Copywriting is the engine that keeps digital products and marketing moving. A good knowledge of copywriting tips and trick are essential for someone to have a successful career as a writer and be able to sell or market any product.

Meaning of Copywriting

Copywriting is the art of designing written marketing content aimed at convincing customers of the need for a product or service. The product of the craft is termed a copy.

With a good copy or copywriter who is vested with useful copywriting tips, a business or service can get to a large number of prospects with the prospects performing the required action.

The sole aim of a copy is to make you perform an action i.e. buy a product or service.

Copywriting is about the readers and the prospective buyer.

If you want to become a good copywriter, you should be aware of relevant copywriting tips.

Ad copies should not only sell products but also keep people interested and entertained. Below are some useful copywriting tips for you:

Copywriting Tips

1. Understand the Product

Before you start writing a copy, endeavor to understand the product or service. Exploit the value of your product to a customer. The key to success here is to understand all the features and benefits of your product. Copywriter David Olgilvy revealed how it took him three weeks to come up with a compelling ad for Rolls-Royce ‘’At 60 miles per hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” Without a good understanding of a product or service, you won’t be aware of such detailed information ‘’… the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock’’

Understand the unique features of your product/service, and how it works, in order to be familiar with the benefits it provides your customers.

The following questions will help you to understand your product and create a description for it.

Question 1: How would you describe the product?

Question 2: What is unique/special about this product?

Question 3: What big benefit does it provide?

Question 4: What pain does it alleviate?

Question 5: What features are included and what are the benefits of each?

2. Understand Your Customers

Understanding the product is as important as understanding who you are selling to, (your customers). Ads usually have a target audience and it is your job to look for the best placement for your target audience. For example, an ad for skateboards placed in a local senior citizen housing association newsletter is not likely to generate a lot of sales. In fact, it would be a waste of advertising dollars. The target audience for skateboards is teenagers or young adults. Know what your customers want at a given period and what will convince them to make a purchase. Customers have different hopes, fears, dreams, and expectations. These differences must be put into consideration in the way you write your copy and how you render your service thus, understanding your customer is so important in copywriting. Put yourself in their shoes.

To fully understand your customer kindly consider the following:

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Family Status
• Income
• Occupation
• Interests

3. Understand your Medium

When writing your copy, always remember that each medium requires a different tone and or style. This is because different mediums have different audiences who will engage with the ads. E.g., ads could be placed on a billboard, gender newspaper, academic journal for science, etc. Different media require a different copy to most effectively persuade a particular audience to a call to action.

4. Do Customer Research

Know who your customers are, and what delights them about your product. Why did they buy in the first place, and why do they keep coming back? Focus your copy on what appeals the most to the target customers and what they love the most about the product.

Consider the following questions.

Question 1: Who currently buys your product?

Question 2: Who would you like to buy your product?

Question 3: What does a typical customer look like?

Question 4: What do customers love about your product?

5. Write Attention-grabbing Headlines

Headlines can do or mar a copy.

• Your headlines should be unique, avoid plagiarism
• Your headlines should be extremely specific
• Your headline should convey a sense of urgency

6. Write Persuasive Copy

You do not necessarily need to be a good writer in order to master the art of copywriting, just learn how to be smart and persuasive in creating your copy. If your copy is persuasive, it will be able to affect a person’s behavior, beliefs as well as intentions toward a particular product or service. A persuasive copy converts traffic into customers.

7. Know the Reason for Your Ad

There is a reason for every copy or marketing piece. Always set out goals for every marketing piece, and what you intend to achieve with it. The copy for each ad medium should vary in line with your goals.

Examples of marketing goals:

• Communicate a special offer
• Share information and raise awareness
• Generate leads

8. Swiftly Move to the Benefits

Be loud and clear about the benefits rather than the features.

9. Exploit your Competition’s Weaknesses

Always know the distinctive feature of your product from that of your competitors. Relate your competitor’s weakness to your audience letting them know why they should always patronize you. Itemize the features of your competitors that are inferior to yours in real terms.

10. Keep it Simple

Too many details in a copy pisses off the attention of your audience.

Strive to be effective by telling your audience what they need to know to act and make a purchase or how to contact you for more information.

Bear in mind that for each ad, one only receives a little ad space to get your message across to your audience. Wisely use that pricey real estate to ensure you get the highest return on your investment.

11. Explain the Features

Your customers need to understand how your product or service is going to help them by making their lives easier, making them feel better, helping them save money, helping them save time, etc. In this step of the copywriting outline, you’ll build on the work you’ve done so far by taking your product’s features, benefits, and differentiators and specifically describing how they directly affect your target audience members’ lives in positive ways.

12. Have a Call to Action (CTA)

A well-thought-out call to action usually converts leads to customers.  E.g. ‘’Get started’’ ‘’click here for details’’ etc.

The reason for any copy or marketing piece is to persuade the audience to perform an action either to buy a product, drop their email addresses, download an app, etc.

Typically, the call to action creates a sense of urgency around a message and provides instructions on what to do next. For example, a call to action might tell the audience to call the advertiser or visit their store or website.

13. Avoid Litigations (Cover Your Ass)

Always review your copy to avoid potential lawsuits. Seek the opinion of a barrister before an ad goes live. Always be honest in your promises and avoid being deceptive.

When you are writing copy, consider if claims that you cannot prove in your copy (or cannot provide appropriate disclaimers for) are worth it once you weigh the risk vs. the potential reward.

Avoid exaggerating or falsifying claims about your product or your competition. If you are caught in a lie (no matter how small), word will spread quickly, and your reputation could be irreparably damaged.

Be careful when using the under-listed words in your copy:

• No risk
• Guaranteed
• Best, lowest, fastest, etc.
• Your money back
• Risk-free
• Free
• No purchase necessary
• No cost
• No obligation
• No investment
• 100 percent
• Promise
• No questions asked

Use the four persuasion techniques of professional copywriters.

• Emphasize benefits over features
• Be as specific as possible
• Target emotions
• Leverage testimonials

Make sure your copy is not focused on you. Below are six more tips for better writing.

• Write conversationally
• Create a slippery slide
• Write quickly
• Use simple language
• Use short paragraphs
• Always get your copy edited

Here are five more secrets for a powerful copy that convinces customers to buy.

• Make people feel like they belong
• Create a feeling of exclusivity
• Prove the value of your product
• Establish yourself as an authority
• Provide “reasons why”

Finally, you need to test, test, and test some more to make sure your copy resonates with customers and convinces them to take action.

Four test options are listed below.

• Subject lines
• Designs and layouts
• Concepts
• Offers

14. Proofread/Layout Design

It is critical that you accurately proofread your copy. One of the quickest ways to lose credibility in advertising is to allow grammatical or spelling errors to appear in your advertisement or marketing pieces.

Customers translate carelessness in ads into carelessness in products and services. They ask themselves, “If this company doesn’t care enough to produce an ad without errors, how likely are they to care about taking care of me?” Professional businesses produce professional quality ads and ad copies, and that means their copy has been proofread repeatedly and is error-free thus, copywriting tips should be at the fingertips of every copywriter.