This is one of the most important things you can do to learn how to write copy. Writing quality content for other websites is an excellent way to practice, as well as to associate your name with others’ work.
You should also read books written by famous authors such as Seth Godin and Jeff Goins. They have built an audience using their writing talent, so it’s easy to gain advice from them.
Even if you don’t think you need them, signing up for lead magnets is one of the best ways to learn how to write copy. Lead magnets are juicy pieces of content that lure people in to take some sort of action. They can be anything from an email signup form to buying a product.
When it comes down to it, no matter what type of business you have, there’s a demand for something your brand or business offers. Leads are just data points where someone might just buy whatever you offer.
Content leads are different; you won’t attract anyone with just content. You also shouldn’t expect to convert enough people into buyers to make doing this habitually profitable. However, since going after leads is a useful skill set, developing this habit is recommended.
Even if you’re a professional writer, it’s important that you know how to create an actionable content plan. You will need to coordinate your writing efforts with other people (if you have a team), and you will have to communicate your goals and requirements to them.
It is also important to be able to monitor your own work and to make edits as necessary.
If you are new to creating content plans, there are some tools that can help you. Word trees has a free tool for tracking word counts. For more sophisticated needs, there are lots and costing apps that will do this job automatically.
For example, pick up your smartphone and install lingo app. It creates a dictionary from the text you enter. After that, you can start counting words. Also, check out mania app, which works like lingo, but allows you to input text and then gets things done.
Other ways to track words include thinking about the function of each word in the document or chapter. If you are reading for information, for instance, should the main keyword occur early on, or later in the story? By having a default word choice, you can save time during the drafting stage by starting with a high-conversation word option.
This is probably my favorite way to learn copywriting. You can always read some good copywritten work, but if you’re looking to write original content, it’s best to know what you’re writing about. For this reason, I recommend that everyone reading this take one minute to identify their expertise.
There are two ways I recommend you develop your niche:
Method 1: Find people who are more experienced than you are and ask them for help
And method 2: Consider which of your strengths make you unique and how you could use those strengths to your advantage
Both methods will allow you to provide value to others and be valuable to them in return. Both methods also lead to greater success.
I like to call these your “helpful friends” – they might be other entrepreneurs, they might be members of various groups or communities, they could be relatives, they could be coworkers.
It doesn’t matter where you find these helpful acquaintances, so start making plans to connect with ones you already have. Once you do, keep asking them for assistance and sharing your experiences and thoughts.
A crucial part of becoming an expert at anything is having and using a toolkit. These are things that you can use to get yourself started. A toolkit consists of both tools (things) that fix issues and challenges, and skills (abilities) that help you accomplish goals and objectives.
Even if you’re not a writer, it makes sense to try and understand copywriting from a consumer perspective. After all, that is who you are writing for.
Reading how other businesses have helped people will help you identify pain points in your audience.
You can also read how others have marketed their products or services. This can show you what works and what doesn’t.
Lastly, by reading research about customers, you can see where companies are failing or succeeding with their marketing strategies.
These are all good ways to get insights that can help you learn copywriting from scratch.
Once you’ve got your foot in the door, it becomes easier to promote yourself and your skills. Name your price (within reason). If you want to be more persuasive, charge more money.
If you have an experience that can help people out, such as coaching or consulting, ask for nothing.
You can always demand something later after you establish a base rate of payment. This way you can focus on providing value above what you get paid.
There are some things that only require one-time pay to generate revenue, e.g., creating a web site from scratch. However, if this is something that you could do once a month and earn hundreds of dollars per month, then you should just plan to spend less time doing it.
In the long run, spending too much time raising your rates will take away from building rapport with your customers, which means lower income levels. At the same time, keeping pricing low at first helps build trust and fans.
After you've established your credentials and built up a clientele, raise your prices to reflect your increased expertise. But don't go too high until you've got a lot of loyal customers who know they can count on you for quality work at a fair price.
Being an expert at selling is very important for copywriters. You must be able to think like a customer and ask potential customers what problems they have about your product or service, then solve those issues in the ad that you write.
This is called generating sales questions. By asking yourself questions before you begin writing, you can create an entire script ahead of time.
You will also need to know who your target audience is. What problems are they trying to solve? Why did they choose your service over the others?
These questions should help you start thinking more critically about your marketing strategies and how you can best sell your product.
Goals can help you get organized and focused on writing, which helps with the process of copywriting.
As a writer, you should already be organizing your work. You want to know what’s going to go into your story or article, as well as how much time it’s going to take.
A goal can help motivate you and give you a sense of purpose when you write. For example, try setting a goal that says something like “by December 31, I will have published my first piece on this topic.”
Maybe talk about how you plan to publish each week or month, if you don’t want to set a specific date.
With copywriting, you have two choices of platforms; online or offline.
If you’re more confident in your ability to attract customers via social media, then go for it.
You can also choose to use multiple channels by combining their abilities together. For example, using Facebook to promote your newsletter and using Twitter to notify people about new products and specials.
But if you are more comfortable with traditional methods like email marketing, that is where most businesses are still at before them, so it makes sense.
Either way, there are some similarities in how these processes work. First, all sales pitches require an introduction, which is what gives them they edge over plain “old” product offerings.
Second, every sale pitch has an ending, such as wanting to buy something, having questions, or telling someone why this person should hire him/her.
Third, all sales pitches need a solution to the problem of buying the product. This could be because the customer has one question or needs help with doing one thing.
Fourth, all sales pitches must offer solutions for problems once those issues are bought.
Lastly, all sales pitches include various tricks (sometimes hidden) to make the offer sound good and match the quality of the product being sold.
