How do you test and optimize your copywriting for different channels and metrics?

I agree. In addition to meeting the campaign's objectives, you need to write for your audience. To do this, you need to know how to target and inspire them with your copy to create an experience that is meaningful for your audience. And so what matters here is the language, style, cultural/ social associations, context (never assume what your audience knows!). Those elements will enable people to impose some sort of sense, and order, and will bring them closer to your cause, product or idea.

In addition to having a clear objective and way to measure that objective, knowing your audience is essential. By having a clear audience, you will be able to write copy that is specific to their journey, wants, or needs. You will also be able to optimize placements more effectively. For example, knowing you want to sell a pencil is a good start, but knowing you want to sell a pencil to a 15-year old high school student will help target your copy better.

Additionally, with email, it depends on your audience and what your email list was built/ designed for. While writing formal or professional may work for a cold email, when you are growing your list or are an email marketer using email as your main real estate for selling your own products or affiliates, you may want to reach for a more conversational and story-based tone. These can be fun and more personal to create a connection and make you relatable. A-listers and A-list email marketers alike such as Laura Belgray, Amy Porterfield, and David Deutsch, aren't as formal but more full of conversation, fun, and often "catchy" in their approach via email. Always go back to the why you created the list and where they are on their journey.

I'm very careful to consider the potential audience I'm reaching with each channel before choosing which of my content to share. It's not just about tone. Different angles of my topic are successful with different audiences. For example, I wouldn't share recipes with my Linkedin audience but my Twitter followers love links to easy recipes. Things that are more newsworthy work best with my MSN audience and my email audience wants a very personal tone and perspective.

Even though your audience will have similarities, no two people will react to the copy the same way. Which is why split testing, or adding variations into your copy, can help one reader take the intended action, whilst the other follow through with their user journey. Use emotions and experiences and powerful psychology to understand what it is that compels one user to follow one Call to Action over the other.

We're all different. And what might really resonate with one person will have no effect on another. So particularly when you're sounding out a young audience, it's important not to assume that you know them perfectly. Give them a chance to surprise you. Give them a chance to educate you.

It's all too easy to become a slave to perfection. We tweak, revise, reformat...all in pursuit of "perfect" copy. But ultimately, we don't decide what perfect copy is. Readers do. Years of experience and well-earned intuition guide our pens, but we're flying partially blind until we put the content out there and let our audience tell us if it works. Are they clicking, reading, engaging, and converting? If not, we iterate....over and over and over. We learn a lot in that process, on that path to "perfection." In the meantime, just stay flexible and curious.