Relevance and the art of copywriting

The importance of branding and marketing cannot be overstated in an ever-evolving and competitive marketplace, where consumers are bombarded with a seemingly endless array of choices. Businesses across industries recognize that establishing and maintaining relevance is essential to capturing the attention and loyalty of their target audience.

The theme of relevance is thrown around quite a bit in marketing and copywriting circles. Here is how I've understood and coached clients about relevance regarding copywriting and content creation.

Defining Relevance

First, how will copywriters, marketing and creative leaders know when the written content developed is genuinely relevant to the customer or audience? I suggest that the message or storytelling content resonates with the intended audiences, aligns with their different levels of needs, and remains meaningful in their lives. Some helpful test questions are: Does the writing create a strong relational and emotional connection between the brand and the target market? Does the copy position the brand as an indispensable, relatable solution and empathetic to their problems or desires?

Prominent marketing strategist and author David Aaker emphasizes the importance of relevance by saying, "In an era of abundance, consumers have the luxury of ignoring what isn't relevant to them." Aaker's comment highlights that relevance is vital in capturing consumer attention and ensuring that the brand remains at the forefront of its decision-making process. So, relevant copywriting is absolutely a priority for business success.

Establishing Relevance through Brand and Customer-Centricity

To achieve relevance, copywriting must be composed within a highly brand and customer-centric approach. It needs to invest in deeply understanding customers' or audiences' preferences, values, motivations, and behaviors. By gaining deep insights into their customers, copywriters and marketers can finely tailor their offerings and marketing efforts to resonate with customers' lives.

Seth Godin made this clear and memorable when he pithily stressed the significance of understanding when he advised, "Don't find customers for your products; find products for your customers." This truism still shows the importance of aligning brand offerings with customer needs rather than trying to convince customers to adapt to existing products or services. Relevance-thinking copywriters must do this.

Relevance as a Source of Competitive Advantage

In today's highly competitive marketplace, copywriters must understand that crafting relevant copy can give businesses a significant competitive advantage. By consistently delivering relevant products and messages to their target market, brands can differentiate themselves from competitors, creating a distinct and compelling value proposition.

Philip Kotler reinforced this idea by noting, "The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything, and the low-cost producer is the only winner."

A critical way copywriters help marketers and business leaders is by being ever mindful that, above all else, they are always helping to build a brand or add brand equity through their thinking and writing. This is true whether the project demands transactional or emotive and empathetic creative copy or is intended for B2C or B2B applications.

Relevant copywriting is a strategy that is channel-sensitive but agnostic by nature. Relevant copy helps clients defy commodification and robustly compete against the ubiquitous "price is everything" and "low-cost" messaging daily swirling around consumers.

Relevance and Curiosity in Copywriting

Producing relevant copy requires the copywriter to be curious because it demands ongoing input from listening and learning from the customer and changing marketplace. In addition, creating relevant and converting copy requires you to be adaptable to evolving cultural movements, marketing trends, and shifting consumer expectations to write in a way that keeps the brand fresh, connected, and meaningful to target consumers or audiences.

Again, Aaker eloquently sums it up, "Relevance requires constant adaptation as the market and the consumer are in constant motion."

Takeaway

By embracing relevance, businesses can forge lasting connections, inspire loyalty, and secure a competitive edge in an increasingly dynamic marketplace.

Suppose you want to start using highly relevant copy or upgrade your current copy's relevance for improved outcomes and results. If this is you, my market-tested and proven Optimally Relevant Copy System may be right for you.