Writing Compelling Copy

I got a question from a client yesterday asking if I could help them anchor what they’re writing. I’ve been doing a ton of learning and contemplating recently about my offering, my skillset and my copy. And, when I read that email, I realized I was doing the same thing: I was trying to find the anchor for my copy. The central thing, the key thing. The thing which it all boils down to.

Time and again, clients ask me questions like:

  • What copy should I write on my home page?
  • How do I make my copy sound different to the next author/coach/business owner out there?
  • Should I target this or that audience?
  • I don’t know where to start with my jacket copy. Can you help?

All these questions actually boil down to this one question:

What is my CORE message?

Because, if you were sure what your core message was, you’d know what to write for your home page, your jacket copy or your next email.

Now, I don’t believe in quick fixes or magic bullets, but I do believe in reducing overwhelm. (Yes, Karina, I’m unashamedly using this as a noun. I saw a well-respected copywriter, Ray Edwards, use overwhelm as a noun recently so I’m going to petition for it to be entered into the dictionary henceforth as a noun. – Says the teen who tried to convince her English teacher that ‘bestest’ was a word! True story.) So, in the name of less overwhelm, I want to offer you a simple way to find the anchor for your copy today.

What memoir teaches us about copywriting

I’ve been bingeing on Marion Roach Smith‘s teaching recently. She’s an accomplished memoir writer and memoir coach who I discovered thanks to a Hope Writers‘ Tuesday Teaching. She swears by an algorithm for writing memoir, and that algorithm kept me up last night as I was starting to see how it would simplify copywriting.

Here it is:

How to find the anchor for your copy-Sarah Sambles
Read Marion’s blog post here

In other words: It’s about something universal (x), as illustrated by something deeply personal (y), to be told in some length of a piece (z).

Most of my clients start their copy, their book jacket, or their bio with ‘y’, the ‘personal’. They jump into describing their product or their plot or their life’s timeline. It’s natural; we all do it. We do it because it’s easier than the alternative.

The X Factor

However, as Marion Roach Smith explains, it’s the X Factor which hooks your audience. She uses the example of Marley and Me a lot in her teaching. If you were to say, “it’s about a man who gets the girl, gets the job, and ends up adopting a badly behaved dog, and having kids,” would you want to read it? Probably not. There’s no compelling reason to. However, if you were to say, “it’s about how dogs – even mischievous ones – teach us what’s really important in life,” you’d be interested. You’d want to know what the protagonist needs to learn, and how the dog manages to win them over despite their bad behaviour.

The same is true of copy. It’s not the technical features of the product, the inventory of your photography packages, the blow-by-blow details of the plot which will make your audience sit up and listen. Rather, it’s the element which they can relate to, the part where they can imagine themselves. In other words, the universal.

This is how you find the anchor for your copy. Instead of droning on about the features of your coaching package, pull out of your service the universal theme, the universal struggle.

Find the anchor for your copy

Still not sure how to do that? Ask yourself these questions:

What is the deeper:

  • pain
  • struggle
  • realization
  • transformation
  • journey

my customer or protagonist is experiencing?

That’s where to start your copy. That’s your core message. That’s your anchor.

If you’d like help figuring out the heart of your message, I would LOVE to help you. It’s my favourite thing to do with clients. Contact me to set up a call.