Key to high-converting copy? Voice of Customer research. Here’s how I do it.
You know the words you use to market your offer have the power to make or break conversions. Maybe you’ve had to deal with an underperforming funnel? Or seen a simple headline tweak improve conversion rates on a sales page?
But what exactly makes some words perform better than others?
It’s a secret some copywriters may not want you to fully grasp. But personally, I’d LOVE for business owners to understand just how vital this step is. What is it?
Voice of Customer (VOC) research.
What is Voice of Customer research?
If you’re unfamiliar, Voice of Customer research is the process of collecting direct insights from your audience or folks who fit your ideal customer persona.
You can do this through methods like customer research interviews, feedback surveys, or even combing through candid posts in a Reddit thread where your ideal client hangs out.
In this article, I’ll explain why VOC research is a mandatory step in all of my custom copywriting projects. I’ll share my approach and opinions, how this VOC data becomes the foundation for high-performing copywriting assets, and how you can start and leverage your own goldmine of customer insights before even engaging a copywriter. Let’s dive in!
Why do you need VOC research for marketing that converts?
Good copywriting is so much more than just words that sound good. It’s about forming a deep understanding of your ideal customer. Then, we use a combination of direct insights and conversion strategy to make sure everything from your messaging, marketing angle, tone, and word choices align with what they need to hear from you.
Here are just a few things about your ideal customer that we need to know to write high-performing copy. This is the exact stuff that VOC research helps us learn:
Current pain points: What’s going on in their life that’s causing them to seek a solution like yours? What problems are they trying to move away from?
Desired transformations: What outcomes or changes are they seeking in their life? What is the “dream state” they want to reach?
Objections and hesitations: What concerns might prevent them from saying yes to your solution? What would help neutralize these doubts?
Stage of awareness: How much does your ideal customer already know about their problem, solutions that solve it, and specifically your offer? What is their journey from unaware to ready to buy?
Other options they’ve considered: What alternatives or competitors are they weighing up alongside your offer? What have they already tried to solve this problem, and why didn’t it help?
Preferred language and phrases: What words do they use to describe themselves, their issues, and their goals? Are there specific phrases we can use to help them feel seen and validated in their current situation?
Emotional triggers: What emotions drive their buying decisions and behaviors? How can we speak to those emotions in alignment with your integrity, ethics, and values?
Information sources: Where do they go to find information and recommendations around the problem your product solves? How can we meet them there?
Product expectations: What features or benefits do they expect from a solution like yours?
This is just a taste of the crucial info we can glean from your audience through strategic market research.
What happens when you write copy without conducting VOC research first?
Without this deep research, you’re likely to see much lower conversion rates than you could. Ideal customers may come across your ads, open your emails, or land on your site — but the copy they read doesn’t speak to them. So they don’t get the message they need to feel motivated to act.
As a result, they may click away, which means one less customer helped by your solution. So the time and effort you spend developing new marketing assets results in less ROI than it could.
Plus, if your messaging consistently misses the mark, it’s hard to build trust, credibility, and lasting relationships with the audience you serve. Customers want to feel like you get them — and if you don’t, they might look elsewhere.
The takeaway? Don’t take shots in the dark with something as important as your marketing. Starting with strategic VOC research can save you a whole lot of hassle and troubleshooting later on when you’re trying to figure out how to improve low conversion rates.
The benefits: why VOC research is a mandatory step for my custom copywriting projects
Here’s the super transparent truth. I want the work I do for you to get you results. I want my copy to increase your revenue, because I want to play a part in helping you hit your goals.
And maybe on the slightly selfish side? I want you to get results because I want more proof that I can make a big impact with the copy and marketing strategy I create for you. I’m passionate about helping business owners win with effective copy, and I know from experience that VOC research is what gets us there.
Without direct research on your ideal client, sure, I can look at what’s happening in the market. But ultimately, we’re leaning more toward guessing at effective messaging at that point. And I don’t want to build your marketing off of guesswork.
Especially when the benefits of Voice of Customer research can have such a significant impact on your business. Let’s break down a few of those benefits:
Better conversions mean your marketing bucks go further. With direct insights from your people, you know you’re investing in marketing strategies that have the best shot at winning you more buyers.
Research-backed copy boosts your confidence. When you know your message resonates, you feel more assured in your marketing game plan. You and your team feel better about the work you’re doing. Because you’re able to serve more people and your business is growing — which improves morale and productivity.
Your reputation and brand loyalty improve. Customers trust a business they feel truly sees them and their lived experiences. You can dig deeper with your messaging. Because listening to your audience means you know the intimate feelings and desires that bring them to you in the first place. This draws in more right-fit customers and encourages them to buy again.
All that to say, using Voice of Customer research to bridge the gap between your copy and your audience isn’t just about quick wins. It sets the stage for long-term success and the ambitious growth you want.
Why so many businesses skip VOC research (so doing it can put you miles ahead)
Even if you know the value of interviewing your audience or collecting feedback, you may not take the time to conduct the thorough research you need to support high-performing marketing assets. If that’s you, you’re in good company.
So many businesses may know who they serve… in theory. They may have buyer personas and brand voice guides. But they don’t have a regular process for interviewing or surveying their audience and properly documenting that feedback for more effective marketing. Here are a few reasons it makes total sense if you haven’t prioritized this stuff yet:
You don’t have time: Deep market research takes effort and dedication. You can’t just interview a few people and call it a day. It’s a process you have to conduct and maintain on a continual basis. Because you want to base your marketing on relevant, recent data from your audience (insights from within the past year are best).
VOC research takes skill: This isn’t just about asking your customers generic questions and hoping you learn something helpful. You need a strategic marketing brain on deck who can pinpoint the right questions to ask, sift through the data, and extract nuggets of wisdom that inform compelling copy.
If you’re newer in business, cost can be a barrier: For smaller businesses or startups with limited budgets, it may not be feasible to outsource audience research yet. But this is the kind of investment that brings more ROI for your marketing efforts. So it’s worth prioritizing ASAP.
The thing to highlight here is that if digging deep into audience research is such a high-ROI activity, but so many businesses don’t prioritize it like they should, there’s an advantage here for you.
Forming an intimate understanding of your people, and leveraging that knowledge in your marketing, can put you miles ahead of competitors. If they’re not taking time to listen to their customers, but you are? You have a real opportunity to bring more happy buyers into your world.
What does my Voice of Customer research process look like?
Voice of Customer research is 100% my (not so) secret sauce for writing copy that truly connects with your audience. I figure sharing my process will give you an inside look at what it’s like to work with me. (Find my full process for completing copywriting projects here!)
You can use this intel to decide for yourself if it feels like my approach will support your marketing goals. So, here’s how I conduct Voice of Customer research for your business:
Step 1: Market research interviews
As soon as you sign a contract to work with me, I’ll prompt you to reach out to at least 3-5 of your past customers who fit your Ideal Customer Persona.
You’ll ask them for permission to share their contact info with me so I can set up research calls with them. We can always incentivize these calls with a gift card, a donation in their name, or similar. But I find happy customers are usually excited to chat with me and share their experience with your product or service.
I connect with these folks and schedule calls with them, so you don’t have to worry about the logistics there. We’ll chat for 20-30 minutes so I can hear their perspective.
I plan questions in advance that help me get to the heart of this customer’s problems, desires, and reasons they chose you over other options. However, my primary goal is to be fully present on the calls. This way, I can ask follow-up questions and dig deeper into what this person truly feels about their experience with you.
I let them know that I’ll record and transcribe these calls. Yet I always keep personal details confidential unless the person gives me permission to use what they’ve shared in a testimonial for your business. This can result in fresh, strategic social proof for your business too — another win!
Step 2: Feedback surveys
Instead of, or on top of research interviews, I may decide it’s a good idea to create a feedback survey you can send out to past clients via email.
If so, I’ll develop strategic questions designed to uncover the specific answers I need to write your copy. Then I’ll write the perfect email to encourage more responses. This method works great for getting a broad range of feedback from your past clients, in their own words.
Step 3: Existing research and feedback
If you’ve already gathered feedback from your clients, I’ll sift through that too. Testimonials, intake forms, feedback forms, and even DMs or comments are all super helpful for my process. Especially if you gathered this stuff within the past year.
I’m looking for recent, unbiased insights into how your services have transformed your clients’ lives. This way, I know the data speaks to how your audience is feeling *today.*
Step 4: Indirect Voice of Customer (iVOC) research
There are rare cases where we’ll decide not to move ahead with interviews or surveys. This is the most common for newer businesses that haven’t had customers yet. But whether or not I use those direct channels to connect with your people, I’ll also dig into Indirect Voice of Customer (iVOC) research.
iVOC research is me tapping into the market to see what people who fit your Ideal Customer Persona are saying about your solution, solutions like yours, and their problems and desires around those solutions.
For example, Facebook groups, forums, Reddit threads, and comment sections discussing the problem your offer solves can provide valuable, candid insights into how your audience ticks. Your potential customers share their thoughts freely in these environments. So they’re great places to dive in and do some quality social listening.
Step 5: Assembling the insights
Of course, after I collect all this info, I can’t just dump it in your lap to interpret on your own. So first, I look for patterns, common phrases, and key pain points so I can tease out the best info to incorporate into your marketing.
I’ll often organize this data and present a research findings document to you as part of our copywriting or marketing strategy projects together. This way, you can leverage the direct quotes and information I’ve gathered to write copy that resonates for anything from social media posts to podcast topics and more.
What about quick turnaround projects?
You may have seen that I do offer 7-hour Copy VIP Days, where I can complete a copywriting deliverable for you in one day. So you may wonder how my research process fits into that.
I only agree to Copy VIP Days in one of 3 circumstances:
You have existing VOC data that I can use to write your copy.
We’ve already worked together, so I have research data on your audience.
You’re just trying to get solid minimum-viable copy published fast. So you recognize that we may need to optimize later to make sure your messaging resonates and converts as well as possible.
If one of these sounds like you, check out Copy VIP Days to see if this approach would work for your project!
Want to start building your own customer research bank?
A trained copywriter can help you make the most of direct insights from your audience. But you can start seeing the benefits of VOC research before we work together. In fact, your copywriter will LOVE you if you take the following simple steps to weave research into your marketing. And you’ll notice better results from your marketing efforts too.
Here are 3 research tips to try for yourself:
1. Collect direct quotes from your audience
You likely already have some quality Voice of Customer data lying around right now. Check DMs from your customers, comments they leave on your social media posts, or emails they’ve sent sharing their experience with your offer. Ask yourself if what they’ve shared describes:
A problem they had before working with you
A transformation they came to you seeking
A hesitation they had before they bought your offer
Or another option they considered in their decision process
Start organizing these pieces of info into the above categories in a simple document or spreadsheet that you can refer to when developing marketing assets.
2. Take inspiration for your marketing
Next time you or a team member has to write a landing page, Meta ads, emails, or other copy for your business, ask them to refer to the document you’ve created. Your goal isn’t necessarily to copy direct quotes word for word. But you can and should take inspiration from specific phrases they use or recurring themes to touch on points that will get their attention in your marketing.
3. Add a feedback survey to your post-purchase process
Another easy research win is to collect feedback after someone buys your product or works with you in some way. Use a survey builder tool like Typeform to ask a few simple questions and give customers the chance to share their thoughts when the experience is fresh in their minds.
By implementing these strategies, you’ll start to see patterns and common themes that can guide your copywriting. Remember, the goal is to speak directly to your audience’s needs and desires using their own language. This approach not only makes your copy more relatable but also significantly boosts your chances of conversion.
Want research-backed copy for your business?
As a conversion copywriter, my approach is all about research-led copy that speaks to your people with respect and empathy. This way we increase your conversions, but in a way that creates a happy and returning buyer. Because they were truly the right fit for your offer.
If this sounds like the type of marketing you want for your business, the first step to work together is to submit some quick information about your project through this form.
From there, I’ll review what you’ve shared to get an initial sense of whether we’re a good fit. If so, I’ll reach out with a scheduling link so you can book a call with me! I can’t wait to write strategic copy that truly resonates with your audience and drives real results for you.
