Be a Better Copywriter: 15 Copywriting Tips to Become Better than the Best Copywriters
So you have just started copywriting. Are you enjoying it? Well, loving your job is very important, especially if it is writing alluring ad copies to make the sales graph shoot through the roof.
Copywriting is indeed not an easy-peasy game. You have to be very patient as it takes years of practice to master the art of writing scintillating ad copies! Believe me, only a small fraction of marketers around the world can truly be called copywriting gurus as they can write a page of killer copy within an hour, which will even sell a boatload of bizarre products in a jiffy!
But one thing is common between you two!
They all started exactly from the same place where you are standing today. Just like they say practice makes everything perfect, the same can be said for copywriting as well. To improve your level and make your ad copies strike the right chord with the consumers, you need to follow certain copywriting exercises. And that’s what this blog post is all about.
These copywriting tips are meticulously chosen for every single individual working as a copywriter but yet to find that rhythm of writing impressive ad copies.
Truth be told – the copywriting process is not easy. However, it is definitely rewarding. From loving the work that you have taken up to making it super impressive, this blog post covers them all.
Needless to say, the better you become at copywriting, the more opportunities you will create to earn a healthy living for yourself.
So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
15 Copywriting Tips to Become Better than the Best Copywriters
- Understand Why Companies Hire Copywriters
- Interact with Your Consumers
- Use Feedback to Prevalidate Your Ad Copy
- Re-Create Insanely Popular Ads inside Your Mind
- Take Famous Ads and Write Them on Paper
- Build a Repository of Amazing Ad Copies
- Take Some Time Out and Write Every Day
- Keep the Thesaurus at Hand
- Rely on Grammarly
- Experiment with Your Hooks First
- Trim It, Tweak It, and Make It Immaculate
- Try to Be a Bit Bold
- Emphasize On the Benefits over the Features
- Read Your Ad Copy Out Loud
- Repeat, Repeat, and Repeat
Understand Why Companies Hire Copywriters
This is a question that you should ask yourself if you want to stick to the copywriting industry forever. What is the role of a copywriter in a company?
Copywriting is one of the core selling skills required to promote products or services of a brand, be it an online business or a brick and mortar retail store. From television commercials to roadside billboards, press releases to product forms, online or hardcopy brochures to email communications, website content to ads on social media, a copywriter must take care of them all.
However, copywriting is very much different from content writing.
When a content writer is writing an article, the objective can range from informing the audience about something or perhaps educating them about the service or the product.
But as a copywriter, you are the one who will compel the customers to click on the product ads and make the purchase. Hence, through your words, you can generate the desired revenue a company is targeting.
What makes your potential customers impatient to buy a product/service? What converts someone a customer from just a visitor? You need to enter into the psychology of a customer and reflect that on your ad copy. That’s what is going to make you a successful copywriter.
See how Flipkart does it here.
You already know how to write – you just need to acquire the skills of copywriting that will upscale the sales and fetch more money for the company.
Interact with Your Consumers
At the outset, this might not even sound like a copywriting exercise – but trust me, this is one of the most useful tips when it comes to ad copywriting.
Allow me to explain.
When you are writing an ad copy for one of your clients, your targeted audience is their customers. And while copywriting, you are going to engage with their consumer behavior deeply.
It’s the mindset of the customers you need to target, and half of your job is done. But how can you tap the consumer-psyche of someone whom you don’t even know in person? Well, it’s simple; you just have to interact with them!
Without doing proper research, how can you get awe-inspiring copywriting ideas that will click on the market? So just ask your clients to share the details of some of their best customers, and simply talk to them. Next, get the ideas about why they opt for a particular product or subscribe to a service? What makes them attracted to a certain brand, business, or industry?
With this research done, you now have procured a ton of valuable insights about your targeted customers’ experience and pain-points. And finally, it’s time to use them prudently as a message in your ad copy, and voila, it will run!
Slack knows the problems teams face while working remotely and their ad copy clearly states how they are solving it.
So as you took the ideas from the market and used it there only, it’s going to be extensively impactful. And at the same time, it’s pretty straightforward. Isn’t it?
Use Feedback to Prevalidate Your Ad Copy
Well, now you are done with your customer research, and you have framed one of your epic ad copies. You have thought about it, pondered about the offers, the construction, everything. But how do you know whether it will intrigue your prospects or not?
Well, again, it’s pretty simple. You show it to people and ask for feedback.
When I say people, I mean random people. Literally, anyone, even if they don’t really fall under the category of your targeted audience. This will help you receive impartial responses that you might have never thought of – and that’s exactly what you need.
Because, if you want to expand your boundaries and if you need to target the masses, you need to think outside the box. You have to come up with copywriting ideas that can hook anyone instantly!
So, the moment you show your written piece to a random person, and he/she gets immediately hooked, you have hit the right spot. The interest and eagerness in their eyes to acquire this offer proves that your ad copy has hit the place that matters, their wallets.
Else, if you just get an affirmative comment or a simple nod of approval, trust me, you need to go back and start everything from scratch.
Remember: Ad copies that sell, are the copies that make customers impatient!
Like Donatos?
Re-Create Insanely Popular Ads inside Your Mind
Here’s a fun exercise to do, which will improve your copywriting skills exponentially. And the best part is, this is something you can literally do anywhere, anytime. It’s a very effective practice and can do wonders to ignite your thought process behind writing a great piece of ad copy.
There’s always some room for improvement in everything. Right?
Well, the same goes for most of the popular commercial ads as well. So, whenever you see an advertisement, just try to think about how you would have written it if given a chance. That’s all you need to do!
Assign yourself to this imaginary copywriting project and try to reconstruct and improve any ad that grabs your attention. It can be a billboard ad you suddenly spotted while commuting, or an ad in a magazine at your dentist’s clinic, or something exciting you came across on the internet.
Think outside the box and ponder how you would like to sell the said product or service. Look over the ad copy, would you have added something to it or is it too wordy – would you like to trim a few words?
All these thoughts will act as an exercise for your copywriting brain. It’s just like a muscle; the more you work it out, the better shape it will get.
Also, who knows while doing this exercise, you may even stumble upon a tremendous copywriting idea to write your next epic piece of ad copy!
Take Famous Ads and Write Them on Paper
This is an extended part of the previous copywriting exercise.
Pick the ads that really blew your mind, and then you hand-copy them on a piece of paper. Some may also type them on a computer document, but I prefer to write them. I would recommend you do the same because that works better in your mind. It’s old-school, but it’s effective.
Fret not; this is not an exercise to improve your hand-writing. Instead, you will actually teach yourself how to write like the renowned copywriting gurus of the world.
By hand-copying, your brain will register the little copywriting nuances of adept copywriters. This memory can later be used to study and evaluate your own copywriting. Try to pay attention to every detail you are copying – from punctuation, use of words, length of sentences, usage of paragraphs, bullets, numbers, whitespaces, and everything!
It’s kind of stepping inside the shoes of a great copywriter and slowly getting to understand his/her psychology. It isn’t easy to understand unless you try and experience it by yourself.
Remember – this is not for learning how you can imitate the masters but to understand their copywriting traits. It’s a mental process to teach yourself the art of crafting more captivating and profitable ad copies.
Build a Repository of Amazing Ad Copies
Just like an opportunity, you will never know when an inspirational copywriting idea will knock on your door. It’s so unpredictable that you would be surprised to see where the idea came from.
Moreover, as a copywriter, you need to study other people’s work and try to understand what’s going on in their mind – it’s essential to get better at what you are doing. But most of the time, you might just forget the idea that struck you after seeing something.
That’s why you need to build your copywriting inspiration folder. It’s just a regular Drop-Box or Google Drive account that you can access anytime, anywhere from any device. Here, you can keep all your raw pieces of ideas, like webpages, emails, or even screenshots of ads that enthralled you largely.
Keeping it organized is essential – this can save you loads of time while searching for copywriting ideas in your own repository. So, feel free to create sub-folders and sort them based on the type of ad copy.
Signing up for regular emails from industries relevant to your own work can be a great way to learn and observe new ideas. Just customize your email and get all the same kind of ad copies straight to your dedicated folders.
Now, you can just look at them whenever you need a bit of inspiration to write your own unique and impressive ad copy.
BUT!
There is a very important caution you need to take care of. The purpose behind this folder is to use it for inspiration and not for materials to copy from. Not just it’s unethical, but by doing so, you may land in some serious trouble. Plus, your entire reputation of being a copywriter will just go up in flames.
So make sure you stick to being a copywriter and not the idiom that refers to cats!
Take Some Time Out and Write Every Day
Do you struggle with time when you write down your copywriting ideas? Well, experts in this field can write a compelling piece inside half-an-hour or less. But don’t get so demoralized just yet!
You can also do it just like them if you devote a dedicated time every day to practice. That’s how everyone gets better – there’s no secret recipe or the swish of a magic wand.
It’s just plain and simple practice, done diligently, every single day!
Make it a habit, just like any other. Start with a shorter period of time and gradually increase it. But make sure you devote the stipulated amount of time in crafting amazing ad copies.
With time and regular practice, you will be able to write impressive and profitable commercial ad copies much faster than before.
The more you write, the better you become. The better you grow into, the more possibilities you will create for yourself as an exceptional copywriter.
This is how all the copywriting veterans became legends. This is the way you can also become an ad copy guru someday.
With this rigorous and painstaking practice in place, the sky’s the limit for you!
Keep the Thesaurus at Hand
This is an absolute must. As a copywriter, an online thesaurus (or offline as well, if it works for you) should be like your close friend. Writing an epic piece of ad copy is all about using your knowledge of the language in the best commercial way possible.
Remember, not just captivating words, but the entire copy matters. So don’t just randomly pin down words, you have to have the right context behind it. The thesaurus can help you with exactly that.
You can not only learn new words from it, which will make your ad copy super seductive, but it also helps you with the right context to use them. Also, the tone of the entire sentence matters as well – reading your copy out loud can be helpful in this case.
So, even if you find a new word from the thesaurus, make sure to check if it sounds all right with the entire context of the ad copy.
Thesaurus can come really handy during the final phase of your copywriting. You can replace some of the cliché words with more powerful expressions that can surely make a better psychological impact on your target audience.
Like, you can do something with enthusiasm, or you can do the same thing with the right amount of gusto!
You get the drift, right?
Rely on Grammarly
Every part of your ad copy should be up to the mark to increase the emotional influence on your customers. And for this to make certain, the thing you need in the first place is writing the ad copy without any heedless grammatical errors.
Grammar is the very foundation of any language. Without impeccable grammar, your copywriting piece will not only lack its strength but may even go off the point completely.
This is where Grammarly can make your copywriting life easy. This helpful online writing tool can check and rectify all the errors you might make in your ad copy.
Apart from just correcting the errors, Grammarly can also make your copywriting more persuasive with valuable suggestions. From vocabulary to punctuation, from typing errors to sentence construction, it takes care of them all and helps you make a better ad copy.
You can customize your writing goals beforehand, and it will show you the results accordingly. You can get yourself a premium account and unlock all the features seamlessly.
Experiment with Your Hooks First
Almost no copywriter can blindly trust a hook without giving it a try first. After all, assumptions can do a little good compared to analyzed data.
That’s why instead of assuming and blindly trusting a hook for your next copywriting project, always verify it with a simple ad campaign.
If you have come up with a bunch of hooks but are not sure about which one can hit the bull’s eye, then this process can come real handy.
With a few dollars out of your pocket, you can quickly run an ad campaign on Facebook or Google Ads and try your hooks on the audience. You can get convincing data about which hook performed the best with your customers in a relatively short period of time.
Bear in mind that it’s not always the conversion rate that you need to look out for, but understand which hook made them click their mouse.
And with a set of irrefutable test-data in hand, you can now leave the dilemma behind and apply the best hook on your next ad copy.
And see how Fevicol did it here.
Trim It, Tweak It, and Make It Immaculate
Being succinct and comprehensive are the two most crucial attributes of successful copywriting. Often you may come across an ad copy or a commercial advertising material that is awfully long – it’s so long that it’s hard to get through to the end.
Suffice it to say, that piece of ad copy can never cut the chase for you.
That’s why you need to trim it, tweak it a little, and make it more exciting and persuasive.
The idea is not to give every bit of information on your ad copy. It’s about presenting captivating information for your customers to perceive and get hooked instantly.
There are only three words in this Naukri.com ad copy. So what do you think how did this ad perform online? Well, one word answers it all – CRAZILY!
So next time, when you come across a ridiculously long ad copy, try to trim it – trim it to the point where you can extract the crux of the whole piece and fit it into a micro-blogging post.
If done correctly, the little one-liner ad copy can fetch you a brilliant response.
This is an extremely helpful copywriting exercise to learn writing concise and enthralling ad copy on the first go.
Try to Be a Bit Bold
Do you read articles written by bloggers? Well, what is that one thing that seems common in most of them?
That’s right – the tone!
Most articles written on the internet follow the conventional tone, kind of staying on the safe side. But that often comes across as quite boring. Isn’t it?
Instead, you can simply walk the line as Lou Reed once famously sang; “take a walk on the wild side“.
All I am trying to say is that you can step out of this safe-line zone a little and show a bit of boldness in your ad copy. It will not only put your copy in a distinctly different place from the rest, but you can observe the market as well.
See how Moosejaw cleverly broke a social taboo in this ad copy, and at the same time made the unique selling point loud and clear.
With this tiny different approach, you will be able to gauge how it’s being perceived amongst your customers. This experience will turn out to be invaluable for your future copywriting endeavors.
Emphasize On the Benefits over the Features
Let’s step into the shoes of a customer for a while.
Imagine yourself as a customer looking at an advertisement. Now, what is the first thing that you’ll be looking for? The features of the product or service or the benefits it can lend you?
Obviously, it’s the benefits that will capture your attention!
So, you need to bear this consumer behavior in mind while writing your ad copy.
After all, it’s the explicit representation of benefits in your ad copy, which compels them to buy the product.
So what’s the difference between the two?
Well, to put it simply, features are something that your product has or comes with – it’s a kind of manufacturing properties or specifications.
On the other hand, benefits are the perks that you enjoy with a particular product and make your life easy or empowered after the purchase.
For example,
Feature: This hand-held vacuum cleaner is light-weight and portable.
Benefit: You can carry this vacuum cleaner anywhere you want, and even your kids can use it!
Hence, you just need to change the focal point of your ad copy. Instead of stuffing flat product features, try to present why a customer should buy it over anything else.
You just need to enter the psyche of a customer here. Read a feature and ask yourself, how can this appeal to you?
Let’s take another example.
Feature: 13-megapixel front-camera that comes with a low-light feature.
Benefit: An amazing 13-megapixel front-camera that lets you take day-like selfies even in the dark!
Now, that’s the hook that can entice them to buy it!
Rolls-Royce had simply nailed it here in this brilliant ad copy.
The legendary luxurious car company was truly ahead of its time.
So, just try to look inside the head of a customer and turn all those boring features into cool and exciting benefits!
Read Your Ad Copy Out Loud
Our ears can do a lot more amazing things than we think they can do. When you’ll read your own written piece of ad copy out loud, you will get to experience the intrinsic bond that our brain shares with our ears.
Here is what you need to do.
Once you finish writing your ad copy, sit quietly, take a deep breath, and read your content out loud.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s not just the words or the phrases, but the emotion that is produced within everything together matters the most. That emotion has the power, which will allure your customer when he/she will read it.
So to make your ad copy sound intriguing for your customers, reading it out loud is a wonderful exercise.
Your ear will help you judge which part of the copy is good and which part is disrupting the overall flow. Usage of the words, construction of the sentences, punchlines, everything can be revisited once again and adjusted if necessary.
Follow this exercise after every piece of ad copies you write, and you will experience the fantastic improvements instantly.
Repeat, Repeat, and Repeat
To be honest, the process of becoming a successful copywriter is a never-ending process. You can just keep on getting better and better. Suffice it to say; there’s no upper limit to it.
Hence, you just have to keep on writing pieces, run them, gather the knowledge, and repeat the entire copywriting process all over again. Since there are no hard and fast rules to it, every campaign that you run will fetch you invaluable experience that will enrich your future copywriting projects.
Devote your time to writing, come up with irresistible ad hooks, and run multiple campaigns to see which one gets the best attention and results. That’s the way to enhance your skills and boost your copywriting career further.
Final Thoughts
So, here you have it folks – 15 tips to become better than the best copywriters. With these copywriting tips and exercises in place, writing piping hot killer ad copies will be much effortless.
Like any other skill, you can learn it well and get exceptionally good with continuous diligent efforts.
So, what’s your take on this? Do you already follow any of the copywriting exercises mentioned above? Share your opinion in the comments section below, and we’ll be happy to keep this discussion going.
Till then, best of luck!
An advanced All-in-One Digital Marketing Course.
Mentored by Mr. Soumya Roy, the Founder, CEO of PromozSEO Web Marketing Academy.
Being an entrepreneur and digital marketer, he loves to share his knowledge and experience in topics related to internet marketing, SEO, SEM, social media, content marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, and many more.
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