On Giving Unsolicited Advice

I recently was approached by a potential client who wanted a landing page for a website. Sounded straightforward--until I got to the end of his request. He planned to use the page on numerous websites that are optimized for different keywords. What he basically wanted was a series of paragraphs that could be rearranged indiscriminately to fit different keyword combinations. Oh--and he wanted the page to sell as well.

Here's where I had to stop and think. The thing is, a sales document requires you to identify with your customers' problems and position your company as the solution. There's an order to the information that's supposed to appear. Persuasion is like a thesis--you have to prove it in steps. Those paragraphs in hard-hitting sales letters aren't interchangeable. If they were, they wouldn't just be ineffective--they'd basically say nothing.

I told the prospect my concerns and explained how I would do it--using other tactics to optimize the page for numerous keywords and choosing the most relevant keywords to include naturally in the copy, with the possibility of writing entirely new sales documents for different markets and products. The response I got was the one I expected--that at this point their budget didn't account for it and they were hoping to get a sales letter with interchangeable parts as a cost saving measure. On my end, it looks like by trying to cut expenditures they are shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. But I gave my advice--and hopefully they'll take it.

What weird requests have you received for writing projects? And how do you deal with them?