How would you feel if your sales doubled or tripled just by using the right words on your product promotional materials?
I bet you wouldn’t be displeased, in fact I reckon you would be grinning from ear to ear.
I know I would.
Here’s the thing though: a freelance copywriter can do that for you.
See you know your market and products inside and out, probably better than anyone.
And your desire is that people should buy your product or service because you know it will work for them.
So, you write it all up in the best way you can and…. crickets.
It’s so frustrating, and time consuming.
But imagine for a moment, someone who can write out all about your products and what they will do for the client in a way that anyone can understand.
A potato isn’t just a ‘Maris Piper’ it’s a nutritious lunch for one.
That’s what a freelancer can do.
You see, the main advantage of using a copywriter is that they are able to see your market and product from an outsiders point of view.
And find ingenious ways to match the two together. (where market = a bunch of people).
But why is this important, it all sounds a bit wooly.
Well, you see everyone has their own motivations, we all have our own motivations all the time.
When we’re hungry we’re motivated to eat.
When we’re thirsty we’re motivated to drink.
And when we have toothache, we’re motivated to go to the dentist, but not at any other time.
What a copywriter will do is uncover those motivations in your prospect and tell them exactly how your product will satisfy their problems or needs.
Matching the motivations of your market to your product or service is therefore the primary job of a freelancer.
A good copywriter understands this.
Let’s run through an example quickly.
Jade has high blood sugar and her doctor has told her she must reduce it through diet.
Jade doesn’t know how to do that, she ‘thinks’ she eats well but her medical report suggests otherwise and she’s worried that if she doesn’t get it under control she will have to take drugs and eventually might have serious health complications in the future.
She sees an ad for a product; ‘Simply and Easily Control your blood sugar with the foods you already eat’.
Now, Jade may not buy that product, but I hope you can see why she would be much more interested in it than someone who is not worried about blood sugar issues.
I hope you can see that It’s all about specifics. The specifics of the person who is your prospect.
So when you approach a copywriter to work with, they are going to need to know a wide range of information, about you, your market, your products and exactly what they do.
More importantly they are going to need to know every possible way that your product or service solves a horrible problem people in your market might have.
Questions like, how does your product satisfy a want need or desire your marketplace has?
How does it solve this particular horrible problem that people might have.
But of course you don’t have to make a full time thing out of this.
Freelancers work for many organisations and see marketing approaches in many different ways. They’re free as it were to choose which projects to take on and which clients to service.
And my advice is for them to choose the best, because life is too short to be unhappy. choose great clients who have products that genuinely help people and you will both be on to a winner.
So what information will a freelance copywriter need.
Well, you have a need, that has to be clearly communicated and understood.
For instance it’s no use saying I want an article about 8 things to do with xxx and not communicating to the writer how mature the market is.
There are different stages of a markets awareness.
Unaware. (no-one has heard of it)
Aware but ignorant. (might have heard of it but doesn’t know what it does)
Aware and informed. (knows about it but isn’t sold yet)
Up to speed. (thoroughly understands every aspect and will buy on price)
Knowing at what stage of the market lifetime your product sits will have a huge effect on the approach taken by the copywriter.
So, the point is; a copywriter needs a lot of information.
My advice? Don’t be shy, send your freelancer everything you have, past promotions, current promotions, what the competition is doing.
The manual, the course, or book itself.
The Big Idea
Now, you may have been reading through this piece wondering how it works.
Well there’s a concept in copywriting called ‘The Big Idea’ or sometimes ‘The Golden Thread’ and it refers to a single idea that the piece talks about.
Personally I don’t think that those two names clearly transmit what this idea is about.
I prefer to use a different take on it, and that is ‘Create Vision’.
See, if you can paint a picture in their mind of how good their lives will be after using your product or service then you’re halfway there.
But there’s a trick to it.
Most products or services solve not just one, but many different problems.
For instance, take a refillable water bottle.
- It allows you to take water with you wherever you go.
- It is refillable, reducing single use plastic use.
- Keeps you on track with your daily hydration targets.
I’m sure there are others, but those seem to be the three main ones.
Now if you were to write an article and you included all three ideas it would be confusing.
What you need to do in a piece is to keep to the one topic.
- An article about taking water wherever you go can talk to people who have trouble remembering to hydrate.
- Focusing a piece on the fact that by using a refillable bottle reduces single use plastic, talks to eco conscious people.
- Or the angle of helping to keep on track with regular hydration during the day speaks to health conscious people.
So what we have to do is to find out which category the largest group falls into and write the article for them from their perspective.
Always about them and their problems, talk about their horrible couch grass not about your weedkiller.
If you want to find out more or ask a question give me a buzz and we’ll have a simple chat about what exactly you need from a copywriter working freelance.