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Copywriting for a new product or service: 20 risks to avoid 25 October 2024

Copywriting for a new product or service? Great stuff, but make sure your approach doesn’t let you down. With the right approach to your marketing messaging, you can accelerate the success of your new project. So, if you’re planning your copywriting strategy for something new and innovative, watch out for these classic painpoints along the way:

1. Information overload

This is a danger point I often see at the start of the copywriting process for a new product or service. Companies simply impart information about themselves instead of engaging people about what they have to offer. Of course you want to tell your audience about all your service, but don’t forget to sell too.

2. Drowning in detail

Linked to the pitfall above, I’m often asked to help at the stage where the business-owner has put their copy together, but they have a sneaking suspicion there’s something not quite right about it. So what is this mysterious element in copywriting? Well, it often turns out to be the level of detail within the content: too much. While it’s certainly important to share some details about the product or service, the bigger picture is more likely to interest people in the first instance.

3. The me me me show

Here we have another classic danger point in which the copywriting process becomes too focused on the business and what it’s about – instead of starting with what the potential users of this new service will want to know. In effective copywriting, your target audience – and what it wants – is the star of the show.

4. Style stagnation

It’s amazing how frequently I see new businesses start out with content that sounds exactly like another company’s content. This is the danger point where business-owners communicate about their company as if it’s been around forever. There’s no sense of the exciting to show that something innovative has arrived. While it can be tempting to go along with the latest trends in tone of voice, it’s much better to find your own style.

5. The novelty effect

The converse of the danger point outlined above is where the copywriting process creates content too focused on communicating just how new and exciting the product is. When this is overdone for effect, it can draw attention away from other important messages about the business. The value your new offer can create is the story, not its novelty.

6. No exit

Why communicate about your innovation – and then fail to tell people how they can find out more? This is the mystery of the missing call to action. There’s the big lead up, the successful story and then… nothing. Perhaps the call to action that is there is confusing or takes the potential customer, for example, to a general web page, rather than to a targeted landing page. Make it as easy as possible for people to buy into and then benefit from your brand new service.

7. Best for worst

This is the one where the copywriting approach simply blasts out the importance of the new business. Just like a person with similar qualities, this is likely to get a potential customer moving quickly away from the content. Not only does the over-inflated hard sell put people off, but it can also undermine the credibility of a business.

8. Technical overkill

Many innovations have an important technical focus. This is great, but the copywriting process needs to achieve a clever balance between the technical and the non-technical, depending on the market you’re aiming for, rather than talking in robot language.

9. No final chapter

The copywriting process can be tricky one for a new product or service, so it can be tempting to leave it as an unfinished job to come back to at a later stage. This follow-up stage often gets overlooked, leaving the innovation with content that is out of date or just incomplete. Don’t waste any opportunity to communicate what’s great about your new product or service.

10. Piggy in the middle

Copywriting for a new project is often a major milestone in a period of transition for a company. The content for a new website or brochure, for example, is what stands between their previous business strategy and their new one. Yet their content can often end up representing this middle place, instead of speaking for their future strategy. Make sure that your marketing messaging speaks for where you see your company going, rather than keeping it stuck in the past.

11. The wallflower

All too often, I am asked to edit content that is too shy to do its job. This is where the business-owner has tried to communicate what they do in their copywriting process, but has held back from sharing the really good stuff, because they view it as inappropriate or ‘too much’. Here’s the good news: there are ways of being bold and distinctive in your content while remaining true to the personality of your brand. Just ask a friendly copywriter to explain how they would achieve it.

12. Camouflage chameleon

Under the cover of strangely familiar terminology, content for a new business makes its way unnoticed into the world… That’s because it sounds strangely familiar, despite being created for a new product or business. Too many new companies start out by communicating with a style or tone of voice that is already used by their competitors. Avoid the risks of sounding the same as everyone else and uncover the tone of voice that will define your business at its best.

13. One outfit for every occasion

So many new businesses start out with content that they expect with fit with every single format, audience and context. This may work for some of your audiences some of the time, but it certainly doesn’t work all of the time. Be sure to create content tailor-made for each “occasion” and audience.

14. Context failure

I often see this danger point when I’m editing a company’s copy. This is context failure. What happens is that the content is expected to launch something new and unfamiliar, without a sense of context and how the product or service relates to what’s been done before. Be sure to set the scene properly so that your ideal customer can clearly understand why your innovation is relevant to them.

15. The missing problem

Linked to the point above, writing about a new business demands a mix of the old and the new. Creating real value in copywriting comes from linking your new product or service with the ‘old’ or long-standing problem that’s affecting your reader. Look for the problem and your innovation will stand out as a more compelling solution to your ideal customer.

16. Buy now!

I know I pushed the importance of selling earlier in this article, but there is another side to this. I’ve seen business-owners who, in their enthusiasm in the copywriting process, push their reader towards their new product or service, exhorting them of its value, without providing space and gentler persuasion to encourage potential customers to make up their own minds. That more salesy content may well create more impact at a later stage of the sales process. Before you sell, you need to connect.

17. The forgotten story

So many innovations start with a powerful story – and so many come with that story missing from their content. The tale behind the new can be a big part of creating interest, but it’s still often an afterthought. Make sure that your new product or service content has a powerful, original story that people will want to hear.

18. Message spaghetti

Have you ever seen copy stricken by message spaghetti? You have if you’ve read content that communicates too many messages about a new product or service, leaving you confused. This is copywriting that tries to cover every base and every point of interest for each and every single potential customer. Reduce your content down to the essentials and go from there.

19. All new

For some businesses, the copywriting process becomes focused on the fact that the product or service is new, that there’s some intrinsic value in this point alone. There is a great deal to be unpacked from the novelty of an innovation, but repeating in different ways that it’s brand new is not the best way to do it. It’s new. So what? Answer that question and you’ll drill down into the value of that novelty for your audience.

20. Keeping it unreal

I’ve worked with companies that have started the copywriting process themselves only to find that, somehow, their content does not convince. On a closer look, this is often because they have communicated the various points and features, but haven’t made the innovation real and relatable. Ensure that your content is human-friendly and you’ll build an instant rapport between your product or service and the people you created it for.

Make your content as innovative as your business

You’ve worked hard on your new business idea. Shouldn’t your content work hard for you too? Making that happen means avoiding the common pitfalls outlined above – or working with a copywriter experienced at helping innovators achieve more from their marketing content.