{"id":98221,"date":"2025-04-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crazyegg.com\/blog\/?p=98221"},"modified":"2025-04-21T13:35:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T17:35:06","slug":"copywriting-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crazyegg.com\/blog\/copywriting-research\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Copywriting Research Methods Used by the Pros"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Copywriting research is an important element of producing world-class copy. It\u2019s what separates good<\/em> copy from remarkable<\/em> copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can only happen when copywriting research is taken as seriously as the writing process itself, a task that many rookies and shortcut merchants are erroneously skipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the most powerful copywriting research methods to supercharge your copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Examining Last Year\u2019s Top Posts in Relevant Subreddits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Reddit is a trove of knowledge, a place where both enthusiasts and experts gather to discuss topics, share ideas, and solve problems that are plaguing their respective areas of interest. As of June 2023, Google\u2019s search algorithms have been prioritizing forum-based queries and answers<\/a> over traditional articles, which led to a surge in traffic for, you guessed it\u2014Reddit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another hypothesis is that, due to a deterioration of Google search results quality, on top of an emerging branch of AI-powered search that\u2019s slowly eating into the existing search engines\u2019 market share, people have been adding the keyword \u201creddit\u201d at the end of their queries to narrow down their search. So, according to the same hypothesis, this trend resulted in an organic boost for the social platform as a second-order effect from users trying to get a better answer to their online queries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, Reddit is now more popular than ever, and here\u2019s how to leverage this fact to your advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, you need to identify the most relevant subreddits for your industry\/niche. A subreddit is a Reddit page dedicated to a specific topic, theme, hobby, or industry. The simplest way to discover relevant subreddits is to come up with niche-related keywords and try them out one by one by typing \/r\/relevant-subreddit<\/em> after the top domain in the URL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Reddit<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, this manual approach is tedious and very time-consuming. A more cost-effective method would be to use Vizit\u2019s Reddit map<\/a>, and here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Go to Vizit\u2019s Reddit map<\/a>, type your industry\/niche in the search field, and press Enter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vizit\u2019s<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2. The tool will create a visual map of the subreddits that are related to your topic, with some exceptions. You can check the visual map, or go to the right-hand side and pick a relevant subreddit from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vizit<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3. Next, click the link to visit the subreddit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Advertising<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

4. Click the first dropdown menu, located under the subreddit\u2019s name and logo. Choose Top<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"First<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

5. A second dropdown menu will appear next to the first one. Click it, and choose Last Year<\/strong>, or, if it\u2019s unavailable, choose This Year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Second<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Scroll through the top posts to kick-start your new copywriting project. Use the three dots next to your favorite posts to save the ones you like, or create a personal swipe file on your drive to save them locally in case some posts go down\u2014which tends to happen a lot on Reddit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ellipses<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note: Occasionally, Reddit will serve a different site version to different users, depending on their device, operating system, location, browser, whether they have a Reddit account, and whether they\u2019re logged in or not. Try to experiment with different approaches to get the results you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Looking at Viral Posts in Your Niche<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a beginner marketer, a small blog owner, or someone who doesn\u2019t have the budget to perform comprehensive market research without spending a fortune, you can explore the best-performing posts in your niche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How? We\u2019re going to use BuzzSumo, a tool dedicated to content ideation, content exploration, and market research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method #1: BuzzSumo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Go to BuzzSumo<\/a> and start your free trial. Typically, you\u2019ll get 7 days of BuzzSumo\u2019s full capabilities from the Suite plan. The tool might require you to connect your Facebook account to prove that you\u2019re a real person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BuzzSumo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2. Next, enter a topic, or choose a feed from the existing topics like Tech or Business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BuzzSumo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3. The great thing about BuzzSumo is that you can apply advanced filters to get the results you want. You can filter by the posts\u2019 recency, country, state, and language, and then sort your results by trending score, total engagement, Facebook engagements, X (Twitter) shares, Pinterest shares, and Reddit engagement. We\u2019ve picked total engagement<\/em> to filter the best-performing posts across all supported platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"BuzzSumo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, you can also perform similar market research with tools like Ahrefs and Semrush, but you\u2019ll be severely limited in what you can do without subscribing to a paid plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method #2: Google Search<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another method to discover viral posts is by simply typing your keywords in Google Search and looking at the top results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Google<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Use advanced search operators like \u201cinurl:\u201d and \u201cintitle:\u201d to narrow down your search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Google<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Advanced search operators won\u2019t always give you better results. In our example, we were closer to our goal with a simple broad keyword search compared to using advanced search operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can combine any of these steps and methods to discover the most popular posts in your niche and use them as idea nuggets in your future content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Studying Industry-Related Product Reviews<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Customer-written product reviews offer an insightful peek into how people use, interact, and think about a wide range of products and services. For copywriters, product reviews offer a unique angle where information and utility intersect, informing about which features to include and which item properties to omit in the final draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick way to identify industry-related products is to search for your product\/service on the biggest online retailer globally\u2014Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s assume you\u2019re in the pet care business, selling freeze-dried dog food for senior canines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. To start, go to Amazon.com, and use a broad keyword or set of keywords to find related products to what you\u2019re selling, like \u201cdog food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Amazon<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2. Technically speaking, all these products are your competitors, but the idea is to come up with specific, long-tail keywords to identify your closest competitors and study their products and product reviews to gather data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go back to the search bar and type \u201cfreeze-dried dog food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Amazon<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

3. This is better, but we can be even more specific in our Amazon query. Search for \u201cfreeze dried dog food senior.\u201d From the right-hand side, you can sort your results by featured, low-to-high, high-to-low, average customer reviews, newest arrivals, and best sellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Amazon<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

4. At a quick glance, you can tell there are few competitors selling freeze-dried dog food for senior canines. This might lead you to believe there\u2019s either an untapped market gap, or there\u2019s simply not enough demand to support this ultra-specific type of product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, it seems like Dr. Marty is the only brand that sells exactly the type of product we\u2019re trying to research. Let\u2019s click it and scroll down to examine the customer reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Three<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Excellent. These reviews are exactly what you\u2019re looking for. You can also incorporate the Amazon AI-generated customer reviews summary into your research, but don\u2019t rely on it too much as it can occasionally be misleading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Amazon<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

4. Reverse-Engineering Magazines and Newsletters in Your Niche<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Magazines, although a dying breed, are typically of a higher quality than your daily, run-of-the-mill articles from a click-baity publication. They can be a great source of inspiration, as well as helpful data points to base your future marketing campaigns on\u2014depending on how comprehensive you want to be in deconstructing your resulting observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Fast<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To access existing magazines, you have to either borrow your favorite magazine from someone, buy it, or read it from an archive. The Library of Congress<\/a> curates a valuable archive of historical advertising resources, with the unfortunate caveat that most of them can only be accessed on-site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popular contemporary advertising, copywriting, and business-related magazines include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n