First major client project live! · Copywriting Launchpad

First major client project live!

Here’s what I learned…

After a bunch of back and forth meetings tweaking and changing the copy and design my very first website is actually live in v1!

Designed, wireframed, built and wrote the copy for the site myself so was super exciting to see it finally live…

But I did learn something pretty interesting working with this specific client

Now this client in particular has had NO marketing… like, ever in the history of their time existing as a company- ever done on them

This means no ads, no emails, no “book a call’s” and almost no social media presence whatsoever

In fact you’d be a damn good detective finding them organically

So, naturally they felt the need to level up from the bundle of stock images and technically excellent but mind numbingly boring copy their had on their site…

And it started off great! I’d do site revisions- email the client- review- make changes…

It was a positive feedback loop and pretty attainable too

But then uni poked its fat head round the corner and came a-whispering something about final year exams…

So the project dragged…

work was took on by me when I’d agreed to fufill the responsibility of my degree at the same time

and I’ll confess I made a lapse of judgement…

Now fortunately they were in no rush to get the site live… (I mean would you if you didn’t know what marketing was?)

but that hit was still on me, and paved the path for something much more sinister to take place…

Now this sinister thing started a few weeks back…

I sent the design to the client of their new homepage- closed my laptop and reached for a coffee

Typical break- was reading a biography on Michelangelo- really f*cking impressive man. I’d suggest a read

So 2 hours pass and my phone vibrates

-pick it up

And read this:

“Here is a list of feedback for corrections:

The Headline of the homepage should be our company mission statement…

2. get rid of alternating between bold and normal text on our text-heavy bullets…”

And this went on for about 12 “corrections”

You get the gist

Marketing to them is what I assume a fish is to anything but water really. An overused example but marketing gave them a whiff of something strong and unfamiliar…

And they did not like

So.

I had a few options here…

Now for the sake of this not being an actual email and a copy skills post I know anyone reading this is super busy ans just wants the lesson so I’ll give you the sauce and NOT lay out the simple options I had at my disposal

I chose to- for the sake of better long-term marketing… propose a creative strategy

In the form… of an UPSELL

You see.. they wanted marketing sh*t. They wanted my copy gone and their industry aesymeytic jigsaw puzzle of writing and jargon-laden text in its place

I knew it would not help conversions. And I knew they were going to struggle to get people to take an action when their suggestion no. 3. Was to replace any effective cta with a mildly worded request to connect with prospects

So I worked with my team and we proposed the upsell of a “v1 site”

Which is basically whatever they want. All steak no garnish

(And for them it was the marrow at this point- not even the bone)

And over time we’ll basically charge them extra to ACTUALLY do our job and give them proper website marketing in the form of gentle “suggestions” that we can implement in v2 and v3

And so that’s where it currently stands

First client project done… but I feel pretty bad when I look at the site. I had spent hours (though paid) doing the very best marketing I could for them…

and they did not want it.

Maybe because it was unfamiliar

That site currently sits in all it’s beautiful serendipity as an oasis of copy written my the nuclear-heads- for nuclear heads… so maybe it was for the better my mitts didn’t touch it for v1

But the question lies whether at the end of the day…

“Is the customer always right?

For me- no

For them- yes.

I gave them the yes and wanted to find a way to turn my no into their benefit- which in the end was to mine to over the long run by making more money from them for my SaaS

I can’t claim all the credit though, my director Mike actually came up with the idea- I just branded it an “upsell” and the extra marketing improvements as a bonus

Hope you learned something!

Have a blessed day

Ben

Ps. I did fall on my face MULTIPLE times during this project.

Like I was FAR from perfect in MANY things..

Learned a ton of even bigger lessons I could share

This was the first big one and I f*cked more than once. But I’m extremely grateful for those f*xk ups. I think without failing pretty flipping hard when doing the things that will grow you, you’ll always find a way to be stuck.

So keep failing!

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