More often than not, it’s actually someone else who calls the shots when you get written up in an ad. It’s about working with other people to produce high-quality work at low cost — which is why small businesses tend to outsource more of their marketing budget.
Copywriters are talented writers who can turn an idea into a stunning piece of writing. But that doesn’t mean they know how to write for other people.
You can learn language skills by reading books or listening to good conversations online. You can develop your grammar skills by playing word games or doing simple research on famous quotes and synonyms.
But beyond that, there aren’t many ways to improve your writing ability.
“I just need to pay someone to help me write,” says the business owner.
Well, yes—if you ask them if they can write. People who cannot write well enough to compose sentences and paragraphs simply will not write good copy for advertising.
And here’s something most people don’t realize: Most published writers don’t really make much money.
According to one study, only 2% of writers earn their living solely through publications. So without knowing it, you may be mixing yourself some bad advice from the “write what you want" camp.
Everyone is unique in what they can produce, how they solve problems, and how good they feel when they perform their own creative ideas.
Become very familiar with these concepts if you want to become a copywriter:
You must have confidence in your ability to write effective content produced for a targeted audience in a specific genre.
Know your style, tone, and focus per type of media. Being versatile is an important asset to becoming a copywriter.
Being able to craft stories that capture the imagination of the reader or viewer is essential to being a copywriter.
Having mastery over a variety of writing styles is a gift, as it will allow you to cover different types of writing quickly and without hesitation.
Knowing how to communicate skillfully is crucial to being a copywriter, since communication is the reason people choose to read books.
Even if you’re not copywriter yourself, you should still think through your main message during the writing process. Your main message is what drives all of your other writing, so getting this right from the start can help save time later.
If you need some guidance, there are many ways to get feedback on your messages. You can find out which ones sound better to others, or try testing them out with a few target markets and see how they work for your specific audiences.
And lastly, remember that while writing ads, cases, slogans, etc. -- you should also be making sure that they're well-written. A bad headline or tagline could make the whole ad or piece of content seem ridiculous.
A good writer can turn any given bit of prose into an amazing story or argument; but only someone who has enough experience in marketing their ideas will truly understand how to make that happen.
Therefore, anyone can write a lot of words, but being a good writer takes practice. You can become a good writer by reading books and articles on the topic written by people like Steve King (if you want to read quality literature), by practicing everyday with blogs and newspapers, or by joining professional writers groups.
You can even hire professionals to draft your tweets and stories for you!
There’s a reason that most marketing messages use language that is very similar to each other. It’s because they target the same audience.
Your job as the copywriter is to create compelling writing that speaks to your targeted audience. But how do you know what those audiences want? You need to find out before you can write a word.
You can either spend months going around asking people about their problems, or you can just start typing a headline and see what pops up. Randomly ask someone if they have any questions, or if they could tell you something about themselves that might help you with your project.
Anyone can talk, but it takes a leader to read them. And you need to take personal responsibility for handling all steps of the communication process.
Writing good copy is not an instinctive talent. It takes practice and training.
If you are planning to become a professional writer, start learning now. If you’re reading this later, there are many free resources for writing skills. (Here are some of them.)
Most readers will understand that no one can write well unless they learn how to read and conduct basic written communications.
But becoming a good copywriter requires more than understanding what words can do, it also requires understanding your audience and knowing how to communicate with them in their language.
Although we talk about “readers” above, most writers focus on context instead.
Context is everything you leave out of your story. You must understand where your message fits into the larger scheme of things and why it matters before you can successfully write compelling contextual content.
Put another way, you need to make your message matter, which comes down to being able to describe your message in sentences.
Writing for an online community requires you to connect with them on a personal level. You need to understand their questions, issues, and frustrations and try to solve them in some way.
You can also inspire people by telling stories about what could have happened if things were different.
It is easier to do this when you write in the first person, using “I” statements instead of making generalizations or sounding like a lecture.
The best writers are able to find a way to relate to their readers through both writing and personality. If you can make someone laugh, they will be more willing to trust you and read your work.
Finding out what problems your target demographic has and offering solutions is a great way to earn loyalty. Your potential customers know that you care about what's going on in their lives.
That can go a long way towards establishing credibility and helping yourself and your business move up the ladder from “unknown” to trusted partner.
When you write an article, no matter what genre you’re writing for (blogging, newsletter, page), make it personally relevant to your readers. If you try to insert yourself into the story, they will ignore you.
You can still create personalized content without being overly promotional.
Your objective is to get people interested in what you have to say by making them feel like you care about their specific situation or topic.
This works well for two reasons. First, when you connect with someone emotionally, they are much more likely to believe you. Second, if they trust you enough to read what you wrote, they must find something of value in what you have to say.
Even if you’re an experienced writer, there are times when you have to put your content out for people other than yourself to read. These situations can be anything from marketing campaigns to page headers.
Even if you’re not much of a writer, learning how to create a good pitch can help you get more engagement with your readers.
A pitch is a short story that usually explains who, what, why, where, when and sometimes how to grab the attention of someone so they will buy what you want to sell.
It helps your messages remain consistent and flows naturally. A great pitch contains enough data such that the reader cannot escape it any longer. By escaping it, I mean trying to figure out what the pitch is about because their mind has already made up that the topic exists and needs to be addressed.
Here is a real world example. Let’s say you are at a restaurant and the server tells you that the chef would like to recommend the dish this season. You ask her what the dish is, and she begins to tell you. Now all you need to do is make sure you don’t repeat what she said as you leave the table.
You’ll probably also notice that the longer you listen, the less likely you are to make a decision. This is called the scarcity effect. Scarcity effects happen when a person hears something for the first time.
The brain automatically compares
There’s no way to write fresh content every day without any training. But there are ways you can get more engagement and readership of your work.
The first and most important step is to write with talent. You need to have a feel for it like writing is second nature to you.
Next, you want to know how to enhance your writing. You will need to read a lot and learn from as many people as possible.
Finally, you should always be searching for new audiences and creative solutions to promotional challenges. Without challenge, your work is meaningless.
There are several different marketing strategies involved in creating quality content. These include search engine optimization (SEO), social media usage, promoting blogs and websites, and article marketing.
All of these methods depend solely on the quality of content created. Since keyword optimization relies heavily on proper grammar and syntax, quality content creation is extremely important here.
