How to Write Copy That Resonates: Know Your Audience

The fundamental purpose of every piece of written content - whether it be website copy, blog posts, emails, or social media content -  is to connect with your audience.

Your content may have a secondary purpose, like educating, persuading, or converting, but before you can do any of that, your words need to resonate with the right people. The crucial foundation of effective copy for your business is to know your audience like the back of your hand. Understanding who you’re speaking to helps you learn what to say, where to say it, and how to be the person your ideal customer remembers.

to write copy that resonates, you need to know your audience.

Good copy relies on customer/audience research. To keep it simple, we’re going to focus on two core areas: your competition, and audience-led spaces. In this case, your competition relates to the websites, social platforms, and physical locations/assets of aligned, successful businesses in your niche - it’s crucial that these people share a similar audience with you. Audience-led spaces can be defined as forums, Facebook groups, comment sections, and other, similar, spaces where your audience are talking openly about the issue you solve. 

✴ YOUR COMPETITION

When you search for businesses like yours which sites come up on Google, or social media? Review the homepages of aligned competitors, review their most popular blog posts and try to figure out why they’re sharing certain content. Do the same with social media; which of their posts has the most valuable engagement? Reviewing this content can help you identify clients ‘pain points’. These are the areas of their life that they want to change – that you can step up and enrich.

Now, it’s important to note, this isn’t about copying their content or strategy, it’s about identifying where your ideal client is finding value. With that knowledge, you can learn how to provide that same level of value to your audience. 

✴ AUDIENCE-LED SPACES

Audience-led spaces can tell you even more about pain points, and how you can position your work to solve them. In these forums and community groups, your audience are speaking and interacting with each other; often talking about the issues that you solve and giving you direct insight into how they think and speak. The benefit of this is that their conversations are typically unbiased – their comments aren’t guided by context the way a testimonial might be, for example.

Both your competitor research, and exploration of community spaces should give you a strong idea of:

✴ The topics your audience want to hear about

✴ The information they want to know

✴ Genuine areas of dissatisfaction that you can empathise with in your writing before presenting your solution.

using your research to write better copy

Copywriting is about knowing what your audience struggles with, or wants to change about their lives. But strong copywriting is about also knowing how they experience those struggles every day, and what impact that has on their life. That means being able to identify their pain points and then also answer the following questions: 

✴ What do they want to change?

✴ Why do they want to change it?

✴ Why haven’t they done it already?

✴ How would it feel to no longer deal with it?

✴ Do they talk openly about this issue? If so, how do they speak about it, and to whom?

There are, of course, plenty of other questions that could be added to this list but a general rule of thumb is to repeatedly ask ‘why’ until you get to the core of what’s making your audience feel this way. Go through these questions and see what you can identify about your client that is deeper than it looks on paper. With those insights, you can tailor your copy to be much more emotionally relevant. For example:

Yesterday, you were speaking to a client who was frustrated that she had no photographs with her children. Today you know this client worries that her children are growing up too quickly and she’ll forget what life used to look like when they were little. 

The shift from ‘I don’t have any photos’ to ‘I’m scared I won’t remember this season of our life’ is where powerful copy lives. When you understand the deeper reason behind what your audience is saying, you stop writing about services and start writing about experiences, emotions, and outcomes that genuinely matter to them. Your words feel familiar because your readers have thought them before.

Knowing your audience like the back of your hand means you don’t have to guess what to say. You’re not reaching for clever phrases or trying to convince anyone of anything. You’re simply articulating what they already feel – and showing them that there’s a way to change it. (And that’s what makes copy resonate).

platform and format make all the difference

Meet your people where they are. You’re far more likely to connect with your people if you show up in the spaces they frequent, and in the formats they consume. This impacts your copywriting because every place you find copy has different requirements and best practices. Website copy, blog posts, emails, social media - it’s rare that once piece of content would be suitable for every platform without alterations. 

Take email, for example. If you're a brand photographer launching a new package and your email list is made up of past clients and warm leads, you're not writing for strangers – you're writing for people who already trust you. That means you can skip the 'here's why this matters' preamble and get straight to the invitation. Your subject line doesn't need to hook a cold audience; it needs to feel like a message from someone they know. The copy can be warmer, more direct, and assume a level of shared history that your website copy simply can't.

Compare that to a TikTok caption where your video is doing most of the heavy lifting – the copy exists to give people somewhere to land, not to tell the whole story. Three punchy lines and a clear call to action is often more effective than a carefully crafted paragraph that nobody reads past the first line.

The second, fundamental part of strong, effective copywriting is knowing how to deliver the message we nailed down in step one. The platform shapes the copy.

authentic copywriting is more impactful than anything generic

Now that you know what your audience cares about, and where they pay attention, the final step is making your words memorable. This isn’t about being flashy or writing something that changes the copywriting game – it’s about letting your brand personality and voice shine through in a way that your audience connects with and remembers.

✴ Consistency builds recognition. Your audience should read a blog post, scroll your social, or see an email and instantly know it’s you. That’s your personality in action.

✴ Voice communicates values. If your audience is looking for warmth, trust, or fun, the way you phrase things matters just as much as what you say.

✴ Your perspective adds authority. Two creatives could offer the same service, but your take on the same problem is unique. That’s what makes your copy stand out – it reflects your worldview and approach.

Your unique, authentic, brand personality colors the way you present the solution, turning “generic help” into memorable communication. The closer you understand your audience, the more effectively your personality can shine through. Combine these two and your copy doesn’t just communicate — it resonates, sticks, and motivates action.

Effective copywriting is reliant on an intimate knowledge of your audience and a strong brand personality.

When you know your people, you can speak to their struggles and present a solution from a place of authority and trust that makes people want to work with you.

If you've made it this far, you already know that great copy isn't about finding the right words – it's about knowing your people well enough that you can speak to them on a personal level. But knowing the framework and having the time, headspace, and distance to actually apply it to your own business? That's a different thing entirely. Most creative business owners I work with aren't short on talent or passion – they're short on capacity. And writing copy about yourself, for yourself, while running everything else? It's one of the hardest things to do well.

That's where I come in. I'll take everything you know about your business and your clients – and turn it into copy that sounds like you, speaks to them, and makes working with you feel like the obvious choice.