Writing Copy That Appeals to Different Buyer Personas

I used to think "write like you talk" was the holy grail of copywriting. The result? Boring copy that sounded just like everybody else. ❌ Copy that was "professional, but relatable." ❌ Copy that I thought sounded good. ❌ Copy that felt natural – to me. Then I realized: My audience isn't me. They're: 👉 CFOs in growing financial firms 👉 IT leaders in healthcare organizations 👉 COOs at logistics and transportation companies 👉 CMOs at eCommerce companies with $50M+ revenue 👉 Information security officers at growing tech companies They don't talk the way I do. And they respond to copy that sounds like them. (Not like a snarky college professor.) So how do you create messaging that actually stands out? Capture how your audience actually talks. And reflect it right back to them. Here's how I do it: ✅️ Talk to your customers Nothing can touch live conversations for getting insight into your buyers' needs, challenges and goals. They're the best way to learn how your audience is talking about your product. ✅️ Creep on their online convos There are so many places you can go message mining: G2 reviews, podcasts, Slack communities, subreddits. Go find out how your audience communicates when no one's watching. ✅️ Define your brand messaging guidelines Distill your findings into a clear brand messaging strategy – so every piece of copy sounds like you're one of them. Make it easy for everyone on your team to get on the same page. With data-driven brand messaging, you're not just writing like you anymore. You're writing like them. And that's how you get readers thinking, "this is exactly what I've been looking for." So don't write like you talk – write like they talk.

If you are writing sales messaging that could apply to anybody in your TAM, you're writing sales copy that nobody gives AF about. OUCH! I know that might be hard to hear, but here's the hack to better segment your TAM in 2025. ➡️ The harsh truth is that Founders who take a "boil the ocean" approach to selling in will fail. Here's how you can get better results in 3 steps: Step 1 - Move your focus from everybody who *could* possibly buy from you to the group of folks who are most likely to buy now, buy at a high price point, and later renew or be a referral source. Step 2 - From that much smaller group of accounts, create segments. These are not the traditional segments that help your organize your territories. These are segments that help you speak the language of a deep sub-set of prospects. I suggest at least 5 layers of segmentation blending firmographic data, signals, and contact-level data. EXAMPLE: You sell production line automation software. You believe your ICP is: US-based supply chain executives in manufacturing organizations with at least 1k employees. Great start, but it's time to add 5+ layers of segmentation before you can create a message that matters. Segment 1: Midwest "Manufacturing Belt" only Segment 2: Chief Supply Chain Officers only Segment 3: Machinery manufacturing only Segment 4: 50,000 to 100,000 employees Segment 5: New CFO hired in the past year Now you are only speaking to the CSCO or a sub-industry working in the region where you have the strongest social proof. By tightening the employee range you know they have a big enough problem to solve (+ can pick the best name drops) and a new CFO signals an openness to (re)explore cost-saving software. Step 3 - Use this process to launch dozens of micro-campaigns that speak to specific sub-sets of your territory because you've created enough segmentation to be 99% sure your copy will be RELEVANT to them. This is THE only way I've found to personalize at scale. I love teaching orgs how to better segment their accounts and create segment-specific value props. I call it #ValueBasedSegmentation ➡️ The result is: - Highly relevant copy - Emails that can be fully automated - High CTRs/replies without tedious personalization 📌 How do you personalize at scale?

Marketer: We need to define our target market. CEO: Our target market is everybody. Marketer: 😬 If your marketing speaks to "everybody," it speaks to nobody. Here are 5 ways I write copy for a specific target market: 1. High LTV customer surveys + interviews. Identify your highest life-time value (LTV) customers. Survey and interview them. Conduct jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) interviews. Understand what problem your product solves for them, how it solves it, what obstacles they had to overcome before purchasing, and how they speak about your product. 2. Churned customer surveys + interviews. Identify WHY the product didn't work for them. What was the primary obstacle or issue? If it's something copy can help overcome, ensure your copy does so. For example, security and privacy are a common objection for SaaS customers. You can overcome this objection by writing copy that describes your stringent security and privacy measures. 3. Review mining. Find real reviews of products or services that solve a similar (or the same) problem that your product solves. Document how people speak about the problems they faced and how they speak about the transformation the product provided. Sources for reviews: Amazon, G2, Apple app store, Google. 4. User testing. Have customers or people within your target market review and react to your copy. Note where they're confused. Where they resonate with copy. And ask them questions to determine the effectiveness of your copy + design. 5. A/B testing. Run A/B tests to find your highest-converting messages. I recommend testing your hero section copy and imagery OFTEN. This is a high-impact area. Afraid you'll lose customers by speaking to a specific target market? Don't be. You'll lose even more by speaking to no one.