6 steps to successful copywriting: There are routines for writing good copy

Copywriting is a sword that can pierce the hearts of users, a lamp that can make products emit infinite light, and a sophisticated work that is created step by step through logic and careful conception.

The articles we often see online, such as " Email Marketing : EDM Secrets to Increase Email Open Rate and Click-Through Rate by Over 80%" (XX email marketing soft article title), "A Small Webmaster’s Annual Income of 100,000 Is Not a Dream – My Struggle" (XX website training soft article title), and "Apple AIR is Creative, New, and Thin (The World’s Thinnest Laptop)" (Apple soft article title), are all exquisite works that embody the tears and sweat of copywriters.

From the above you can also see that no matter the size of your brand, you cannot do without copywriting when promoting it. For example, in the past, some business mobile phones would often publish promotional soft articles in business magazines. A certain magazine inserted a soft article from a winery, which talked about the history of wine. It was in line with the tone of the magazine itself and was considered a good soft article. However, if you go to Soufun.com and other websites, you will find that most of the articles there are soft articles from developers, so students who want to buy a house should not take them seriously!

Users will not reject good soft articles

A good copy, if highly recognized by users, can release tremendous energy and bring unlimited exposure and conversion to the brand.

How do you write a good copy? Is there any formula I can apply? You know what, it’s true. The copywriting we see in audiences, TV, movies and other media are all produced according to routines. Today I will tell you the six steps to successful copywriting.

We analyze it in 6 steps:

1. Determine your goals

Before you write a soft article, you must first figure out the purpose of writing this soft article. Are you using this soft article for promotion? To attract users to register your website, follow your official account , or download your APP? Or are you using this soft article to warm up for an event of your own company? These are all things you must figure out when writing this soft article.

2. Find your audience

After knowing your goal clearly, many people will rush to start writing copy. Think of it this way: I don’t even know where my audience is, I don’t know what they are thinking, so who should read what I write? So at this time we need to clarify what kind of group our target group is? Because only after you determine your target users, you will know what to write and hit their hearts, and only then will you be able to sell products, bring conversions, or get users to forward your content to you. Having said so much, how should we determine where our target audience is? Here are 4 principles for identifying your target audience:

1. Does my product meet the needs of the target group?
2. Can my target audience afford my product?
3. Can the promotion channels I have control over cover the target groups I want?
4. Does the tone of my product match the values ​​of my target group?

Then follow these four principles to find people who meet these characteristics. So, remember! Remember, remember, remember, important things should be said three times: before writing the copy, first determine the target audience. Even when you see other people's copywriting on the street, on TV, or on the Internet, try to think about who their target audience is first? This is not just looking for something to do. This is a quality that a copywriter must have. It also trains your instincts and is the prerequisite for you to surpass 90% of your competitors.

3. Refine selling points

When refining selling points, we should adhere to the principle of "I have what others do not, and I am better than others". This is an eternal truth in product science. The "I am better than others" here means that you have to develop new things based on the original ones, or make good product optimizations. However, with the current development of the Internet, most of the products on the market are highly homogenized, and the market share is basically monopolized by industry giants. At this time, if you continue to make products of the same type without any novelty, there is almost no possibility of success.

Just imagine that you are now trying to develop a social software like WeChat , or a dating platform like Baihe.com, or a food delivery platform like Baidu Takeout and Ele.me. What are your chances of success? 360 Chairman Zhou Hongyi said in a public speech: "To find a good product, it must meet three conditions: rigid demand, pain point, and high frequency. " The so-called "pain point" is the scarcity mentioned here. If your product can help users solve problems that other products cannot solve, it is a product with selling points.

You don’t need many selling points, one is enough. A product’s selling point is the core value of a product. Since it is the core value, one is enough.

Normally, we see products with complex designs and numerous functions in the market, but no one is interested in them, while products with simple, clear functions and main features have good sales. This is the reason. For example, we know that when Xiaomi launched its own notebook, there were already thousands of laptop giants in the market, such as Acer, Lenovo, Asus, and of course Apple. In such a market with so many strong competitors, how can we achieve differentiated marketing? There is a sentence written on Xiaomi’s promotional poster: As thin as a magazine. A magazine is placed next to it, which is a very vivid metaphor and also highlights that the selling point of Xiaomi notebook is "thinness", which distinguishes it from many notebooks on the market.

Xiaomi Notebook

4. Select channels

We need to decide the beginning of the copy based on the characteristics of the channel, which is something people often overlook. As users' reading habits gradually change and fragmented reading becomes the mainstream, and at the same time, limited by the differences in the size of media display areas, the impact of channels on the sales effectiveness of copywriting is very huge.

For example, the outdoor advertisements we see on the highway. When the user is driving at high speed, the height of the billboard in the car is about 5mm-1cm, and the effective reading time is 1-5 seconds. Such a short time is not suitable for too dense copy content, otherwise there will be no effect. What is suitable for? Best brand advertising.

For magazines on high-speed trains and airplanes, the effective reading time is generally 1-30 minutes, which is suitable for long and in-depth copy, allowing users to gain in-depth understanding of the product.

As for Weibo, the effective browsing time of a post is generally 1-3 seconds, and it is also limited to 140 characters. So in the early stages we need to arouse the user's interest and attract their attention, so that they may open the post and continue reading.

Therefore, calculating the effective time can help you determine what copy to write for a certain channel. So how can you attract the other person as quickly as possible within the effective time?

There are two methods -

1. State their "name", user group, characteristics.

For example - Target users: College students who are about to graduate

The first sentence: "A must-see for fresh graduates" and "A must-see for senior students"

2. Tell them the problem they are most eager to solve

For example: First sentence: "I have few interview opportunities and no one reads my resume?" - Directly state the problem

"Increase the interview rate to 90%" - Solve the problem head-on

In this era when attention has become a rare commodity, copywriters must be aware of writing corresponding copy according to the characteristics of the channel to attract the attention of target users.

5. Copywriting routine

After determining the highlights of our product, we will begin the preparation stage of copywriting. So what is the routine of copywriting? That’s right, you must have heard it more or less, which is to tell stories to users and resonate with them.

For example, Chu Orange tells a story about Chu Shijian who is still strong at an old age, which makes thousands of other oranges far behind;

Wang Shi told a story about mountain climbing, which saved Vanke 300 million yuan in advertising costs. Of course, the benefits were more than that.

There are a lot of such storytelling marketing on the Internet, and the effects are proven to be effective!

So what kind of story should be told?

Many storytelling experts have classified brand stories, which seems a bit messy, and some types are a bit obscure and not very universal. For example, one teacher mentioned the "expert-affirmed type" and "family secret recipe type" stories. When I think of the products, I really don't want to make an appointment with them. Here I will summarize 3 copywriting story-type routines.

1. Past and present type: tells the story of the brand’s creation, from nothing to something, or the founder’s mental journey, like a biography. This storytelling method is relatively traditional and basically does not reflect any creative highlights, but it is easier to create a stable and honest image of a company or brand. It is a relatively direct and effective way to help people understand the brand.

2. Highlight selling points: If the characteristics of a product can match what consumers care about most, then that is its selling point. For example, those in the catering industry need to dispel people’s concerns about food quality, and those in the electrical appliance industry need to dispel consumers’ concerns about basic electrical safety. In order to gain the trust of consumers, we must also demonstrate how much we spare no expense and how responsible we are for quality and safety.

We have all heard such stories: KFC will destroy the leftover hamburgers sold that day to ensure that the hamburgers are fresh every day; Haier's Zhang Ruimin once smashed 26 substandard refrigerators in anger. These are all typical selling point stories. Although they seem a bit "tough and crude" and have even been criticized, I believe that people are not so naive as to think that one story can cover all the good of a product. If a story can illuminate a point, it has achieved its purpose.

3. Sentimental chicken soup type: This type is easy to understand, and is also the type that many companies particularly like nowadays. It appears tasteful and profound, and is also easy to hide the commercial flavor. There are many successful cases in this regard, but it is necessary to remind everyone that there are also many failures. If chicken soup is not prepared well, it can easily become a melodrama.

If the story is told well and can resonate with readers, then you don’t have to worry about no one paying attention!

6. Modify the copy

Once a draft copy is finalized, it often needs to be modified to make it more interesting to users.

So how should we revise the copy? I'll give you some suggestions of my own!

1. First, figure out whether our product is a big brand (users in the market already have sufficient awareness of our brand) or a startup brand (users don’t even know who you are).

This is very important. Some copywriters are imitating the marketing copy and posters of big companies all day long. For example, Durex , BMW, Wanglaoji and other big brands already have a clear brand positioning in people's minds. If we are a product of a small company and we learn to run before we learn to walk, we will die miserably.

Therefore, after figuring out the development stage of our product, we should modify the copywriting of our product in a targeted manner and in different styles. Just give two examples and everyone will understand clearly.

Well-known brands:

All the introverts in the world are talking to the wrong people - Momo

Unknown brands:

Children who learn piano will not become bad - a piano training institution

Summary: To give an example, a big brand is like a star with tens of millions of fans. If he or she posts a message like “See you on Monday” on Weibo, it will trigger crazy media coverage. A startup brand is like a wandering singer who has just opened a Weibo account. If you post a message like “See you on Monday”, the audience will not see it at all. Therefore, if your product has not yet formed an influence that deeply rooted in people's hearts, then you are facing a process of "brand building". If you enter a relatively blank market, then the first thing you need to do is not to highlight your product advantages and brand tone, but to arouse consumers' consumption motivation for this category.

2. Don't use too many adjectives.

Advertising slogans piled up with adjectives leave readers with a feeling of emptiness and powerlessness. There is a lack of interpretation of project characteristics and response to customer psychological needs. The main reason adjectives don’t make for good copy is because they lack trust. Adjectives are indispensable for literary creation. When it comes to product copywriting, too many adjectives can easily give people a feeling of whitewashing and falsehood.

For example: XXX speakers, the ultimate feast for hearing.

Extreme is a very vague word. It cannot give people a sense of reality and is difficult to understand. It is like Wang Po boasting about her melons. If she praises them too much, it will be counterproductive.

Good copywriting is not pretentious or created out of nothing, but is a planned work with a story. To put it bluntly: creativity + routine = good copywriting.

Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media information flow

The author of this article @艺林小宇 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!