Finger on the Pulse of the Market

Joe,

This is a good question. I Don't Have a Copywriting Business...so I hope you don't mind if I go ahead and speak of past and my personal habits...

I've found that most successful copywriters and marketers are AVID readers. NOT just of information in their fields, but they read stuff all the time.

Now, the bigger the company, the more likely someone else will do the reading and pass along the relevant stuff "up the ladder".

It was a job I held while working in North Canton.

We subscribed to, literally, hundreds of newsletters, specialty pubs, trade mags... but, NO ONE had time to read them all...

So, I was part of a team that handled certain niches. My area was to go over the Gary Halbert Newsletters, and all things Biz OP and/or Money Making and to cut and paste (literally) into a notebook for a specific division or person.

Then, each of these compiled reports were sent to someone who would look over and either request the article or more info.

But, this was a big company, had a lot of funds, over 1000 employees.

At the smaller company, I'll drop down to one with only 15 employees, we were in the nutritional supplement business...

So our mail was more trade oriented, and more specific.

One can go from a GENERAL reader to a Niche specific reader/researcher... the general answer is (from my perspective) as many or as few as you need to AS YOU NEED THEM.

My CORE research (that is what I came to the big table with, with everyone expecting me to have the answers) was focused on Business Opportunity/Golf/Cooking

Well, it made sense. I had one of the largest rosters of golf students in the country when I had my golf business.
I've been to three cooking schools and have been in this arena all my life.
Biz-Op; I was a salt on a mailing list when I was 16, a list of mailorder with a target of Biz-Op...

So these areas came easy to me and I kept up on them because I enjoyed them.

However, during assignments, one comes to mind...it was about the TITANIC...

I had to read dozens of books, talk to scores of people, do months of investigation before I could write on the subject with authority...but it paid off for everyone in the end.

So, my long winded answer Joe...is stay on top of what you NEED too.

Wouldn't hurt to have CORE expertise where they seek you out AND the research ability to be able to learn a subject inside and out when you need too.

gjabiz

Technical products -- electrical, mechanical, software...

Sales training, of course.

A few stragglers like martial arts, food and wine.

That's about it. I only write about what I have a genuine interest in. If I can't get passionate about it, I don't write about it.

I try to focus on what I really know, or topics that I find very interesting.
Just keep in mind: "Jack of all trades, master of none"

Like alfid, I simply focus on what I really know, which leaves me six or seven markets, which include: parents/mom market, legal market, socially-conscious markets, women's market, African-American consumer market, Boomer market, freelancer's/small biz markets.