Instead of looking to your competitors for copy inspiration, try this.
Any time you sit down to write new copy—be it for your home page, a sales email, or a social media post—you’re not writing it in a vacuum. Whether you were inspired by a chat with a friend or something you read that morning, you’re always using the world around you to inform the copy you write.
In fact, it’s not unusual or wrong to poke around on a competitor’s website for copy inspiration.
If you’re in the thick of it with a piece of copy, trying to wrestle your message into something coherent and meaningful, it can be seriously useful to take a look at what others in your field are saying.
Perusing copy within your industry can help you…
home in on how other people are explaining what they do and selling their offers.
reflect on what sets you and your business apart from other options your audience might be considering, and how you might best phrase that in your copy.
However, a lot of times it can have a negative impact when you’re trying to write your own copy.
For one, it can feel overwhelming or even intimidating. Ever taken a look at someone else’s website or sales email in your field and immediately felt inferior?
Trust me, you’re not alone. Especially if you’re on your first round of copy or doing a website rewrite for the first time in years, it can be easy to feel down when seeing the highly-polished final copy other people have sitting nicely on their website.
Plus, spending a lot of time reading what other people in your field are putting out there can start to feel like a one-sided rat race. The folks who used to inspire you now might make you feel hopeless when trying to figure out how to say what it is that YOU need to say, in your own special way.
Or, you might realize after copious amounts of gleaning copy tidbits from other people in your field… that your “brand new” copy actually sounds like their copy. You might even see glimpses of exact phrases that you found in their material copied directly in your own. Oof! Of course, this was never your intention. It doesn’t feel good, it’s not ethical, and worst of all… it doesn’t showcase the unique flavor that only you can bring to the dinner table.
If you’re anything like me, you started your business because you had something of your own to say.
You put your own twist on things, so why should your copy be anything close to cookie cutter? We both know it: you’ve got special sauce, and it’s important to let it shine through your copy.
So how do you find inspiration for your copy and get grounded in the sort of voice/tone you wish to project… without digging for inspiration that only distracts you from writing like yourself?
Look to the people in your life whose voice you admire instead. Dig into why you admire their voice, and dream up ways to emulate it.
Finding inspiration from the living, breathing people in your life rather than from polished industry pros works like magic for a few reasons.
For one, it can produce a helluva lot more natural-sounding copy. No matter how good the folks in your industry are, there’s a good chance at least a few of them put quite the sales-y spin on their copy. And once you run it through the synonym filter trying to tweak their language without copycatting, it’s going to come across even more stiff.
Think about it: with this exercise, you’re likely to think of dear friends.
Beloved family members.
Maybe even former colleagues, if they’re lucky.
The sort of lovely, down-to-earth people who make you feel comfortable, seen, and inspired down to your pretty lil toes. You’ll be thinking of how they talk as people, not as business-jargon robots, or the tired marketing copy materials you’re bound to run into in any industry.
When you dig into what works about what your lovely people say, well… that’s where the real magic happens.
That’s the stuff that gets to your heart and makes you feel good. The stuff that makes you feel seen and accepted for the person you already are.
And guess what? It’s way more likely to make the sort of people you dream of working with feel that way. Much more so than any copy you muscled into your own voice after reading similar sentiments on six different industry leaders’ websites.
Because here’s the thing: you’re here to connect with your people on a human-to-human basis. So let’s start with all the beautiful people who you already connect with as inspo for connecting with all your new potential customers and audience members!
I’ve pulled these questions from my brand voice guide, 20 Questions To Clarify Your Brand Voice So You Can Talk To Your People From the Heart, which you can download in full (completely for free! My treat) using the form below.
Or, simply use the following few questions to start the deep dive on how you can best inspire and connect with your dream audience using authentic, conscious language.
Whether you’ve got a few minutes between tasks or a while to sit with these questions, do whatever you can. Regardless, I highly recommend a mug of something tasty and warm to accompany the reflection session, and writing things by hand (you can bet I love to type, but it’s been proven writing things by hand inspires deeper thinking and reflection).
Think of people whose tone of voice and way of speaking inspires you. Who makes you feel safe, comfortable, and cared for? Free write a list of anyone who comes to mind—be it friends, family members, whoever.
Go back to that list of people. For each person, what do you like about the way they communicate? How does their tone of voice make you feel safe, comfortable, and cared for?
In what ways could you emulate their tone of voice in your own work? What can you keep, and what can you leave behind?
Once you’ve spent some time answering these q’s, try writing your copy again. Do you notice a difference in the way you write? In the words you use? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below.