Essential Copywriting Tips for Beginners

By: Apna Writer
February 3, 2021

“The art of selling through words”.

That’s what copywriting is all about. This art draws a line between a normal writer and a copywriter.

The significant difference between copywriting and any other form of writing is the INTENTION behind it.

Copywriting is one of the most powerful weapons for any business out there because a copy is written with an INTENT TO SELL.

Here, the selling point might be:

A click/tap on a button
A form to fill
A resource to download
A sale to make

Or action-oriented tasks.

This makes copywriting so powerful.

This is why it is one of the highest-paid skills in the world.

This is why businesses around the world spend so much on people who can write a converting copy.

A well-crafted copy is just like a trained salesperson convincing your prospects to buy your products. And the best part: On the internet, all of this is done at scale, WITHOUT you having to be present and do the manual work for each prospect.

So if you own a business, why not learn this skill yourself and successfully convert your audience into your customers?

Or, if you are a freelancer, why not add this highly paid skill into your resume, or even start your own business?

We can see you all hyped up and excited behind the screen, but hold on. The ability to write copy that converts isn’t simple to master. It requires a lot of learning, both theoretical and practical.

But with the right training, the right mindset, and some exclusive tips from professionals, you can begin on the journey to master this skill.

That’s what we are here for today.

With over 8 years of combined experience in the content writing industry, we have shared some valuable solid copywriting tips for beginners just like you. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

1. Know Your Audience

Human beings are bags full of emotions. They are ready to act based on their emotions when they feel some. And copywriting is all about triggering human emotions like fear, curiosity, excitement, etc, to make the target audience act as per your desires.

📌 Disclaimer: We are not promoting manipulation here. But if what you are selling and writing copy for genuinely helps the audience, you shouldn’t shy away from triggering those emotions.

And if you want to trigger their emotions, you need to know things like:

What are the pain points of my audience?
What do they want?
What is the solution that they are looking for?
Do they want to increase their status in life?
Is there some problem that doesn’t let them sleep at night?

Finding answers to these questions can help you craft copy that directly appeals to them, and will help your brand to connect with them on a much deeper level.

So, do your audience research well and use that information in combination with what your product can do for them.

Because if you don’t know enough about the audience you are writing for, and at what stage they are in the buyer’s journey, you can’t become an effective copywriter, as those people won’t just convert.

After you are done researching your audience, you might think: How to write great copy?

For that, let’s understand our next point.

2. Learn & Observe

This is one of the most underrated copywriting tips that most people don’t take seriously, but we know you will. Well, nobody can master copywriting within a few days, weeks, or months.

It’s a gradual learning process.

And to learn you should start with reading sales letters, ad copies, emails, headlines from different brands, or directly from the copy being used by your competitors.

💡 Pro tip: Create your own swipe file once you like something or any copy which allured you in taking some action.

Now begins the writing process.

What’s the first thing you need to focus on?

You guessed it right, it’s the headline.

Master the Headline First

Every copy needs a heading.

It’s the first thing that people read.

It’s the deciding point for them whether to read your copy or not. So you need to work on your headings very carefully.

Create at least 5 headlines for your copy with different angles by including elements like:

Curiosity
Benefit
Guarantee
Deadlines
Numbers

Now that you are done with the headlines, let’s talk about how you can make your entire copy powerful.

Versatile Vocabulary

Learn new words daily.

Using emotional words is one of the key differences that separate an exceptional copywriter from any other mediocre copywriter.

Sprinkle power words and sensory words in your copy to trigger the exact emotion that you want to explain in your copy.

This way your copy will become more ALIVE and ENGAGING that will paint a VIVID picture in the reader’s mind (See what we did there?)

Benefits > Features

Whatever the motive of your copy will be, try answering one simple question first, what’s in it for your audience?

They don’t care how great your product is, what technical specs it has, what features does it offer.

It’s all about what BENEFIT they’ll get from it.

Remember: Benefits sell, features don’t.

Ever wondered how Apple, being a computer company, transformed the mobile and music industries?

Well, when Apple launched its first iPod, they promoted a tagline “Say hello to iPod, 1000 songs in your pocket”. That’s highlighting the benefit of what their target audience will get.

They could have highlighted different features talking about the specs, but they didn’t.

So answer the following questions in your copy:

What’s in it for them?
What are the real-life benefits they get?
How can the product or service impact their lives in a positive way?

Apart from benefits, you need to keep a check on the tone of your copy. Let’s dive deeper into that.

Be Conversational

If you want to be an impactful copywriter, write like you are talking to a friend.

Let us ask you: Don’t you think we are talking to you like your friend? An intimate conversation that just includes you and us?

If yes, then you would understand that people feel comfortable with humans interacting with them.

Whatever type of audience you have, layman or a professional, you need to add that conversational element throughout your copy.

💡 Pro tip: Add stories to explain the point, people love hearing stories. They can be real or fictional.

This wraps up the tips you should keep in mind while beginning to write a great copy. But it doesn’t end here.

You never know what’s gonna work. So,

Test. Test. Test.

If you are writing for your business, you need to be open to A/B testing. You need to use different emotional elements to check what’s working for your audience.

If you are working for someone, you need to make your client aware of the fact that what they feel is perfect might be neglected by their audience.

So you’ll also need to test different elements in your ads, emails, landing pages, sales letters, video sales letter scripts, etc.

💡 Pro tip: We are not talking about changing the entire copy, it’s about changing a few elements like heading, CTA, etc, one at a time.