You never want to start copywriting on a blank slate, which is the fastest way to fail. Your ideas are great, but they lack the universal appeal you need to really break into display advertising effectively. Marketing copy is all about capitalizing on trends and keywords related to your industry. Searching for what’s already out there helps you identify what problems your audience faces, which helps inform your banner advertising. With these tips, you’ll never find yourself at a shortage of material for copywriting.

Surf Social Media

Begin with a few glances at some related pages on social media. Look for what customers are talking about on these business pages, and the kind of content being posted in the first place. Social media pages are public, so you can learn a lot about how customers interact with brands in your industry. You can also mine social media to figure out what people care about. Pins from Pinterest, Likes from Facebook, and Retweets from Twitter all send signals that your audience is interested by something. Don’t ignore those signs.

Combine Data You Already Have

All of that voting and pinning and liking is happening at a grand scale every day, and you’re sure to find some correlations within your own data sets. Through Analytics, you have a deeper understanding of what customers do on your pages. Look for keywords from social media, and then compare what people are discussing to the most popular pages on your site. You will find ways to inject some of that discussion into your own display advertising, and redirect customers to the proper parts of your site.

Marrying Data and Creative

What you learn about your customers and their challenges should help to inform your banner advertising. You should be highlighting key benefits that solve their problems, and you should be using colors and images they are familiar with. You may also learn more about them as a demographic, enabling you to target with more precision. Try to restructure your planning such that you incorporate the research process into choosing creative and buying traffic.

Conclusions

There is no point in trying to force messaging on your customers. They aren’t likely to respond, and retargeting will just bother them. Instead, try to let your market research inform the copywriting that you do, and focus on addressing user concerns in more direct language. You will find that your money will be better spent focusing on what your audience wants, instead of playing a numbers game.

Bio: Ted Dhanik is the CEO of Los Angeles based direct marketing company engage:BDR. Ted Dhanik is focused on creating amazing ad campaigns for mobile and desktop, with an emphasis on lead generation. To reach Ted Dhanik, follow his blog or contact engage:BDR.