Startup Copywriting: “We” vs “I”

One of the things I always run into when building products is whether to use “I” or “We” in the website copy. For email copy I think it’s fairly easy to say that personal is better for most cases. At least I’d like to think that there’s an actual human talking to me and not some big corporation. Sure there are cases when impersonal copy is better, maybe for enterprise B2B or something. But since most of my projects are for consumers, I’ve decided that “I” is way better for email copy.

Web copy has been a different story. Using “I” feels most sincere and real while “We” might be easier for users to put trust into. I’ve been switching back and forth between these but the thing is, for now, there’s no “We” because it’s just me. This is why I’ve decided to go with “I” until there is a “We”.

I think that, when you don’t know what to do, you should do what feels more real and listen to your stomach. This way, you’re at least keeping it real, whether conversions drops or skyrockets. Maybe if you’re building B2B the case would be different and you might consider using “We” to even have a shot at building trust. But still, since I’m building products for other developers, designers and consumers I think it’s the best choice to go with real and sincere. So that’s what I’ll be doing :).