In this article, we will be detailing some of the best copywriting SOPs I learnt from the finest copywriters and marketing courses you can find on planet Earth. I’m talking about: AWAI, Dan Lok, Tai Lopez, Grant Cardone, these are industry leaders in their respective fields.

The topic in question today is about SOPs, or standard operating procedures in the copywriting space. When you are writing copy, you always want to be following a mechanical process and not make things up from your head.

SOPs can help you in that regard shorten your writing curve and give important processes in your creative work. I want to give you what I believe is the most simplest, and the best copywriting SOPs that you can apply for your business.

What is a SOP

A SOP stands for “standard operating procedure.” A SOP is basically a set of rules to follow when executing a task. Here are the best SOPs I learnt from my mentors you can follow for copywriting.

1 – Research first.

Every piece of copy before being written starts from research and market knowledge. If you do not have market knowledge, you need to go out there and research.

If you know your market, you still need to be updated onto what are the trends, and conversations that are being said.

In SEO, they call this keyword research.

In traditional marketing, we call this collecting data. Customer interviews, surveys and data analytics are also all part of the research process.

How much research you conduct is determined by the depth of your campaign. For just one article, perhaps 4-5 hours will suffice but for a giant campaign, more than a couple of weeks are normal.

2 – Get your first draft out ASAP.

Once you have conducted enough research, you want to put something down on paper immediately.

Just start to write. Create your copy’s skeleton and the structure, put things down.

There is no right or wrong process in getting your first draft out fast, except starting.

3- Edit for mistakes, but more specifically edit for influence.

Once you have a first draft, you want to be doing two things (1) edit your work in a way that makes your writing “benefit driven” and “customer-centric” (2) add or subtract what is written in the copy.

• Benefit driven and customer centric means that the copy must be written to speak to your ideal audience. It’s all about writing in a way that is persuasive and influential to your prospects. That could mean making things conversational, it could also mean adding in stories and hooks.
• Add or subtract what is written in the copy means adding on extra bits of information that needs to be written or more than likely, you will be deducting pieces from your copy to make the information concise.

4- Optimize your copy to fit the platform your are publishing in.

Market before strategy.

The reason why we do this step last is because what one of my mentors told me that the market has to always come first. Do NOT put your strategy first and the reason is because when you are writing for your market – you are speaking the language of the market first.

By the way, what am I talking about when I say strategy? I’m talking about a platform like Facebook, Instagram, email, etc.

If you simply just focus on writing  your copy based on the platform, the emotions, the influence of your words, and finally the objective of your campaign will get lost.

Write your copy to suit your market first, then mould the words to fit the strategy of the market.

What do I mean by “mould the words to fit the strategy of the market?”

• In terms of SEO, fitting in your ranking keywords.

• In terms of email marketing, formatting your email.

• In terms of Facebook ads, brainstorming your creatives and social media posts, coming up with image ideas.

Basically after writing the copy, you want to change your wording to fit the strategy of the market. This is what we would call: “platform optimization”

5 – Touch up your copy with final edits.

Edit everything, make it neat and tidy.

6 – Launch.

Just launch. Seriously, if something is 80% enough then it’s good enough. Recently, I sent this article to one of my coaching clients which resulted her in landing a full time job for one of the top co-working spaces in Lithuania, in just less than a week after reading it.

My client was basically a fresh grad from university and after a year of applying jobs, received no offers.

I sent her this article, and within a week she aced her interview and got the job. This article is not the best article I have written, nor is it something that I can call “viral worthy” but I launched it because I know it’s going to help someone.

And it did.

Train yourself to pull the trigger and launch. Nothing gets done until your product (or in this case your copy) gets shipped to the market. People in your market need to hear your message.

Conclusion

Copywriting SOPs are very important in marketing. But don’t be too bogged down by processes would be my advice. Each copywriter has their own way of writing things, just like each marketer has their way of conveying their message.

There are many ways to skin a rabbit.

What is most important is that your SOP works for you. If this method does not suit your style of personality, business or writing -then you can discard it.

Take what works and apply it for you because what’s most important is what results you get because..

Remember, we are in the business of generating results.