How to make copy sound authentic in 2 easy steps
Wondering how to make copy sound authentically “you” without being salesy or cheesy? Then read on, my friend!
It’s a question that I hear a lot from people because they don’t want to lose sight of being authentic and themselves, but they also want to appeal to their ideal client. On top of wanting both of these, most people want to avoid sounding salesy.
When learning how to make copy sound authentic, it comes down to two things: sticking to your authentic self, your voice and believing in your ideal avatar, otherwise known as your ideal client.
If you’re a service-based entrepreneur, whether you’re a solopreneur or you have a team, people are going to connect with you and your brand because you’re undeniably you.
Moreover, you need to be authentic and speak in your voice. In my opinion, authenticity is potentially one of the most overused words in marketing right now. I can guarantee that your client would prefer to connect with a human being instead of a computer. So how do you find your authentic voice?
Start by finding your voice
I covered how to find your writing voice here, but I’m going to walk through some of the main points.
The first tip that everybody needs to do with writing is to let go of any self-limiting beliefs. If you have that nasty voice in your head telling you that you’re a terrible writer – ditch it! Because it’s not going to get you anywhere, right?
The second tip in finding your voice is to let go of the need to make it perfect. Sometimes I just start writing and often that’s when the best stuff comes out. You’ll be looking at it going “that’s terrible”, but it’s important just to keep going.
The third tip is to write how you speak! I prefer writing conversational copy. After all, it’s easy to read because it feels like you’re having a conversation when you’re reading. A lot of people will tell themselves, “I can’t just write how I speak” but you can! To make it easier, you can get help from a proofreader or editor to help polish it up afterwards.
If you’re still trying to find your voice, then the fourth and final tip would be to look at other samples of writing that you might like. Examples of writing will help to define what resonates with you and what doesn’t. What are the things that make it sound like your voice? What are the bits and pieces that make it you? You can then leverage these parts to help grasp your voice.
Get to know your ideal client
Once you’re clear on your voice, then you need to look at your ideal client in detail. I love writing copy, but I also love the research phase because I get to learn a lot about people’s behaviour and their motivations.
NeuroCopy is the research phase or also known as the know phase or the know pillar of the NeuroCopy framework. And that comes down to knowing your client, competitor, and your competition.
Demographics
Take note about your ideal client and talk to them about things that get their attention. This is one of the biggest struggles in any business. You need to know your ideal client demographics such as age, where they live, and their job. To keep them reading and interested, you need to plan well with the information you find.
Psychographics
After understanding their demographics, you want to take a look at their psychographics and behaviour. You should ask yourself things like what do they want to achieve? What are the things that keep them up at night? What are the reasons that they might need your product or service? Ideally, you curate these questions to your product or service.
Next, acknowledge the reasons why they might choose not to buy from you or work with you. You need to know about this because you can then answer their objections in your copy and highlight how they’ll feel after working with you.
It’s kind of like a future aspirational identity. I want to get this feeling out of my experience with this person or from this product. How do you want them to feel or instead what would they like to feel?
Testimonials
Then look at what your ideal clients say about working with you. Testimonials are gold and a great resource when doing research. If you’re new to the business and you’re like “I don’t have any testimonials” then look at your competitor’s testimonials.
What are people saying about their experience? What are their goals, pain points, and objections? How do they feel after working with your competitor?
This is going to give you an awesome insight into your ideal client. You combine that knowledge with your voice, and voila, you have an authentic copy that sells. And the best part, it doesn’t need to be salesy to have a positive impact on your client.
Cognitive Dissonance
If you’re a service-based entrepreneur and you’re learning how to make copy sound authentic, this is particularly true to your voice because people want to connect with you. Moreover, they want to know what it’s going to be like working with you, and you can tell them this through your copy.
You might be fun and laid back, but your website copy is very formal. That’s where you get cognitive dissonance. Now I’ve mentioned this quite a bit, but it’s essential to understand the expectation that you’re setting for your clients purely from your copy.
If they read your website thinking, they’ll be working with one type of person. Still, they get a completely different one; it could either be a pleasant surprise, or it could be like “Well actually, I don’t want to work with that person now because they’re different from what I originally thought”.
Pulling it all together
So when learning how to make copy sound authentic to you while speaking to your ideal client, overcome your self-limiting beliefs, write how you speak, look to samples of writing you like and do as much research as you can to understand your ideal client fully.
Client testimonials, demographics, psychographics; the more you know, the better your copy will sound and the more confident you’ll feel.
If you have any other questions, I would love to answer them, so please send me an email, and I will answer your questions in the coming weeks.
For more helpful reading:
Have an amazing day wherever you are in the world!
Ali