What is copywriting?

This is listed first because it’s by far the most important.

What is empathy?

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes and relate to them as an individual. It means to sincerely care about what problems they’re facing and making your best effort to help solve them.

By contrast, if you’ve ever read something that brought about real emotions in you, it’s because the writer understood empathy and was able to use it effectively. When it comes to the art of copywriting, it truly is ALL about empathy.

If you learn nothing else from article on what is copywriting in marketing, learn to put yourself in someone else’s shoes when you write copy. In many cases, that alone will get the job done.

I will tell you from personal experience that it’s impossible to write about something you know nothing about.

That’s why research is so important when it comes to persuasive copywriting. You have to know enough about both your product and your target audience to be able to explain exactly how the one will solve the other one’s problems.

So how do you do research?

That answer could comprise an entire new article, but the easiest way to do it is to simply survey your customers. By looking at different analytics metrics when it comes to your customers’ purchasing behavior. This includes things such as purchasing trends and buying frequency.

And if those attempts fail… you can also JUST ASK THEM!

Let them know that you care if a certain problem of theirs is actually being solved. If it’s not, you now know exactly where to direct your efforts going forward.

It’s also very important to research your competitors as this will help you craft your own product’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that distinguishes it from everything else. More on USP Below.

Do you know how long it takes for someone to make a first impression? Two Seconds. Yes, one… two… and you’re done.

That’s how long you have to grab your audiences’ attention. In the age of social media and with most people having a short attention span, this is NO easy task, but it can be done.

There are certain words and phrases that grab readers’ attention more than others. Words like “How To”, “Simple Steps”, “Free”, and many more resonate with people very strongly and in some way “demand” their attention. Learning to craft strategic headlines (for sales pages and web content) and subject lines (for emails) will help you instantly grab your readers’ attention and get them wanting to know more.

Although there is some debate on how important these factors actually are, people are much more likely to read copy with a headline or subject line that was written in a way they could relate to.

This might surprise you but here goes:

People don’t actually want to learn when they read your copy, they want to be entertained. It’s very clear that emotions can be transferred directly from writer to reader through their words.

If you had a smile on your face when writing something, you can bet that the person who read it ended up smiling too. Tell stories in your writing is one way you can do this. Don’t focus on educating your reader, focus on entertaining them with meaningful stories. If your story is meaningful and the reader can easily relate to it, the education will happen on its own.

That’s how you build a connection. And that’s how you SELL.

This is a common copywriting tip that will save you lots of headaches in the future. It’s important to understand that your audience doesn’t care about the bells and whistles of your product, they only care about how it will BENEFIT them and fix their problems. Hence, when writing copy, don’t go into a “instruction manual mode” by explaining the ins and outs of your product’s features.

They don’t care!!!

The only exception to this rule is if you’re selling a technical product to technical people, who will definitely want to know about the bells and whistles in great detail. Just tell them the feature exists and explain how it will directly fix their problems. They’ll thank you for it, often by making a purchase.

Your USP is the unique quality that separates your product or service from everyone else’s. Maybe your product is faster, cheaper, more efficient, more durable, etc. Whatever it is, it’s your competitive advantage. It’s crucial that you make your USP known when writing copy, otherwise your target audience has no reason to choose your product over your competitors.

So before your start writing, define exactly what your USP is and expand from there. Explain exactly what makes your product better and how it’s going to make your customers’ lives better in ways that no other competing product can. That’s what your customer is actually buying.

And if you use the tips above on how to write copy so that it engages your reader directly, you’ll have no trouble making your USP as clear as day to your customers.

Have you ever had someone try to sell you something and you instantly wanted to get away from them? You probably have.

Have you ever read something and the first word that came to your mind was “scammy”, or “fraud”, or something similar?

There’s a good reason why you felt probably uncomfortable.

It’s because both that person and their writing had absolutely ZERO credibility. You knew instantly that you couldn’t trust them and wanted to nothing to do with them or what they were selling. This is something you want to avoid when writing your own copy. Trust and credibility are the bedrock of establishing a real relationship with a customer.

Without them, you don’t stand a chance and you are nowhere close to selling them anything.