COPYWRITING FOR ANY AND EVERY PLACE YOU NEED IT

What Makes Good Copy?

This might take a minute, but trust us, you’ll understand copywriting a whole lot better.

Let us make this clear: this matters to you because it’ll make you a lot more money.

Ok, now to the point.

Your customers need to be convinced of your product’s merit simply by reading about it. It does not matter how good your product is if you can’t make it abundantly clear why that is. And, most importantly, in a way that cares ONLY about the customer every step of the way.

The reason you need to write like this is because people only ever exist as themselves.

In the same way you’re only ever going to be you and I’m only ever going to me, your customer will only ever be themselves.

At Virtue Cycle, we call this phenomenon: the paradox of I. Everyone will only ever exist as themselves, yet we visualize the world in generalities and statistics.

Of course, this way of thinking absolutely has its place. On a personal level, beyond your personal bubble, people are simply anonymous. It’s simply overwhelming and quite frankly counterproductive for the average person to think any differently than this. Using statistics is our way of simplifying and making sense of the world around us. And marketing is predicated on using this data successfully.

But, successful copywriting doesn’t come from a place of data-minded thinking.

Cutting-edge copywriting is built on an extreme form of empathy that will always put the customer first. If you truly understand the individual, you will understand what they need to hear. You will understand where the product meets their desires and pain in life.

This means truly great copy is human at its core. It translates a brand or product into a relatable human experience. It seeks to understand the human experience we all share. It doesn’t seek to sell — it seeks to find common ground. The sale almost comes as a side effect.

That means your product and brand need to speak to and cater directly to your customers, otherwise, why would they care? They see thousands of ads daily, which means they’ve gotten excellent at tuning them out.

Your copy needs to hit a nerve to stand out, it needs to hit the bullseye. It needs to speak to the individual behind the statistic.

You might be wondering why this type of writing isn’t commonplace. Why aren’t most brands already doing this?

Let’s refer back and you’ll get it rather quickly.

The people selling a product only care about themselves because they are only themselves. So they write in a way that makes them feel good — they talk about their product, the features they designed, their style, and on and on on.

Do you get it now?

We all live like this by default, it’s how we’re wired. Knowing that also makes it a very effective tool.

If you can make people feel as if you are speaking directly to them they will buy. If you can create that “aha” moment and connect to them, they will buy. That is what it means to meet them where they are.

This defies traditional consumer logic. Most people feel like they are very logical with their purchase decisions. But great marketers know, people will almost always purchase on feeling, and then justify it with logic.

Getting people to feel in that way is done by only speaking about them, literally as much as you can. It requires deep empathy. Speak to their biggest dreams, aspirations, pain points, sufferings, frustrations, etc. Step into their mind and figure out what they need and want out of this whole thing we call life.

Then find where what you’re selling aligns. Meet them where they are.

Our dreams, sense of self, identity, and self-worth are deeply tied to our emotions. And we all share certain core needs: enjoyment of life, safety + health of ourselves and our loved ones, status, sex, and comfort. We all have dreams, we all suffer, and we all strive and want for more.

Good copywriters will always find a way to connect what they are selling to one of those elements. Most importantly, in a way that is human. A way that acknowledges and respects the customer as they are. Human - just like you and me.

By genuinely understanding your target customers, you show them you care.

So make it about them, and they will buy.

Authenticity and a genuinely good offer and value are the new silver bullets to success.

Here is our step-by-step checklist to guarantee you have a rock-solid copy.

1. Deeply empathize with your customer’s dreams and pains. Then find where your product’s benefits align with these. Do not focus on your product features, focus on what those features can do for them. Focus on how can it change their life or simply make their life better and easier.

2. List the customer’s problems, struggles, fears, and limiting beliefs. Show you understand them.

3. List all of the solutions that your product will give your customer. And explain how the client can achieve these solutions + all of the required steps to do so. That might be as simple as buying and using your product as is.

4. Create scarcity or urgency to speed up the sales process and drive a purchase decision.

Good copy requires an understanding of these four elements+ a clever and masterful understanding of word choice, sentence structure, human psychology, primal desires, the target audience’s interests and humor, and the ability to tell a damn good story.

There are many ways to package the 4 above - a good copywriter will iterate hundreds of times in order to find the perfect way to say it.

And that is where we come full circle. Remember that whole spiel about statistics? We weren’t lying when we said it has its place.

Copywriting is the skill that marries the individual and the population together. We write to the individual - but we test and iterate our copy for the population. That process is where the money is made. More money than you’re currently making.

And we know that’s what you care about most because you’ll only ever be you, Mr. or Mrs. Business Owner.