Simple Advice for Beginning Copywriters
Do this before you write a single work of copy.
I wrote this advice in response to an aspiring copywriter on Reddit. I thought other people may benefit from this idea as well.
Here’s the simple advice I wish someone had told me at the beginning of my copywriting career: Before you write anything, just find out what good copywriting looks and reads like.
Look up marketing campaigns from your favorite brands. This is pretty easy to do on Google. Pay attention to the words those brands use. How do they structure their text? Do they use a lot of text or just a little? Do they always write in full sentences or are fragments sometimes acceptable? Do they tell a story?
Paying attention to what your favorite brands are doing will clue you into what effective copy looks like. It may save you from making a lot of beginner mistakes.
For example, I work in the B2B tech space. I mostly write website copy and longform articles. When I need inspiration, I’ll look up companies that I consider to have great B2B website copy to see how they write. Check out websites like Ahrefs.com and ClickUp.com as good examples.
You’ll notice a few things on these websites:
- Both companies communicate most of their value in headlines
- Both companies use simple language and short sentences
- Both companies blend text with related screenshots, graphics, and photos
- ClickUp uses verb-first language in headlines (example: “Set goals and crush them faster.”)
- Ahrefs uses fragments in their headlines to keep text short (example: “All-in-one SEO toolset”)
You can deduce a lot more from these sites. And these are just two examples.
Your homework: If you’re considering a career in copywriting, start by clicking around websites from your favorite brands (like Apple.com, Nike.com, etc.) and just pay attention to how they do things. When you finally start writing copy, you’ll at least know what great copywriting looks like.
And that’s a nice head start.
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