In today’s episode, I’m sharing with you copywriting tips for heart-centred entrepreneurs.
If you are struggling to write compelling content and great copy for your business, and you want some copywriting tips and strategies to improve, then this is going to be super helpful.
Here for the links referenced in the show notes?
Nail Your Niche free training: tashcorbin.com/niche
Core Message Document free template: tashcorbin.com/coremessage
Let’s dive in!
You may have noticed in the title of this podcast episode that I’m specifically talking about copywriting for heart-centred entrepreneurs…
Why would I specifically talk about copywriting tips for those of us who identify as heart-centred entrepreneurs?
It’s because copywriting for heart-centred entrepreneurs is actually very different to some of the more traditional business copywriting you have seen in the past.
Heart-centred entrepreneurs deeply care about consent-driven strategies.
I’m not going to teach you copywriting tips that:
- Bypass people’s consent
- Use hypnosis or hypnotic words
- Have manipulation or persuasion threaded through them
I’m specifically talking about heart-centred entrepreneurs, because I’m talking about copywriting that is deeply grounded in consent and builds connection.
Heart-centred entrepreneurs are not the kind of entrepreneurs who want to stay at arm’s length from everyone in their audience and just treat everyone like a number.
We actually want to connect with our audience. We want to build community.
All these copywriting tips are deeply grounded in consent.
The copywriting tips and strategies I’m going to be sharing are based on the assumption that it’s not about churning and burning your leads, having a 25% unsubscribe rate, and everyone just being a number to you.
The final thing that I think separates heart-centred entrepreneur copy compared to traditional copy is that sense of care.
You actually CARE about:
- Whether people get the results or not
- Whether people are unsubscribing from your newsletter because it’s making them feel really uncomfortable and low in confidence
- The impact you have with your copy online
- Not over-promising and making promises you can’t keep
- If you say it’s a no-questions-asked money-back guarantee that it is actually no-questions-asked
- Being open and transparent in the way that you speak about your business
With all of those things in mind, these copywriting tips that I’m sharing with you may actually be a little different to what you may have heard in the past.
I am not one to teach any form of trickery, manipulation or spamming people, because I don’t want to be treated that way. I think it’s really important that we take full responsibility for our impact, not just our intention, and therefore apply consent-driven heart-centred approaches to everything – including how we write copy.
Let’s dive into my copywriting tips for heart-centred entrepreneurs…
Tip 1: Niche
Be very clear and specific on your niche and have an understanding of who they are.
A niche is not the topic area that you focus on. Your niche is not your modality.
Your niche is who you are focused on when you write. In particular, when you write marketing copy for your business.
We want to be really clear on who your marketing copy is focused on, regardless of whether that be:
- Content (for a content marketing approach)
- Emails (for an email marketing approach)
- Copy for sales pages or launches
The more specifically we are niched in who this is for, the more tangible, effective and resonant our copy can be for that niche.
If you are still having niche resistance or you’re still a bit wobbly around what your niche might be, I highly recommend that you take some time to get quite tangible and specific about your niche.
Not just demographics. I don’t care how many kids they have unless that’s relevant to your work. I don’t care whether they’re a parent or not unless that’s relevant to your work and your marketing.
We want to make sure that we’re clear on who the person is that you are focusing your marketing and writing towards, what their priority goal is that they want to achieve, and why they think that they can’t achieve it.
That is a mix of demographics, sensor graphics and psychographics.
That’s what we’re looking for when it comes to niching.
If you need some extra help finding your niche, I highly recommend you check out my Nail Your Niche free training: tashcorbin.com/niche
Tip 2: Adapt for the platform you’re on and the audience you’re talking to
Your copy with be different depending on what platform it’s on, or what audience you’re showing it to.
I’m not going to write ad spec copy for social media (where it’s a social platform and I should be friendly and conversational).
When I’m writing copy, I’m mindful of what mode people are in when they’re reading it.
When my audience is on social media, they’re scrolling and probably looking for opportunities for their business. That’s why I write in a really social conversational way, and I focus on good uses of their time on social media and providing them with great opportunities.
My copy needs to be written differently when I’m speaking to my social media audience compared to the writing I do in a follow-up email to a training that I’ve completed.
If people have opted into doing a webinar or a workshop with me, and they’ve just learned a bunch of stuff from me, the copy that I write for that audience is going to be far more focused on warm audience language, key messaging and value proposition, and it will be a little more formal in its tone.
When people are reading emails from me, they’re in learning/CEO mode. I want to be speaking in that tone. That’s why my copy in that instance is going to be slightly different.
Similarly, the way that you explain something depends on who you’re talking to.
The way I explain my business to my Uber driver or someone that I met at the fish and chip shop is going to be different to the way that I explain my business to someone I met at a networking event for women in business.
It’s going to be different to the way that I explain myself in my webinar about launching. I’m not going to talk about my focus on lean startup when I’m running a webinar for more advanced entrepreneurs.
I’m not going to focus on my expertise in launching when I’m working with people in startup.
I am very mindful of who I’m speaking to and about what, so that when I’m writing my copy, I can be nice and specific.
Think about the platform and audience your copy is for, and stop looking for copy that works on every platform. The more that you do that, the less it works on any of the platforms that you’re sharing it on.
That’s the second of my copywriting tips.
Tip 3: Ensure you have consistency and clarity in your core message
The way that I recommend doing that is actually crafting a core message document.
I have a core message document for my business, and I have a core message document for each of my programs.
This is because Take Off and Leverage and Launch have slightly different niches, they have slightly different key messages that I’m focused on, people are a little bit further along in their journey in one over the other, and so I have the whole of the business core message and then I have the core messages that I really need to focus on when I am promoting or attracting leads for one program over the other.
A messaging document includes things like:
- What is the niche?
- What is the value proposition?
- How does your audience describe the problem versus what you know the problem is?
- What are the keywords and phrases that I want to SEO for?
- What’re people googling in this space?
- What would be the terminology and phraseology that I would use to explain things in this area?
- What are the models I use?
My pyramid model is something that I consistently share, regardless of whether I’m promoting something in early stages or advanced stages, because making sure you’ve got solid foundations is something that is fundamental to everything that I do.
That model is in my core messaging document.
If you don’t have a core messaging document and you’d like to create one, I’ve got a beautiful template for you that goes with this episode of the podcast.
There’s also a video training that goes with that core messaging document to help you ensure you nail your core message.
You can grab it for free here: tashcorbin.com/coremessage
When you then go to write content with that core message in front of you, it’s far easier for you to stay focused and strategic in the way that you phrase things and in the areas that you’re focused on.
This is something that we do in both Take Off and Leverage and Launch, and it’s one of those things where people come back after they’ve done their core message and have so much clarity about their content creation and the way that they speak to their audience.
It allows you to break that core message down into tangible key messages, practical examples, and things that you actually use in your copy.
Tip 4: Be curious about your audience
The best copy I write comes from responding to my audience. I know what they want from me because I ask them consistently.
I consistently ask them questions in a one-to-many way (on socials, in emails, while running webinars, etc.) and in a one-to-one way.
I’m asking every single lead that I have for the Take Off program where they’re at in their business and what they’ve tried so far.
That information is really helpful for me making sure my copy is effective for other people as well.
If they’re a hot lead for the Take Off program and these are the questions they’re asking, then my other hot leads for the Take Off program who don’t think to ask me directly, will actually be drawn in and be able to hear the answer to that question if I take that and turn that into content.
Be very curious about your audience.
Sometimes we think that in order to be of service to our audience, we need to be in expert-only mode. We don’t ask our audience questions because we know what they need and we know what’s good for them. It’s almost this sense of being above them.
But that can sometimes create resistance to asking your audience questions or being curious about what they think the problem is because you already know what’s good for them and what they need.
We become ships passing in the night with our audience because we haven’t been curious about how they describe the problem. We haven’t been curious about what they think is going to help them move forward. Instead, we’re just yelling at them that they’re wrong and they should be focused on something else.
That doesn’t magnetise ideal clients… it actually pushes them away.
That’s the fourth of my copywriting tips. Be curious consistently about what your audience wants, what they’re aiming for, and what their challenges are. Ask lots of questions from lots of different angles, because that will really help you to accelerate your copywriting skills and the effectiveness of your copywriting.
Tip 5: Be observant and listen to the answers
Another thing I see quite a lot of at the moment is people asking questions on social media, and then not paying attention or responding to the answer.
It seems to me that those answers are giving really powerful insight, but all these people wanted were the comments.
A lot of times we are trained that we should be phishing for engagement on social media. We just want engagement for engagement’s sake, so we ask a bunch of questions that get us 25 comments, but then we’re not observing what those comments are telling us.
Sometimes it’s about being observant about what your audience is and isn’t telling you, and paying attention to what your audience is wanting from you and what your audience is not wanting from you.
One of the things that I do whenever I promote a new free webinar or workshop, is I promote it to my mailing list and my hottest audience organically on socials first to see how many people are interested in it and sign up in the first few days.
That number will tell me how good that webinar topic is for my audience.
I can be very observant of what it is that my audience wants just by looking for what those numbers tell me.
When I first started my business, I was very observant about what got people engaging on my Facebook page and what got me lots of reach.
One of the things that I did not get a lot of reach on was when I shared inspirational quotes and pretty pictures. My audience wasn’t interested in inspiration from me. They were interested in step-by-step strategy and step-by-step practical advice.
By being observant about what people were engaging with and what got the most reach, I was able to change my copywriting approach to be less inspo and more instruction.
By being observant, you will see what it is that your audience loves, what your copy needs to look like, and what your copy needs to address and say in order for it to be of value and engaging to your audience.
This advice definitely builds on the fourth of my copywriting tips. Don’t just be curious and ask questions, also be observant and look at what the answers are, what the numbers are telling you, what is getting lots of engagement, what is getting nothing, and what it is that your audience is trying to tell you with the way that they are not engaging with your content.
Tip 6: Find your voice
I know it sounds a bit up in the air and theoretical, but it’s really about finding the way that you express what you need to say, especially in a conversational way.
For a lot of us, our copywriting is not conversational because any writing we’ve had to do in the past has been very formal. We’ve either worked in corporate so we’re writing quite formally, or we’ve done some sort of education where we have to write reports or essays.
Everything’s very formal, which means it can be a struggle to type in a conversational way. It takes practice.
So many of us see old-school copywriting practices on social media and think that that’s what we need to do to be successful.
You might see ads being written in ads-y formal language, so you think that’s how you need to write your promo for social media.
But here’s the thing: A lot of the ads that you see on social media, you actually don’t realise they were ads because they were written so beautifully conversationally.
The copy that you recognise as ad copy is the exact copy that tells you this is an ad.
Out of the types of content that we see on social media, which are we most likely to scroll past? It’s the stuff that screams that it’s an ad.
Just like how we train ourselves to tune out commercials on television, we train ourselves to tune out ads on social media.
The more that your copy looks like ads, the more that your copy stands out as formal, and the more likely we’re going to think that’s an ad and scroll on past.
Rather than using those old marketing tricks and old ways of thinking about how we structure formal copy to be persuasive, instead, practice finding your conversational written voice in particular.
The way that I did that was to do a lot of video and live content.
The more I showed up and ran webinars live, did Facebook Lives, video content, podcast episodes, etc., the more I was able to then imagine myself doing those things in my head as I was writing.
I’d get out of formal writing mode by finding what my voice is, how I express things and how conversational my language becomes.
It takes practice, but I really do recommend having that focus on how to show up and speak conversationally, rather than focusing on how to copy someone else’s six-part offer structure.
That is going to do the exact opposite of what you actually need it to do.
Tip 7: Understand some simple and basic structures for your copywriting
We don’t want to have those old tricks and formal structures where you have to have a captivating question that uses a capital on every word. Those things look like ads.
We don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking more structure to our writing means it’s more effective.
In most cases, that’s not true.
We just need a basic structure or a little bit of a guideline on what goes where (in a very loose and simple way).
For example, I have a very simple and basic structure to my email that I send out to my mailing list every week.
My loose newsletter structure starts with a very conversational introduction, then a love note for me, a current selfie, this week’s podcast episode, what it’s about and why you should read it, and then it has an offer of some sort. That offer is probably presented in the most formal way of all of my channels.
It’s the ad space in that newsletter.
If I’m launching the Take Off program, there are different types of promo posts that will go on social media.
I’ll generally have different promo posts going out with:
- A personal touch story
- Frequently asked questions
- A more formal tone
- The return on investment
- A conversational tone talking about my experience starting a business
- A ranty tone talking about why so many courses aren’t suitable for people who are starting an online business
I’ve got those simple basic structures to make sure I’m hitting the right angles across that launch with the different pieces of copy that I write.
Having some simple basic structures helps to ensure your copywriting is effective.
One great structural thing that I applied from the very start of my business was that before you tell someone how to do something, make sure that you’re on the same page about why it’s important they do it.
For example, “How to get more organic reach on Facebook”. Before I tell you how to get more organic reach on Facebook, I’m going to be sure to tell you why you would want that (even if it’s just quickly).
You would want more organic reach on Facebook because it makes your ads cheaper, and it creates that proof of concept for your messaging.
I could give a couple of key reasons why you would want to prioritise making that happen, and then I could tell you how to do it.
Even to this day with off-the-cuff content that I share, videos that I do live and podcast episodes that I create, before I tell you how to do something, I’ll let you know why it’s important to do that.
That little basic structure is almost a habit now. It’s very good at ensuring my copy does its job and actually gives people the value upfront of why they should be listening along further.
Tip 8: Practice, practice, practice
When it comes to writing copy, just remember that copy will be something you will always need to do in your business moving forward forevermore. You will always need to update sales pages, reschedule emails, or write things in some form.
Yes, you can have copywriters in your team, especially if you have a giant business down the track. But that will never ever get you out of having to write copy yourself.
You are the voice of your brand. You are the one who’s best equipped to quickly understand who your audience is, what they’re looking for, what messaging will be resonant and get that copy created. In many cases, you will still be the core content creator. You’ll still be running the podcast each week, or you’ll still be showing up and being the talent in your business.
All of that requires copy.
Rather than being frustrated and looking forward to the day the copywriting is done, just acknowledge and accept that you’re going to need to write copy for your business pretty much forever, so how can you get better at it and build those skills? How can you see every time as practice for next time?
Every time you write an email sequence, that’s good practice for the next email sequence that you write.
Every time you write a promo post for a social media platform, that’s great practice for next time.
You’ll be able to refine based on what the feedback is, what the engagement is, how well it works, and what patterns you’re seeing over time. You’ll get better and better at writing great copy for your business, which in turn will create more engagement, more reach, and more results.
There are so many great benefits to being good at writing basic copy for your audience.
They are my eight copywriting tips to write better copy as a heart-centred entrepreneur.
As I mentioned, I do recommend that you have a core messaging document.
You can grab my free messaging document here: tashcorbin.com/coremessage
You can have that messaging document for your business overall, as well as one for each of your products or offers. That really helps to keep that copy tight and value-driven as you go and create all the different pieces of copy that you need from there.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast and reading my copywriting tips.
As always, feel free to slide into my DMs on Instagram or Facebook. I would love to hear if you have any questions, or want to share any lightbulb moments you’ve had from these copywriting tips.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
