The kind of copywriting I’m bringing to Santa Barbara

Reeves believed the purpose of advertising is to sell. He insisted that an advertisement should show off the value or unique selling proposition, (or USP) of a product, not the cleverness or humor of a copywriter. Reeves pointed out that to work, advertising had to be honest. He insisted that no amount of advertising could move inferior goods.

In a previous era of my career, my freelance copywriting assignments came from ad agencies and graphic design shops.

Now, they’ve been replaced by web-design shops.

I’ve been searching the websites of local web shops, hundreds of them, and I see that few of them mention copywriting, and even fewer list a copywriter on staff.

Their sites are devoted to their skills as designers and coders. When I ask them about copywriting, they shrug and tell me they use what the client supplies. The closest they get to it is to upsell some SEO—search engine optimization—to ensure essential keywords are included in the text.

As a copywriter, I follow the basics from copywriter Rosser Reeves’ book, REALITY IN ADVERTISING. His idea was to study a company and discover what their unique sales proposition was: the essential thing that made them different from the competition, and superior to them.

You can’t do it by just saying “We’re Different!” This requires the reader to instantly ascertain which aspect of the infinite universe you are different from.

In my theory, I write copy that simply show what you are. Let the cognoscenti judge for themselves if you are different or not.

My theory is that a site that paints a clean plain picture of what the company does, is something that will stand out from the crowd of self-promoters gushing that they are the best in the world.