“My area is quite specialised, so I’m wondering how you can write about my business if you don’t know about my industry?”
A prospective client asked me this question the other day and provided the inspiration for a blog post I thought would be useful.
It’s a fair question.
On the surface, it looks like I’m stepping into something complex, technical, maybe even niche… and somehow expected to just get it.
But good copywriters have never relied on knowing everything upfront.
We rely on knowing how to find what matters.
That hasn’t changed.
But how we get there has.
How copywriters understand your business
Every project starts the same way.
Conversations.
Questions.
Listening (properly listening).
I want to understand:
- What you do (obviously)
- How you do it differently
- What you believe about your work
- What frustrates you about your industry
That part hasn’t been replaced by AI.
And it won’t be.
But what has changed is what I can do with that information once I have it.
Instead of just taking notes and working through it manually, I can now:
- Analyse patterns across what you’ve said
- Compare how different stakeholders describe the same thing
- Spot gaps between what you think you’re saying… and what’s actually landing.
It’s: Let’s pull it apart, look at it from multiple angles, and find what’s actually distinctive.
How copywriters research your industry and competitors
Traditionally, this meant reviewing a handful of competitors and getting a feel for the landscape.
Now?
I can scan far more, far faster.
Not to shortcut the thinking – but to sharpen it.
I’m looking for:
- What everyone is saying
- How they’re saying it
- Where it all starts to blur together
Because the real insight usually isn’t:
“What are your competitors doing?”
It’s: “What are they all doing the same way?”
That sameness is where opportunity lives.
And AI helps surface those patterns quickly, so I can spend more time deciding what to do with them.
How copywriters uncover audience insights (this is where it gets interesting)
This is the part most people underestimate.
And it’s where the work has evolved the most.
It’s no longer just:
- “Who are your target customers?”
- “What are their pain points?”
We can now go much deeper by looking at how people actually talk when they’re:
- Frustrated
- Confused
- Comparing options
- Trying to justify a decision
That might come from:
- Reviews
- Forums
- FAQs
- Sales conversations
- Internal notes
AI helps cluster this information and surface patterns like:
- Repeated concerns
- Emotional triggers
- The exact language people use when something really matters to them
But here’s the important bit.
AI can surface the patterns. Deciding what matters is still the job.
So no, I don’t need to be the expert
Because by this point, I’ve built something better.
A working understanding of:
- Your business
- Your market
- Your audience
- And the gaps between them
That’s what good copy is built on.
Not surface knowledge.
Not industry jargon.
Not sounding “technical enough”.
Clarity.
Where AI fits (and where it doesn’t)
“Yes, but can’t AI just do this now?”
Short answer: it can help.
Longer answer: it depends what you want.
AI is excellent for:
- Speeding up research
- Comparing large amounts of information
- Pressure-testing ideas
- Exploring different angles quickly
What it doesn’t do (on its own) is:
- Set a clear strategic direction
- Make judgment calls about what to prioritise
- Build a distinctive voice
- Understand nuance in the way a human does
And that’s the difference.
You can generate words quickly.
But without clear thinking behind them, they’ll sound like everything else.
What’s changed (and what hasn’t)
What hasn’t changed:
- You don’t need your copywriter to be an industry expert on day one
- Good work still comes from asking better questions
- Writing still needs to sound like a human talking to another human
What has changed:
- The speed at which insights can be uncovered
- The depth of pattern recognition available
- The ability to explore and test multiple angles quickly
- The expectations (because everyone knows AI exists now)
The real answer?
Writing about unfamiliar topics was never the hard part.
Seeing what actually matters – that’s the skill.
AI makes the digging faster.
It makes the patterns clearer.
But it doesn’t replace the thinking.
And that’s still the part that makes the difference.
For copy writing all you need is reading and reading.
Exactly Mukushi – absorbing lots of information quickly and distilling it into the most salient points. Thanks for commenting.