I was wondering if the successful copywriters here target a particular customer persona real or imagined. When I write my semiconductor articles, I have a particular person in mind. I write with that particular (intelligent) person in my mind, and I think about how that person will react to my prose. But, when writing for other subjects, I find that I limit the success of my writing if I grant too much understanding of the subject to my target reader. Do you compose your copywriting with a target person (real or imagined) in mind? If so, as time goes on, do you adjust the person's knowledge or understanding (up or down)?
Just name the person: Dear ... (name of person), Dear technician, Dear tech person, And use the same words in your copy. Read magazines, trade journals online communities. I have no idea what a semiconductor is or what it does but i bet you can find where these people hang out.
I write copy to people who need to buy insurance, annuities, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, etc. I've worked with them as an agent, an advisor, and a company rep, so I understand their questions, comfort level and concerns. You can not write articles or copy as though a reader will have a high level understanding of the subject unless you know they do.
Hi Corwin. Keyword research will help you in finding out what it exactly is that your target audience are interested in, and therefore you should write about. I believe you'll find the articles in the following link useful if you want to know more about keyword research: http://www.copyblogger.com/keyword-research/ I hope that helps.
I write to my audience, which means I need to know my audience. Unless my audience is one person, I need to think about everyone at least a little. When I was writing a health article about a recent medical study, I knew my audience (going out via email) was thousands of successful doctors around the world. I knew they were interested in the field the study was in, that they were busy and what my piece needed to accomplish. The writing was crafted to that audience and written in a way as to be palatable to the majority of readers. You should know as much as possible about your audience within reason. For instance, if you're just writing an article for AdSense clicks, you don't need to know too much. Knowing your target's general interests and goals is usually just fine (example: interested in dieting, wants to find an online calorie counting journal system, etc). Everything else would just be overkill. If you're writing a sales letter, you'd need a lot more information. Understand, that when successful copywriters make up a persona to write to, we're not just making up crap out of thin air. The persona's name is drawn out of a hate, but s/he is built upon actual target data. And BTW, you want to write for the majority of your audience and not any one person or small group of people. If that one person you're writing to understands you (by this I mean keeping the communication connection), but the majority of your target audience doesn't, you've failed. Further, if you could write differently so you can successfully community with the majority AND that one person (or group) just fine and you're not doing it, you're really failing.
I completely agree with marketjunction above. When i address my writing i always tend to think about the kind of audience (if not one person) or a majority that I am going to server. It gets easier and less complicated that way.
LOL. Wow, that sucked. Yeah, it's drawn out of a hat not hate. I really need to slow down my typing. Trying to type that message in under 30 seconds wasn't the best idea it seems.