Turn Your Copy into a Conversation

Regardless of what you’re writing, whether you’re writing a blog post, an article, or a sales message. Your copy should sound personal and relevant to the person reading it.

You don’t want to sound like you’re writing a textbook to a class of students or a news article to the masses. Instead, your tone should be similar to a one-on-one conversation with a friend.

So how can you achieve this “tone of a conversation” with a friend? With a little research, a healthy dose of imagination, and the writer’s trick below, you will learn to write interesting copy.

Try this writer’s trick to help you

This is one of those tricks that natural writers do without thinking and makes their copy interesting.  The rest of us can learn this trick with just a little practice and persistence.

What you’re going to do is create a “persona” of your ideal reader and their lifestyle. For example, if you’re writing a sales letter, use one of your customers and their demographics as the persona framework.

Hopefully, you have a good idea of who your customers are and what they want from life. And if not, you might want to engage in some research to find out what their age group wants.

Create a persona to interact with

Choose one customer: Someone who has purchased your products in the past and reads all your stuff. This person might be real person or an imaginary person, it doesn’t really matter.

Now write a bio for your customer with the goal of answering these questions:  Is your customer male or female?

What is their age and where does he/she live? Decide what is their occupation and what are their likes and dislikes? What are their desires and what are their goals?

You get the idea that you’re creating this person just as if they were real and sitting there in the room with you. Picture them in your mind, or choose a photo from the Internet so you can see them and even talk to them.

Create a conversation with your persona

Now for the fun part: Make friends with this customer. Imagine having a face-to-face chat about your latest product or the blogpost you’re about to write.

What do you tell him or her and what questions do they have? Do they understand what you’re saying, or do they need clarification?

If you’re thinking you can’t do this then it simply means you’re out of practice. All children have imaginary conversations in their heads and you did as well.

This is your chance to let your subconscious mind go to work. Fill in the words your persona would say to you in a conversation.

You’ll be surprised by what you discover because you’re opening the door to the knowledge you didn’t even know you had.

Time to write to your persona

Now then, once you’ve got a good sense of who your persona is, go ahead and write. Write that blog post or article or sales message directly to your persona just as you would write a personal letter.

Be sure to connect with them on an emotional as well as an intellectual level. When you write, your persona is the only one that matters.

When you are writing, you will write as if it is just the two of you having an intimate conversation.

And if all of this sounds terribly silly, don’t worry. Just try it.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much better your writing can become when you’re writing to that one specific persona.

Here is a bonus that can happen

As you get to know your persona better and better, you might try asking him or her questions. Then quietly listen for the answers.

Your persona may even tell you why your marketing is falling short. Or how to market your product for more sales, and even what product to create.

Create another persona with a different lifestyle

Once you’re well acquainted with your first persona, consider getting a second one that is quite different from the first. For example, if your niche is Internet marketing and your persona is a 50-year-old male.

He’s looking to make extra money to sock away for retirement. Well, your second persona might be a 22-year-old looking to earn a full-time living online as fast as possible.

Perhaps you choose a newly divorced 35-year-old mother of 3 trying to make ends meet.

These personas will make your writing come alive and be more interesting to your readers. You will also access useful and sometimes brilliant information and insights.

The insights you receive might take you by complete surprise and also significantly add to your bottom line.