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KristineS
08-15-2008, 03:21 PM
If you blog or write copy for your business, what's the most boring thing you've ever written about?

For me it was a site I wrote for a company of ours. It was all about inkjet ink and direct to garment printing. I didn't find the subject all that interest, and my primary technical contact was a chemist.

vangogh
08-15-2008, 03:41 PM
I'm usually bored writing sales pages of any kind. I can do it well enough, but I don't like doing it.

A couple of years ago I rewrote copy for a site that was all about industrial packaging machinery. Very dry stuff and I had little to go on as to what the terminology really meant. There weren't that many other sites on the same topic to learn from and those other sites were just as try.

At the same time I was writing copy for a site that deals in dry solids processing. Another heavily industrialized topic for which I knew nothing about and didn't exactly want to know more about.

Nothing particularly wrong with either topic, but certainly neither was of interest to me.

cbscreative
08-15-2008, 04:52 PM
LOL, I've handled a few topics that were boring by nature, and the research was worse. The challenge I find, and even enjoy, is taking something boring like that and making it more interesting. I've learned to ask for minimal input from clients so I have more latitude in making something from nothing, because too much input doesn't always help anyway.

Dan Furman
08-15-2008, 07:28 PM
I can't think of any. Maybe it's because I make everything so darn interesting :)

Seriously, while some topics are definitely harder than others to write about, in many years doing this and hundreds of subjects, I have yet to be bored writing about something.

vangogh
08-15-2008, 08:43 PM
I think that shows you chose the right career Dan. Most of my writing is for myself so I can make it as interesting or as dull for me as I want. But those industrial things were not my choice and were not fun for me.

Dan Furman
08-16-2008, 12:18 AM
Yea, I can see how someone could HATE writing certain things. I guess it does mean I'm doing the right thing.

I used to do some graphic design work, but that I hated (and yes, was boring.) Yet a good designer I knew said the same thing about design that I just did about writing.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 12:45 AM
I would say the same thing about design too. I enjoy doing it regardless of the site or the topic of the site. I do enjoy writing as well and most of the time I won't find it boring. Then again there are a few topics that get to me.

orion_joel
08-16-2008, 09:59 AM
I don't actually do any writing except for myself so i do attempt to only pick topics which i know i am going to be able to easily write about and not get to bored when i have to go and do some research for them.

In saying this i find it very difficult to write good copy for my own business, i am not sure if this is because i am always being to critical and trying to look at what i am writing from the perspective of my potential customer's or what, but i find that no matter what i write for my business i am always scrutinizing it a lot more then anything else that i write.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 12:03 PM
Sales copy is harder for me to write for myself than it is to write for someone else. It's probably because I'm more attached to my business and it's harder to look at objectively. It's much easier to be objective for a client's site.

KristineS
08-17-2008, 04:34 PM
I think most people have trouble writing about their own business. I've seen some of the stuff the company for which I work had before I got there. It's horrible. There's either way too much information or it's so over the top with sales buzz words it would turn anyone off.

Passion about your company and product is a great thing, but you also have to have the tools to be able to express that passion to your customers in the right way.

vangogh
08-17-2008, 07:28 PM
It's harder to take the step back and be objective about your own business sometimes. Then again there are times when the person writing the copy simply isn't much of a writer.

KristineS
08-17-2008, 09:10 PM
Yeah, that happens more frequently than a lot of business owners would like to admit. I fight that with our COO all the time. He thinks he can write, and he writes these dense, jargon filled pages that are just horrible. Thankfully, he has been told that I do the writing now and that seems to help.

vangogh
08-17-2008, 10:06 PM
I think in some respects due to the fact that most of us can write a sentence. That doesn't mean the writing is good though, but when looking over the tasks where we do and don't need help, writing gets put into the don't need help category.

orion_joel
08-19-2008, 02:24 AM
I agree with pretty much all of the above. While i can construct a sentence, and even put a lot of sentences together to create an article, it does not mean that the article is good. However i do not force anyone to read it. When it comes to writing for my business site. It can be quite difficult, because i am writing from the mindset that i want to write something that the potential customers will respond positively to, however i really have no idea what that is.

At the same time i could contract this out to a copywriter, however i need to figure out what i want the actual point and direction of the writing to actually be before i try paying someone to do it, otherwise it is just going to be a big waste of money for me taking a chance on if i do or do not like what i get back.

vangogh
08-19-2008, 02:41 AM
Figuring out the point of a page is the first and maybe even the hardest step. You do need or at least should have a goal in mind for your sales pages. Do you want someone to contact you, do you want them to put something in your shopping cart, do you want them to click to another page?

Then you want to focus the copy on getting your visitor to take that action.

cbscreative
08-19-2008, 10:47 AM
Figuring out the point of a page is the first and maybe even the hardest step. You do need or at least should have a goal in mind for your sales pages. Do you want someone to contact you, do you want them to put something in your shopping cart, do you want them to click to another page?

Then you want to focus the copy on getting your visitor to take that action.
That's simply stated and says it very well. As simple as it is though, this rule gets often violated.

vangogh
08-19-2008, 12:23 PM
Simply stated, but not always easy to do. I know I forget to do it myself at times or simply struggle with what I want someone to do on the page.

cbscreative
08-19-2008, 01:02 PM
I agree, simple is not always easy.

Marcomguy
08-29-2008, 01:40 PM
I haven't found a boring subject yet because I'm interested in everything.

KristineS
08-29-2008, 02:58 PM
I haven't found a boring subject yet because I'm interested in everything.

That's a good way to be. I always learn something from everything that I write, but I don't always find it interesting.

vangogh
08-29-2008, 09:43 PM
I'm interested in quite a lot, but still there are things here and there that just don't interest me at all.

KristineS
08-29-2008, 10:29 PM
I think there's also a difference between researching a subject because you want to know more and researching a subject because you need to write about it for a business. When I'm interested in something I can research and read for hours. When I'm working on something for business, that really isn't of interest to me personally, I have to force myself to do the necessary research and reading.

vangogh
08-30-2008, 01:31 AM
I have a hard time doing things I'm not interested in. Fortunately I can be interested in a lot, but I have trouble forcing myself to research things if I'm not personally interested. My mind usually wanders to something I am interested in.

KristineS
08-30-2008, 10:27 AM
I do that too. I get sidetracked and spend a lot of time learning about things that ultimately won't help me with creating what I need to create. It's maddening sometimes.

vangogh
08-30-2008, 12:23 PM
it's hard enough keeping up with all the things I am interested in to try to add all the things I'm not interested in.