Copywriter: The Socially Gregarious Butterfly

To be a great copywriter you have to be gregarious.

Why?

Well, first off you have to be personable so you can build up a rapport with your clients. Secondly, you have to be a great listener to ensure you understand exactly what they want. And thirdly, you have to understand your reader 100% – you have to live by the motto ‘Getting to know you getting to know all about you’.

Don’t worry I’m not a closet Yul Brynner enthusiast who will burst into song every 5 seconds. However, remembering that particular song is a great way to focus on your sales writing.

As I mentioned in my earlier blog, The Copywriter’s 7 Deadly Sins you have to get inside your reader’s head. Find out what makes them tick; what drives and motivates them. If you can understand the inner foibles of your readers mind, you will find it a lot easier to sell to them.

Attention to detail

If you are sending out newsletters to your customers at least have the good grace to master the intricacies of mail merge and address it to the person to whom it is being sent, not just to ‘Dear Customer’. Rather than getting that warm and fuzzy feeling when you think the sending company cares about you, your readers’ reaction will be ‘oh great, another mail shot’ and it will be confined to the recycling bin.

People are real

So when you are trying to get to know your reader, don’t rely on market reports and data, go out there and actually talk to people. The betting is that no matter what your target audience, you will know some people who are in it. Be it friends, neighbours, people at the gym or at your local corner shop. Talk to them, find out their concerns and you’ll be able to write from their heart.

Multiple readers

You will be writing for multiple readers 99% of the time. This makes your life slightly more difficult but not impossible. Here you need to think about your typical reader – the person who embodies the traits shared by your readership. Ignore this and you’ll end up writing bland and tedious copy as you attempt to write for every personality known to man.

What you must always remember when involved in any kind of copywriting is  that you must get to know your reader. Yes, you have to keep your client happy but it won’t be them that will be doing the buying. You are writing for an audience – forget the ‘me marketing’ that you see all too often, customers don’t want to read about when your company was formed, they want to know what your product will do for them; what problem will it solve for them.

Answer that and your copywriting will hit a new dimension.