Google “How to Become a Better Copywriter.” You’ll get about 512,000 responses ranging from “How to Become A Master Copywriter in Just One Year” to “How to Become a World-Class Copywriter in One Month of Less.” It seems everywhere you turn, someone has an opinion on how easy—or hard—becoming a better copywriter is.

The rest of the articles don’t list a timeframe; probably the smarter way to sell their ideas. Raise your hand if you read the titles above and thought 30 days was too short to master something. But then thought I don’t want to sink a year of my life into something that might not pan out.

Where does that leave you?

Here are the best practices that every copywriter can agree are most important to master if you want to call yourself a good copywriter.

Understand your customers

Your customers, your target audience who will read your copy, are the most important people in the world. You want to know them intimately. Understand their fears and pain, what keeps them awake at night and what causes them to break out in tears of joy. Get down to what makes them tick.

There are a few ways to get a thorough understanding of your customers. If you have a never-ending marketing budget, you could use focus groups to dig deep. Or if your budget is more limited, you could send out a Google Forms poll to your audience to ask them what they think.

Other ideas are to spend time in forums where your target audience hangs out. They like to let their hair down in forums and discuss what irks them or tickles their funny bone. You can learn what words they use to talk about their fears and joys, their pain and pleasure. Those are the very words you want to use to reach them with your copy.

Sometimes copywriters are a step removed from the customer. You’re writing for a company that sells products or services to customers. Hopefully, the company created personas of their ideal customers to give you insight about to whom you should be writing. If they haven’t, then you must spend time researching and hanging out with their target audience before you write.

Show them how your product or service changes their lives

Your target audience is a little fickle. They only want to hear about your product or service in terms of “what’s in it for me?” You should always highlight the benefits and how those amazing benefits will make their lives easier, happier, richer, or more fulfilled.

If you’re not passionate about the product or service you’re writing about, this will be hard. The key is to write with such passion and zest, you end up wanting the product because it sounds so darn good. Resist this urge because you’ll spend your earnings on products you don’t need.

How many times have you read about a product or service and made a split-second decision to buy? You most certainly have even if you don’t want to admit it. That’s great copywriting, right there. The copywriter evoked just the right emotions then solidified the deal by giving you the right justification to open your wallet. Good stuff, that.

Conclusion

Other best practices come to mind.

And you can find them in ProWritingAid’s newest e-book, free for a limited time:

You get 24 chapters chock-full of useful advice and actionable steps to help you master skills. We'll show you how to create the kind of content that gets readers’ attention. And how to set up your copywriting business and pay your bills.

We culled the best advice from half a dozen in-demand copywriters to give you a competitive edge. After you read this e-book, it’s time for action. Put the advice to work and see what happens.

How long you take to succeed depends on the time and effort you put behind learning and using best practices. ProWritingAid has confidence you’ll take these snippets of advice and make them work for you, because you’re not afraid of hard work and dedication.