Reddit Is The Best Tool For Writing Better Ad Copy
How To Use Reddit For Market Research
A free market research tool
Are you struggling to come up with new ad copy for a client?
Can’t seem to get more website traffic to your blog?
Need more inspiration before deciding what’s the right name for your next product?
Then you’re in the right place.
I recently saw this copywriting tutorial by Brian Dean, Founder of Backlinko, and it sent me on a wild goose chase to learn more about Reddit. In the video, he talks about using Reddit as a market research tool. He explains that Reddit can be used to discover new keywords, ideas for content, and inspiration for ad copy.
Reddit is a great forum to use to discover the specific language customers are using to describe their problems and desires online. After conducting my own research and using Reddit for a hypothetical client, here’s what I discovered.
How to leverage Reddit to create new content and ad copy
When researching how to use Reddit as a market research tool, I came across articles from various marketing experts. Most of them explain that Reddit can be used as a market research tool but, you can also waste a lot of time on the platform if you don’t know where your audience is.
Heather-Mae Pusztai, who works in the customer engagement team at Buffer, writes that there are mainly two ways to find relevant subreddits: use the search bar (what most people do) or ask the subreddit “find-a-reddit” to get suggestions. I recommend immediately going to the “find-a-reddit” subreddit as it will save you the most time. She also mentions that, “…another way that works really well if you’re doing research or content at scale is to plug your subreddits into a content aggregator.” By using a content aggregator, you don’t need to manually revisit each subreddit you discover. You’ll get email alerts on a daily or weekly basis instead and she recommends using Feedly to do this.
Once you find the right subreddits to follow, the next step is to know which discussion matter the most. According to James Mulvey, senior copywriter and content strategist on Hootsuite’s brand team, “In most social media sites, a lot of garbage content floats to the top of the feed. In Reddit, users quickly downvote or upvote content…This system ensures that interesting content stays at the top and spam sinks to the bottom.” Posts that get upvoted indicate that the community resonated with the topic of discussion. However, popular posts don’t necessarily mean that they are also the most recent.
Content strategist Jessica Malnik notes that even if a subreddit has less than 20,000 subscribers or doesn’t have any recent activity, you can change the filter settings to see posts from previous months and years. The types of discussions you are looking for are generally “How do I do X”, debates, and the most upvoted questions that were ignored in an AMA. Additionally, look for gilded comments which indicate the best ones to use for market research as they have the smartest perspectives on a given topic (as determined by the community).
Let’s see this in practice
In a hypothetical scenario, I decided to do market research for a client who has a physical home decor and office furniture store and that has just launched an e-commerce website. The client needs more sales of their desks and chairs. I’ve assigned myself the task of writing ad copy and blog posts to generate more website traffic and conversions.
Now whether or not I can come up with some initial ideas just form brainstorming on my own, research is always the most important step.
Enter Reddit.
When doing a simple search of “desks” here’s what I found:
Then I asked the “find-a-reddit” community and here’s what they told me:
After reviewing and consolidating my notes, my finalized lists of subreddits to use were:
https://www.reddit.com/r/desksetup/
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeoffice/
https://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/
https://www.reddit.com/r/BattlestationDesks/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DeskCorners/
https://www.reddit.com/r/StandingDesk/
https://www.reddit.com/r/desksetup/
Now normally, these subreddits would be visited on a weekly or monthly basis. After putting all of these links in a content aggregator like Feedly, we would then be able to keep a pulse on new trends and topics that our customers are talking about. Again, the reason we are using Reddit here is to get insights on what our market wants to hear from us.
The most interesting part of the research done here is that there is an untapped niche market that our hypothetical client can capitalize on: gamers.
Creating the ad copy
When reading the subreddits, there are various common words, phrases, and issues that came up. For the sack of time I only wrote a few of them down but, if I were to spend more time I’m sure I would discover more:
Common words used: upgrade, stacking, remodeling
Common issues: finding space for extra monitors, monitors sitting to close to the customer's eyes, cable management
Now knowing that the point of spending our time on Reddit is to conduct market research so that our content and ads can actually deliver the client more revenue, here are some ideas we can propose for both content and ad copy:
Content ideas:
- Can’t Seem to Find the Right Lobby? Tired of Losing Every Single Match? The Problem Isn’t You, It’s Your Setup
- 5 Different Ways to Create More Space on Your Desk
- How to Upgrade Your Battle Station to Own All Noobs
- These Swivels Were Made to Help You Create the Best Monitor Stack
- The Only Way to Maximize Your Gaming Setup is to Maximize Comfort
Ad copy ideas:
- “Tired of your monitors sitting too close to your eyes? It’s time to remodel your gaming setup. Stop wasting time trying to fix something that doesn’t work.”
- “Get more space and upgrade your battle station today. There’s no need to spend hours every week trying to arrange gear that just can’t fit onto your desktop. Our desks come in various styles and will give you the space you need to be ready before your next streaming session.”
Again, all of these ideas were created within three days of research. When conducted several times, we would discover even more niche markets to tap into, even better ideas for content and ad copy they would resonate with, and this would lead to more revenue for our client. And if we were to launch some ads on Facebook, there’s one simple hack we can use to optimize our ad targeting.
So if you’re looking to create better content ad copy and content for your clients or your own business, consider starting your research with Reddit.
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