Honest Copywriting Brings Out Your Most Valuable USP

Honest copywriting pays off! Don’t believe me? Well, read on and I’m sure you’ll see the light.

Because here’s a newsflash: as the labour market changes with remote work becoming non-negotiable for many applicants, so does the way consumers behave. While just a year ago fast fashion brands could spread pure lies about their “sustainable initiatives”, today they are getting sued for false marketing. And rightly so, because it clearly harms the consumers’ rights as well as the already fragile environment.

Consumers aren’t lemmings anymore, and brands who think so are making a massive mistake that will haunt them for a very long time. To prove this, a Finnish design brand interviewed Finnish consumers in 2021 to find out how important it was for them that fashion brands operate sustainably.

Over 56% of the interviewed people did not believe that fashion brands do enough in terms of operating sustainably, and that they only pretend to be sustainable. Note: pretend! And this number is growing as more news of neglect in terms of employees and the environment come to light from the industry.

How do you think those consumers feel when they still see brands advertising their “conscious” collections, even though there’s absolutely nothing conscious about them? Would you appreciate being lied to?

So, why are brands more willing to put millions of dollars towards false marketing, rather than using those dollars to actually bring sustainable change to the way they operate? Obviously I don’t have any statistical proof to back my assumptions, but I do think that ⎼ at least partly ⎼ the issue is in the fact that most people are insecure and detest change.

Whether you’re a marketer, a CEO or a consumer, most people are not comfortable with the fact that the world around us is constantly changing. And this frailty in us leads to the fact that as long as brands and their marketing efforts are led by people who are insecure as f*ck, we’re all screwed.

Honesty is all about authenticity, and to put yourself out there authentically takes confidence. Confidence, which is obviously hard to come by when we have been led to believe that none of us are good enough just as we are. We should fake it til we make it! And by the time we “make it” the ‘faking’ is a running machine that is very hard to turn off.

Honest marketing requires honest copywriting, so make sure you hire a Copywriter who has the confidence to make your website, product and SEO copy stand out properly!

But now there’s an even more serious problem when it comes to inauthentic or even dishonest marketing: the fear of offending someone. Woke culture has been very effective in vilifying certain types of sense of humour (i.e. sarcasm) making it an art form to take offence for things that have nothing to do with you.

Nobody wants to offend others, not intentionally anyway, right? But especially for white folks it has become a matter of pride to take offence over the most extraordinary reasons. Usually reasons that don’t affect them. And thanks to the internet these offence-takers can amplify their views and opinions, and at worst really hurt a brand’s reputation in the process.

What I’ve been wondering is what happened to “There is no such thing as bad publicity”? Have we really become so sensitive and afraid that one group of people taking offence can stop us from serving all the other groups of people?

No, honest copywriting isn’t always to everybody’s taste, but does it even have to be?

The above reasons show that marketing has for too long been a field for the scared, the untrustworthy, and the people-pleasing kind. And I say that’s enough of that!

Multiple studies have shown that for people to buy something from a brand, they need to first trust that brand. Now, initially we have all trusted the supermarkets and high street brands that we regularly pop in. But ever since sustainability became the trendiest thing on the planet, we’ve started to see more and more examples of the fraudulent marketing tactics that those trusted brands have been practising on us for decades.

And we’re not happy about it!

Even more so, if we tend to favour getting actual value for money! The more we are willing to pay for a product or a service, the more essential it is for us that we can trust the brand in question.

Since consumers are much more aware of the world around them, I’ve found it utterly bizarre that the blatant greenwashing that fast fashion brands have engaged in for the past couple of years was allowed to go on for so long.

Fashion is one of the industries that creates the most pollution in terms of greenhouse gases and toxic waste. So, while the world around us burns and our rivers dry out, we really can’t afford to allow brands ⎼ any brands! ⎼ to lie to consumers like this anymore.

And action against brands that engage in false marketing is already finally being taken: H&M has been sued for misleading (understatement!) their customers with their sustainability marketing. The main issue stated in the lawsuit is the fact that H&M lured customers to pay higher prices for a certain product group under false pretences.

Now, do you want your brand to be the next one that is sued for lying to the people who enable your company to even exist?

Marketing is essentially all about attracting people to your products and services. And what happens after that is usually seen as the convincer that makes those people stay and become more or less regular customers.

But what if I told you that you could turn people into regular customers already at the first stage? Marketing can be the reason why some people resonate and fall madly in love with your brand even before they have done business with you. And the key to achieving that is not what most people online would have you believe (video marketing) but honest copywriting!

The trick with honest copywriting is to boast about your brand’s strengths and USPs in a way that also manages consumers’ expectations. If you offer value for money in your marketing, then that is exactly what you have to provide in reality too. Cause if you don’t, your customers can tell, and they as well as their friends and family will not do business with you again. Not even if you clean up your game later, because your reputation is already gone.

To make sure that your brand’s marketing is authentic and truthful, but still attractive and interesting, make sure you hire a Confident Copywriter.