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Writer's pictureJohn Brandt

don’t sell water to fishes

One of my clients has an absurd amount of products in his ecom store. I’m talking more-than-600-products-absurd.


And so, one of our email campaigns is a basic product education series where we explain why a certain product is in our store.


It’s always funny to me how wildly the revenue generated by these emails skew.


Some emails only do a couple hundred dollars. Other emails rake in a couple thousand dollars. Sometimes, these emails even break $20k dollars.


Why is there such a massive difference?


Well, the short answer is this:


You’re always at the mercy of your product and audience.


The OG direct response copywriters knew this the best. That’s why they’d spend twice as much time on the market and product research than they did on their copywriting.


But it brings up an important lesson for copywriters and brand owners alike:


Your copy—even the best mf copy you’ve ever read in your life—only accounts for about 20% of the success of any given campaign. Your list and your offer account for 80% of the success.


In other words:


The best copywriter to ever walk the face of this green Earth can’t sell water to fishes because fishes don’t need water.


If’n you’re selling water to a mf trekking across the desert, then, well, the worst copywriter in the world can sell out your product at breakneck speed.


Sumtin to think about whenever you’re writing copy or thinking about hiring a copywriter.


Speaking of…


If you need help selling water to desert trekkers with your emails, let’s hop on a quick call.



Or the button in the top right corner of your page.



Choice is yours.


John


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