You’ve decided to take the leap and start a copywriting business. Congrats!
While the decision to become a full-time copywriter might seem obvious, the reality of running a successful business might not be. After all, a lot of businesses fail simply because they didn’t take the time to effectively go through their entire business plan. Well, here’s a detailed plan to show you exactly what you need to do to ensure your copywriting business will flourish.
Step one: Identify your target audience, and figure out what they want
There are several steps you need to take before you start your copywriting business, the first of which is to identify your target audience and figure out what they want. This is easier said than done, especially if you’re just getting started, but if you’ve ever wondered what would cause your customers to continually choose your product or service over others, this is the answer. Once you identify this group of people, you’ll be able to develop a clear picture of what elements of your service or product will appeal to them most. A good rule of thumb is to look for the pain points in your target audience’s lives, and use these as the basis for your product or service. So, if you’re solving a problem for someone, that’s exactly what you should be creating; a product meant to solve their specific problem.
For example, if your target audience is parents who are always struggling to keep their kids calm during daycare hours, you might consider creating a parenting product that focuses on helping parents manage their child’s demanding behaviour. As you can see, simply by identifying the problem you’re trying to solve, you’ve already narrowed down your target audience, and given you a clear idea of what elements to include in your product. This will help you avoid wasting time with potential customers who are not suited to your product or service. Once you’ve got a clear idea of your target audience’s needs and wants, you can determine how you should approach this problem and what, in particular, would be the most beneficial solution for them. You might also want to consider whether you should approach this as a standalone product or service, or if it makes more sense to integrate it into another line of business (e.g. daycare or education).
Step two: Create a buyer persona and use it to define your target audience’s needs and wants
So, you’ve got your target audience, which, as we’ve discussed, is made up of people who have a problem you’re meant to solve. Now that you know exactly what they want, you can start to develop a better idea of how you should approach this problem and what would be the best solution to meet their needs. While it might be easy to fall into the trap of just making something that seems appealing to you, the truth is that your potential customers have very specific needs and wants, and you’d be doing them a disservice by just copying what you think they might want. Instead, you need to take a step back, and look at what they say they want, and how you can use that to your advantage.
Step three: Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll use to measure your progress
Once you’ve got a clear idea of who your target audience is, and what they want, you can move on to the next step, which is to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll use to measure your progress. These are the things that you’ll use to determine whether or not you’ve met your target audience’s needs and wants, and if you have, in what way. This could include things like the number of website visitors, sales, or feedback from customers.
Website traffic is one of the most common KPIs used by businesses to measure the success of their websites. The average person is currently online around 2 hours per day, according to HubSpot, which means you’ll have the opportunity to reach a lot of people on the website you create. Furthermore, as we discussed earlier, parents are one of the most important groups of people when it comes to your copywriting business, so knowing how many visits your site receives from this audience will give you an idea of how well you’re doing. Are people finding what they’re looking for? Are they getting the information they need? Are they even looking at all the right spots on the site? All of these questions can be answered by looking at your website’s traffic, so keep track of this closely.
Step four: Create a SWOT Analysis for your business
Once you’ve got your target audience, and you’ve determined that you’re going to focus on a certain type of problem (e.g. demanding children), you can move on to the final step, which is to create a SWOT Analysis for your business. This is an analysis of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (also known as the 4 Ps). When you do a SWOT Analysis of your business, you’re essentially looking to see what you can improve on, what you’re naturally good at, and what you lack in comparison to your competitors. This analysis will allow you to see exactly what you need to work on so that you can improve your position in the market.
For example, if you look at your strengths, you might notice that you’re good at generating unique content. So, if you create products that are meant to solve common problems, you can be certain that you’ll always have something new to say, and your content will be engaging. Your weaknesses might be that you’re not as strong financially as you could be, or that you lack a certain expertise in a certain area (e.g. web design). Opportunities are places where you see yourself successfully operating, and threats are the things that could possibly stand in the way of you achieving your goals.
With a clear idea of your target audience’s needs and wants, and a solid understanding of how you’ll measure your progress, you’re ready to take on the world (or at least your local market). Congratulations!