Some say 80% of copywriting is just research and there is some truth to the statement. Perhaps it might not be as extreme but the bigger portion of copywriting is indeed research.
In this article:-
- Why research is important for Copywriting projects?
- What do you research when researching for a copywriting project?
- Best websites for Research, and How much research is needed?
Why research is important for Copywriting projects?
Some people believe that copywriting is nothing but sales in writing and is done to sell to as many people as possible. That is just not true see copywriting is all about the specifics and being as meticulous as possible about everything written.
Copywriting only works when you write for specific groups of people more specific the group better the copy works. The way to get specific is to research and most good copywriter literally create an imaginary person who embodies the target market.
In your copy, you are directly talking to the AVATAR(the person you create using research). Research helps you write in a way that feels more personal to the reader you talk to them in their language. If the copy feels personal and creates the right emotions it is bound to perform well.
“Never write from scratch” is probably the best copywriting advice anyone can give you. Research makes sure you never write from scratch and have some idea of what you wanna write and how you wanna write it.
What do you research when researching for a copywriting project?
The goal of the research is to create the avatar for whom you will later write your copy. While researching you are looking for answers to some very basic questions.
Here are the questions:-
- Who is the Avatar? And the answers to the question include information like the age of the avatar, the gender of the avatar, etc.
- What is their current situation? You want to find out what is the problem the avatar is facing. Usually, the project involves writing for a product that either directly solves the problem or helps solve the problem.
- What does their current situation feel like? This might be a little hard to understand but here is an example: when I was writing for an anxiety-treating product the problem the avatar was facing was anxiety. And felt like their legs froze or lighting was running down their spine.
- What is their dream state? The dream state is just the state without the problem and how things would be when they no longer had those problems. And it might be feeling super confident for a person who has anxiety problems.
- What part of the problem they do not understand? The easiest way to explain this is with an example: I had an addiction to my phone a couple of months ago, I thought my brain loved the reels or the games and that is why I was addicted to the phone. But with some reading and research about addictions, I found the problem was the patterns I had developed. And my brain liked novelty so I exchanged reels for reading, and games with writing.
If you can find the answers to the above questions you can write copy much more easily and quickly. But where can you find the answers?
Best websites for Research, and How much research is needed?
When you know the right questions to ask step two begins with finding the answers. And it is a lot easier to find the answers if you know where to find them. So, here is a list of my favorite websites to look for the answers:-
- Reddit: Reddit is my favorite place to look for answers. Reddit is infamous for oversharing and it is a goldmine of people explaining all sorts of things about their problems. 70% of the research I do is done on Reddit. And it is important that you understand the problem before you start solving it for them.
- Youtube: On youtube, both comment sections of videos and the videos themselves are available of people trying to explain different things, Writing about anxiety go to youtube and search how anxiety feels.
- Chat forums and rooms: Same thing as Reddit but much more natural as people are directly conversing.
How much research depends on what kind of copy you are writing for emails an hour of research might be enough for a 30-page sales page even days of research might not be enough.
But if you want a general rule of thumb let’s say for short-form copy research of a few hours is enough, for a long-form copy a couple of days would be enough.
Another thing the amount of research might depend on is how much you already know about the topic for the project.
Read last week’s article How to write amazing fascination plus the 7 templates I use to write killer fascinations.
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