Do you have copy anxiety? Copy Anxiety is the feeling the comes when you are about to publish a version of your new sales website or when you are about to send out a new email to your newsletter list and you pause… ‘What if this isn’t good enough?’, you say to yourself. ‘What if it’s boring and my audience doesn’t care?’ You steady yourself and with a trembling finger, you click the publish button. Then go have a glass of scotch and hope for the best.
Does this describe you? I think that there is a very good reason for this type of anxiety. It isn’t anything unique. It is really just a form of the fear of commitment. Much like when a man finally gets up the courage to ask his girlfriend to marry him — when you finally click that publish button, you are choosing one version of your copy and rejecting all others. For better or worse. Till death do us part.
Fortunately, this isn’t marriage. It’s just marketing.
If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you’ve certainly heard the cry that you should be running AB Tests. The main reason that’s given is that they will optimize your content for more conversions and make more sales. And this is all true.
But one aspect that isn’t mentioned is the psychological benefit. You don’t have to be married to your copy. Instead of publishing one version of your site, publish two (or three, or heck — even more). I guarantee that this will reduce, if not eliminate, your copy anxiety. How?
It’s simple. As I mentioned, copy anxiety is the fear that you committed to the wrong piece of content; that somewhere, out there, is a better version of that call to action button that will convert 10% better. But you could only pick one and so you picked this one… and now you are worried it was a bad choice.
However, when you are writing with AB tests, you don’t have to pick just one. You pick as many versions as you want and let the system figure out which one is best. No more choosing. No more worrying.
So if you have copy anxiety, come out of the shadows. It’s okay to admit that you might not know the best title to write for that new blog post. There is a solution: implement a testing system. It really will help.