When You’re Copywriting, Always Remember This One Thing
Churning out copy can make us forget
The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic. — attributed to Stalin
Yup. I started a post with a quote commonly attributed to Stalin. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m about to make a point.
It’s a grim quote. It turns people from individuals into numbers. It’s something most of us are appalled by.
But you know what?
Businesses do it all the time. They just use different language.
Customers, readers, visitors, clients, demographic, human capital (ew) etc.
And, to an extent, it’s necessary. You can hardly sit there and list the 50,000 names of the people who’ve bought your product in the last year. Firstly, GDPR. Secondly, it would be worthy of a Monty Python sketch on political correctness.
But as copywriters, we need to remember that customers aren’t some obscure slice of society. They’re not homogenous. They are not just People Who Buy Our Shoes.
