“The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.”  —William Bernbach


Copywriting is the art and science of persuasion; the crafty use of words to move people to take action.  Effective copywriting is perhaps the most powerful marketing tool at your disposal.  

Styles vary greatly depending on the time, place and audience; an approach that works in one environment could easily fail in another.  Thus, before you write, you need to understand how consumers make buying decisions.  Once you understand your consumer, you can then select the style, voice and strategy that will best reach this audience.  

That said, the majority of good copywriting does tend to follow certain rules that can be summarized to five steps:

1.Research market to understand buyers and sellers of products / services 

2.Establishing guideline perimeter categorizing research findings 

3.Create outlines list of major topics and subtopics headline

4.Write about topics and subtopics

5.Review, edit and finalize

The first and second stage to creating a solid copywriting piece involves proper research and organization of purpose.  While there are many aspects to consider, target market analysis, competitor analysis, and product S.W.O.T. analysis is crucial to this stage.  Once all the details are made available, the proper marketing angle, style and tone can be clearly defined.  

Then comes stage three and four, identify the article title or headline, create the outline, and provide breakdown of the major and subtopics with supporting arguments.  Once complete, it is finally time to provide to the copywriter, the fairy godmother to bring things to life.  The copywriter may opt to fine tune the headline once the piece finalizes to better suit the context.  

Finally, quality assurance should be last step to sound copywriting.  Reviewing and editing of the article ensures that company standards are being held to the utmost qualifications.  A proper quality assured article should strengthen trust between you and the customer.

Ultimately, the key advantage of copywriting is that the writing is more appealing and relatable to the target audience. This is extremely crucial in branding and the most attractive way to convey your business to your intended market.

Shortlist of common mistakes to avoid

  • Vagueness
  • Negativity
  • gross salesmanship
  • manipulation
  • inappropriate vocabulary given the voice
  • run on sentences
  • unnecessary complexity
  • excessive clichés
  • exaggeration
  • unproven statements
  • excessive jargon
  • buzzwords