marketing-copywriting

Marketing copywriting

Before writing a word

Settle four things. Copy written without them is decoration:

• Who is reading, and what they already believe.
• What one thing they should understand afterward.
• What they should do, singular.
• What is stopping them — the actual objection, not the polite version.

Writing

Lead with the consequence, not the mechanism. People buy what a thing lets them do. The feature

is evidence for the claim, not the claim.

Specific beats superlative, always. "Cuts invoice processing from three days to twenty minutes"

outperforms "dramatically faster" because it can be believed and checked. Every superlative is a

claim your competitor also makes.

Write the way the reader talks. Their words, from research or support tickets, not internal

vocabulary. If a phrase only exists inside the company, it does not go on the page.

One idea per section, in the reader's order — problem they recognize, why existing options fail,

what you do differently, proof, what to do next. Not your org chart's order.

Every claim carries proof nearby: a number, a name, a screenshot, a quote. A page of unbacked

claims reads as marketing and is discounted wholesale.

Editing

Edit in passes; doing them at once does none of them.

1. Structure — is the order right, and is anything missing or duplicated? Fix this before

sentences.

1. Cut — remove every sentence that does not advance the argument. Then cut the first

paragraph, which is usually warm-up.

1. Sharpen — replace abstractions with specifics, passive with active, hedges with claims.
2. Read aloud — anything you stumble over gets rewritten. This catches what silent reading does

not.

Kill on sight

Empty openers ("In today's fast-paced world"), we-focused framing where you-focused works, hedges

that weaken a true claim, feature lists with no consequence attached, and any adjective a competitor

could equally use.

Never

• Write before you know what the reader should do next.
• Edit for elegance before the argument is right. Polished copy for the wrong claim is the more expensive mistake.
• Approve copy nobody read aloud. Rhythm problems are inaudible on the page.