99 Seasoned Pros Reveal Their Top Copywriting Tip

Top drawer copywriting tips can be hard to come by these days.

At least out here in the world of stale and repetitive online content.

But following these bite-sized tips will certainly sharpen up your copy skills. And then some.

So bookmark this page my friend.

You’ll be back.

#1

Write tight.

~ Paul Eveleigh

#2

Write benefits focused copy/content to always answer the ‘so what?

~ Alycia Simpson

#3

Write your copy following the AIDA Code – Attention – Interest – Desire – Action.

~ Alan Tarr

#4

Keep it simple.

~ Dave Harland

#5

Get the puns out of your system early.

~ Ken St. Onge

#6

Less is more. Write less & say more.

~ Joel Márquez García

#7

Pretend you’re a person who’ll ultimately be reading it.

~ Steve W. Parker

#8

Learn to be a brutally honest self-editor.

~ Frank Ricci

#9

Find/follow the tone…

~ Grant Clifford

#10

Write drunk. Edit sober.

~ Oscar Riffo López

#11

Train under good writers.

~ Hamish McIntosh

#12

Don’t get caught up in what you want. It is all about the reader.

~ Alex Corral

#13

It’s about story and emotion.

~ Angie Klink

#14

Imagine your audience sitting in front of you.

~ Simon Handford

#15

Find the Big Idea first before you start writing. 40% planning, 25% writing, 35% review and editing. You can’t go wrong!

~ Raj Fernandes

#16

Cut, cut, cut! When you need to immediately grab the viewer’s interest, you can’t afford superfluous verbiage. Trim clunky paragraphs, communicate your message quickly, and ruthlessly excise anything not relevant to your point.

~ Joshua Nelson

#17

Write on paper before you go digital.

~ Maarten Everaerts

#18

Refine your overall process. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.

~ Chase Roberts

#19

Write, write again, re-write.

~ Francisco Poltronieri
Junior

#20

Do a lot of it.

~ Karen Goldfarb

#21

Become your targeted audience. Creatively get their attention!

~ Luann Warner

#22

Write what is true and you will never have to worry about being original.

~ Gene Doyle

#23

Don’t stop thinking when you get something you like – the more ideas you have, the more ideas you have. Banish that self-censor and write a LOT.

~ Woody Hinkle

#24

Write to inspire action.

~ Steven Scott

#25

After writing body copy, kill all the adjectives. Re-add as necessary, but only for phrasing/ reader tempo.

~ Rick Lawrence

#26

Write everything down. No idea is a bad idea, unless it definitely is. And, every good idea is going to come with 50 not-so-good ideas. The trick is to write the bad ideas along with the good ones. This way, you’ll be able to judge with your gut, quickly move past the bad ideas and instantly identify the best. This is my favorite brainstorming technique and it normally results in something awesome or something very close to awesome.

~ Adam Smithberger

#27

Re-read the brief. Appeal to emotion. Persuade with logic.

~ Roger Keynes

#28

Think then write.

~ Mark Amdur

#29

Talk to the consumer as an equal, emphasize the benefits, deliver the goods.

~ Richard Sowers

#30

ABCD: Always Be Collecting Data.

~ Natasha Vincent

#31

When in doubt, cut it out!

~ Shane Traynor

#32

Get a reality check on your copy / concept. Show it to a non-advertising person and ask, ‘do you get it’? ‘does it resonate with you?’.

~ Laura Griffiths

#33

BE your product. FEEL it!

~ Sonja Perk-Bartz

#34

Don’t be poetic, and never too clever. Be direct and exercise brevity.

~ Michael Roach

#35

When done, review your open and close. Throw out your first paragraph. Especially in B2B. It was probably there just to impress yourself or the reader with how much you’ve learned, but your reader already knows it.

~ Randall Rensch

#36

Always answer the question, “what’s in it for me?” The “me” being the customer/prospect.

~ Lyn Webb

#37

Assume you’re writing for your parents. If they can understand what you’re writing about, so will everyone else.

~ Christophe Pernaudet

#38

Your headline, or first sentence, should be a benefit to your reader/viewer/listener. Write as if your next pay check was depending on it. Hey – it probably is! Lead with a benefit to the reader in anything you write – print ads, radio or TV spots, articles, web pages, etc. People want to know ‘What’s in it for me?’ – NOT what’s in it for YOU!

~ Dennis R. Green

#39

Write for your audience, not award shows. But if you can satisfy both, you’ll be in higher demand.

~ Dave Reyburn

#40

Write like you’re having a conversation. That way your tone of voice will be authentically yours.

~ Kat Mercer

#41

Forget everything you think you know about copywriting and read Claude Hopkins’ books: ‘My Life in Advertising’ and ‘Scientific Advertising’. Read them both at least twice, then Scientific Advertising five more times.

~ Clarke Echols

#42

Always be conscious of ‘hearts & minds’. For any assignment, whether it’s cumbersome & complex, or short & sweet, try to stay aware of this: ‘am I writing to win them over with a level-headed, rational pitch….or an emotional, aspirational appeal?’ Doing both simultaneously is arguably the ideal model. But usually, you need to first decide whether to lead with the ‘mind hook’ or the ‘heart hook’.

~ Mark Brendan Hussey

#43

When you’re ‘done’ with your assignment, let it sit for a few hours or overnight, then re-read it before sending it off. You’ll no doubt find things you want to change and/or correct.

~ David White

#44

Use the word ‘you’ more than you already do, as you’re personalizing your ad toward the one person who is viewing it, not a group of people.

~ Sean Sullivan

#45

Read your copy aloud (even if it’s just under your breath). You’ll almost always find something you’ve overlooked – a repetition, a clunky or hackneyed phrase, something that makes you smartly apply your palm to your forehead and cause you to say D’oh!

~ Conor Kelly

#46

Deadline. That’s my number one tip.

~ Jim Johnson

#47

Best writing is rewriting.

~ Rael Tooch

#48

Do it brutally simple and simply brutal.

~ JUAN MANUEL SORIANO MORALES

#49

Watch life. Be aware of every second you live. Surround yourself with everything you can.

~ Rafael Velarde Balarezo

#50

Write it, leave it, come back to it, edit it, then repeat until sold.

~ Will Shepherd

#51

Truly mean what you write. Don’t bullshit your audience.

~ Rene van der Meulen

#52

Write the way people speak. Never marketing/sales speak. People HATE marketing/sales speak.

~ Kwame DeRoché

#53

Focus on One Big Idea.

~ SAUNDRA PANAGARIS

#54

Once you get them hooked on the sizzle, selling the steak is easy.

~ Tim Shultz

#55

It’s the same as great cooking: fresh ingredients, carefully prepared, lovingly cooked for a specific audience. Keep it simple, do everything perfectly and have faith in your recipe if it’s thought-through.

~ Mark Shaw

#56

Know your audiences. And know there is always more than one audience. There is the prospect and there are those who must approve the copy. You must appeal to both.

~ Linda Schmid

#57

Use creativity with caution.

~ Alina Ingrid Bagarean

#58

Speak in the right brand ‘voice’. HOW you speak is as important to brand identity as is graphics. Then you can create an honest, genuine one-to-one “dialogue” between your client and an audience member.

~ CATHIE COATS

#59

See common things. Think different things.

~ Hironobu Ohno

#60

Think more, write less.

~ Asier Jon

#61

If you can make your copy clever and clear, that’s the absolute best. If you can only do one, always choose clear.

~ Chris Finnie

#62

Write in your own inimitable way.

~ John Skaro

#63

In every one of my briefs I include this, because it’s relevant to every role in the process (design, copy, UX, whatever): What do we want the audience to do — and what’s stopping them from doing it? The best advertising always addresses this.

~ Matt McDermott

#64

In advertising, emotion is more important than logic.

~ Barbara Moser

#65

Don’t use superlatives! Thank you Ogilvy.

~ Zeynep Sarsılmaz

#66

Grammar is negotiable.

~ Chad Haynes

#67

Remember the people who read your work are humans, no matter what else they do for a living. Talk to them as real people to get real results. And lose the acronyms. They do not make you sound cool.

~ Gerry Yampolsy

#68

Ask yourself what will make buying my product or service a natural act for a specific segment? for example: what will make buying this house a very natural act for renters? Burning rent money should be among the answers, from this answer I often take off.

~ Mohammed Safari

#69

If you can put a competitor’s product under your headline you haven’t done a good job.

~ Earl Carter

#70

Read great copy by others, get jealous, start to work.

~ Willem De Geyndt

#71

Telling is not Selling.

~ Minz Singh

#72

Close your eyes.Open your mind.Take a walk in someone else’s shoes.

~ Björn Ericstam

#73

Understand your customer’s journey first. Then seek to understand where on their journey they are when they’ll interact with the specific piece you’re writing. Once you’ve got that down…address their informational and emotional needs in that moment. You’ll notice that their needs vary significantly from one step of their journey to another…and your messages should vary significantly as well.

~ Christina Kellman

#74

Turn off the radio!

~ Keith Hague

#75

Write something down. Take what you wrote and make something slightly different. Repeat until what you end up with is completely different from what you started with. Somewhere in between, you’ll find the line.

~ Michael Campbell

#76

Fall madly in love with the brand.

~ Veynz Nayr

#77

If you can’t read it easily, quickly and smoothly, it sucks.

~ Michael Davidson

#78

Never start from a blank page. Always leverage something as a starting point.

~ Jack Turk

#79

My penny would be to read and try to mimic the award winning copy. You can learn a lot by just seeing how they (the best) did what they did. Adapt it to your projects and make it your own.

~ Zoênio Neto

#80

Be a ridgy null. (you have to say this fast to make sense)

~ Todd Perelmuter

#81

Meet customers where they communicate; forums, message boards and groups. Understand the language that they are already using.

~ David Torrence

#82

Don’t force it. Write naturally.

~ Kerem Başar

#83

Agree with your audience as much as possible. Understand their pains and their dreams.

~ Ray Edwards

#84

Learn to write in pictures, not words.

~ Ben Thompson

#85

Write like you talk.

~ Ed Hamilton

#86

First come up with your key selling proposition, and support it with three benefits. Don’t try to tell the whole story. Make the reader want to KNOW the whole story.

~ Jon Garner

#87

Don’t speak at the consumer. Speak with the consumer.

~ Jeff Renoe

#88

Solve real problems with great stories.

~ Stuart Shaw

#89

Don’t think; just write. Then, go back and edit.

~ Kadie Despain

#90

When it comes to concept and headlines, quality comes from quantity. Push yourself a little further; a better solution is usually just another 3 or 4 lines away.

~ Steve Stafford

#91

I like to always start off by creating a “word dump.” Essentially just making a gigantic list of every word or short phrase that comes to my mind when thinking about the project at hand. No word is too weird, silly, off, wrong, or bad. You never know, the oddest option may just be the best.

~ Jessica Baar

#92

I usually follow two or three basic techniques of key-concept listing (from strong to weak connexions, analogy lists, opposite/negative lists, etc.) then I leave all those lists at my desk and go to the kitchen to smoke a cigarette. There I try to convince an imaginary best-friend of mine, with a convinced and enthusiastic imaginary speech, why they should buy that thing or hire that service. Then I go back to my desk and start writing.

~ Pau Todó

#93

Be honest but remarkable.

~ Ralf Kratzert

#94

Always ask yourself, ‘Will anyone talk about this?’

~ Selorm Dogoe

#95

Know your product AND your audience.

~ Jeff Ragland

#96

Find the Wow.

~ Bruce Bendinger

#97

Know thy audience.

~ Patton Whittington

#98

Focus on what the customers need to hear, not what the client wants to say.

~ Dennis Strini

#99

Learn to spell. Then forget every other rule.

~ David Moore

And there you go. 99 pearls of copywriting wisdom.

Don’t be greedy. Share this insightful post with all your wonderful followers immediately!

Love you,

Konrad x