Message Mining: How to Eavesdrop on the Internet and Steal Killer Copy
Message Mining: How to Eavesdrop on the Internet and Steal Killer Copy
Thinking of the right copy to use for your landing page or product, can really be tiring, heck, it might even come with a headache, as you find the right words that your target audience vibe to. But what if I told you there’s a better way to do it? What if I told you that you don’t have to go the long route of thinking about what the copy should look like? What if I told you that you could literally get your target audience to give you the exact words they’d like to see in your copy? Well, for every what if I’ve asked so far, there is indeed an answer to them. So, follow me as I share some of these secrets.
The great Joanna Wiebe, the Original Conversion Copywriter, once said it best, “instead of writing your message on a blank page, just steal it.” Why? Because the reality is, most of the time, your customer is way more effective at recognizing and explaining what the value of your product or solution is than you are. Because they’re the ones who actually use it and they’re the ones who justified paying money for it, right? They also speak a common language with your market. So, they sound very authentic and they naturally filter their comments about products related to specific motivations and values in their lives. Hence, this brings us to the concept of Message-mining. What exactly is Message-mining? It’s is essentially the process of scouring the internet or other sources for instances of your target customer voicing what they care about most when it comes to your product or solution. There are basically two good reasons why we should mine messages.
1. It’s great for identifying the key messages that you need to have on your page: Remember when I talked about page teardown framework and the things you should look out for? Well, here’s the link to the article (Page Teardown Framework); your page teardown will let you know whether or not you’re really addressing those elements in terms of your persuasive argument, but they won’t tell you what those elements should be specifically, for your product. We might have to take a small trip back to the lesson from Conversion Heuristic in page teardowns to do this perfectly. Going by MecLab formula C = 4M + 3V + 2(I — F) — 2A, our first point of call, is establishing the Motivation. What are the desired outcomes that keep bringing customers to your page; what exactly are they hoping to achieve by coming to your page? What are the pain points/problems they’re trying to solve, that have brought them to your page? Finally, what are those purchase prompts; those triggers that make them finally head towards check out? Our second point of call is the Value Proposition. What are the unique benefits and advantages of using your product? What does your product offer that others don’t? Next are the delightful features/attributes, those features that excite the customers on your page; they feel like icing to cakes and toppings to your favorite snack. Then we take a look at deal breaker needs. These are those things, be it features, attributes, benefits, etc., that will be a deal-breaker for them when it’s missing in the offering. Finally, is Anxiety Messages. What are they worried about? What are they scared of when they’re thinking of buying your product/service? Objections, uncertainties, perceived risks? Those are the type of things you can get from customers when they’re talking about products like yours or your product itself. So, make a checklist of them, when you’re trying to mine messages, keep them handy
2. Swiping or stealing memorable copy: Just before you think this means plagiarism, no, it definitely is not. By swiping or stealing memorable copy, I mean taking turns of phrases from the customer or prospect-generated comments. In simpler terms, it’s all about looking at those reviews online and reading what customers have to say and then identifying those little turns of phrase in there that makes you think, like oh, that’s perfect, like yes, this is the perfect way to describe my product or the benefit that my product provides, I need to include that. So, what exactly are we looking for, when swiping memorable copy?
• Exactly how ‘real people’ describe our product
• The multiple benefits and points of value they talk about
• Anything they absolutely rave about
• Specific things they don’t like about products similar to ours
• Suspicions they have / ways they’ve been burned before
• The exact real-life problems our product helps them minimize or solve
• Interesting analogies and similes they use
So, what exactly do we use these swipes for?
· Relevant, value-focused headlines
· Authentic lead paragraphs & hooks
· Market-specific terminology / slang
· Emotionally-engaging purchase prompts
· Laser-accurate objections
How then do we message-mine?
· Make a list of keywords
- Your brand (if well known)
- Your product types
- Competitor brands
· Google “[keyword] reviews”
- also: complaints, forum, questions, discussion, comment
· Also check popular review sites
- Amazon, Yelp, Consumer Reports, TrustPilot, TripAdvisor, Facebook Pages, your own site reviews!
· Collect into a spreadsheet
- One specifically organized for message mining [observation]
· Categorize & rank messages
- Motivators/pain points
- Purchase prompts
- Objections, swipe worthy copy
PS: After you have done the first three, there is a tool you can use to collate all the information gathered. With this tool [Message Mining Form], you pool in all the answers to instructions 1–3 above.
You might also want to carry out a small experiment to try out the above, to see for yourself, how these things work.
As part of my course requirement, I’ll keep sharing more thoughts on Growth Marketing going forward, and hopefully much after that. But in the meantime, these lessons have been made possible by the good people at CXL Institute. If you like what you’ve read so far and think you want to have more of such knowledge, do either wait for my next post (which is a continuation of this article) or visit the link provided.
