Copywriting Training: Write Copy That Works and Engage your Audience
What happens if you and your team are good at everything but copywriting?
In this blog we will go through a complete Copywriting Training to Write Copy That Works:
1. Do you need copywriting training?
2. COPYWRITING is a skill that can be learnt
3. WHO is your “BUYER PERSONA” or AVATAR
4. Use your Copywriting training to Spin your audience
5. Attention: great images and headlines het you in front of your client
6. Interest Building
7. Create Desire
8. Action: Call to action leads readers to action
9. Tips to create an Irresistible Call to Action
1. Do you need copywriting training?
Well, if you are good, it can help you succeed in just about every aspect of Internet Marketing.
If not, you can:
- Write Blogs. that get thousands of readers
- Do Market Research. Explain the benefits of people completing your survey.
- Use Email Marketing. Writing subject lines that people will open.
- Do Search Engine Optimization: Creating SEO optimised content.
- Use YouTube. Writing video headlines and scripts.
- Post on Facebook & Twitter. Creating post people will engage with.
- Contribute on Quora: Writing answers that get upvoted.
- Use Reddit.
- Work with Google Adwords: Writing effective ads.
So if you and your team cannot do copywriting you are already swimming upstream.
Don’t worry I have helped thousands of people in the same predicament because…
2. COPYWRITING is a skill that can be learnt!
Using a few simple formulas and techniques:
I will show you how to turn casual visitors to your site into interested subscribers or clients.
Let us Start with the Copywriting Training!
WHAT IS COPYWRITING?
So how do you do that, exactly?
You first have to decide the goal of your article
WHO are you writing to and WHAT are you writing about?
3. WHO is your “BUYER PERSONA” or AVATAR?
You have to “invent” that person by putting yourself in their shoes.
An Avatar is the person that you want most as your customer and will most likely return to buy from you over and over and again. In conclusion: an Avatar describes your target market.
Firstly, begin with defining the GOALS and VALUES of your ideal customer.
Goals and Values
Let’s give our ideal “AVATAR” a name,”Peter” and let’s give him a job title “internet marketer”.
What are Peter’s business Goals?
- Increase his online marketing business
- Increase his technical and organisational skills
- Scale up his existing business
What are Peter’s Values?
- Continue the corporate professional development of his team and his team
- Provide value to his clients
- Keep a “straight bat”, use, “White Hat” ethical marketing
Define Goals and Values that are relevant to the products and services you have to offer.
You’ll use this information to show Peter how he will benefit with better:
- Product creation
- Email marketing
- Copywriting
- Content marketing
We know, for example, that Peter’s Marketing Agency is interested in “increasing the skills and organisation of his team.”
It would not be a bad idea to send an email to Peter that promotes your Content Marketing training with the subject line:
Your agency is only as good as its Content Marketing skills.
That should get Peter’s attention.
Apart from “emails” what does Peter read or consult?
Where are the best places to publish so that Peter sees what you have to offer?
What Sources of Information is Peter likely to consult?
This is an essential part of the construction of your ideal Customer “Avatar”. It is critical to determine the “where to connect with” part of the process.
You.
To fill this section out, use Google to search for “if My ideal customer would”:
- read such and such a niche book
- subscribe to such and such a niche magazine
- attend such and such a niche conference
- follow a certain niche “Guru”
Becoming clearer?
When buying traffic from ad platforms like Facebook, you’ll often be able to laser target your Avatar by focusing on these niche interests – while excluding less relevant ones.
To laser target our advertiser we have to establish,
Our AVATAR’S Demographic Information.
If you are familiar with cost per click advertising this process will be familiar to you,
Applying demographic information will make our customer avatar more real.
Another trick, when writing sales copy, is to simply write as though your avatar were sitting opposite to you. With the Demographic information, we can start to really relate to our Avatar.
What are Peter’s Challenges and Worries?
Now we know who we are selling to. So we can start to define selling techniques to compel our Avatar to take on our services.
When selling to Peter, we are going to start using a sales system called S.P.I.N. to offer solutions to his problems and use language that not only addresses them in our marketing messages but also highlights them. For example, our sales letter should include copy like…
Do you feel your losing business because you don’t offer the best Content Marketing services? Get ahead of the pack by training up with our expert instruction.
Copy like that will get a response because it is talking about a real problem, the implication of that problem and a solution to it. We will talk more about S.P.I.N. later on in the article but we are not quite finished with defining our customer.
Role in Purchase Process and possible Objections
Can Peter himself choose to buy your services or does he have to consult, or in other words; What is Peter’s role in the purchase?
Why would Peter chose NOT to buy your product or service? These are called “objections” and they must be addressed in your marketing.
Objections to the sale:
Does your service fit one of his existing products or can it help him offer a new product?
Will the training interfere with Peter’s work schedule?
Will the promise of future profit outweigh lost production in the present?
Copywriting training (In one business day)
You must also determine our avatar’s role in the purchasing process. Is he the primary decision maker? Is he only a decision influencer?
In conclusion: How many salesmen waste their breath talking to the receptionist and not the decision maker? Identifying and addressing your copywriting sales pitch to the right person is paramount to the success of your marketing and sales campaigns.
Build Multiple Avatars
Start by building a single avatar. But don’t stop there.
Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be churning out multiple avatars representing the different segments of your market.
Any lucrative market segment with a distinct set of goals, sources of information, problems, is worth creating a customer avatar.
Use the Customer Avatar Worksheets below (there are male and female versions) to get clear on your ideal customer.
Avoid writing to a too broader audience.
Start your research by creating a buyer persona and unique selling proposition. Test those assumptions about your customer pain points by gathering priceless feedback with Typeform online surveys.
4. Use your Copywriting training to Spin your audience
Put the pen down one minute …
You now know who you are writing to but you must also have a clearly defined goal. If you want results, you need to start by setting goals.
Set your goal before you write a single word. Each page has only one goal. What action would you like your readers to take: a PDF download, fill in a subscribe form, an email form? Do not add anything to the page that will distract visitors from that goal.
Every headline, image, subject line etc. should tie back to your buyer persona and persuade them to take action.
Many people advocate A.I.D.A and maintain that it is the Most Powerful Way to Structure Your Sales Copy. It’s certainly the best place to start.
A.I.D.A

5. ATTENTION: Great IMAGES and HEADLINES get you in front of your client
A headline and an attractive page have an impact on your readers, gets their attention and induces them to want to read further.
Why are headlines important?
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” – David Ogilvy
Remember Headlines set the expectation for the rest of the article.
TIPS FOR WRITING MAGNETIC HEADLINES
1. Practice. If you want more clicks, you need to practise. Write 25 Headlines for every piece of content. You’re more creative than you think.
Sometimes I spend 30–60 minutes before settling on one that works. And I often go back and change them. This is what it takes to write a good headline.
Use numbers
The reason why so many copywriters use numbers in their headlines is that it works. They can catch people’s attention especially numbers like 93 or 42.
Use evocative adjectives
such as:
- Easy
- Effortless
- Painstaking
- Free
- Incredible
- Awesome
- Absolute
- Weird
Start a list post, try to be original, use the following:
- Shortcuts
- Principles
- Facts
- Errors
- Ideas
- Means
- Secrets
- Tricks
Use what, why, how, who, when and where
These are called trigger words. Most people tend to use more “why” and “how” because they are often trying to persuade or educate someone.
Show the reader a benefit
Write about value for your reader: take on a new skill, promise a new unique experience…
What you want to do is dare your reader to read the article. Without over-promising, be bold. Be seductive (in the most innocuous way possible, of course). Be dangerous. And then deliver what you promised.
Try this formula for simple headline-writing
Number or Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Benefit
Example: Take the subject “learning French.” You could write an article entitled, “How to effortlessly Learn French in 3 months” or “7 awesome tricks to learn French in 3 months.“
- Free Images
Read my blog about where to get copyright free images on the web. Then just photoshop them.
6. Interest Building
You’ve got the attention of a large part of your target audience, and engage with them enough so that they’ll want to spend their time understanding your buying into your idea. This is where we use:
S.P.I.N.
The term SPIN is an acronym of four different types of sales questions designed to bring a prospect into interest and through to a sale:
- SITUATION questions
- PROBLEM questions
- IMPLICATION questions
- NEED-PAYOFF questions
Situation Statements
Make Situation statements that show that you have an understanding of the reader and their precise situation, build empathy and a rapport with your reader.
Ask relevant Situation questions:
- Do you do your copywriting?
- Do you outsource your copywriting?
- How do you monitor the quality of it?
- How do you maintain an overview of the impact of your copy on your clients?
These questions are designed to make the person think about his current situation and question himself.
Of course, the more research you do prior to writing the article ( defining the “Avatar”) the more effective and precise your questions will be.
Now use Problem Questions
The idea behind Problem questions is to make the prospect aware that there is a problem or problems and that they need to be solved.
Problem questions are effective at making a reader identify issues that he did not realise he had.
Examples of Problem questions:
- Are your outsource connections always reliable?
- Are you sure of the quality and relevance of your copywriting?
- Do you think you are as good as your competitors?
Show You Understand Their Problem
- Share Personal Experience. You may have personal experience that you can use to create more of a rapport with your reader.
- Talk about your Customer experience.
- Share Other Peoples Stories.
Implication Questions
Implication questions are designed to highlight the impact of the problem if it is not resolved.
A well-phrased Implication question should make the prospect aware that the problem really needs to be solved, and the sooner the better.
Examples of Implication questions:
- If your copy is not high quality, what’s the impact on your sales?
- Internet marketing is highly competitive how important is it to stay ahead with good copywriting?
- Internet marketing is evolving every day, startups have an advantage as they have the new techniques.
7. Create Desire
Now you’re building the reader’s interest by showing him/her he/she’s got to evolve, you also need to show them that what you’re offering can help them in a real way.
Need-payoff Questions
The prospect should now realise that the situation will only deteriorate if it isn’t solved. Put them out of their misery with a clear solution to what started off as a problem has become a need. This is called a need payoff question.
Examples of Need-payoff questions:
- So is improving your copywriting important to you?
- If you could train your agency up to be top copywriters in no time, would you assure your business a better future?
- Would you like to be able to control and edit your copy in real time ?
Don’t tell them, ask them, if they respond in their mind yes you have almost won.
This encourages them to visualise the difference when that problem is solved.
Why need-payoff questions work is that they ensure the buyer specifies the benefits themselves. But strike while the Irons hot: here you need a great call to action.
Some traditional bloggers rely on Feature and Benefits (FAB)
It works to link features and benefits. Hopefully, the significant features of your offering have been designed to give a specific benefit to members of your target market. However, the advantage of S.P.I.N. is that you helped the client become aware of his problem, which is now a need. People are more likely to spend money on a need.
The CTA is your final instruction to your reader.
You’ve worked hard so far. You’ve gotten their attention, hooked their interest, created desire. Isn’t it appropriate to ask for action?
9. Tips to Create an Irresistible Call to Action
1. Attention Grabbing
Your CTA should grab your reader’s attention. Use colour coordination. Does your blog have a dominant colour? if so use the complimentary colour in the CTA to draw the reader’s eye to it.
2. Clear and Compelling
Make sure the call to action contains the solution to the problem or need pay off.
3. Correctly Placed
Your call to action should occupy “prime position” on your page or blog. This includes the top of your blog sidebar and the end of your posts.
Why are these areas ideal? The top of your blog sidebar is great for a CTA because it appears above the fold of the webpage. If it’s the first thing people see, many will click it right away.
There is a great plugin called thrive which will help you create the call to action and help you place it in the optimum position.
4. Use a no-obligation statement that removes or reduces risk.
For instance we use “contact us today” rather than “Buy Now”.