“Sounds Like Everyone Else”: How to Escape Commodity Copy

If your prospect can replace your company name with a competitor’s… and the email still makes perfect sense…

Congrats—you’ve built interchangeable messaging. (The inbox equivalent of beige wallpaper.)

Commodity copy isn’t “bad writing.”
It’s writing that doesn’t create a reason to choose you.

Let’s fix that.

The Commodity Copy Test (30 seconds)

Take your last cold email / landing page hero and run this:

Swap Test: Replace your brand name with a competitor.
If nothing breaks → you’re not differentiated in language, which means you’re not differentiated in the buyer’s brain.

What breaks should you want?
A specific claim. A specific mechanism. A specific tradeoff. A specific point of view.

Why Smart Teams Still Write Generic Copy

Commodity copy usually happens when you’re trying to sound:

• “Professional”

• “Enterprise-ready”

• “Not weird”

• “Like the other successful companies”

So you reach for the same safe words everyone else uses.

Which leads to: “We help teams streamline X with an AI-powered platform.”
Translation: I have said nothing and I would like a meeting anyway.

The “Ban List” (words that make you invisible)

If these appear in your copy, they don’t automatically ruin it… but they’re strong signals you’re drifting into sameness:

• seamless

• end-to-end

• AI-powered

• next-gen

• streamline

• unlock

• leverage

• best-in-class

• robust

• solution (when it replaces saying what it actually does)

These words are linguistic Febreze. They mask the smell. They don’t clean the room.

The Fix: Add “Only-You” Assets

To escape commodity copy, you need at least one of these in your message (two is better):

1) A Point of View (POV)

Not “we’re better”—but what you believe that others don’t.

Example POV starters:

• “Most teams think X. That’s why they get stuck.”

• “The real bottleneck isn’t X—it’s Y.”

• “Automation isn’t the win. Control is.”

2) A Unique Mechanism

This is the how that’s different. Not features—your method.

Examples:

• “We don’t ‘onboard’ you. We map your workflow and remove the handoffs.”

• “We don’t blast a list. We run one segment + one angle at a time.”

• “We don’t ship templates. We ship a repeatable process.”

3) A Tradeoff You Embrace

This is the nuclear weapon for differentiation because it proves you’re not trying to please everyone.

Examples:

• “We’re not built for giant, months-long implementations.”

• “We optimize for speed-to-value, not endless customization.”

• “This is for teams who want clarity—not a black box.”

A Simple Rewrite Formula That Works

When your line sounds generic, rewrite it as:

Trigger + Tension + Specific Mechanism

Commodity:
“We help ecommerce brands grow with better analytics.”

Differentiated:
“Noticed you’ve added 20+ SKUs in the last quarter—usually that’s when reporting turns into spreadsheet cosplay.
We help brands catch margin leaks by flagging SKU-level anomalies automatically (before they show up in month-end surprises).”

Same intent. Totally different texture.

Before / After: Commodity → “Only You”

Before (generic):
“Hey — we help recruiting teams hire faster with an AI-powered platform. Want to chat?”

After (specific):
“Quick Q — when you’re hiring for 5+ roles at once, the process usually breaks in the same place: the follow-ups.
We use a ‘stage-based nudging’ system that triggers candidate follow-ups based on where they stall (application → screen → interview), not a fixed schedule.
Should I share what that looks like, or is hiring already running smoothly on your side?”

What changed:

• a POV (hiring doesn’t break everywhere—breaks at follow-ups)

• a mechanism (stage-based nudging vs fixed cadence)

• a tradeoff (less “AI magic”, more operational control)

The Commodity Copy Detox Checklist

Before you ship a message, ask:

• Could a competitor send this? If yes, rewrite.

• Is there one sentence that only we could say? Add it.

• Did we include a tradeoff? Pick a side.

• Did we use a real trigger? Hiring, tool switch, new market, pricing change, growth milestone.

• Did we say how without feature-dumping? Name the mechanism, not the menu.

How Skyp makes this easier

Skyp takes your positioning via a single goal prompt—so you can generate unique emails that still share a common structure (trigger → tension → mechanism). You’re not rewriting from scratch or recycling templates—you’re producing consistent, differentiated variations that don’t drift back into commodity copy.