Discovering a Market

Once you have a handle on these fundamental pillars, your copy then links your reader—their goals and desires—and your product to create a market.

And the better you know your market, the better your copy.

It’s research. And the more you do of it, the easier time you’ll have coming up with creative solutions to your problems. Your magic headline, your persuasive pitch, it really comes down to knowing two things…

The aim of the following questionaires is to help you uncover the basis of all great copywriting…

Who you’re writing to and what you’re selling.

Simple enough right?

Well,

Before you begin, it’s useful to keep in mind that whatever you’re selling—be it a physical item, service, or concept—you’re digging for more than just the practical benefits to your reader.

While those details and justifications are important—more on that in the Kickass Copy Essentials—it’s your offer’s emotional appeal that persuades readers to act.

As a silly example, there is a local ice cream shop a block from my house. I sometimes walk my kids and partner over after school to get outside and enjoy a frozen treat.

Now, while ice cream is a food, and could be represented as such, I’m certainly not thinking about nourishing my children’s growing bodies when I buy them a cone of frozen cream, sugar, and food dyes.

What’s important to me in that moment is them being happy. More specifically, them being happy with me. So while you’d be crazy to sell ice cream as a way to help your kids grow up to be strong and healthy…

But its deliciousness? Its creamy goodness? Convincing the ones you love that life with you is a sweet treat?

That shit sells.

This is all to say that while working through these questionaires, keep in mind the person you’re writing to.

What makes them tick? What problems do they face? What are their responsibilities, hobbies, fears, frustrations, aspriations, and dreams? How to they want to see themselves?

The better able you are to answer these questions, the better copy you’ll write. Period. If you want to write kickass copy that converts, get to know your product and readers frontwards, backwards, sideways, upside down, and inside out.

• Who are you selling to and what do they want?
• What transformation are they hoping for?
• What do they really care about (not what they say)?
• How do they want to see themselves?

NOW A SENDOFF TO THE QUESTIONS