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Copywriting Research Methods

Research is the most important part of copywriting and can be confusing. This report shows you several straightforward and proven methods you can use to get this done.

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Ty
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646 views

Copywriting Research Methods

Research is the most important part of copywriting and can be confusing. This report shows you several straightforward and proven methods you can use to get this done.

Uploaded by

Ty
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Research Methods

 Person-to-Person Research
o Talk to your customers and survey happy customers well.
o Collect data from every customer by talking to them and by surveys.
o Conduct a focus group
o Put a poll up in FB groups (where allowed)
o 5-STEP RESEARCH PROCESS FOR COPYWRITERS
 Sit down with notifications off and preferably a pen and paper. Put your
laptop out of reach. Think deeply about WHO is likely to buy what you're
selling. Write 3 of these people down.
 Find these people and schedule interviews with them. Ha! Weren't expecting
that? But this is what the best do, and you do WANT to be the best, right?
Ask them WHY they haven't already bought. Ask them what's stopping them.
What are their OBJECTIONS? Lazy people will stop here.
 Once you have a list of their objections, brainstorm an all-encompassing,
bomb-proof answers to these objections. This thing needs to be TIGHT.
 Gather your selling points together. Not general selling points. Specific,
EXCLUSIVE selling points that apply only to you product and no-one else’s.
 With your specific objections and selling points organized, think back to 1/.
How do we make friends with these people and get them in the mood to
buy? Which of the selling points appeals most to them? This is your headline
and main selling point. Start writing.

 Media Research
o Groups & forums: get active and ask questions or lurk in the shadows to see how
people interact and ask questions. Search forums and groups for related discussions.
Jot down powerful language, ideas and phrases that repeat.
o Scour Facebook, Quora, Subreddits, Askthepublic, Pinterest, and other
problem/product specific forums. Find topics and questions in exact phrases in
threads created by people looking to solve a problem
o Read popular blogs in the niche. A lot of the best bloggers are always researching
their niche's pain points. That's how they got where they are. The comments can be
enlightening too
o Read books, trade journals, Industry popular magazines: what are people reading?

 Review Research
o Reviews- Look at the reviews (Google, Angie’s List, etc …) pay attention to the stellar
and the terrible reviews to see what the customers liked and what objections you
may have to meet.
o Read “bestselling” and “trending” book reviews related to the
problem/product/service and the, “also liked” books. Pay attention the 5 and 1 star
reviews especially.
o Look at negative reviews of a similar product/service. You will learn their concerns
and language there.

 Competitive Research
o Reverse engineer what the top 3 competitors in your market are doing to attract the
ideal customer. Learn what and how they make their offer to them.
o Hand write the sales pages of my closest competitors and people that sell
complimentary products (or for really long ones at least analyze them). This forces me
to notice what pain points they're hitting.
o Look at the competition and consider their marketing angles for clues to the market’s
heart and mind

 Leverage Big Data


o It's not the whole picture but in the past I've used the Facebook ads platform. Start
adding interests and the demographics (plus exclude some) a d you'll get some pretty
good data. Go the Facebook insights
o If you have an email list getting detailed data from a service like Neilson or Tower Data
is a great investment. It’s never not been worth it.
 Google Research

o Google the problems the product solves, then start following the thread to track them
down
o Do a site search. Once you find a website/forum you want to search, type in Google
‘site:domain.com phrases you’re looking for’ It will pull up all the pages Google has
indexes with those words. The cool think is you can search them all at once using
Boolean and using the OR modifier. That way you don’t have to individually search put
each term inside of a forum for example.
o On Google, I’ll type something like “dog owners Reddit” (or switch it with Quora), click
the links and read through the threads. I’ll also Google other statements like “problems
dog owners face” (or desire) then go from there taking notes.
o Here's a handy Google search trick to find forums on a given topic. Use the search
modifier "inurl:forum" This shows you only URLs (links) that have the word "forum". So
for example if I wanted forums where people discuss migraine headaches. I would use
this:
o inurl:forum migraine
o Type in Google [keyword] + horror/nightmare stories
o Type in Google [keyword] + market demographics/facts
o Get the Google Discussions tab extension for chrome. Look up emotional language plus
a market definer... and then eavesdrop on your audience. E.g. retirement income +
“confused” (or “frustrated”)
o
 Misc
o Keyword searchers: find out what buzzwords and phrases people use to search
o Similar web: check out websites that have related content and see where they get traffic,
referrals, etc

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