Make Money Online Copy Research

How To Research Your Copy


If we can talk about planning your copy now, my initial question is why do you suggest, or why should people plan their copy? Well, are you familiar with the Empire State Building in New York City? Yes. Unfortunately it is the tallest building in New York city now ever since the atrocities during 9/11 with the World Trade Center, and in New York, in Manhattan, the Empire State Building can be seen from the New Jersey side, from the New York side, many many miles. Up to 40, 50 miles away it can be seen.

That building, was once a thought in the mind of the architect who built it. That thought was transposed into a blueprint. That blueprint was deliberated on even further with a group and a bunch of people designing the building.

The hotel, which was the old Waldorf Estoria, was at that location. They had to make the plans to eliminate that building so they destroyed it. And then they built the Empire State Building. They didn't build up first. They built down. They built fifty feet down. That's how deep the foundation is. I think it's about 52 feet down. And the deeper the foundation the taller the building.

Then they came to ground level and then they started building the building. It took about 18 months which is an incredible period of time. It's a very, very short period of time to build a building that tall over 120 stories. And then once the building was complete they put the facade, they put all the furniture, they built the inside, and then they started occupying it. When you occupy a building, you are bringing traffic to your web site. Prior to that, 85% is in the planning.

The analogy and the metaphor I used of the Empire State Building is like writing great copy. You must first plan and do your research. I have a four step formula -- Discovery, Analysis, Planning, Execution. Again: Discovery. Analysis. Planning. Execution.

That's not my formula, I've taken that and modified it from how an engineer builds a building. My Father is a structural engineer, so I took that and I've applied it to constructing a great piece of copy.

Discovery is everything from spying on your competitors, to doing interviews like this one, from interviewing your customer service reps to calling up ex-customers and asking "Why did you return the product?" These are great, great discovery tidbits to get the raw material which is the foundation of your copy to begin building.

You haven't gone North yet, you're still building South, you're digging the foundation here, so that's what Discovery is.

I spend about 80% of my time in Discovery. 85%. People say "How come you haven't written yet?" "Because I don't have enough info."You have to have general and specific knowledge like Joe Sugarman talks about before you can put the pen to paper or keyboard to your document, on your computer.