That moment a client says “make it pop” and what happens next

I want to tell you about a phrase.

It’s not a long phrase. It’s not demanding. It arrives softly, wedged between “we love the direction” and “could you just,” like a tiny grenade wearing a cardigan.

“Make it pop.”

I’ve been writing content for twenty years. I have a system. I have opinions about semicolons. I once spent forty minutes debating whether a comma belonged in a subject line, and I stand by every second of that meeting.

And I still don’t know what “make it pop” means.

Not technically. Not in any way I could write down, frame and hang above my desk next to my imaginary awards.

And yet, somehow, every single time, I know exactly what to do.

I think that’s either wisdom or a very specific kind of damage. Possibly both.

The first time it happened

I was younger. Idealistic. The sort of writer who genuinely believed feedback was a dialogue.

Sweet, really.

A client returned a perfectly decent piece of web copy with four words of direction and the quiet confidence of someone who had just solved everything.

I stared at the screen and considered my options.

For approximately one dark second, I made the font bigger in the preview window. Not to use. Just to see. Just to know what it would feel like to be that person.

Then I put the font back, made a cup of tea and read the piece again. Slowly. Out loud. In the voice I use when I’m pretending to be my own very patient editor.

And there it was.

The opening sentence had no pulse. The second paragraph was wandering around like it had forgotten why it came into the room. The call to action was technically present in the same way that a traffic cone is technically present at a garden party.

I fixed those things. Sent it back. Said nothing.

Client replied within the hour. Loved it. Used the word “brilliant.” Twice.

I have never once mentioned what I actually changed. This is called professionalism. Or strategy.

I use both words depending on who’s asking.

The Pop Interpretation Index: A field guide for the bewildered

Over two decades of receiving this feedback, I’ve developed what I can only describe as a forensic sensitivity to the various species of pop request.

I’m calling it the Pop Interpretation Index, or PII, because giving something an acronym is how you let the world know you’ve thought about it seriously.

PII Level One: It’s a bit flat. The writing functions. It breathes. But it has all the charisma of a spreadsheet explaining itself at a dinner party.

This is the most common pop. Totally fixable. No drama required.

PII Level Two: I don’t know what I don’t like. The client has a feeling. The feeling is vague, somewhere between mild unease and the sensation of forgetting a word mid-sentence.

“Make it pop” is doing enormous emotional labour here, standing in for an entire internal monologue they can’t quite externalise.

Secretly, this is a compliment. They trust you to locate the thing they can’t name. That’s not nothing.

PII Level Three: Please just add a headline. Sometimes, and I say this with full love and zero judgement, it’s just formatting. You add two subheadings and a slightly punchier intro and suddenly everyone is using words like “dynamic” and “on brand.”

Nobody mentions the subheadings. You don’t mention the subheadings. The subheadings don’t mention the subheadings. We all move forward together.

PII Level Four: There was a meeting. You weren’t in the meeting. Nobody told you about the meeting. But there was definitely a meeting and someone in it, usually someone whose relationship with the copy ends at reading the headline, said something.

The brief has shifted in ways that can’t be fully explained. “Make it pop” is now carrying the weight of that entire meeting on its tiny three-word shoulders.

Applaud it. It’s doing its best.

PII Level Five: They showed it to their partner. This one is rare but real. Handle with care and absolutely zero sarcasm.

The thing I didn’t expect to say in this post

Right. Here’s where I briefly stop performing and say something genuine, which I realise is a tonal gear change you didn’t ask for. Bear with me. I’ll be quick.

“Make it pop” is actually a reasonable thing to ask for.

I know. I was surprised too.

It’s imprecise. Orwell would have banned it on sight. Douglas Adams would have written a footnote about it that was funnier than anything I’ve produced in this entire website.

But the instinct behind it is completely sound.

The client is trying to say: this writing should make someone feel something. It should have presence. It should do that thing that good writing does, where you don’t notice the craft but you feel the effect, like a really good film score or a sentence that ends exactly where it should.

They just don’t have the vocabulary for that, because why would they? Articulating what makes writing crackle is famously, almost comically difficult.

Most writers can’t do it either. We feel our way through it with a lot of rereads and an unhealthy relationship with the delete key.

“Make it pop” is a non-writer reaching for the same thing every writer is always chasing.

Aliveness. That’s the word I keep landing on.

They want the writing to be alive.

Which, if you think about it, is exactly what I want every time I open a blank document and stare at it until one of us blinks.

We’re all just after the same thing. We’ve been calling it different things for twenty years, and that’s fine. That’s human. That’s also, probably, why I still have work.

What I actually do when I get this feedback

For those of you collecting practical takeaways alongside the entertainment, here’s the actual process.

I don’t reply immediately. That’s step one and it’s non-negotiable.

I read the piece out loud, in full, ideally somewhere nobody can hear me. The sentences that make me slow down, trail off, or do that thing where I pull a face I’m glad nobody’s photographing are the sentences that need attention.

Your mouth is a remarkably honest editor.

If the piece is long or the stakes are high, I ask one question. One. Something specific enough that the client has something to react to rather than something to answer from scratch.

“Is it the opening that feels flattest, or more the overall energy?” gives them a shape to push against. That’s usually enough.

Then I fix the actual problem, which is almost always one of three things.

1. The opening doesn’t earn its place.
2. The middle loses momentum.
3. The ending doesn’t commit to its own point and sort of shuffles out of the room hoping nobody noticed.

I fix those and send it back.

I do not include a commentary track explaining every change I made, because nobody needs that on the first watch and also, I’d like to be hired again.

A brief word on jargon, then I’ll stop

There’s a version of this post that goes hard on vague feedback being a client problem. I could do that version. I’ve certainly had the thoughts.

But the truth is that “make it pop” isn’t vague feedback. It’s human feedback, which is a different thing.

It’s someone pointing in a direction and trusting you to navigate.

After twenty years, I’d genuinely rather have that than a six-page brief that specifies the exact emotional journey the reader should take through paragraph four.

At least “make it pop” leaves room for instinct.

And instinct, as it turns out, is mostly what I’m selling.

If you need content that pops and would rather not explain what that means more than once, you know where I am.