavens forbid — disappointing?

Here’s the trick…

You choose a copywriter based on all of the ingredients that makes them who they are. All of the professional and life experience that determines what they do today and how they do it.

Why?

Because you want a copywriter who blends well with you and your ethos. Or you and your team.

Just like you’re expert in what you do and other people are left with nothing more than a vague understanding, you hire a copywriter (or any independent consultant) when they know the stuff you don’t:

How to make an argument more persuasive
How to ditch boring website buttons that nobody clicks on
How to make what you do sound more appealing to the people who should buy it
How to write about your service so you can sell it more often

But it’s not quite as simple as this → because any good copywriter knows how to do all of those things in the bullets ^^

What else do you need?

It’s not the E171 in the jelly bean that makes it irresistible, it’s every ingredient all together

Think about the last five people you met in business that you clicked with. I say five because let’s face it, it doesn’t happen often — not a true bond. Just like it doesn’t happen every day in your personal life.

Did they have an unexplained essence that you were just somehow drawn to?

💛 Sure, maybe you both got sunburnt in windy Cape Verde on your summer holiday.
💙 Maybe you grew up on the same street but you didn’t know it until now.
🖤 Perhaps you both have parents who chose to give you an unfortunate name.

The point is, it can be anything. And with so many people, it can be hard to find the ones that are a good addition to your distinctive professional recipe ie. this cool thing that you’re making or doing.

It’s not about experience. I know copywriters who are barely out of the gate and they are already pulling in big wins for their clients.

It’s not about a niche per se. I know other copywriters who write for tech companies and we have nothing at all in common — in fact, a completely different outlook on life.

How about lifestyle?
Or education?

Nope.

None of those things are the reason to choose your copywriter. And it’s a good job because my MA is in Anthrozoology and, I can assure you, I’d be starving by now if that were the basis for every gig I took on.

Whether you have a Masters in Writing for Astronauts or a PhD in Baking Bread, it’s all about how you apply everything you learn from taking those courses. Or indeed, any other tidbits from life in general that you pick up along the way.

You want someone who appreciates how you’ve been feeling all these years, working on your BIG idea…

Emilie Wapnick calls people with multiple interests multipotentialites. Their life history contains “many interlocking potentials” and multipotentialites will naturally drift towards one another. That’s when a connection of seemingly random things all comes together, just like the ingredients of a jelly bean, to burst into flavour.

You see, your copywriter is not a wordsmith, but a problem solver. We just happen to use word formation to do it.

I have to first be able to understand your problem and, second, be willing to dig deep enough into it to work out how to help you solve it — you don’t want just any Tracy, Debb or Helen to do that for you. You want the copywriter who can see your problem from all angles.

Me, I’ve worked in digital marketing for twenty years. Before that, I watched my Dad build anything he wanted from sheer imagination. I went on to have a brief advertising interlude, a brush with journalism, and a turn with conceptual photography.

My stubborn streak also means I don’t give up on an idea easily, able to believe in the promise of what the future holds. And it’s a good job. Because most of my clients are headstrong too.

They’re technologists.
Futurists.
Changemakers.

And when you hire a copywriter to help grow your business, you want to know there’s value in doing that.

You want ROI + beautiful copy. The result of having a group of like-minded people work on your brand, whipping up your own unique blend of flavours.

Your very own jelly bean, if you like. Your customers will never know what went into it, but they’ll enjoy the result.

So if you know your words or ideas aren’t as strong as you want them to be, don’t ask your copywriter for a resume. That’s the equivalent of asking for a jelly bean made out of only fruit. If you want the full flavour, ask for a case study — like this one. It gives you a better sense of what you can get out of the partnership, rather than a simple list of ingredients of past projects.

If you’re not ready for a full-on copy service, I can help you improve your message in just a matter of hours…

You’re too close to your latest project to see what’s not working and why
You’re not sure how to prepare for a full-on copy project but you dowant to sharpen up your messaging
You’re struggling to find a way to get Joe Public on board with your revolutionary idea
You need to act quickly because innovation in tech moves fast and you don’t want to miss an opportunity to make your mark

I consistently work with people just like you, so I appreciate how demanding it is to realise your ambition. We can work through your challenges quickly and with determination because that’s my flavour. A real mixed bag of experience teamed up with a stubborn streak means I believe big change is possible and, if you’re the person to do it, I’m with you all the way.

If you’re worried your words will fail you. You’re not sure how to track your results. Or there’s the nagging doubt you need help that simply won’t go away, let’s see if we’re a good mix.

I offer a free introductory call and there’s no obligation to go ahead.

DIG YOUR HEELS IN

btw, Those case studies I spoke about? There’s one for my Dig your heels in service: here

Originally posted on https://nataliesmithson.com/blog