In recent years, I kept seeing this particular skill called copywriting coming up. I see it in the forms of ebooks and online courses (Udemy and Skillshare). Copywriting by definition is the skill of writing for the purpose of advertising, it's kind of like a branch of digital marketing. The verb sounds very misleading because it sounds like something to do with copyright of articles but actually it is not.
Before coming to this course, I had already purchase a USD 11 copywriting course from Udemy already. I was blown by what I learnt because I didn't know there was a science in writing content to sell.
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| Ben Sim giving his talk |
The instructor for the day was Ben Sim, he currently works for RinggitPlus and does training for this company called Crazy Ants . Location of the preview course was at JCI Lead Tropicana Offices.
Ben started explaining on the importance of copywriting as selling one-to-one is too slow and not scalable. The best way to scale is to sell online and use proper copywriting techniques. Copywriting skills can also be used in many areas like resume writing, article writing etc. Ben also mentioned that a lot of videos on FB and youtube are watched with the sound turned on, so putting in subtitles into videos using copy writing skills will be in demand.
Ben was quite generous in his knowledge, giving a lot of examples and tips on copywriting.
Some of the key takeaways from his introduction course.
Copywriting Rules
Ben explained about the building blocks of copywriting. They are :
For them, not you
- this means that you got to write as the customer is the main focus. They are the superhero while we as writers are to empower them.
Spoken, not written
- write as if you are talking to the customer directly instead of writing like a novel
One vs Many
- write more intimately like you're talking to 1 person, the actual customer
Benefits vs Features
- focus on features that will bring benefits to the customer
Wants vs Needs
- can't recall what was this about but it's more of whether customer needs or wants are more important.
Emotion vs Logic
- write to sell on emotion rather than logic.
- negative emotions sells (Eg. Did you know 1 million people fail their maths.)
Insanely specific examples
- Eg. Not having enough money Vs Watch your friends working while you work from home.
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| Copy building blocks |
Marketing Levels
One of the key takeaways was about the 5 levels of marketing depending on the maturity of the market.
The 5 levels are :
Level 1 - Benefits
Level 2 - More Benefits
Level 3 - Features
Level 4 - More Features
Level 5 - Market Identification/Emotional Play
The highest level 5 is required for extremely competitive markets. The theory is basically if you're a market pioneer, you just have to put in the benefits of the products (eg. save money, save time) and then when more competitors come in you need to put in more benefits to standout (eg. save more money, save more time).
The next phase is features when the market gets more crowded (eg, ABS brake, Argentina bamboo etc) and then add more features if the market gets more and more crowded.
Final phase is the phase in ultra crowded market place. Is to narrow down the product and focus on a smaller set of users (eg Black man, Asians , Nerds etc). It's also where some those Gucci advertisement where it's boom bam (cars, movie stars) here and there and finally is Gucci.
AIDA Principles
(A) Attract Awareness
(I) Trigger Interest
(D) Create Desire
(A) Call to Action - put in an actionable item for customers to do (eg. order now button, like now button etc)
Doing market research
Another tip I learnt was on how to conduct free market research to understand or to narrow down customers issues. Just put in Just curious keyword and post the question directly to Facebook groups, the comments that flows in will help create better insight into the topic being researched.
Another tip I learnt was on how to conduct free market research to understand or to narrow down customers issues. Just put in Just curious keyword and post the question directly to Facebook groups, the comments that flows in will help create better insight into the topic being researched.
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| Doing free market research |
Appendix
My 1st exposure to copywriting was after joining this copywriting class from Udemy. It's a really good course for 1st timers. After that, for more local context can join Ben Sim class at CrazyAnts.
My 1st exposure to copywriting was after joining this copywriting class from Udemy. It's a really good course for 1st timers. After that, for more local context can join Ben Sim class at CrazyAnts.
