Brand, web & content

How do I find the exact words my customers use to describe their problem?

The short answer

Mine their language directly, sales calls, support tickets, reviews of competitors, Reddit and community threads. Then feed their phrases back into your copy verbatim. The best copy isn't written; it's assembled from what customers already say.

Go deeper, your way

2 hand-picked resources. Pick how you want to dig in.

📄 Article
Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Julian Shapiro's growth handbook frames brand and messaging as downstream of who you're for and what you replace, practical foundations, not brand theory.

Positioning (Startup Handbook: brand and marketing foundations)

From julian.com by Julian Shapiro 20 min read

  • Brand is a consistent promise and feeling, not a logo
  • Mine customer language from calls, reviews and communities
  • Nail who you're for before investing in visual polish
Open julian.com →

People also ask

How do I write copy that explains what my product does clearly? Say what it is in the plain words your customer would use, not corporate abstractions like 'empowering synergies'. Lead with the concrete benefit, ... Beginner 2 resources → What are the rules of good marketing copy? Harry Dry's three: make it visual (words people can picture), make it falsifiable (specific claims a competitor couldn't copy-paste), and make it u... Beginner 2 resources → How do I write a headline / value proposition that grabs attention? A great headline states the specific outcome for a specific person, clear beats catchy. Julian Shapiro's advice: make the header fully descriptive ... Intermediate 1 resource → How do I structure a message so customers care (story / framework)? Make the customer the hero and your product the guide that helps them win, that's the StoryBrand framework in one line. Frame it as: they have a pr... Intermediate 2 resources → How do I learn copywriting quickly without a marketing background? Study before/after rewrites of real landing pages, you learn faster from watching a pro fix bad copy than from theory. Harry Dry's Marketing Exampl... Beginner 2 resources → How do I write the copy for my landing page hero section when I have three different types of customers using my product? Pick one. A hero that talks to three people talks to no one, so lead with the segment that pays fastest or hurts most, and let the rest find themse... Intermediate 3 resources →

Also in D2C

The same ground, over in Build your online store, our D2C track.

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Also in How Founders Use AI

How founders actually use AI for this, over in Content Creation.

Why use AI for blogs, newsletters, and social posts, and how do I avoid sounding like AI? AI removes the real reason most founders stop publishing: the time cost of a blank page. Buffer's study of 1.2 million posts found AI-assisted cont... 20 resources → How do top founders build content engines with AI (repurposing one idea into ten formats)? The pattern is always the same: create one dense pillar piece (a podcast, video, or newsletter), then let AI atomize it into clips, threads, Linked... 18 resources →
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