Copywriting

Copywriting — Persuasion, Conversion & Brand Voice

Write copy that moves people to action — from landing page headlines to email sequences to product descriptions that sell.

When to Use This Skill

USE when:

• Writing landing pages, sales pages, or product pages
• Crafting email campaigns (launch, nurture, re-engagement)
• Creating product descriptions for stores or marketplaces
• Writing CTAs, taglines, headlines, and ad copy
• Defining or applying brand voice and messaging

DON'T USE when:

• Writing documentation or guides → use /technical-writing or /user-guides
• Writing long-form reports → use /report-writing
• Defining editorial standards → use /style-guide

Principle 1: The Copy Framework Stack

Choose Your Framework

AIDA Applied

## ATTENTION (Headline — stop the scroll)
"Ship your SaaS in a weekend, not a quarter."

## INTEREST (Subhead + opening — hook them deeper)
"The average developer spends 6 weeks on auth, payments, and deployment
before writing a single line of product code."

## DESIRE (Body — make them want it)
"[Product] gives you auth, billing, deployment, and analytics out of
the box. Our customers launch 4x faster — and the last three
ProductHunt #1 Products were built on our stack."

## ACTION (CTA — tell them exactly what to do)
"Start building free → no credit card required"

PAS Applied

## PROBLEM (Name their pain — show you understand)
"You spend more time formatting reports than analyzing data."

## AGITATE (Twist the knife — make the pain vivid)
"Every Monday morning, it's the same: 2 hours copying numbers into
slides, fixing broken charts, chasing people for updates. By the
time the report is ready, the data is already stale."

## SOLUTION (Relief — your product is the answer)
"[Product] generates your weekly report automatically from live data.
One click. Always current. Reclaim your Mondays."

Principle 2: Headlines

Headline Formulas

THE "HOW TO" HEADLINE:
  "How to [desirable outcome] without [undesirable requirement]"
  → "How to grow your email list without writing a single blog post"

THE SPECIFIC NUMBER:
  "[Number] ways to [achieve goal] in [timeframe]"
  → "7 ways to cut your AWS bill in half this month"

THE QUESTION:
  "[Question that implies value]?"
  → "What if your CI pipeline took 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes?"

THE CONTRAST:
  "Stop [bad thing]. Start [good thing]."
  → "Stop guessing what users want. Start knowing."

THE TESTIMONIAL LEAD:
  "'[Quote from customer about specific result]'"
  → "'We shipped 3x faster after switching' — CTO, Acme Corp"

THE NEGATIVE:
  "Don't [common mistake] until you [read/try/see this]"
  → "Don't choose a database until you've read this comparison"

Headline Rules

✓ Specific > vague ("Save 4 hours/week" > "Save time")
✓ Benefit > feature ("Write code faster" > "AI-powered autocomplete")
✓ Concrete > abstract ("10,000 developers" > "Trusted by many")
✓ Short > long (under 12 words for most headlines)
✓ Test 5+ headlines before choosing — your first idea is rarely best

POWER WORDS (use sparingly):
  Free, New, Proven, Instant, Easy, Secret, Guaranteed,
  Discover, Exclusive, Limited, Simple, Fast, Save, Now

Principle 3: Body Copy

Writing Persuasive Body Copy

RULE 1: LEAD WITH BENEFITS, NOT FEATURES
  Feature: "256-bit AES encryption"
  Benefit: "Your data is protected by bank-grade security"
  Best: "Sleep easy knowing your data has bank-grade encryption (AES-256)"

RULE 2: ONE IDEA PER PARAGRAPH
  Short paragraphs (1-3 sentences). White space is your friend.

  Online readers scan. They don't read walls of text.

  Like this.

RULE 3: USE "YOU" MORE THAN "WE"
  ✗ "We built an amazing platform that uses AI to..."
  ✓ "You get instant answers powered by AI that..."

RULE 4: SHOW, DON'T TELL
  ✗ "Our tool is incredibly fast"
  ✓ "Average query response: 47ms. That's faster than a blink."

RULE 5: ADDRESS OBJECTIONS
  "But what if it doesn't work for my use case?"
  → Handle this before the reader thinks it

Social Proof Patterns

CUSTOMER QUOTE:
  "We reduced deployment time from 4 hours to 12 minutes."
  — Sarah Chen, VP Engineering at Acme Corp

METRIC PROOF:
  "50,000+ developers. 99.99% uptime. 4.8★ on G2."

LOGO BAR:
  [Company logos of recognizable customers]

CASE STUDY SNIPPET:
  "Acme Corp cut their infrastructure costs by 62% in the first
  quarter after migrating to [Product]. Read the full story →"

AUTHORITY:
  "Featured in TechCrunch, Wired, and The Verge"
  "Winner of the 2025 DevTools Award"

Principle 4: Calls to Action (CTAs)

CTA Hierarchy

PRIMARY CTA (one per page — the main conversion):
  Style: Large button, high contrast, above the fold AND at the bottom
  Copy: Specific action + value
  ✓ "Start building free"
  ✓ "Get your report in 60 seconds"
  ✓ "Try it free — no credit card"
  ✗ "Submit"
  ✗ "Click here"
  ✗ "Learn more" (for primary CTA)

SECONDARY CTA (lower commitment alternative):
  Style: Text link or ghost button
  Copy: "See a demo", "View pricing", "Read the docs"
  → For visitors not ready to commit to the primary action

MICRO CTA (within content):
  Inline text links: "See how Acme Corp saved $2M →"
  → Keeps engagement without interrupting flow

CTA Button Copy Formula

[Action Verb] + [What They Get] + [Urgency/Qualifier]

GOOD:
  "Start your free trial"
  "Download the 2026 report"
  "Book a 15-minute demo"
  "Get instant access"
  "Create your first project"

GREAT (adds specificity or value):
  "Start building in 2 minutes — free"
  "See your savings estimate"
  "Join 10,000+ developers"
  "Generate your report now"

Principle 5: Email Copy

Email Campaign Templates

LAUNCH EMAIL:
  Subject: [Product news] + [specific benefit/number]
  Body structure:
    Line 1: The news (what's new)
    Line 2-3: Why it matters to THEM
    Line 4-5: Key features (bullet points)
    CTA: Try it / Learn more
    P.S.: Urgency or bonus

NURTURE EMAIL:
  Subject: [Question] or [Helpful tip]
  Body structure:
    Line 1: Acknowledge their situation
    Line 2-4: Teach something valuable (no selling)
    Line 5: Soft bridge to product
    CTA: Optional, low-pressure

RE-ENGAGEMENT EMAIL:
  Subject: "We miss you" or "Things have changed"
  Body structure:
    Line 1: Acknowledge absence without guilt
    Line 2-3: What's new since they left (specific features)
    CTA: "Come back and see what's new"
    Unsubscribe: Prominent and respectful

Email Subject Line Rules

✓ Under 50 characters (mobile preview)
✓ Specific > clever ("Your report is ready" > "You won't believe this")
✓ Personalization if genuine ("[Name], your usage report")
✓ Create curiosity gap WITHOUT clickbait
✓ Test 2-3 subject lines per send (A/B test)

✗ ALL CAPS
✗ Excessive punctuation!!!
✗ Misleading content (kills trust permanently)
✗ "Newsletter" or "Update" (boring, gets archived)
✗ Spam trigger words overuse (free, act now, limited time)

Principle 6: Product Descriptions

E-commerce Product Copy Template

## [Product Name]
**[One-line value proposition]**

[2-3 sentence description covering: what it is, who it's for,
and the key benefit]

### Key Features
- **[Feature]** — [Benefit to the buyer]
- **[Feature]** — [Benefit to the buyer]
- **[Feature]** — [Benefit to the buyer]

### Specifications
| Spec | Detail |
|------|--------|
| [Dimension] | [Value] |
| [Material] | [Value] |
| [Compatibility] | [Value] |

### What's Included
- [Item 1]
- [Item 2]
- [Item 3]

SaaS Product Copy

## [Feature/Plan Name]

**[Headline benefit — what they can DO, not what it IS]**

[1-2 sentences expanding on the benefit with specifics]

✓ [Included capability 1]
✓ [Included capability 2]
✓ [Included capability 3]
✓ [Included capability 4]

[Primary CTA button]

"[Customer quote about this specific feature]"
— [Name], [Role] at [Company]

Output

Save copy to the appropriate deliverable format:

• Landing pages: copy/landing-[page-name].md
• Emails: copy/email-[campaign]-[sequence-number].md
• Product descriptions: copy/product-[name].md

Guidelines

• Benefits over features, always — the customer doesn't care how it works, they care what it does for them
• Write like you talk — then edit for clarity. Robotic copy doesn't convert.
• Specificity is persuasion — "4.8 stars from 2,300 reviews" beats "highly rated"
• Every piece of copy needs ONE primary CTA — don't give readers 5 choices
• Test everything — headlines, CTAs, subject lines. Your intuition is wrong 40% of the time.
• Use /humanizer to strip AI-generated patterns from drafted copy
• Use /style-guide to maintain brand voice consistency
• Use /technical-writing when copy needs to also educate (product docs that sell)