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If you had to choose the most fundamental skill of a good marketer, which one would you pick? I’d go with copywriting. If you know how to write good copy, copy that will spark your customers to take the desired action, you’re on your way to success. Whether it’s buying your products, subscribing to a newsletter, or signing up for a webinar, good copy is the key to converting your customers.
Can just anyone write good copy? Probably not. Do you need to be gifted to be a copywriter? It’ll certainly help, but you don’t need to be the chosen one either. With so many resources available, there are different ways to hone your craft.
Read books on copywriting. Sign up for online courses. Study the sales letters from the copywriting greats. Follow fellow copywriters on social media. The opportunities are endless. Most importantly, start writing and improve along the way. For the past few months, I’ve been getting more and more into copywriting. This post is a sort of summary about what I’ve learned so far.
Research, research, research
I can’t stress enough how important research is. Before you write a single word of copy, you need to find the answers to a few questions to help you produce good copy. You need to know the target audience that you’re going to address. You need to know the problems they’re facing and trying to solve. You need to know the language they use. If you learn the answers to those questions, they’ll help you sound more authentic and better connect with your audience.
I’ve read that copywriting isn’t as much about writing itself as it is about reframing your audience's words that you find in your research. I agree. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel and try to come up with groundbreaking ideas. Everything you need is out there, and all you need to do is spend some time uncovering those precious insights. How should you do this?
Surveys
One way to collect all the necessary information is to send out a survey. Prepare a list of questions that you want to ask your existing customers. Their answers will help you craft better copy and get new customers.
You can use Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or any other alternatives to get as many answers as possible. This form of quantitative research should give you a comprehensive overview of the significant segment of your target audience.
Interviews
You can also take the qualitative route and focus on a narrower group of customers. This approach will help you give more attention to detail at the same time. It’ll make it easier to ask more targeted questions and get more personalized answers.
Review mining
While the two methods above are great for getting first-hand information, they’re also time consuming. Luckily, there are other ways to do your copywriting research. If you’re working on a tight schedule, you might want to get familiar with review mining.
For those of you who don’t know what review mining is, it’s an act of browsing product reviews and extracting all the necessary information from them. If you’re a B2C copywriter, Amazon can be the gold mine you’re looking for.
Alternatively, if you’ve been working in the SaaS market like me, you might want to take a look at G2 or Capterra reviews. I recently worked on the copy for Facebook ads targeting a few different groups of our customers. I didn’t have the time to prepare and send out surveys, let alone do customer interviews.
I jumped on G2 and spent a significant amount of time digging through reviews. What’s great about consumer review websites like G2 or Capterra is the fact that you can filter the reviews based on industries. That was a lifesaver because I had to target those ads for specific sectors.
Competitor research
While researching, don’t forget to take a look at your competitors’ copy. Browse their homepages, and take a look at their features pages. While there might be minor differences between your products or services, your competitors sell to the same people you want to sell to. Knowing how your business rivals phrase their messages and what tone they use can be inspiring.
Now, coming back to review mining, it’s pretty obvious that apart from mining your own reviews, you can also mine the reviews of your competitors. See what people genuinely like about their products, and find out what they dislike. Try to compare your findings with what you can offer with your product or service and what’s the best way to put it in writing.
The chances are that some of the things people complain about while talking about your competitors can be one of your unique selling points. Try to take advantage of that, and emphasize that in your copy.
Take psychology into account
Psychology is widely used in marketing. Many consumers aren’t even aware of the mechanisms behind the campaigns targeted at them. What’s even better, they buy stuff precisely because of those mechanisms and the intentions behind them. Think about what persuasion techniques you can use while drafting your next piece of copy.
From a B2B SaaS perspective, you might want to weave loss aversion into your messaging, especially if your product has a free trial. While drafting your copy, underline that your product or service's major benefits will only last if a customer upgrades from the free version to a paid plan.
If you want to learn from the best, take a look at the Coat-of-Arms. Gary Halbert, the author of the letter, is widely regarded as one of the greatest copywriters of all time. That specific letter elevated Halbert to the status of the Prince of Print and the King of Copy.
The Coat-of-Arms letter is one of the most famous examples of using persuasion techniques in copywriting, and it’s one of the most successful sales letters ever written. It would take a separate article to break down all the gold nuggets hidden in this letter, so if you want to get down to it as soon as possible, take a look at this article.
Hook your readers, and focus on them
Nobody’s going to buy your products or even make an effort to read your copy if you don’t get them interested right off the bat. Writing good copy is like writing news headlines. If you want the readers to read the whole news story, you need to get their attention with a good headline. The same principles apply to copywriting.
Sure, there are specific rules that you should stick to, like the tone of voice or your style guide, but make sure your copy is memorable. You want to create a brand that people will remember and buy from. Not a bland.
While you’re at it, make your copy all about your readers and customers. They don’t care about your products or services. All they care about is themselves and how your products or services help them solve their problems. So, instead of talking about how fantastic your product or service is, focus on how it benefits your target audience. I think Alex Wilson, our VP of Sales, summed it up nicely in one of his LinkedIn posts.
It’s all about emotions
People can forget about your products. They can forget about the specifics of your marketing campaigns, but they’ll never forget about how you made them feel. If you manage to connect with your customers on an emotional level, they’ll stay loyal and come back to buy from you again in the future.
I understand that it might be more challenging for some brands in certain industries to bond emotionally with their target audience. I mean, imagine building an emotional connection with an air conditioning brand, for instance. Still, I believe it’s not impossible. Try to figure out how your products or services fit into your customers’ lifestyles, and build stories around that.
Write like you talk
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Use short sentences, and make sure one naturally leads to the next. Write your copy as if you wanted to describe your product or service to a friend or family member. You don’t want your customers to spend too much time trying to figure out what you mean. The quicker they get the idea that you can benefit them, the better.
Also, skip the jargon. You might think it’ll make you look smarter. If anything, it’ll only make your message fuzzy. Plus, are you sure your product is really going to lead to a “paradigm shift?”
The best copy goes unnoticed
Writing copy to get applause is a big no-no. You don't want people to say, "Oh, their copy is so good, the guy who wrote it must be so creative!" You should write copy with one simple goal in mind. That is to get your potential customers to hit the “buy” button. Everything else is a nice addition. All that matters is the number of customers that converted because of your copy.
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