Efficient Copy with Mimi Zhou

Plan Simple with Mia Moran

“We all know that when we write copy, we have to talk to the ideal person, but I find it's really easy to introduce bias and start talking about what you want or what you think they want and not what they actually want.”

–Mimi Zhou

Are you talking about the right things? Sometimes our copywriting misses the mark because we talk about what our potential clients or customers need … instead of what they actually want. I’m really excited to talk with conversion copywriter Mimi Zhou about how we really drive action with our writing.

You can be really good at what you do without being really good at talking about it. It can be hard to get out of our own heads and what we know. We need to use the language our clients or customers use. How do we do that?

We talk about:

• How to gather the data that drives the writing
• How to get a better response on questions on social media
• The kinds of numbers you need for the data to be relevant
• Selling one thing
• Trigger events in marketing
• Creating a timeline for that shows the before, the buy, and the steps in between

ABOUT MIMI

As a conversion copywriter, Dr. Mimi Zhou revels in customer research--because when you understand what your audience wants, you don't need to guess what they'll pay you for.

Her copywriting projects are built on a thorough research foundation where she studies info your audience provides through reviews, surveys, interviews, and more. Her ability to parse data into numerical information and read between the lines to hear what customers say beneath the surface helps her understand what customers want even when they don't tell you directly.

A fun fact about Mimi: Her path to becoming a professional researcher began at UC Berkeley and culminated in her PhD at New York University. Later, her belief that knowledge is power led her to seek copywriting training from the original conversion copywriter, Joanna Wiebe (founder, Copyhackers). So Mimi literally got a professional research degree and then studied copywriting with the original conversion copywriter herself!

LINKS

• https://mimizhou.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/mimithezhou/
• linkedin.com/in/mimizhou/

Mimi is also one of the amazing teachers for Back to Business Week. To learn how to write headlines that hook in your ideal reader (and so much more in over 50 5-minute teachings), get your free ticket to this event that will help you land in the new season: https://plansimple.com/backtobusiness

DOABLE CHANGES

At the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you've heard and put it into action. Change comes from action.

Doable changes are things that you can add into your life, one at a time to make micro shifts and really create a ripple effect that will create a big change over time. Choose one that really piques your interest and roll with it.

Here are three Doable Changes from this conversation:

• SURVEY YOUR READERS. Create an 8–10 question survey about what they need and where they are. Your goal is to stop guessing about what people want and be able to talk to them about what they want. Have you heard the advice to sell people what they want and give them what they need? To do that you need to hit what they really want, not what you think they need.
• ASK A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION. Tired of not getting a response on social media posts? Try asking a simple question with multiple choice. One choice can be “Something else” with a chance to elaborate, but you’ll probably get more responses on the options you give.
• CREATE A TRIGGER TO BUY TIMELINE. Ask current or recent clients what they were looking for or what they needed when they found you. Find out where they were when they started and what convinced them to buy. Pay attention to their actual words. Use this information when you write your copy.