If you’ve interviewed anyone for a post, you’ll be familiar with the rather trite self-aggrandisement of, ‘I am always looking for ways to improve my performance.’ I’m sure most of us have asked the follow-up question, ‘What have you done recently to improve your performance?’ Any of us could suggest, honestly, that we are always using split email marketing lists. It’s self-improvement personified.
We should be exploiting every way of becoming better in our roles. I’ve written copy, articles and book content for years, many years, and with a certain degree of success. I’m good at what I do. However, every couple of years or so I supply copy to an English language tutor I know for her opinion on what I am producing, and in particular how I can improve.
I hope you’ve noticed that I approached her a few months back.
It is all too easy to stick with doing what you do if you are obviously doing it quite well. It is, according to my old tutor, even easier to fall back into old bad habits, particular my use of repetition as a way of making my copy distinctive. You’ve been seeing less of it of late. She doesn’t check spelling, punctuation and restrains herself quite well from correcting errors in grammar, focusing mainly on style and creativity.
The most noticeable aspect of her comments, handwritten in green ink, is that once she has pointed out faults in my copy, I wonder why it hadn’t been obvious to me when I had written it. It feels as if I’m paying for the obvious. I should have noticed. And, I’m sorry to say, it’s probably true for you as well.
If you write copy for your email marketing campaigns, website or blog, and have been doing it for some time, it is probable that you have become a little stale and repetitive. It is actually not a serious fault as there is churn in every company’s email marketing list and most of those who read your copy are fairly new to it. Unfortunately, your most valued clients, the ones who have stayed with you through thick and thin, not to mention Covid-19, are the ones you should be looking after, and if they are bored by what you are writing, and therefore what they are reading, they might go elsewhere.
It is not an admission of failure to seek advice from someone whom you admire. They don’t have to be better than you, although my ex tutor is very well respected, they just have to be willing to give an honest view of what you have written. It probably won’t be cheap. It is likely to be worthwhile though, and might improve your copy.
Continual improvement is an overused catchphrase. We don’t absolve ourselves of the need to continually improve just because we regularly split our email marketing lists in testing. Seek the advice of others even if that person has no qualifications or credentials. If they read, they have a point of view.
