Know Your Prospect

You often hear that the headline is the most important part of any sales letter, whether you’re writing a direct mail campaign or an Internet sales page. This is true to a certain extent; however, before you can write an effective headline, you first need to know your prospect.

The process of knowing your prospect in Internet copywriting is different from direct mail marketing because you have a different set of tools to draw upon. Primarily, you’re trying to answer these questions: Who is your target market? What age are they? Are they male or female? What do they want? What do they need? What is their pain? These are questions that need answering as they relate to your product. For instance, if your product is about picking the perfect stream for fly fishing, your target prospect is not a fisherman. It’s a fly fisherman. And it may not be an experienced fly fisherman (since he probably already has specific fishing spots he prefers), but an inexperienced or occasional fly fisherman.

For Internet sales copy, you can enter the term “fly fishing” into a Google search, then take the time to study the top fly fishing sites that come up. A quick way to understand the keywords that these top sites are using is to simply click the “view source” button on your browser. This will give you the html code for the site, and in most cases, it will also give you the site’s meta name=”keywords” content. For instance: Fly Fishing Tackle, Fly Fishing equipment, Fly Fishing Reels, Fly Fishing Rods, Fly Tying, Fly Tying Materials, Fly Tying Tools, flyfishing, fly patterns, flyshop, trout fishing, steelhead, trout flies. These keywords are the foundation of understanding your prospect. Poke around these sites enough, and you’ll begin to understand the language they use, the problems they’re having, the solutions they need.

Now, with direct mail you’ll generally have access to what’s called a “mailing list data card.” The direct mail business is driven by mailing lists. For instance, if you’re selling a New Age CD by direct mail, you’ll rent a list of people who have previously purchased New Age CDs. Along with this list comes a data card that describes the list: the number of buyers, the breakdown of male and female, average age, general profile, etc.

By closely studying this information, you can draw a very clear picture of the average prospect for your product. What are his or her hobbies? What is the average income level? What level of education does he or she have? Married? Children? Etc.

This is all valuable information to know.

In both Internet and direct mail marketing, another method of understanding and defining your prospect is within the product itself. Often, as a copywriter, you’ll be able to discern the subtleties of your prospect simply by reading the product if it’s an information product such as a book or a newsletter, or in the case of a physical product, by reading accompanying material or product labels, etc. These won’t tell you everything you want to know about your prospect, but they will provide you with additional information.

Now, why do you care? Why is it so important to understand your prospect?

Because this information tells you how to slant your copy. If you’re writing a piece to sell .30-06 ammo to deer hunters, the words you choose and the manner in which you approach your prospect is completely different than if you’re trying to sell 1930s Marcus Brothers prints to quilters.

Never get ahead of yourself: understanding your prospect comes before writing your headline.

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