‘Hello, pleased to meet you, whoever you are. Your marketing copy is poorly written and your website isn’t very good. So hire me, because I am very good at all of that.’

OK, this is an exaggeration, but it’s an approach that some cold emailers are still using.

Slag the prospect off, then pitch to them.

‘Your copy sucks. A ten year-old could have done better. Now hire me, cos I write killer copy.’

‘Kill a copywriter’ might be the phrase in people’s minds at this point.

Slag marketing is a flawed concept – and pretty self-defeating and stupid.

And yet, I actually can see why people might want to engage in it.

They’ve developed expertise in a particular field, then they see someone making a complete hash of what they’re so good at.

They know they can do better, so quite naturally, they want to sell you their services because they can see you are in need of them.

I get that, because it’s how any decent copywriter feels when she or he reads marketing copy that is, unbeknown to the business owner, actually working AGAINST what they are trying to achieve – which is to promote or sell.

All the same, opening with criticism isn’t any way to start a business relationship.

The frustration for so many copywriters is that business owners will pay for design services but still want to write the words themselves.

Because well, hey, we can all write, right?

Ironically, the clients most appreciative of my #copywriting services are usually those who are themselves, good at writing.

I guess this helps them understand the fact that producing good marketing copy requires specialist writing skills.