Some peo­ple don’t mind hard-​​hitting copy, while oth­ers pre­fer newsy copy. Some peo­ple pre­fer long copy to get as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble, oth­ers pre­fer short, brief, to-​​the-​​point copy. Some like drama, sto­ries, and tes­ti­mo­ni­als; oth­ers data, sta­tis­tics, and facts.

Does it all mat­ter? Absolutely.

What makes one style of copy more favor­able than another? Why does one per­son buy from one type of copy and not from another? It really comes down to the buy­ing behav­ior of your mar­ket. And in fact, there are four major per­son­al­ity types.

Before I tell you what they are, remem­ber that the style you choose will not appeal to every­one. It never will. Roy Williams, author of The Wiz­ard of Ads, once noted, “Even some of the best ads miss the mark with at least half of their tar­get audience.”

You may have heard me say this before, but it’s impor­tant. Don’t be all things to all peo­ple. If you do, you have no choice but to paint your copy with broad brush­strokes in order to appeal to every­one. Instead, give your copy per­son­al­ity. Even if it offends some.

Oth­er­wise, ads crafted so as not to offend any­one will be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. They may even back­fire. And more impor­tantly, they might be more offen­sive than you think.

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