Copywriting is the practice of crafting text to inspire, inform or persuade. It’s also extremely difficult.
If you want to write copy for your website that converts, you need to follow one simple rule: Write how your customers talk. Copywriting isn’t about perfectly grammatical sentences. Honestly. It’s about capturing how you would talk to your users if you were with them now.
So how do you write how your customers talk? Well, we can see what they’re saying already. Here are 4 sources:
1. Reddit
Head over to a subreddit on Reddit where you may find your customers or potential users. A good resource for finding relevant subreddits is Redditlist.com. Filter for the top posts over the past month, year or all time.
What problems are they asking for help with? What’s keeping them up at night? In the comments, what are people sharing as the watch-outs, gotchas or things to avoid?
2. Amazon
If you sell a product, you could head over to Amazon and search for similar products. Read through the reviews to see why people bought the product (what problem did they have), what did they like, and what did they not like?
3. Product Hunt
If your competitors are on Product Hunt, visit their page and see what comments people left. Most Product Hunt posters aren’t potential customers, so look carefully to see the ones who say the product would be valuable to them. See what problems the posters are looking to solve.
4. Customer Interviews
By far, the most valuable source of insights will be by talking to your customers or potential customers.
Ask them what is their biggest challenge related to your service/industry. Ask them where solving that challenge ranks in terms of importance for them. Ask them if they’ve ever spent money to try to address the problem.
Use the themes and language you gather to identify their hopes or fears. Then, you can update your website copy to show how your service gets them closer to their hopes or alleviates their fears.
Action Items
- Visit the places your potential customers visit online
- Make a list of their hopes and dreams, as well as fears
- Update your website copy to show how your product or service gets them closer to their hopes and alleviates their fears