Need Creative Copy Ideas? Read Customer Reviews. 

 
 

Need creative copy ideas? Read customer reviews. 

I’ve written ad copy for hundreds of ads, mostly for Facebook and Instagram placements. The philosophy behind these is to create a ton of very similar ads, that all have their own small twist. From there, you analyze which ads perform the best, and cater your strategy that way. Since every ad is unique, you’ll be able to understand what element of the successful ad was driving the sale. 

It’s a simple enough process, but it leaves copywriters with one main difficulty: writing copy for hundreds of different ads.

I worked with Blake Pinsker, the former VP of Brand Marketing at MVMT. MVMT is an e-commerce watch company, and one of the top spenders on Facebook Ads. Blake was making ads for other e-commerce brands, and had me write some copy for him. From day one, he told me to check out customer reviews. It was a game-changer.

The best ideas come from customer reviews. I don’t write ads without looking at them first. 

If you stop to think about it, why wouldn’t you read reviews? The goal of advertising is to get inside the mind of the customer. To listen to them. To understand what inspired their purchase, and to use that in your marketing. Creating ideal customer descriptions is great, but even the most psychologically in-depth description won’t produce the insights that real reviews will. Reading reviews is like a free focus group. 

I created a batch of 100 unique Facebook ads for a golf brand called U Suck At Golf. U Suck At Golf is an accessible, funny golf brand that caters to amateur golfers. I had an idea that this audience didn’t take itself too seriously. What I didn’t expect was the amount of creativity and humor their audience put into their reviews. To me, this was an indication that humor would go a long way here. I incorporated a number of quotes, wrote copy responding to them, and created tag-lines directly from them. 

Here are some of the quotes I pulled from customer reviews.

“I still suck, but at least I look good doing it!”
“I believe it will lower my score. Watch out, Tiger!”
“Took 4 strokes off my game the first time I wore it!” 

This works with more than just humorous brands, too. One of the best quotes I pulled was from a customer comparing a very expensive photography workshop to the cost of a new camera. That was an insight I didn’t find on my own, but it spoke perfectly to the consideration of the ideal customer in this scenario. 

So I’ll say it again. Need creative copy ideas? Read customer reviews. 


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