Writing copy is different than other types of writing.
Instead of just letting things naturally flow out of your brain, you need to balance both ends of a scale where one has all the things you want to say and the other has all the things your customers care about.
For example, I’d love to write about how I discovered that dry cider is my absolute favorite drink and how ridiculous 2018 was, but this blog is here for a different reason. (Unless I quit everything and start a cider blog… let me think about that.)
This site is here to teach people how to use words to make their business goals come to life.
Same with your blog. There are things you want to talk about and there are things your customers are there for.
YES, you should always sprinkle your personal stories into your blog, because it adds a human element to each post.
However, making sure each article is helpful is how you get return readers.
Where most people get stuck is trying to figure out what to say. They don’t know how to blend the two worlds and they end up just staring at a blank page, or worse, writing boring copy we already see all over the internet.
“Limited time.”
“You don’t want to miss out.”
“Become a Girl Boss.”
Instead, I’m going to show you where I specifically find copywriting to use so I can get started writing.
See, the art of copywriting is knowing the conversation in your customer’s head. You want to jump in at that point to show that 1. you get them and 2. because you get them, you understand how they need their problems solved.
Reddit is a goldmine for getting the deeper thoughts of potential customers.
Not only are there thousands of forums, but it’s a site that’s very anti-advertisements (in the context of people self-advertising in their posts, not that they don’t have ads running).
Okay, for this example let’s say I’m writing copy for a baby monitor and I need some ideas for what I could include.
At the top there is a search bar. I’d type in “baby monitor” and search.
You have the option to narrow your search by time posted, how many comments it got, and a few other options.
Right off the bat, I see this thread:
Ding ding ding. The start of exactly what I need.
Parents discussing, in real time, what they care about in a baby monitor. Here’s the top-rated comment:
Now I know that if the baby monitor has 2x zoom, that instead of writing about the zoom, I need to include that you can see your child breathing.
Pure gold and I’ve only been searching for under 5 minutes.
Amazon reviews
For a similar reason, Amazon reviews are a perfect place to look for copy as well.
The only downside is that it’s really only helpful for products, so if you’re writing copy for a service, you’ll need to look somewhere else.
So, for this one let’s say I’m writing copy for a drone.
The best part about Amazon is that you can sort reviews from good to bad, so you can find out what people love and what they hate about a product. You can also sort them by “Most Helpful” so you can see which review helped people make a decision to buy or not buy.
Think about that for a second. You can see which comment made someone say, “Oh, I’m gonna buy this!”
Next to persuasion and branding, that’s the goal of quality copywriting.
Here’s a top review for a 4.5+ star-rated drone:
The nuggets to pull out of this review:
Charging controller matters
One-button take off matters
Response-time matters
You get the idea, and that’s just one top-rated review. If I spent even 30 minutes pulling out nuggets like this, I’d have a ton of ideas to start with so I can stop staring at a blank page.
There are a million sites (Quora, Twitter, Facebook groups) where you can jump in and see people discussing your topic and pull out some starting points for your copy.
The best part is that you can see how people describe these topics and use their own words in your copy.
Writing copy doesn’t have to be so hard, especially now that you can peek into the mind of almost anyone on the planet thanks to social media.