When I got into marketing, I started by learning copywriting. To my surprise, I was naturally good at it.

I was soon writing sales pages for marketing companies that already had good sales pages. They’d test my version against their existing page, and I got paid when my version generated more leads/sales. I never lost, although there was one tie.

However, that doesn’t mean I was exceptionally good at copywriting. At least that’s not why my copywriting created exceptional results.

You don’t need exceptional copywriting to get exceptional results. It’s what the copywriting is based on that you need to focus on. And when you do, quite mediocre copywriting will create great results for you.

Great copywriting is not about writing

How you say something rarely makes a big difference.

For example, a client recently asked me, “Which of these headlines is better?” (these are slightly modified because the real ones would be easily identifiable):

• How to increase developer productivity
• Help your developers get more done

These two headlines likely wouldn’t create a meaningful difference in results because there’s no meaningful difference in what they mean. Those are just two ways of saying the same thing.

If you want to see a significant improvement in your results, you need to significantly improve what you’re saying (not how you say it). That’s a question of marketing messaging development, not copywriting per se.

In this case, I pointed out to my client that we could reference one of their differentiators in the headline. Adding just two words will give people a much better reason to be interested in what comes next (compared to the original headlines). And therefore, those two words are likely to increase conversion rates significantly.

You can’t compensate for an ineffective message with copywriting

There’s a great, even if rather crude, saying in the music industry, “You can’t turn a turd into a truffle.” It’s a favorite of mixing engineers who are often blamed for terrible overall sound when the real issue is the arrangement or recording.

On the other hand, if the arrangement is great and everything was recorded well, the mixing engineer doesn’t need to do much to achieve a great sound.

In marketing, the underlying message determines how well the marketing/sales materials can work in the end.

If what you talk about doesn’t compel people to buy, eloquent prose won’t fix it.

You have to know what motivates your target customers to buy and what differentiates you in a way that makes them choose you over all other options they have. That is, you need a strong marketing message.

Once you have it, you don’t need remarkable copywriting to get great results. Even fairly average copywriting is enough for that.

All that said, remarkable copywriting turns a strong marketing message into truly exceptional results. So, great copywriting is absolutely worth the investment. It’s just not a solution to the underlying problem many companies struggle with — often without realizing it.

If you’d like to know what about your messaging works — and what’s holding back your results — get a Marketing Messaging Review. You’ll see exactly what to change to see dramatically better results across marketing campaigns and channels.