One of the most feared tasks for entrepreneurs is inventing words to promote their offers. Especially when they know little or nothing about marketing and advertising.

Copywriting can be intimidating and confusing at first. But it does not have to be like that. In fact, learning about copywriting is perhaps one of the best things you can do for your business.

But you must understand right away: being a successful copywriter requires a lot of discipline when writing and a set of principles that you must apply.

Step 1: research

The first thing to do is find as much information as possible about your offer. Review old marketing pieces to find data that can be helpful when writing new campaigns.

If yours is a new offer with no marketing attached, don’t worry, that’s not a problem. Because new products and services are often preceded by a great deal of paperwork – employee notes, blueprints, and the like. Just be sure to gather as much information as possible about the offer.

Also, if possible, make an effort to find out as much as you can about the competition – what their strategy is, how they design their marketing, and what approach they take in presenting the content and copy to the market.

Step 2: Analyze

After you’ve gathered as much information as possible about the offer, you will analyze that information to get what you need for your copywriting assignment.

Essentially, you will focus on three things: 1) the offer itself, 2) the market, and 3) the marketing campaign.

Get information for the offer

For the offer, look for what makes it different from its competitors. Make a list of all the features of your offering and come up with at least one benefit and one promise you can make for each. Then find which of the benefits or promises stand out above your competition, and that will be the focus of your copywriting articles.

If there is nothing in the offer that is different from your competitors, then find the benefits that the competition has not highlighted and make them the center of your advertising efforts. It can be anything from product reliability, an affordable offer, customer support, or the warranty.

Get information on the market

When looking at your market, try to create the ideal customer in your head.

Are they men or women? How old are they? Do they know your offer? Have they bought any of your other offers before? What do they love about your offer? How are they going to pay? What is your problem and what can you do to eliminate it?

All those questions will help you create your ideal customer – the person you will be targeting in your marketing and advertising campaigns. This will make your copy more conversational and more engaging than a generic letter that is trying to appeal to everyone.

Get information for the campaign

And finally, when you analyze your campaign data, you will look for what has worked, what has not and what has not worked. This information will help you decide what to include in your campaign, how to present it to the market, and which channels will be the best to do so.

Once you have collected and analyzed all the data, it is time to sit down and start writing.

Step 3: attract attention

The first thing to do with your marketing and advertising campaigns is to immediately grab the attention of your target market. This will be the job of its owner.

The headline is the first sentence your audience reads or hears when they know about your ad. And since attention spans get smaller and smaller as time goes on, your headlines need to be more effective and attract the audience to your offering.

This is where you can separate the good copywriters from the bad ones. Because bad copywriters tend to open their ads with comedy, something cute, or funny. Maybe because they don’t believe in the product. Or maybe they don’t know what they are doing.

Efficient copywriters, on the other hand, know the importance of the headline and work hard to present the audience with something they can sink their teeth into. Either they make an attractive promise, draw a picture, state a fact, or ask the audience a question.

The copywriter’s effective approach to headlines doesn’t just grab people’s attention. It attracts the attention of the people you want, the ones who are willing to buy your offer.

Step 4: connect them

Once you get the audience’s attention, you need to keep the ball rolling. To do this, you must have the first few paragraphs (also known as opening paragraphs), to build a relationship between the audience and your offering. And you do so by immediately following through on what you said in the headline, while presenting your great idea (also known as your offer) to them.

You can approach your audience with your potential client directly or indirectly. Your approach would depend on the type of offer, your market, and the perceived value of the offer.

Direct leads

Copywriters use a straightforward approach to offers whose value is commonly known to the market.

In the direct approach, the copywriter makes no effort: they get straight to the point with the offer. And they do this by presenting a promise and the offer right away, inviting the audience to accept the offer, or presenting a problem with the offer as a solution.

Copywriters use direct leads for free offers, giveaways, subscriptions, and trial offers.

Indirect potential customers

The indirect approach works well when you need to create value for your offering. And you do this by guiding your audience towards the offer in an indirect way.

Copywriters can make industry predictions, tell stories, or reveal secrets and systems to engage the audience with the offer. You may find this approach used in advertising for newsletters, information products, and advisory services.

If you use the right approach for your first few paragraphs, you will have captured the interest of your audience. And that means the stage is set for you to present your offer to the market.

Step 5: persuade

Ready to improve your sales skills?

Because you have reached the body of your ad. The body is the steak, so to speak. And this is where you will either get a sale or make the audience turn the page and look for something else.

To prevent the market from turning away from your offer, you need to make them feel that your offer is worth their investment. It has already involved them on an emotional level, so let’s not waste it. Instead, let’s justify that emotional connection by giving the audience reasons for receiving your offer.

Here are five ways to do it:

Make and test affirmations. If your offer allows you to take a scientific approach to your advertising, go for it. Consumers want to know if there is prior evidence that they can get what you offer. If you can give them a try, you are more likely to be able to close this sale.

Reaffirm the promise. If you feel that your headline did not present the promise clearly or convincingly, you may want to take the body text to explain the importance of what you are offering.

Show the benefits. Another way to get the most out of your body text is to describe all, or at least the most important, benefits that the buyer will get from the offer. As a secondary strategy, you may want to take your two most important benefits and attach them to your body. Just to keep the audience interested from start to finish.

Submit your USP. USP represents the unique selling proposition. And if you have a compelling PVU, broken down in your body text. That way, you really set yourself apart from the competition.

Express or reaffirm your offer. If you haven’t submitted your offer yet, or haven’t elaborated it enough, take it to the body text and tell the audience exactly what you have in store for them.

Step 6: close the sale

Finally, after all the presentation and explanation, it’s time to go after the sale.

This doesn’t have to be as difficult as many make it out to be. Just educate the audience on what they need to do to buy the offer. And that’s that.

Let them know what phone number to call. Or which website they should visit. Or to complete the form you sent with the letter.

Regardless of the steps they need to take to purchase your offer, let them know.

And this is how you can create persuasive copy for your advertising pieces.