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How to Take Your Effective Copywriting Skills from Good to Great

How to Take Your Effective Copywriting Skills From Good to Great

Great copywriters don’t just wake up with talent. It takes serious time to check off all the boxes to being a successful copywriter. Confidence, clarity, consistency and commitment are the 4 C’s of great copywriting. No matter how good you are, there is always room to improve. Let’s walk through some helpful tips to take your already effective copywriting from good to great.


 

Understand your audience.

This is an incredibly important step when copywriting. Surely, you wouldn’t write a blog about the challenges of modern day financial planning for your marketing blog would you? Understanding your audience and how to write for them not only provides the right content for your readers, but allows you to show confidence in your writing.

One of the best ways to understand your audience is learning how they speak, and what they discuss. Read industry blogs to pick up on lingo. Then, once you know your audience, prove it by speaking how they speak.

 

Establish your objective.

Determine the goal of your writing. Are you writing to compel someone to download an ebook? Are you writing to inform them? Pushing them to make a purchase? It’s important to understand what your objective for the reader is. You can even try to set SMART goals. SMART goals are:

  • Specific
  • Measureable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Timely

Use these goals to create your objective, and as motivation for your writing. Having an objective before you write makes writing easier. If you want someone to request a consultation, your objective should be to illustrate the benefits of the product. If you’ve done your job correctly, those consultation requests will fly in!

 

Create flowing content.

Good flow signals that you use strong transitions and have accurate content. This allows the reader to keep reading without getting confused, or get taken out of the line or article. To be “taken out” of what you are reading means that something you’ve read jars you so that you lose focus on the text.

Pro tip: If you are writing something longer, create an outline to help you write with more clarity. Organization, helps me write content that flows.

Writing without clear organization is like walking into the night without a flashlight; you might make it to your destination, but there is a good chance you’ll run into a tree along the way. Understand your audience, establish your objective and begin.  

 

Research your competitor.

When you understand your competition it gives you the opportunity to understand what you can do to differentiate yourself, both from a style and positioning standpoint. Do this by studying how they write, and what they write about.

Then, put your unique differentiators into words. Perhaps this means emphasizing a different value proposition than your competitor, or highlighting an element of your product they don't have. Research your competitor, and do whatever you can to stand out.

 

Always be looking to trim.

The trimmed content look is in, and fortunately for copywriters, trimmed down copy was in before it was cool, you copywriting hipsters. This is one thing I struggle with, but I found if I take a break between writing and editing, I am able to “find the light,” and trim my copy successfully. Editing your copy down allows you to cut the fluff and clearly make your point.

Start by looking for unnecessary words (or sentences, for longer copy). Many people write how they speak, including every word that they should say in a sentence. This is unnecessary, and these are words you can cut. Keeping copy direct and to the point is your number one goal.

 

Have fun!

Lastly, I want to say that copywriting is a serious job—it takes patience and effort to master. While you are hard at work, don’t forget to make copywriting fun. Copywriting is about strategically crafting a message that persuades. You have the opportunity to invoke emotion, thought and decision-making. That’s a lot of responsibility(!), so don’t forget to stop, breathe and have a laugh.

 

Remember, understand your audience, organize your ideas, trim for concision and have fun. Do you have any tips for effective copywriting? Comment below! I would love to hear from you. Need copywriting assistance? Contact Milwaukee marketing agency, Accelity Marketing.

 

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