Writing for People

Before you start a freelance copywriting project, you need to know a lot of things about your client, its product, its markets, its strategies. When you put pen to paper (or, more likely, choose "File > New" in Word), it's time to put all that information in the back of your mind and focus on writing for your audience. That's not the same as writing stuff you like. Your audience may be unlike you in some ways, which means doing some research. What magazines do they read? Read some. What kinds of language do they use? Can you find them on the Internet? Use your imagination to put yourself mentally in the place of one of the people in your target audience. Thinking as this person, what do you want most? What motivates you? You may find yourself generating several ideas for one project. That's fine as a starting point. When you're evaluating your results, though, every sentence, every word should meet the test of "Does it evoke a response from my audience?"