How to Become a Copywriter Using These 7 Research Tools

Learning how to become a copywriter is not rocket science.

The ability to write copy by using great structure, overcoming objections, and compelling words can make you a great copywriter.

via GIPHY

However, the measure of your success won’t be how much your client likes the way you wrote your copy.

Your success will entirely depend on one thing…How much money your copy brings in.

One of the things that will enable you to write compelling copy like a boss is knowing how to research your subjects on the front end.

In this post, I’m going to hand you 7 different research tools that will kick your copy into high-gear and help you stand out from other copywriters.  If you stick with this post all the way to the end, you’ll have an entire arsenal of weapons that’ll make your copywriting more powerful and easier to write.

How to Become a Copywriter the Easy Way

The famous copywriter, Dan Kennedy, told a bunch of his copywriting students, “If you just learn a few good copywriting tricks, you’ll know more than 95% of the people out there.”

His point was that you didn’t need years of experience in copywriting to write decent copy, just a few concepts will put you into the game.

Keeping readers engaged and interested in your posts is a daunting task; if you know how to conduct good research before you start, it will be a massive help.  As I stated before, it’s not hard to amass a solid block of research for your post but it does take work.

Once you have your research completed and at your fingertips, you’ll be able to knock out any writing project much quicker and more efficiently.

Not only that, but you’ll have information backed by experts that you can draw from.

However, before we go too far down this rabbit hole, we still need to keep in mind were are dealing with people.  Humans don’t relate to research, they relate to other humans.

What Does a Copywriter Do to Gather Research?

Gathering research is one of those things that clients don’t see when you hand them over your work.  All clients will see is the copy you’ve written and not  any of the time you spent gathering research and looking at data related to your copy.

Collecting research is absolutely vital to creating copy that will sell your readers and make your copy 100% more interesting.

How to become a copywriter faster by specializing

One of the fastest ways to become a good copywriter faster is by specializing.  Specializing in a niche will make your research efforts so much easier and will make you a master of your niche. Let’s look at an example of how two different copywriters fared; one used research – the other didn’t.

Joe and Jolene are copywriters.

Copywriter Joe is a generalist and writes for all sorts of niches: hunting and fishing, boating, financial markets, small business owners of all sorts.  Joe is a good, solid copywriter with excellent skills.

Jolene has carved out a nice little niche in the education field.  She understands the entire marketing process that colleges use to attract and keep students.  She knows the success rate of universities in different subject areas and all about the language, desires and aspirations of college age students.

Being an experienced copywriter, Jolene has done extensive research in the area of marketing and selling to college prospects and has a successful track record with several major universities.

The Difference Between a Generalist and a Specialist

Now, pretend you’re the marketing director with Podunk University and you need to have copy written for an expensive brochure you are going to mass produce.

The great part about Jolene is she has a massive research and swipe file that she can draw from. She also has a very specialized knowledge of the education field.

Which copywriter are you going to hire?

Not really a contest is it?

And by the way, as a copywriter, Jolene doesn’t have to spend marketing mega-bucks chasing all sorts of different niches.

All she really needs to do is become an authority in her field – education – or more specifically – college education and marketing – and her efforts to gain clients and contracts are much easier and cheaper.

So, heavily researching a field will make you a ninja master at whatever niche you choose to specialize in.

Clarification: I’m not suggesting that you become some sort of copywriting hermit and restrict yourself to only one niche to write in.  However, it will help you tremendously if you do become known for one particular niche or specialty. 

There is really no secret on how to become a copywriter, just do a boatload of research on the front end.  Your client will also be amazed at how much you know on the subject.

[Tweet theme=”basic-white”] heavily researching a field will make you a ninja master at whatever niche you choose to specialize in[/Tweet]

How Presenting a Lot of Facts Will Grab Your Reader

Another hidden benefit to doing a lot of research and having credibility with your reader.  They will actually think that they’re gaining knowledge about a subject that other people or friends may not have.

So, how do  you gather credible research references?

Here’s a good example of a magazine ad that’s disguised as an article.  (Notice all of the proof it offers, blatantly!)

As you can see by looking at the ad above, the copywriters are proving their point and making their case by giving you all sorts of facts in rather large print.  If you look closely, you can see very small print at the bottom of the page.  This print contains the names of the experts and sites they drew the stats from.

When writing copy, make sure you have relevant, current and evidence to back up your claims or evidence.

Everything you see on a page like this has been carefully thought out.  This tactic also makes the writer an authority on the subject because he or she has done all of the research that was important to their case.  In effect the writer is now the expert on the subject.

(Definition of Expert: A person that knows a thing or two more than you do about a subject.)

So when you know quite a bit about your subject area, you are perceived as an expert in that particular niche or field.  As a result, your clients will come to respect you and have untold confidence in your abilities.

 

Another Hidden Benefit of “Being an Expert”

As you do research on your chosen product, you’ll also begin to cultivate, collate and organize a ton of information on your subject.   This will become very valuable later on when you start writing more copy that is similar to the niches you’ve chosen to work in.

Not only that, but you’ll learn how to gather data and facts from a variety of sources much quicker and easier.

It used to be that you would have to go down to your local library and actually dig through a card catalog to get material and facts.  Now you can do much of this from home if you have Internet access.

If you find that you can’t find the research you’re looking for, you can always go to your public library.

Online Resources to Cut Your Gathering Time in Half

One great places you can go to is the Free Library powered by Farlex.  Here’s the URL: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/

Also, the University of Wisconsin has a database of free databases here where you can access tons of information on a variety of sites:

http://guides.library.uwm.edu/c.php?g=56319&p=362434

Another great source of information online can be obtained at the Internet Archive at this Web address: https://archive.org/

If you want to access a group of databases, you can always go to this list of free databases: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/search-research/free-databases

A few of the other Internet methods of finding information online is by using Google.  If I’m working a piece of copy that I need some solid facts for I’ll use Google’s search engine thus:

I recently had to write copy for a video surveillance software company and I needed some statistics to back up my claims.

In the search field, I typed “crime + statistics”.

Here are the results I got:

Any one of the resources I used from the FBI’s sites was loaded with data I could draw facts and figures from and use in my copy.

I also typed in: “crime statistics and data” and got overloaded with sites that I could grab data from.

There are other places on the Internet that you could get resources from much quicker.  Some of these are paid services:

Abstracts of the U.S.

Facts on File

Other Ways of Conducting Copywriting Research

One of the best ways to do research for your copywriting is to find places where people have tried a product and then left a comment or review.

One of the easy ways to do this is to use Google’s search engine to find reviews.  For example, if you were doing a review of Adobe Photoshop you’d type this into Google’s search field:

“Adobe Photoshop Review”

However, there’s a problem with this.  Usually, people are trying to sell their wares and are many times giving glowing reviews about a product so they can sell it.  You want to avoid these types of reviews like the plague.

You may have to look through a bunch of reviews to get to one that’s actually objective.  That’s OK because when someone writes a review like that, they’re usually a good writer and can present both pro and con facts.

Using Amazon to Get Great Intel on a Product

Believe it or not, you can use Amazon and other similar sites to get great reviews and information on a product.

Let’s say that you’ve been tasked to write copy for Sony Vegas a video editing piece of software.

On Amazon’s search field, you use the drop down menu and select “software”.  Next, type in “Sony Vegas” into the search field; if you see a bunch of comments, that’s a good sign, because you know that it’s a good product if people have ordered it and then commented on it as well.

Here’s a good example of a comment you will find doing this type of research:

I’ve taken the liberty to highlight the areas you can get great benefits and features from and how people felt about the product.   In this example I noticed this phrase:

“…create a professional looking product once you are done.”  So, this type of phrase could be used as a benefit.  “…more options for editing than most of the competition…” could also be used.

Even the negative comments can be used as well for overcoming objections in the copy, so don’t blow those off either.  But, this is a real super easy way to get more research done on what people really think about a product, and it can be done very quickly.

Check Out the Competition Too!

Another way to get a lot of data and ideas for benefits is to check out your competitors.  If your client is selling HVAC equipment, check out a bunch of his competitors.  Look at their websites, Yellow Page ads, yelp status and comments.

It could very well be that his competition has also hired a copywriter and you can glean all sorts or ideas from reading and collecting their ads and sales material.  You can also go on Google images and search images of ads from similar businesses.

Here’s an HVAC ad I found in Google Images in just a minute or two!

Before You Write…Read Everything!

So at this point you should have the following data sources:

• All of the advertising materials from your clients past advertising campaigns to include tear sheets, sales letters, advertisements, etc.
• A list of statistics and resources from many of the data sites listed above
• Online reviews by sources like Amazon, eBay and others
• Any materials that you have collected in the past on the subject
• Any bookmarked online sales pages that are well written and high converting
• Similar ads you may have found on Google images or from online sources like your local chamber of commerce
• Yellow page ads representing similar products and services

Once you have all of this information in your hands, you need to take several days or maybe even a week to read and digest all of it.  If you have time, see if you can dig up even more information on it.

Dig, dig, dig and dig and read some more!  You want to absorb this stuff like a sponge and become an absolute expert on it.

If you can, see if you can find an expert or a pro that works in the area you’re writing about and interview that person.

Guess what?  You’ll almost always discover or hear stuff that most people don’t know about.   That will put you well ahead of the average Joe…or Jolene.

Long Tail Keywords – The Way to Find Specific Information

Let’s say for the sake of a good example that you’re writing advertising copy for a boating company.  You are supposed to write advertising copy that will appear in a prominent sporting magazine and the product is a pontoon boat used for mostly recreating instead of fishing.

Now if you merely do a search for “boats” on Google, you’ll get a return of about 322 million search results.  That’s a lot of pages to search through!!!

So, in order to narrow it down, you’ll have to use long tail key words. If you did a search on sports boats you’d whittle it down to 27 million.  Hey, we’re getting somewhere!

Now you can really stretch your search engine savvy wings and try this:

“Recreational Pontoon Boats” which will drop you down to about 270,000 search results.

However, you want to look at material that is very specific to the company you’re writing for.  Let’s say that you will be writing for the Yamaha corporation.  You could the use a very specific keyword search like:

“large cold weather recreational pontoon boats Yamaha”

That got our search down to about 23,000 results.

See how that works?

So when you need to get very specific information for your files from the Internet, you can use this method to get your numbers way down.

Don’t Worry, Just Like Everything Else This Gets Easier

As you pursue your trade and career as a copywriter you’ll eventually become very good at gathering and collating information and data.

Once you’ve done it a lot you’ll develop your own procedure at gathering this information and it will seem like second nature to you.

You’ll find that you’ll be saving your most valuable asset too…time!

Your Next Assignment – Gathering Data

I’m going to make this assignment a little different than the other assignments. As a teacher, I know that it gets really boring when all of the assignments are the same.

The downside to that is you’ll get bored with the course material and eventually stop.  So I am deliberately making this assignment different.

This is what I like to call an open ended assignment, which is a fancy way of saying, I’m giving you a choice.  You can either pick one of my subjects to research or you can decide to pick a subject you are particularly interested in.

So, here are the choices for your assignment:

1. Pretend that you are going to be writing for a business that sells information on how to use bitcoins.   You will need to gather all of the necessary information and data on this subject that you can using the methods I have outlined above.
2. Pretend that you are writing for a sales page in a opportunity magazine for a carpet cleaning franchise. You need to gather all the data necessary for creating the advertising copy that you’ll need to complete the assignment.
3. Pick a subject of your own to do research. Once again, dig deep and see how much data you can gather on this subject.

Just remember that one of your goals will be to find out little known information on your subject.  As I mentioned earlier, the more new or interesting the information that you have (that no one else seems to know) the better off you’ll be.

The more you practice gathering data, the better you’ll get at it. Also, you’ll want to start gathering.

The Secret Way to Find Free Swipe Files

While I was doing research on this topic I came up with another great way of gathering data and getting swipe files that you can easily use.

I’m pretty sure that someone else has probably figured this out already but I’ve never seen it, so you can add this to your arsenal of ways to find data and swipes you can use.

Let’s say that you are writing copy for an investment opportunity and you’re looking for investment types of swipes to use for your research.

Well, Google has a section of its search page that can help you.  Check out the screen capture below:

You’ll notice that there’s a new section heading when you type in a search query and hit the search button; it says, “Books”.

Click on “books” and scroll down the page. In this case, I noticed a magazine with “Kiplinger’s” name on it.  (Kiplinger is a well-known investment magazine.)

Once you click on that you’ll be taken to a page that has almost the entire magazine scanned and archived, to include any and all advertisements.  In this case you’ll see a junk-load of advertisements that were written by quality copywriters.

Yeah, it’s a virtual mother lode. You can extract a lot of great information and copywriting ideas from these archived magazine articles.

And guess what?  Google makes it even easier on you to find the articles your need by giving you a way to view all of the pages of the magazine in one clear view.

All you have to do is toggle the black button with the white dots on it (looks like a domino) and you can select whichever page you so desire!

With all of this information, you’ll be the “master of data” in no time.

Conclusion

Once again, how to become a copywriter that has credibility is not a mystery.  The way to write awesome copy is to do a lot of research on the front end.  If you follow these simple steps you’ll be able to write well researched copy that your clients will come to revere and drool after.

In our next session we’re going to look at a technique called “across the table talk” which will make engage your readers and make them identify with your copy and read just about every section you write.

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God Bless, and Happy New Year!

Elmo

If you want to get a free report on how to increase your website conversion rates by 64% as well as a free copy of my book, Blog Profiting Secrets 2016, click on this link: FREE STUFF!