If it sounds like you’re playing business, think about the main points you want to make and then imagine you are just telling those to a friend. Or better yet, wait a day and have someone else read it back to you out loud. It’s not trying to sound like anything.Īfter you write a segment of copy, read it out loud and see if you cringe. It has a casual, straightforward tone and gets to the point without rushing itself. Good copy reads a lot like a well-spoken person talking to a friend. They get really stiff and formal, and they fill their writing with meaningless jargon and vague phrases. There’s something funny that happens when people try to write copy for the first time. Everything should connect to those needs and desires, and if a piece of the message isn’t relevant to those needs and desires, it should nearly always be eliminated. Like all people, they care about themselves and their own needs and desires, and your business is only of interest within the specific context of meeting those needs and desires. In most cases, they don’t care about you or your business at all.In most cases, they don’t care about the unique technology that drives your business or how you developed it.In most cases, they don’t care about the income or lifestyle your business affords.When you think about your business, what you care about most probably makes no difference at all to your customers. The main mistake that most non-copywriters make is focusing on their business, brand, or subject rather than the target audience. Your customers’ needs and desires are the only thing that matters. It just means that after you write a paragraph, look back through and ask, “Does this line move the narrative forward and motivate the reader to continue reading?” If not… change it. Being intentional is not a particularly high bar. It’s not a natural process for most people to be intentional with every word, phrase, and sentence. And you can forget about the action you want them to take.Ĭopywriting should take you longer word for word than writing a blog post, especially if you’ve been writing copy for less than 10 years. The points you want to make are irrelevant. If the reader does not continue reading, the message you want to tell them doesn’t matter. The #1 purpose of a line of copy is to get the reader to continue to the next line. The goal of every line of copy is to get the next line read. What those intended results are needs to be clear before you write a word, or your copy won’t be effective. It’s specific and intentional and designed to get results. What do you want the reader to do after they read this copy?Ĭopywriting is not a passive discipline with vague goals.
Just like you need to understand who you are speaking to with your writing, you also need to understand what you are trying to accomplish by speaking to them. Start every project by also identifying the copy’s objective. If you don’t identify the target audience, you’ve already failed. It will determine every part of your copy: the challenges you focus on, the benefits you emphasize, the personality you incorporate, etc. Knowing who you are speaking to is the first thing you need to identify as a copywriter. Your speech would absolutely bomb, because it’s aimed at the wrong audience.
Then you show up to speak and your audience is a class of 5th graders from the local elementary school. You picture a room of business owners and think through what is important to them, what sort of challenges they would resonate with, what they might find humorous, etc. Imagine being asked to give a speech but you aren’t told who the audience is. Start every project by identifying the target audience.
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