The biggest mistake you’ll ever make in copywriting

What’s the single most important element in copywriting? Good vocabulary? Lyrical prose? Correctly placed apostrophes??

All of these are important, but they’re not the most important. What is?

Research.

The single biggest mistake any copywriter can make is to think they’re writing for blank slates. People are not empty vessels, mindlessly wandering around and waiting for you to put an idea in their head (well, most aren’t). Everyone has an inner dialogue going on in their mind. They’re thinking about the things that interest them, the things that worry them, the things that excite them. They’re debating themselves, second-guessing certain thoughts, uncertain about some things. When you attempt to persuade someone to do something, you are effectively walking into a room with the flurry of competing voices inside a person’s psyche and trying to shout over them. The trick to good copywriting is instead to join that conversation, listen to what’s being said, and steer it in the direction you want.

Every time a prospect evaluates your product and your brand, they’re doing so through the filter of all their inner presuppositions and prejudices, their dispositions and their desires, so it’s crucial to know what those presuppositions, prejudices, dispositions and desires are. Knowing what your target audience is thinking allows you to frame your product or service in the way that will appeal to them the most. Look how Starbucks turned something as prosaic as coffee into a core element of hipster culture by highlighting its use of fairtrade beans grown by honest farmers in Guatemala and milk sourced from a farming co-operative promoting sustainability, rather than on price or taste or anything else you would probably emphasise when selling coffee. It’s still just a cup of coffee, but thanks to clever ad copy this coffee is now emblematic of so much more. Starbucks isn’t in the coffee business, it’s in the lifestyle business.

Once you’ve researched your target demographic, you can appeal to the things that will drive them. One good way to do this is to address their fears. Is there something in particular that would worry them about your product? If so, confront it directly. If your demographic tends to worry about money, highlight the competitive price of your product. If your demographic is particularly concerned with status, show them how your product will give them some form of prestige.

Good copy responds to confirmation bias. People will naturally show more interest in copy that reflects how they feel – even if how they feel is not actually reflective of reality. In a survey, 74% of people said they are above average drivers, while only 1% believe they are below average. Clearly, many people erroneously believe they are above average. But it doesn’t matter that they’re wrong; what matters is how they think of themselves. Imagine these two headlines:

Are you an above average driver? You’ll want to know about this.

Are you a below average driver? You’ll want to know about this.

In your gut instinct, which of these two are you more likely to click on? Even if you think you probably are a below average driver, do you really want that sentiment validated? It’s disheartening, so you scroll past. But if you think you’re an above average driver (as 74% of people do), it appeals to your ego and pride, making you more likely to engage.

This is not to say that negative emotion doesn’t work in copy – it absolutely can. Finding something that people are angry about and riling them up can produce the most effective results. Let’s say your company helps people claim tax they overpaid. Sure, you could focus on how they’ll get a few hundred pounds back, but what’s going to really get attention is to focus on how the taxman robbed them. By doing this, you turn it from a pragmatic point (“Can I be bothered going to the effort to get a bit of cash back?”) to a point of principle (“That’s my money and I want it back!”). It’s all about knowing how to push people’s buttons in the right way.

Everyone is motivated by different things in different ways. Assuming that you can just write copy the same for everybody is destined to end in failure. By doing your research before you write a single word, you’ll avoid making the biggest mistake you can in copywriting.