Discover How Great Copy Is Built Before the First Word Gets Written
The Hidden Work Behind Great Copy
When copy doesn't deliver stellar results, it's easy to blame the writing or (gasp) the writer. My response? Could be… maybe. More often, the copy isn't the problem. It's exposing one.
You can't mask weak thinking with great words. Copy simply shines a spotlight on it—whether you intended it to or not.
Year after year, I keep seeing the same symptoms. They show up across industries, products, and campaigns… and almost always trace back to the same root causes.
I never start writing until I know what's really going on. Otherwise, I'm only guessing.The 12 Root Causes I Keep Seeing
It Was Never About the Copy
When I start digging, it's very rarely the copy that needs fixing. The copy exposes problems that are already there.
I typically discover things like:
- A weak offer.
- Positioning that never separated the business from its competitors.
- A mismatch between the audience and the message.
- A product that doesn't solve a problem people care enough to fix.
No amount of clever writing can fix a broken strategy.
Research Stopped Before Unearthing the Real Problem
- The product
- The company
- The customer
- The market
- The competition
- Previous promotions
- Previous competitor promotions
- Customer language
- Sales conversations
- Reviews and objections
You Got the Offer Wrong
- The value isn't obvious.
- It solves the wrong problem.
- The transformation isn't compelling enough.
- The perceived risk outweighs the potential reward.
- There's no meaningful reason to act now.
You Solved the Wrong Problem
You Parroted Someone Else's Copy
- Headlines
- Stories
- Bullets
- Leads
- Formatting
You Set Up a Detour in the Customer Journey
You Mixed Up Justification with Decision
You Sold the Product—Not the Transformation
- Relief
- Confidence
- Freedom
- Security
- Status
- Hope
- A stronger identity
You Never Discovered What Made You Different
You Made Your Prospect Work to Understand
You Didn't Give Them Enough Evidence to Believe You
- Testimonials
- Case studies
- Specific numbers
- Live demonstrations
- A believable mechanism
- Authority
- Transparency
You Never Really Let Your Copy Sell
For me, research isn't about finding better words, or just learning the language the prospect uses, or even collecting more facts. Yes, those are important, but incomplete. The point is to uncover what's driving your customer's decisions.
People nearly always describe the surface problem… …while being driven by an unseen one. I don't stop at the surface problem—the obvious answer.
To uncover the real problem, I usually dig into things like:
The quality of your copy will never exceed the depth of your understanding.
Even brilliant copy struggles when the offer doesn't give people good enough reasons to change right now.
When I dig deeper, I usually find things like:
Copy amplifies the offer. It doesn't replace it.
People often don't know the real cause of their frustration. They frequently describe symptoms. But the real problem is often hiding just out of sight.
By digging deeper, I typically discover their hidden fears, assumptions, and frustrations that completely change how I approach the problem.
That's where true persuasion begins.
It's easy to admire a successful promotion. And so human to imitate it. But it's another thing altogether to understand why it worked. And that's much harder.
Most people copy the visible parts:
But those aren't what made the promo successful. They were the result of someone else's understanding of their customer.
Until you discover that understanding for yourself, you'll only repeat words—not success.
People rarely make snap decisions. They arrive at them one realization at a time. They move from one realization to the next. And a well-crafted journey guides them down the path of realizations that leads naturally to your inevitable conclusion.
Get the sequence wrong, and you can't take them where you want them to go. A weak offer, the wrong big idea, or questionable proof will send your prospect careening down a detour. Once your prospect leaves the path, getting them back becomes incredibly difficult.
People usually have two reasons for buying. The reason they tell you… and the reason they feel. The emotional reason motivates the decision. The logical one justifies it.
Great copy addresses both—in that order.
Prospects don't buy products. They buy a better future.
They're really buying things like:
Your product simply helps them get there.
Generic copy fades into the background, becoming wallpaper that no one notices. If your message could belong to any competitor, it doesn' belong to you.
Real differentiation doesn't come from clever wording. It comes from discovering something true about your business or prospects that everyone else missed… or cannot claim. That's what gives people a reason to choose you.
If people have to work to understand your message, they bounce. Confusion ends the journey.
Clarity trumps cleverness every time.
Just because you say it's true doesn't mean anyone will believe you. You have to give them reasons to believe.
You do that with things like:
Belief must be earned before action can occur.
Your copy has only one job. To do what your very best salesperson does every day—sit across the table with one prospect at a time and persuade them.
When your research is shallow, your offer is weak, your message is confusing, or your prospect never has a reason to believe you, your copy cannot do the job you hired it for.
That's why throwing money at fixing words or headlines is rarely the answer. You have to fix the underlying problems first.
The question is… how do you find problems that are usually invisible?
Discover How I Find Them