One of the major pillars of writing is research and taking a brief. Unless you are a creative writer (in any case, you will still need to do some research) you need to do research before writing any type of ad or sales copy. Now what I’m going to do today is run you through the research procedure I have used for quite a while now and is proven to work.
Before we get into that, I want you to understand that as a copywriter no one expects you to know it all or have all the answers and if you want to create a good compelling copy, you must be ready to do the research.
WRITER’S BLOCK?
If you are not new to my blogs you must have read my article that talks about getting rid of writer’s block, the processes I detailed there talks about taking action before getting the inspiration that will lead to further motivation. Doing research on the topic you want to write about is the first course of action that you must take before getting the inspiration to write for any topic in any niche. If you don’t write for a particular niche, you will especially need the lessons I will go into fully now…
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
The secret behind my ability to write great pieces with any topic given to me is my ability to do what I call the comprehensive research.
PS: Doing the research to me is like spending quality time sharpening the axe before attempting to cut the tree in the old adage.
This research process might take you hours and as a matter of fact, the longer the time you spend on the research process the more you have to put down when you start writing. It’s also worthy of note that when doing research, no information related, directly or indirectly to the subject matter is irrelevant so when doing research, remember to save the bit pieces of information.
The tested-and-true research process that will help you write a sales letter with supersonic speed today is divided into three phases of deep research:
- Client Research
- Topic Research (Product Research)
- Audience Research
CLIENT RESEARCH
It’s very important to research the person, group, or brand you are writing for, you don’t want to communicate in terms that are not congruent with the brand communication tone or voice. If you are writing for a brand for the first time, after getting your brief, you should spend time researching your client to understand their tone/voice because brand voices are uniquely created for several strategic reasons (this goes deep into the intricacies of branding and strategy). Another vital reason to do this is the fact that it helps you know and understand their industry, jargon, competitors, trends, news and many more… It helps to go through former communication messages from your client to create that understanding and mind-frame.
TOPIC RESEARCH (PRODUCT RESEARCH)
What separates a quality sales letter, newsletter, or sales article from an average one is the amount of time put into researching the topic. You will notice that writing from no information source can be tiring, boring, time-consuming and ultimately unproductive. It’s important to go really deep in this phase of research and gather as much data as possible related to the product, service, or topic. Here are some key points to note when researching your topic:
- History
- News
- FAQ
- Big players
- Reviews (quora is a great source)
TARGET AUDIENCE RESEARCH
This is the last but not the least phase of deep research, the importance of this cannot be over-emphasized and for me, the concept of APE stems from understanding the target audience.This enables me to predict the most appealing, responsive formats and writing techniques to the target audience. When doing my target audience research I like to research their fog index, age range, social class, economic class and many more…
SUMMARY
The more you know about your client, their services/products, and who you are writing for (target audience) the higher your chances of crafting effective copy. If you want to learn more about writing great copy, you can hang out with us at Grey Copy Squad where we share insights, sticky ideas, and job opportunities…
GREY COPY 