I suck at copywriting (Part 1)

Aside from my Growth Marketing course with CXL, there are a few other course that I saw were available to me to study from, and so I decided to jump into the Sales Copywriting & Product Messaging course with Momoko Price.

Turns out: I'm not very good at copywriting.

Go figure.

Or at least: I have a lot to learn and I'm improving at a substantial rate.

This will be a two part series that dives into what Momoko teaches in that course, all the way from conducting a copy "teardown" to creating a fully-formatted, high-converting page.

If you're a business owner or a marketer who handles copywriting for a company, I hope this helps you find a process to follow to create amazing copy.

Lord knows I needed help with it.

So what do you do first on your page?

The Copy "Teardown"

You want to go through your existing copy (text on a page) and find out what you can do that's better.

To do that, you'll do a copy teardown.

There are three main points on how to do a copywriting teardown on a website:

1. Base them on proven persuasion principles (or yet to be disproven).
2. Use them as a gap analysis tool, not a re-writing guide.
3. They can't tell you what will work – only what likely isn't working.

Don't be opinionated when it comes to a teardown.

Or with anything to do with copywriting, honestly.

People often say "use this word!", offering nothing more than a gut feeling when they give advice.

A good copy teardown follows these next three principles:

MEClab's Conversion Sequence Heuristic

C = 4M + 3V + 2(I-F) - 2A

Math. You thought you could escape it.

You still are, don't worry.

This is a tool to use when thinking about copy.

C = Probability of conversion

M = Motivation (what is your prospect's motivation?)

V = Clarity of Value Proposition (their why)

I = Incentive

F = Friction

A = Anxiety

The numbers in front of each of the variables represents their importance. So, with a 4 in front of "M," motivation is the most important.

The minus sign means that with higher friction and anxiety, the less probability of conversion.

Robert Cialdini's 7 Principles of Persuasion

1. Social proof
2. Authority
3. Liking
4. Scarcity / Urgency
5. Reciprocity (give first, then get)
6. Commitment / Consistency
7. Unity (us vs. them)

These seven principles are what businesses need to apply to enhance their copy.

Claude Hopkins "Scientific Advertising" Rules

I've read this book, and definitely need to read it again.

Here are Claude's points that Momoko touched on:

• Be specific. The more generic something is, the more forgettable it is...
• Offer service. Do it out of the goodness of your heart. Make your customer's life better!
• Tell the full story. Use longer copy!
• Be a salesperson. If you were saying your copy in real life, would it actually help you close the deal in person?

These three principles above offer us a great starting point when you analyze your website copy. Your copywriting should touch on each of the points laid out.

To really optimize conversions, you should create different copy for each of the funnel sections, all while maintaining a similar voice and story through the customer journey.

Here are some examples.

• Attention-capturing copy is copy that you would want people to read and want to click to your page
• Persuasive copy is the stuff that's on your home page or a landing page
• Transactional copy is what's written on the cart page and order summary
• Confirmation copy is on the payment message

Each of these are important as you want the customer to buy into you and your product/service their whole way through the journey.

Message Mining

The best way to create killer copy is by stealing it.

Or, "mining," rather.

After the teardown, here's what to do.

You want to scout the internet (or other sources) for anything that has to do with your target customer talking about what they care most about your product/service.

So you're really just taking what your customers are already saying about you/your product.

Your customers are way better at recognizing and explaining the real value of your product than you are, in most cases.

Why is message mining important?

It helps you identify key messages to use, and it helps you find memorable copy.

For key messages, that means finding desired outcomes and pain points to revolve copy around. Or product benefits or even dealbreakers.

It also helps flag uncertainties, objections, and maybe most importantly, perceived risks.

For memorable copy, you're trying to find what people rave about, or specific things they don't like about products similar to yours. Or suspicions they have, or interesting analogies.

Here's Momoko's 5 Step Process for message mining:

1. Make a list of keywords related to your brand
2. Google those keywords with "review" behind it. You could also search for complaints, questions, discussions, comments, etc.
3. Check popular review sites like Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or Facebook Pages.
4. Collect your info on a spreadsheet.
5. Categorize and rank the messages.

Once you have that data collected, you're well on your way to a greater understanding of your customers.

Another great way to collect information for copy?

(here it goes again...)

Surveys and polls! Yaaaaay!

Sensing a little bit of sarcasm?

They're not that bad. People do fill them out. But only if they're done well.

You want at least two different types of surveys. One for new visitors, and one for existing customers.

New visitors will likely be targeted by pop-ups on your website, where existing customers should get a survey delivered to them by email (since you'll probably have their email after a purchase is made).

Here are some survey do's and don'ts:

For site visitors:

• Use poll formatting
• Avoid mobile devices when conducting surveys (surveys aren't great on mobile)
• Avoid triggering the pop-up as soon as they enter your site. Give it 7-10 seconds

For existing customers:

• Target paying customers by email
• Experiment with vague subject lines
• Avoid promotional email design. Use simple text and links. It's way less spammy.
• Make it a one-on-one dialogue. Use a personal-looking email address

You can also conduct interviews over the phone or user-tests to help generate information for your copywriting.

Just remember your goal: you want to get the full story with all the emotion. This will help you get the best copy for your site.

Your unique value proposition

When it comes to business of any kind: you can't control motivation of buyers. It's always variable. So the next best thing you can control?

The clarity and power of your value proposition.

What is that?

It's a persons "reason to buy."

Their "what's in it for me?"

You need to drill into those questions and ask what makes you and your product so special. This will help you develop your message to use on your pages.

How can you brainstorm your most promising value proposition?

Here are 7 steps from Momoko:

1. List your product's key features
2. Pinpoint those that are unique
3. List customer pain points for each feature
4. Define desirable outcomes for each pain
5. Score those pain points by severity and frequency
6. Edit the top scorers into your Unique Value Propostions (UVPs)
7. Score the UVPs and go with the best one!

Your UVP should not be feature focused. Instead, it should be fully focused on the customer's experience.

Conclusion for today

Who else thought that copywriting was a lot easier than that? ???♂?

Never again. It's a data-driven process filled with intricate and thought filled design.

And some math.

That's part 1 for this week.

Next week, we'll talk about message hierarchies, punching up the copy, and laying it all out.

Till then ??