If you think copywriting is all about being good at spelling and grammar, think again. Copywriting is more about sales than words. And it takes more than a bit of fancy phrasing, perfect punctuation, and alluring alliteration to inspire your readers to take action.

Last week, I wrote about why LLMs will never understand the fundamentals of effective copywriting. This week, I’m taking a closer look at what those fundamentals are.

Traditionally, copywriting is associated with sales and advertising, referring to the text in any ads, direct mail campaigns, or promotional materials.

Some people have broadened the definition to include all marketing materials, including blogs, social media posts and so on. Others (especially copywriting purists) call this content rather than copy.

Although I personally think there is a difference between copy and content (I explain in the video below if you’re interested), I often use the terms interchangeably because I teach both.

For the sake of this post, I’ll be talking about copywriting in the context of sales copy - copy that is designed to inspire action.

While there isn’t a specific set of guidelines or rules for writing copy, the majority of copywriters will tell you the most important part of copywriting is understanding your ideal customer.

If you don’t know who you are writing for, how can you create messages that resonate? And the more you know about your ideal reader, the easier you’ll find it to connect with them.

This isn’t just a case of understanding demographics, such as age, gender, income level, employment status, marital status, geographical location and so on (although that is important). You also need to understand their buying motivations and habits.

Who would benefit from the products or services you’re selling? What are their needs and wants, desires and fears? What problems or challenges are they facing? What are their goals or aspirations? What are their habits? What makes them happy? What makes them angry? What frustrates them?

Are they cautious or adventurous? Do they take risks or are they risk-averse? Do they value simplicity, efficiency, quality or honesty? Do they love a bargain, or are they quite frivolous? Are they impulsive, or do they need lots of detail before they commit?

Which features and benefits would appeal to them the most? What reservations might they have about buying?

Some of these things will be super relevant, some of them won’t - it depends on what you sell. The important thing is knowing enough about your intended audience to create a message they can relate to.

Your sales copy can have a huge impact on the success of your business. Get it right, and you could smash your sales targets. Get it wrong, and you could send potential customers into the arms of your competitors.

So take your time - don’t rush your copy. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and write as though you are writing directly to them. Decide exactly what you want them to do after reading your copy and make sure every word guides them towards that action.

Attention: How can you attract their attention? What will make them stop and think, “I need to read this”?

Interest: How can you get them interested in your product or service? What problems does it solve? How will it benefit them? How will their life be better because of it?

Desire: How can you make them want it? Is there a time limit or a limited availability? Is there an incentive to act quickly? How will their problem get worse if they don’t act? Why should they act today instead of waiting?

Trust and credibility: How can you earn their trust or demonstrate your credibility? Could you include client reviews? Do you offer a free trial or a money-back guarantee? Have you got stats proving your success rate? Have you won any awards or accreditations?

Action: How can you make it as easy as possible for them to take the next step? Be clear about what they need to do and make it as frictionless as possible.

Copywriting is a skill you can learn to a certain extent. There has been plenty of research into what works and doesn’t work in advertising and sales, so you can learn certain techniques, structures and formulas to help you write effective copy.

The best copywriters also have good instincts, intuition and strategic judgement, and they have an almost innate understanding of human behaviour. They understand nuance, know when to break the rules, and can genuinely put the reader at the heart of their work. Some of this comes with experience, but some of it is inherent.

If you want to develop your copywriting skills purely to write for your own business, then you can absolutely learn enough to create effective sales copy and ads. And I recommend you do. AI can only take you so far - it doesn’t have the audience insight or real-life experience you have. And if you don’t know how to write good copy, how can you fix the not-so-good stuff?

I offer an online self-paced copywriting course, in-person copywriting training for teams and bespoke one-to-one copywriting training and marketing mentoring.

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