I ignored my coach's advice — here's why

'm working with a new client in the "spiritual space" — think manifesting and all that good stuff.

When I write copy for her, I use a lot of complex, head-in-the-clouds-y type language... because that's what you do with spiritual copy.

I sent some copy I wrote to my coach for review. He told me that the Fliesh-Kincaid score was too high, which basically meant that the writing was too complex. He wanted me to rewrite it at a 3rd grade reading level.

I see where he's coming from. The famous rule of thumb in direct response copy is that you want your writing to be simple. That way people can read it.

But there are exceptions to that rule of thumb. 

For example, imagine if you were reading an advertisement for the New Yorker and it was written at a third grade reading level. Wouldn't that seem off-brand?

I think my new client is one of those exceptions. If I wrote 3rd grade level copy for her, it wouldn't sound like her, and her audience would know that something was up. 

Spiritual copy needs to sound a little head in the clouds-y, which you can't do writing at a third grade level!

So I did something I don't normally do: I ignored my coach's advice and kept the copy complex.

(Well, at least that part of the advice. He had tons of other great suggestions which I followed.)

2 lessons from this email. First, there are exceptions to every rule, especially in something as complex as marketing.

I hate it when people mindlessly follow best practices because "that's the way things are done". It's good to default to the best practices, but there's tons of nuance in everything, especially marketing. So if you have a good reason to not follow best practices, don't follow best practices!

And second, you don't want to sacrifice your brand just to sound more direct response-y. If your emails are too direct-response-y and they don't sound like you, it'll hurt the relationship you have with your email list, and it'll hurt your sales numbers in the long run. (And probably the short run too.)

-Theo