Do this to read the minds of prospects

What do you do after researching buyer personas, keywords, or industries? Are you increasing capacity or grinding through the boring weeds?

Do this to read the minds of prospects. Over your copywriting career, you'll be more productive. This concept of information management makes you more productive.

You don't need any fancy database, software, or even a librarian. Start organizing your research to help you reach hungry prospects.

I cannot compete with Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Joe Polish, or others teaching copywriting. Why should I? When it comes to improving profits in business, I excel.

Listen carefully; this episode addresses the real problems of copywriting. The information overload. The hours they were grinding doing research for a campaign.

If you're tired of the rollercoaster income of freelance copywriting, do this. You'll attract higher-value clients. Write control beating copy faster.

And most importantly, you'll set yourself up for faster onboarding of new clients. You'll need it because your results will justify being a high-demand copywriter.

If you're ready to graduate from freelance copywriter to agency owner, join us at https://www.adbriefing.co.uk/newsletter/

Discover the systems and business of copywriting that grow your earnings. You'll earn more with fewer hours and less headache. Thanks for subscribing.

#FreelanceCopywriter #StartAgency #MarketingAgency #CopywritingBusiness #MoreClients

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/adbriefing-copywriting-tips--3257924/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The business of copywriting is much morecomplex and nuanced than it is presented in
the Get Rich Quick how to Writecopy. You know, work from anywhere
in the world type programs, andI hope to through AD briefings, bring
you that perspective in a way thatallows you to implement those things that are
necessary to make you a more productivewriter as well as to get more clients.

(00:22):
So I'm justin hit with AD briefingscopywriting tips, and today we're going
to talk about an efficiency activity thatimproves your ability to write copy that sells
now. Again, I don't teachyou how to write headlines and opening paragraphs
and stuff like that, because youcan go to Dan Kennedy, you can
go to Gary Halbert, you couldgo to Joe Polish. You could go

(00:45):
to a lot of people out thereand get really high quality nuts and bolts
on how to write copy. WhatI know how to do with my risk
management, business development, project managementexperience is how to actually run a business
that is profitable. So if youalready have a few clients, how do
we multiply the number of clients andthen how do we work more productively so
that we have a bigger margin.Because we know a lot of bad stuff

(01:08):
happens behind the scenes that causes frustrationand headache. Like so, for example,
we have a network attached storage devicethat has about two or three terrorbytes
of video that we use for ourpodcasts and the content we're creating for clients
and such, and I had torebuild one of the volumes and it needed
six days to rebuild the volume,and then prior to that, it took

(01:30):
another fifteen days for troubleshooting. SoI would have been better off just buying
a new NAS device and putting iton the network. Now I understand this.
Now, I would have been betteroff buying a new NAS device,
a network attached storage, put iton the network, and then keep working,
go ahead and get a few moreclients than to put up with the
frustration of having to rebuild a storagepool. And I know that might not

(01:52):
make sense, but think about theday to day frustrations and habits and things
that happened to you that get inthe way of the service of your clients.
And so what my goal is withAD briefings is to help you more
efficiently run your office so you cantransition from freelance copywriter who's chasing jobs and

(02:12):
bidding and praying and hoping that aclient will accept your proposal. To an
in demand agency, whether it's youand a few virtual assistants, but an
agency concept that has systems for developingnew clients, systems for serving existing clients,
and then ways of expanding the businessgrowth. Now, one such way

(02:34):
is to build a library of contentthat helps you specialize in a particular target
market. And we do this throughtaxonomy. Now, taxonomy is the categorization
or the organization of ideas and concepts. And the taxonomy for writers, especially
copywriters, is category, keywords andpersona and so what categories are you writing

(02:58):
for? Well, when you doresearch for clients, you can catalog that
research into category areas. And againit depends on really what you're doing category
wise. In our business, wehave a couple demonstration sites that are one
is in the homesteading category. Isthis is in the copywriting category. AD
Briefings is copyright category. We haveone in the wealth category. We have

(03:22):
one in the personal achievement category.Now these are very general generalized, but
again, if you're writing an ADfor a car company, that is a
car category. And if you mapout all the research and industry stats related
to that car category. The nexttime you get an assignment in someone in

(03:43):
that car category, you just pullup the information from your library. You
don't have to go search for stuff. You've got copies of controls, you've
got you know, tips and insightsabout the industry, You've got concepts that
you can look at. One suchcategory that's very helpful is the actual IAB

(04:04):
category taxonomy. Now, this categorytaxonomy is from I think it is the
Internet Advertising Bureau. It's categorizations thatare used to category to target market.
So for example, IAB three isa business general category, but IAB three
DASH one is an advertising specific category. So you can use industry categorization.

(04:28):
And I'll give you a couple moreindustry categorizations at help. Now instead of
having to go out and research fromscratch, you can say to a client,
which particular so you're writing an advertisement, you can say in your targeting
which particular IAB categories will you betargeting. Now that's for somebody who's a
little more sophisticated, and they'll actuallyknow. And then this allows you to

(04:49):
better target in your ad consoles andknow what your ads should write about.
But there's even an IAB nine DASHthirteen for freelance writing. So if I
want to put an ad out forad briefings, and I want freelance writers
who have a hobby or interest inthis category, and I also want them

(05:09):
to have a advertising interest, Ican then target on a larger AD network
IAB three DASH one for advertising andIAB nine DASH thirteen for freelance writing,
and now I've got copywriters in thebusiness opportunity market. Now this is extremely
important because our taxonomy for category isgoing to catalog things about like you know,

(05:32):
what is the average income for afreelance writer. Now we're using the
IAB categorization, and there are othercategorizations because it's got context when it comes
to artificial intelligence, it's got contextwhen it comes to ad networks. It
shows up in your reporting. Youmay not see it, but in your
analytics, these categories show up.And so what we're able to do now

(05:56):
is store less in our internal library, but it's higher quality reference material that
helps us zero in on the buyerfor a product or service. Same thing
with keywords. I see a lotof ads online or a lot of training
about how to do content mapping andhow to do keyword research. Well,

(06:16):
all the research you've done about keywordsproperly documented in your content vault is going
to save you time and effort.So just like the shortcut of just buying
a new NAZ and putting it onthe network and migrating the volumes that have
my two terabytes of video on itand a bunch of client files and stuff,

(06:38):
which I have access to those things, so it's not like a big
deal. I just can't actively it'sa read only version. I just can't
actively work on that. But insteadof having those delays, we now can
say okay, Well, in thiscase, the root keyword for clearing land
has synonyms of land clearing, clearland, trail clearing, clearing land,

(06:58):
and then the topics that derived fromthose is like how to clear a trail
in the woods by hand, ourtrail building and clearing in the woods for
your homestead. See, I've doneresearch already on this topic, and this
is a topic that's relevant for foresters. If I was writing copy for foresters
for the Forestry Mulching Organization, whichwould be a subset of forestry. If

(07:21):
I was doing this for a servicescompany that actually cleared trails, on public
parks. Do you see what we'redoing here. We already did the research
on the keyword. Now we're catalogingthe keyword and we're keeping track of it
in a way that we can easilyrecall the information. Because again, at

(07:42):
the keyword level, it's irrelevant toten, fifteen, thirty, forty different
clients. You don't have to doresearch specific to each client. Now,
from this research, though, Iwould write specific content for the client,
I wouldn't recycle the content that we'vewritten for one client for another client,
except in a limited number of cases. But so you can see the keyword

(08:05):
taxonomy. Now where do we getthe keywords and the research from the keywords?
Well, we can get them fromthe Google Keyword tool, we can
get them from sim rush h refs. We could hire a consultant, and
here's where we have the scale.We could hire a freelancer to go do
keyword research on five or six keykeywords or to help us develop the five

(08:28):
or six root keywords that we're targetingthe content. And then when they give
the materials back, we just askedthem to put them in a template.
And so I have these templates,and so I didn't have to go spend
hours searching for these keywords. Icould give the template to somebody and say,
hey, look, I'm looking forkeywords that are suitable for foresters and

(08:50):
folks that do the chipping in thewoods with the forest umulting machines, and
they go out and do it,and then they give me the file and
then I write, and I knowI've done this for so long it seems
simple, and I don't mean todiscount it. It does require a little
bit of time and forethought to storeinformation in your content library so that you

(09:11):
can extract it later, because youjust can't haphazardly throw it in there.
But again, where do you overlappast work and where could you save time
by being able to recall the thingsthat you've had in the past. When
we're writing copy today, we're notjust writing it from memory. And we're

(09:33):
going to talk about personas next,but we're focusing on specific audiences and it's
kind of like a Venn diagram,a specific audience, a specific topical category,
and then a offer, and sowe're trying to find the overlap between
the three where we can use thecontent to justify to the audience why they
should take action on the offer.So the last thing I want to talk

(09:54):
about is the personas. Now inthe personas, I like to use Clariss
prism market segmentation. It's a behavioralsegmentation. And again, if any of
this stuff is unfamiliar to you,please get a discovery call, get engaged
with the newsletter, get to thewebsite, and ask your questions, because

(10:16):
these are the way that top producersare able to write copy and get paid
six figures rather than just chasing thenext thing on you know, linked You
know you're spamming people on LinkedIn,and you're chasing people on oDesk, and
you're you're trying to get some workon Fiver. I want you to get
away from that as a freelance copywriterwho is basically working hand to mouth and
get into an agency model, becauseonce we have these libraries put together,

(10:41):
now a cub copywriter can access thelibrary and be up and running quickly.
So here's an example. There's aPRISM behavioral marketing segment called second act Rancher.
And I'm going to read to youa narrative that's in a basically a
buyer persona that's in my library here. So I've got a directory called taxonomy.

(11:03):
It contains three directories, category,keywords, and persona. I'm in
the persona directory, and I'm ina file called second act Rancher. And
here is a narrative from them thatwould help me write copy If I'm targeting
this audience. After twenty years inthe corporate grind, I'm trading my power
suit for overalls. I built afortune in tech, but my soul craves

(11:26):
nature and purpose. I want asprawling ranch, sustainable practices, and maybe
a herd of bison. Think TeddyRoosevelt meets Elon Musk. I need someone
who speaks my language, understands mydrive, and it can help turn this
dream into a reality, not justa hobby farm. Now, that is
a narrative summary of the PRISM categoryfor second Act Rancher. That is a

(11:54):
psychological and demographic profile that when Iwrite copy to this group. Now,
this could be writing copy for adude ranch. It could be writing copy
for a homesteading course, a reginativeagricultural system, you know, like a
trainer who's teaching reginative agriculture. Itcould be about the business opportunity of bison.

(12:15):
It could be someone in the remotework category. And do you see
how this helps me understand their needsand desires. So I'm looking for people
that are older and they have finishedthe corporate grind so I can call them
out. You know, are youabout done with the corporate grind and you

(12:35):
want to trade your power suit foroveralls? You want the freedom and experience
of being in the great outdoors,yet have something that's practical and feeds that
drive. We're not talking about retirement. We're talking about an opportunity for you
to have new experiences, to beseen as a leader in a different area,

(12:56):
yet for more rewarding area. See, you'll more access to nature and
greater purpose in life. Do yousee what we're doing here? So it
could have taken weeks to come upwith this narrative, or it could have
been something that we created using AI. The key point is all the bullet
points that are after this help mewrite copy to a second act rancher.

(13:20):
So if I take this second actrancher and I take a category topic and
I take relevant keywords to that category, all of my research is done.
Now I do want to refresh thisbecause if you're writing copy for a specific
company, let's say I was I'mselling a mail order bison bison meat by

(13:41):
mail, and I'm selling the experienceof this person right now is working in
the corporate world and they'd love tohave a bison farm, but they're not
there yet. But they can startenjoying bison meat because you want to make
sure you like the flavor before youend up with a bunch of bison out
on your property. And so thatsynopsis becomes lead generation copy. We know

(14:05):
who to target in the marketplace becausea second act rancher is an older age
category, probably age, probably incomeof one hundred and fifty one thousand dollars
or more. They're gonna have amiddle management or executive title. Do you
see what I'm doing here? Doyou see how powerful this is? So
I could come up with when I'mworking with a client, I could come

(14:28):
up with these almost like on astoryboard, and I can say, okay,
well, let's pick two let's picktwo clients. Let's pick two personas
that you want to target for thisparticular campaign. And I can literally go
in and say, along the linesof this second act rancher, well what

(14:50):
about a burnout fixer consultant? Nowagain, these are tied to PRISM behavioral
marketing categories. There's a lot moredata of Bailable about these individuals, but
we wrote a paragraph to kind ofget a feeling for this particular campaign I
was working on, and so theBurnout Fixer Consultant here's their narrative. I

(15:11):
built a high flying consulting firm,but the endless travel and client demands are
crushing my spirit. I crave asimpler life, closer to nature. I'm
buying a small farm, but I'mclueless about agriculture. I need a coach
who can teach me the ropes fastso I can build a sustainable income from
the land while discovering rediscovering my wellbeing. Think about farm to table therapy

(15:35):
from a side, from the sideof financial security. So again, this
might be an investment opportunity, itmight be a bio village, it might
be a buying into an existing farm. But together, if I'm taking second
act Rancher and I'm taking the burnoutFixer consultant, I've got ideas for two

(15:56):
campaigns. The framework could be thesame, but I can write one campaign
for the corporate grind it one getcampaign for the burn Fixed nowt in fact,
my goal here is to take youfrom freelance copywriter to marketing agency,
and then that agency gets so bigyou'll probably end up as a burnout fix
or consultant where you just want thesimple life. And now I've transitioned you

(16:17):
through to financial security. Yet I'vegiven you a destination. And so again,
these personas help you target in amarketplace. Now, if you want
to go into these personas more,I've got a handful of them that I've
used for clients in the past,and then I'm constantly developing them. So

(16:38):
it's not something that you're going todo once and then never do again.
But we could sit down and talkabout your buyer persona for clients of your
copywriting. See, so, onceyou start building these personas out, you're
now focusing your effort on particular peoplewith money to spend, and you're also
targeting specific keywords that have traffic.And then you're in specific categories that have

(17:04):
marketing channels. And can you seehow this really streamlines what you're doing as
a marketer. Now again, ifyou're just throwing the next thing up on
Fiver and hoping somebody comes in andyou're working all fifty different types of assignments,
and you're chasing that hamster wheel ofmaybe I'll get another assignment next week.
Then you're not you know, miningdeep in a particular marketplace because either

(17:29):
one of those conversations, just havingthe persona in place tells me where I
need to market. Now again,this Persona's in my system, and it's
got bullet points after it, andit's got media categories, and it's got
keywords sets that are they're you know, related to the to the to the
thing. So for example, theEscape Hatch investor, their narrative is Wall

(17:53):
Street's a roller coaster and lately mystomach can't take it. I'm cashing out
of buying a SEC. I'm cashingout buying a secluded mountain retreat and investing
in off grid living. And I'lljust leave it at that, because I
want to show you what what thisis done. Looking at that, I
have a keyword of mountain retreat.I have a keyword of real estate.
I have a keyword of cashing out, so near retirement in that concept itself,

(18:19):
I could just on that one persona, I could develop four or five
rout keywords. I could develop tenor fifteen long tail keywords. I could
go right into ad categories and Icould just simply place ads and get customers.
Now there's analytics in between. LikeI said, there's some nuances a
gded to understand. But if youwant to get started and you don't have

(18:41):
a content library, you don't haveone place where you have twenty three years
or thirty years of your writing inone place. If you don't have the
client assignment, your past client assignmentsomewhere you can search, if you don't
have a swipe file, then whyare you work in the hard way?
And see, now, when youwork the easy way and you have systems

(19:02):
in place, you're going to beable to have higher margins because you're not
having to reinvent the world every time. Now, I got this idea hearing
about Dan Kennedy's room with all thefile cabinets, and he'd have consult you'd
have people come for a day ofconsulting, and he'd sneak off to his
little his little room, and he'dcome back with controls, and he'd come
back with buyer personas, and he'dcome back with old campaigns that could be

(19:22):
recycled, and he'd never let anybodyin the room because they discover his secret.
I guess. But the point ofit is is he had a place
where his reference materials were organized,his historical writing was organized. Maybe it's
books on a shelf. If youdon't have that right now, that is
a game changer. And going froma five figure producer a year to six

(19:45):
seven eight figures now eight figures tendsto be your gross when you have an
agency, and you're not going toget to keep all that money, but
for every million of dollars in gross, you're likely to keep one hundred thousand
dollars as your net proceeds. Isee what we're doing here with ad briefings
is rather than teaching you the nuanceand write how to write a headline,
because that's getting easier and easier everyday, it's how to reach buyers.

(20:11):
It's how to use words to sell, not words to put words on a
page, not words to determine howmuch you get paid, but words to
sell to high value clients into specificniches. And then now, once you
start gaining that specialization, you coulddemand higher rates. You don't even demand
higher rates, by the way,is once you're a specialist and you have

(20:33):
controls and you have performance, you'llstart getting referrals and then you're going to
be that covenant resource that these largerorganizations just must do business with. But
again, if you're acting like aguy on a laptop sitting on a beach
rather than an agency, you're notgoing to think about these tools. And
so I've got a tool that canI can go to and I can say,

(20:56):
Okay, are you and the areyou working with impactful exit executives?
Are you looking for escape hatch investors? What are the described to me the
client that you're looking for. Igo into the PRISM market segmentation, I
pull out that exact person. Ilook at the personas I look at the
client's product. I start writing outthe narratives and the language of the customer,

(21:19):
and then from the language of thecustomer, I speak to their needs
and their desires, using everything thatI've learned from Dan Kennedy, everything I've
learned from Joe Polish, everything I'velearned from Gary Halbert, you know,
Joe Sugarman, and apply it specificallyto selling products to a buyer, a
hungry crowd that has desires and needsthat we've documented. And now I can

(21:44):
come back and I can start usingcurrent news, so you're going to refresh
with current news. I can usenew studies and research. I could just
start building around that persona. Andnow when I'm talking to that audience,
that audience is like I'm in theright place. I know where I need
to be the impactful executive. Ileft the corporate ladder to climb mountains literally.

(22:06):
Now I'm leading expeditions and teaching wildernesssurvival and building an ecolodge in the
Rockies. Now that person doesn't actuallyexist. There's a synthization of multiple different
people. But now I get amailing list of people who have recently sold
their companies, who have an interestin eco tourism or teaching. And now

(22:27):
finally I go and look in theRockies if that's if that's where the client's
located. I've taken all the hardwork out Now over the last twenty some
years. These things get written,but I can keep reusing them because I've
got information stored in a way thatI can extract it. I've organized my

(22:51):
research rather than having piles and notebookseverywhere, which I do have piles of
notebooks everywhere, but I have crossreferencing and such So if you're interested in
organizing information better, if you're interestedin being more productive as a writer,
if you want to be able toleverage the experiences that you have in writing
copy, then you're in the rightplace. All I ask of you is

(23:11):
to share your questions so I canmake sure I provide podcasts that are relevant
to your needs. I'm just ahit with ad Briefings copywriting tips. You
can ask your questions at www dotadbriefings dot co dot uk, and I've
got a bunch of free resources availableto you. I've got some demonstrations.
In fact, I would have recordeda demonstration today if my local hard disc

(23:34):
wasn't all full of garbage. Andmy network drive is working the way it's
supposed to. But it's going tobe six more days before my network attached
storage is ready, and I amcontemplating dropping a new device in here because
I'm really sweating it. Anyway,I'm just a hit from ad Briefings copywriting
Tips. Let's help you grow yourcopywriting business. Thanks for listening.