My Seven-Step Copywriting Process

A lot of peo­ple ask me how I write copy. I don’t mean the content-​​writing process (such as how I come up with head­lines, bul­lets, offers, etc), but how I tackle the actual task of com­pos­ing a new saleslet­ter from scratch.

Every­one is dif­fer­ent. My writ­ing process is one devel­oped over many years, and many peo­ple may adopt or dis­like the same tech­niques. But in the hope that know­ing my process may be help­ful to some writ­ers, I’d like to share it with you.

Of course, if I were to describe all of the steps, there would be way too much infor­ma­tion to squeeze into one arti­cle. But for now, I can offer you a basic look at my method­ol­ogy by giv­ing you a short list of the seven steps I take.

Here they are.

1. Gather Ini­tial Research

For starters, with all projects I ask that my clients take time to answer an ini­tial, 25-​​point ques­tion­naire. Their answers will pro­vide some back­ground infor­ma­tion. I ask sev­eral ques­tions from four main categories:

1. The cus­tomer
2. The prod­uct
3. The busi­ness
4. The offer

The first one is the most impor­tant. It’s where I ask ques­tions like demo­graph­ics and psy­cho­graph­ics, and try to build a per­fect cus­tomer pro­file or per­sona. The oth­ers include things like fea­tures and ben­e­fits, sto­ries behind the prod­uct, tes­ti­mo­ni­als, actual results, the buy­ing process, etc.

(The ques­tion­naire can be an eye-​​opener for many clients because it forces them to dig for the answers, and to see where some of the flaws with their cur­rent copy are.)

Admit­tedly, this is just a start. But their answers, which give me some direc­tion as to where to con­duct fur­ther research, give me at least a basic under­stand­ing of their busi­ness, the pur­pose of the copy’s mes­sage, and its goals.

Yes, that’s “goals” in the plural.

Of course, there is the main goal, which may be to gen­er­ate leads or sales. But other, sec­ondary goals may include to dis­pel rumors, answer ques­tions, build cred­i­bil­ity, elim­i­nate mis­con­cep­tions, dif­fer­en­ti­ate from the com­pe­ti­tion, etc.

2. Con­duct Exploratory Research

Then, I read and study the answers care­fully, and I con­duct some exploratory research. That is, I try to gather as much infor­ma­tion as I can — any­thing about the busi­ness, the prod­uct, the offer and, above all, the tar­get audience.

I surf their web­sites. I research their com­peti­tors. I look at some of the trends in that par­tic­u­lar prod­uct cat­e­gory, mar­ket, or indus­try. I do com­par­a­tive analyses.

I hang out where their read­ers hang out. I check out some of the web­sites they visit. I spend some time in forums in which they’re active. I try to get a grasp of their lan­guage, their chal­lenges, their indus­try, their fears, their goals, etc.

When I come across an impor­tant piece of infor­ma­tion, I copy it into a doc­u­ment, where I can eas­ily append extra pieces of infor­ma­tion, include any cor­re­spond­ing URLs, make addi­tional notes, and more.

I cre­ate a new project in my project man­age­ment soft­ware, where I give access to all the key play­ers, and start pop­u­lat­ing it with the infor­ma­tion I gather.

(Aside from being a repos­i­tory, the soft­ware has many fea­tures that come in quite handy, such as to-​​do lists, mes­sage board, white­board, chat room, file uploads, mile­stone tracker, and more.)

The idea at first is to gather as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble, includ­ing facts, fea­tures, data, results, etc. I undis­cern­ingly add what­ever infor­ma­tion I find into the repository.

3. Pick, Prod And Probe Further

Of course, a lot of it is also irrelevant.

So I go through the infor­ma­tion and pull out the impor­tant stuff. I com­pile, clar­ify, and expand. I cher­ryp­ick and high­light what’s rel­e­vant, and file or dis­card the rest.

I might even repeat some of the ear­lier steps to make sure I’ve cov­ered all the bases. After spend­ing some time study­ing the infor­ma­tion, I may ask for more clar­i­fi­ca­tion and dig deeper.

Some­times, it’s to get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the infor­ma­tion. Other times, it’s to get addi­tional tid­bits where I might uncover hid­den gems I can use with the copy.

But most of the time, it’s to be able to later put what my clients tell me into words that specif­i­cally meet my client’s audi­ence at their level.

I tend to look at my job as “con­nect­ing the dots.” If the prod­uct is good and the demand is there, then my job is not to sell the prod­uct but to con­nect the desires and fears of the reader with the solu­tion my client offers.

(Most of my clients are too “mar­ried” to their own prod­ucts or busi­nesses that they tend to be removed from their clients. So what they may feel is great about their prod­uct may not be a shared opin­ion among their tar­get market.)

But here’s my great­est tip…

Some of the best answers I get are in fact obtained while inter­view­ing peo­ple. That’s right: actu­ally talk­ing to peo­ple, whether it’s the busi­ness owner or exist­ing clients. In other words, pick­ing up the phone and ask­ing questions.

(Of course, I record every­thing and tran­scribe the inter­views. I do this with the help of an online tran­scrip­tion ser­vice.)

This allows me to not only catch ver­bal cues and innu­en­dos, but also to prod and probe fur­ther. I some­times throw in a dan­gling prepo­si­tion or con­junc­tion fol­lowed by a pause, where the silence com­pels them to continue.

(For exam­ple, once my client answers a ques­tion, I’ll say, “And?” “Or?” “But?” “So that…” “That’s for…” “That means…” “Or else?” “In other words?” After that, I shut up. You’d be amazed by the kinds of answers they would give!)

I also try to speak with actual suc­cess sto­ries. I inter­view sat­is­fied clients, not just for the sake of gath­er­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als, and not just to ask a lot of open-​​ended ques­tions to probe deeper as well, but also, and if I can, to actu­ally get them to sell me on the prod­uct themselves.

These inter­views are worth a mint! If I man­aged to get my inter­vie­wee excited and pas­sion­ate about the prod­uct, in many cases they prac­ti­cally write the copy for me.

4. Cre­ate The Structure

Next, I try to find a sto­ry­line, a unique ben­e­fit, a cer­tain angle, or a key piece of infor­ma­tion. Some call it a “plat­form.” Oth­ers call it a “hook” or “the big idea.” It’s essen­tially the one ele­ment on which the entire copy hinges.

It may be a cer­tain fear, a news story, a “hot but­ton,” a suc­cess story, a fas­ci­nat­ing fac­toid, a sen­sa­tional claim, a major ben­e­fit (even an unsought one), a sense of urgency, a “lie dis­pelled,” a secret, a myth, a hot trend, a con­tro­ver­sial topic, an unex­pected result, etc.

Once I’ve found it, I then cre­ate an out­line. Often, I apply my QUEST for­mula, which is to “qual­ify” the reader, “under­stand” their prob­lem, “edu­cate” them on the solu­tion, “stim­u­late” them on the value, and “tran­si­tion” them into a buyer.

I don’t write the copy just yet. I sim­ply use the for­mula to cre­ate an out­line that will guide me as to where spe­cific pieces of infor­ma­tion will be added.

The copy doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily have to fol­low the exact for­mula, either. But it does give me some guid­ance as to what exactly I must cover, and where I must cover it.

Some­times, I’ll use it to cre­ate head­ers through­out the copy as the out­line. These head­ers are not writ­ten in stone. They only give me some ini­tial direc­tion as to what, specif­i­cally, I need to cover at cer­tain points in the copy.

Look at these head­ers as “guide­posts,” if you will.

I also try to look at the copy from the per­spec­tive of a reader. For exam­ple, I’ll ask myself, “What do I want and need to know at this point in the copy?” “What can poten­tially con­fuse me?” “What ques­tions or objec­tions might likely come up at that moment?” “What’s going through my mind when I read this?” And so on.

(At this time in the process, I write some notes on the copy, to myself, on what needs to be cov­ered, what key pieces of infor­ma­tion I must include, what ideas I want to expand on, etc. And often, I write these notes in point form.)

5. Write The Copy

Next comes the cre­ative part.

From the plat­form and the guide­posts I’ve set out above, I start writ­ing the copy. I often begin with the head­line or the bul­let points, whichever is eas­i­est. (It really depends on what comes to mind the fastest.)

Some­times, a head­line idea jumps out at me, par­tic­u­larly after doing the research and com­ing up with the “hook.” If so, I will start with the head­line first.

The head­line is not final, either. I some­times come back and rewrite the head­line once I fin­ish the copy, because new and bet­ter ideas emerge later on as I write the body copy.

Both the head­line and the sto­ry­line will give me a good indi­ca­tion of what I can write about, how to say it, as well as what options I have when I write it.

Some­times, I just start writ­ing and let it flow, and my writ­ing takes a life of its own. When this hap­pens, some­times I end up ignor­ing the guide­posts I’ve cre­ated. If so, that’s per­fectly fine. Remem­ber, they are guides. Not goals.

In terms of actual copy, I start writ­ing and expanding.

• I struc­ture a skele­tal offer (with premiums);
• I cre­ate the open­ing or intro­duc­tory paragraph;
• I tell the story (based on the cho­sen storyline);
• I list the fea­tures, advan­tages and benefits;
• I expand on key items for the main body;
• I incor­po­rate or expand on story blocks;
• I add John­son boxes, remarks or sidenotes;
• I rein­force key ben­e­fits and “rea­sons why;”
• I build up the value and expand on the offer;
• I form a log­i­cal and believ­able sense of urgency;
• I inject cred­i­bil­ity by adding proof elements;
• I infuse tes­ti­mo­ni­als in appro­pri­ate locations;
• I write the guar­an­tee (or guarantees);
• I close with a call-​​to-​​action statement;
• And I plug some “PS’s” at the end.

(In the P.S., I add an after­thought to restate the ben­e­fits of the offer, repeat the topic cov­ered in the head­line, empha­size the sense of urgency, or add an extra bonus not yet offered.)

5. Rearrange The Flow

Then, I rearrange the con­tent for flow.

I don’t edit the copy. I sim­ply scan the copy to make sure it all flows nicely, and that the orga­ni­za­tion of ideas makes the read­ing pleas­ant, com­pelling and eas­ily understandable.

I make sure to inte­grate head­ers at every two or three para­graphs. If needed, I also copy, paste and move blocks of text in loca­tions I feel they are more appropriate.

(For exam­ple, some­times it’s bet­ter to cre­den­tial­ize the copy early on. Or some tes­ti­mo­ni­als are best located where spe­cific objec­tions may come up. In fact, I use them where the reader might have a spe­cific ques­tion that the tes­ti­mo­nial answers.)

To help me, I work with mul­ti­ple, tiled win­dows (i.e., side by side), all opened at once and each show­ing a dif­fer­ent part of a same doc­u­ment. This is par­tic­u­larly help­ful when I’m work­ing with longer copy.

That way, I can eas­ily scan and scroll through each win­dow to rearrange the con­tent from one win­dow to another (i.e., from one sec­tion of the copy to another).

From this cur­sory look at the copy, I can imme­di­ately sense if I need to also add cer­tain ele­ments, whether cos­metic (such as adding a grab­ber, a pic­ture or a graphic) or tac­ti­cal (such as adding a side­note, a proof ele­ment or a John­son box).

I also make sure that the copy fol­lows the AIDA for­mula (i.e., atten­tion, inter­est, desire and action).

6. Edit And Expand

Once re-​​arranged, I then edit the copy. I read it to myself, slowly and some­times out loud, to make sure it’s easy to read and flows prop­erly. If I stum­ble at any point or ver­bally strug­gle, I know that I need to rewrite that section.

(When­ever I can, I even record myself. It’s amaz­ing how many errors I’ve dis­cov­ered from lis­ten­ing to myself read­ing the copy, than from sim­ply read­ing it.)

I then expand, cut out, tighten up and add more. I add empha­sis where needed, rewrite cer­tain sec­tions, and, above all, cut out as much of the extra fat as possible.

In fact, the lat­ter is the most cru­cial step.

Why? Because when I write, I usu­ally write with aban­don. I let it all flow. I write like I speak. I try not to stop myself, or else it will impede my train of thought.

(When I stop writ­ing, it forces me to start think­ing crit­i­cally. I begin to edit myself too early, which blocks the cre­ative flow. When this hap­pens, I lose focus because I spend too much energy on mak­ing sure I’ve said things right rather than say­ing the right things.)

That’s why I wait until after I’m done, and only when I’m done, to go back and excise all the extra­ne­ous filler. I try to cut out as much of the unneeded copy as I can. Or, if what I say is indeed impor­tant, I try to find ways to say the same thing but in less words.

(Edit­ing is prob­a­bly one the most impor­tant strate­gies in writ­ing copy, but it’s also the most over­looked because it’s the hard­est thing to do for most copy­writ­ers. That’s why it’s best to wait until the end.)

Finally, I focus on the cos­met­ics, since cer­tain visual “trig­gers” help to increase both read­er­ship and response. So I touch up the for­mat­ting, type­styles, tables, col­ors, graph­ics, pic­tures, lay­outs, fonts, and so on.

After that, I’m done.

7. Revise, Revise, Revise!

Before I deliver the copy to my client, I still get my staff to proof­read it for me. But I don’t limit them to the gram­mar or style. I also ask them to sig­nal any part of the copy where they feel con­fused, lost, or dis­in­ter­ested in the story.

(I also ask them ques­tions about the copy to see if they truly grasped some of its key ele­ments. If their answers are not good enough, I know I need to edit it more.)

This is impor­tant, since I often make the same mis­takes I made while writ­ing it when read­ing it back to myself. Also, know­ing what the copy is all about can cause me to take what I say (or fail to say) for granted, and acci­den­tally skip over what may be con­fus­ing to others.

(Don’t dis­count hav­ing a fresh pair of eyes look at your copy for you. Before hand­ing off the copy to the client, try to get some­one else to read it for you.)

After it’s all done, I then upload it to my the project web­site for my client to read and offer feed­back. I revise the copy until the client is sat­is­fied. (In fact, I allow my clients two free revisions.)

There is no way to pre­dict how well my copy will do. For some clients, my work mul­ti­plies their response rates like gang­busters. But for oth­ers, my copy turns out to be a down­right dud.

Maybe it’s because the plat­form is wrong. Per­haps the head­line is the bot­tle­neck. I don’t know. The only way to know is to test.

But in my expe­ri­ence, when my copy failed it was largely because the audi­ence wasn’t tar­geted, or the offer wasn’t appro­pri­ate. And in either case, the copy would have never sold well, no mat­ter how good the copy was.

Fail­ure does hap­pen. It hap­pens to the best of us. But fail­ure is also an oppor­tu­nity — an oppor­tu­nity to learn, improve and grow. That’s why I appre­ci­ate it when my clients keep me posted on their results.

(I trust a copy­writer who failed and suc­ceeded more than I do one who never failed at all.)

In fact, some clients pre­fer to keep me on a retainer after the ini­tial project, so they can have me rewrite parts of the copy, or offer any sug­ges­tions on how to improve it, with­out con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the ini­tial control.

Nev­er­the­less, these are the steps I fol­low. I don’t nec­es­sar­ily fol­low them to the let­ter all of the time. But hope­fully, they have given you some fod­der on your quest for bet­ter response.

About the Author

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