I bet you did, most people do.
If I look at your website, am I going to see almost identical wording and phrases to what everyone else in your industry uses?!
You didn’t write the same website copy as some else in your industry, which they copied from someone else before them… and on and on.
Did you write one of the half a million accountancy pages that mention being “forward thinking” (I googled it), or the hundred thousand law firm pages that promise not to use “legal jargon”. Maybe one of the 200,000+ dental pages that promise they are “modern”.
Unfortunately whilst all these people were copying each other I don’t think many of them questioned these hand-me-down terms from a marketing perspective. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of this lingo dated back to before internet marketing was a thing. Are dentists still using the word “modern” based on “modern dentistry” first invented in 1728!
If I go to a reviews website like Trust Pilot to see what people really want (which is what I did), no one ever leaves a bad review (the bad reviews are the most genuine) to say they aren’t happy because their accountant wasn’t “forward thinking” enough. their Solicitor only spoke “legal jargon”, or their dentist wasn’t “modern”.
These things aren’t what people look for when choosing a supplier (they aren’t genuine “buyer concerns” and they aren’t appealing benefits or “must haves”). People aren’t concerned about ending up with a solicitor that only speaks “legal jargon”, they assume most of them can speak in a way that makes sense. So unfortunately your website copy isn’t going to persuade people by stating this. You water down the good stuff when you throw in generic copy that has been passed down. These terms become even less persuasive because everyone else is using them. Making them twice as useless.
So what should you write? Go back to Trust Pilot and look at those negative reviews for other firms in your industry, and then reverse them. For example if a lot of people complain about how long legal matters take, then talk about why you are quick and efficient (emphasis on the reason “why”, don’t just tell people you are great without an explanation why). If people don’t mention it in negative reviews then it wasn’t that important in the first place.
I’d love to know, what’s your industry and what generic content do you see a lot?
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