The best place to start with copywriting

As I make my way through my copywriting journey, 1 thing is clear…

It’s less about writing, and more about understanding how people work.

Writing is table stakes.

The hard part is figuring out WHO you are writing to, WHAT they care about, and WHY they care about it.

In other words, psychographics.

What is the profile of the people in the niche you’re targeting?

Once you have that defined and under your belt, writing the message takes care of itself.

For the few clients I’ve gotten recently, I use a framework to define this for each customer targeted psychographic (learned this from Tim Stoddart)…

FRED

It’s an acronym:

• F = fears

• R = results

• E = expectations

• R = results

Essentially, what does your target customer FEEL?

FRED helps you define this.

What are your ideal customer’s problems, questions, roadblocks, and expectations related to the offer?

A quick way to get this info is using AI (these days I’ve been using Claude AI) and a competitors sales copy.

Here’s a sample prompt for a video sales letter (VSL) transcript:

I need you to conduct a thorough analysis of my competitor's VSL transcript. Your expertise lies in market research and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of promotional videos. As an experienced professional, you have helped many clients by providing insightful feedback on their competitors' strategies. Your task now is to analyze the VSL and provide detailed insights into its target audience, their problems, questions, roadblocks, and expectations related to this particular offering. messaging effectiveness. Please avoid using technical jargon and ensure your analysis is clear and easy for me to understand. Additionally, make sure to include actionable recommendations to help me leverage this information in my own marketing efforts. Repeat my instructions back to me so I know you're clear.

Start all copywriting projects with this, and it will save you time, money, stress, and guesswork.

Get to know FRED.

He’s a cool fella.

Cheers,

Swanagan