Copywriting may appear to be a technical term, but in reality, it is not. You will make use of copywriting each and every day if you are the owner of a business.
Have you written an email to one of your customers today? This is called copywriting. Have you prepared a presentation or a pitch for the opportunity? Copywriting. Do you write the captions for social media posts, the video scripts, or the newsletters for email?
Now we’re talking about even more content writing, but in most cases, the two go hand in hand.
Since becoming an entrepreneur requires constant usage of writing, it is time to pick up your game in this particular area. The key to successful copywriting is remembering that its primary purpose is to sell products or services, which implies that it requires a high level of persuasion.
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DETERMINE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR WRITING
Because more than 200 million new pieces of material are added to the internet every minute, it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd.
Developing a persona for your ideal customer is one of the most effective ways to get ahead of the competition and connect with your audience.
When you have a clear mental image of your target persona, writing the content for your website or blog becomes a lot simpler.
The language and tone that are most likely to resonate with your audience and encourage them to take action will be determined, in large part, by your target persona.
EVERY COPY MUST HAVE A CLEAR PROPOSITION.
Every time a sale is made, the seller makes an offer and a promise to the buyer. This offer and promise needs to be clear and easy to understand. This needs to be on the first screen of an online piece of writing, before the reader scrolls down.
Headline/Title: Grab your audience’s attention right away, but make sure to include the main benefit in this sentence.
Subheading: More benefits (and keywords for search engines) to get people to keep reading. Try to describe who your offer is for and what the main benefits are.
Bullets: This makes things easier to read. Think of the Amazon sales page. Explain the most important features and benefits in three to five bullet points. Don’t forget to list the good things.
Image: Everyone likes a good picture of a product, so add at least one here. Don’t worry if half of the image goes below the “fold” of your screen. Your reader will have to scroll down to see it, which will make them more likely to read the rest of your copy.
YOU MUST KNOW THESE FOUR THINGS
You need to know FOUR things about your audience before you can start writing:
- WHAT makes them buy it
- HOW they get the item
- WHAT the product is used for
- WHAT they really care about.
Remember that people buy based on how they feel, but they use logic to explain why they did so. If you can answer these four questions, you can start to shape your script around them. If you can answer all four questions in the mind of your reader, you are much more likely to make a sale.
YOUR CUSTOMER CAN HELP YOU WRITE YOUR COPY!
You can get your customers to write your copy for you if you ask them the right questions. The key, of course, is to ask the right questions.
Here are 10 suggestions:
- Who are you and what do you do? Make a picture of your best customer (avatar)
- What do you get from our product? Find out HOW they use the product and write down the words they use to describe it.
- What features made you decide to buy it?
- What was the most important part? Find out what they were having trouble with and how the features in question helped them.
- What other products did you think about? Find out who your competitors are so you can start to set yourself apart.
- Why did you decide to buy from us? Ask the customer to tell you what they think is the best thing about your business.
- Did you think twice about buying something because of something? Find out what they don’t like so you can address it early in the copy.
- Was there anything you really wanted to know but couldn’t find out? This is very important information that you must include.
- What would have helped you decide more quickly? This is more useful information for the copy.
- How would you tell someone you know to buy our product? This is the best! Take notes word for word, and if you can, get a testimonial as well.
INFLUENCING PEOPLE IS A SCIENCE
Ask Professor Robert Cialdini, or even better, read his books. I would recommend Influence and Persuasion.
He has come up with Six Principles that will help you get people to do what you want them to do. Your copywriting should reflect these principles.
Reciprocity – It is the idea that if you give someone something, they will feel like they have to give you something in return. Before you try to sell, share something useful, give something away for free, or add something of value.
Liking: We all like doing business with people we get along with. So, try to be a little more friendly (Mr. Grumpy, my wife tells me this all the time). People take time to like, so you can expect to have to talk to someone six or seven times before they’re ready to buy from you.
Social Proof – This has never been truer than in the world of online social media. You won’t believe me if I tell you something great about myself. If your best friend says something nice about me, there’s a good chance you’ll agree.
Authority – We all look up to people we consider to be experts. So, since an expert is just someone who knows more than you do, try to position yourself as an authority in the eyes of your prospects.
Consistency: Once we decide how we feel about something, we will always act in the same way. So, you want to try to get your customer to buy something small, like $7, as a first step toward becoming a customer. This will make them much more likely to buy bigger things from you in the future.
Scarcity – People want what they can’t have, so if you say you’ll take something away after a certain amount of time, they’ll be drawn to it.
SELLING PROBABILITY FORMULA
Pain x Claim x Gain
Pain: Telling them what hurts and how bad it is. Don’t be afraid to get really mean here. You want your potential customers to be really unhappy!!!
Claim: You have to be able to back up what you say with proof, like evidence, testimonials, test results, or case studies. The more convincing your proposal is, the more likely it is that your prospects will invest.
Gain: What Will I Get Out of It? Really tell your prospect that he or she will have a MUCH BETTER future if they choose to buy your product or service. You need to explain the benefits, but you also want them to feel like their life and that of their family are going to get better. Then they will be very interested in what you have to say.
TAKING OFF THE LAYERS OF A PRODUCT
When you think about your products and services, you should think of them as having unexplored depths. As a copywriter, it’s your job to explore those depths and peel back those layers. Just don’t mix your metaphors.
At the most basic level, you can list and describe the features of a product or service. These are interesting, but they won’t help you sell anything.
So, you go down a level and look at the benefits of those features. Answer the “so what?” question or continue the feature sentence with “so that…” This tells you how the item works and why a certain feature helps you solve a problem.
The next layer helps you talk about the benefits that come from using the product to solve the problem (as opposed to the nitty gritty of its specification). This includes saving you time and money and making your life easier, more fun, healthier, richer, and smarter.
We finally get to the emotional level, which is where the real selling happens. This is when you feel a connection to the product because it excites you, makes you feel calm or relieved, or you think it will help you achieve something or get noticed.
The more emotional and personal your sales message is, the more sales you will make.
HOW TO TURN YOUR CUSTOMER INTO A SALE
As was said above, making a sale is all about getting to know your customer or prospect on an emotional level. Think about how you can help them with these five problems in your writing.
Motivation: How badly do they need your product or service, and when are they likely to buy because of that? You can get them more motivated by reminding them of the pain and trouble they are in and getting them to think about how great things will be once the problem is solved (using your product or service)
Clarity of Value Proposition: This means making sure that value beats price. If they think that what you’re offering is worth a lot, the price will seem fair. …then it won’t. This is why you should stress benefits over features and tell them how their purchase will help them.
Encouragement to Act: You want them to buy now, so it’s important to give them a reason to do so. There are limited-time offers, limited quantities of the product, and limited-time bonuses. All of these give your customer a reason to buy right away.
Reduce Transaction Friction: Amazon’s one-click checkout makes it easy to buy from them, and the fact that they patented it shows how valuable they think it is. Make it as easy as possible for your customer to buy from you, with as few steps as possible.
Minimize anxiety: Reduce anxiety by telling the customer exactly what to do, what information is needed where and why, and as much as you can about the sales process, including what happens after the sale. The last step is to offer a guarantee of money back. Take away all the risk. Very few people ever make these claims, so putting all the risk on you will get rid of their last reason for not buying.
SIMPLE FORMULA FOR WRITING SALES COPY
There are many different kinds of sales letters, but learning the basic structure is a good place to start.
There are basically 10 steps, and the order is the most important thing to remember.
- Part 1 : Gets Attention
- Part 2 : Puts the product in its place
- Part 3 : Make the offer.
- Part 4 : Deals with objections and makes the sale.
Step 1: Write a headline and a subhead line. This will get your reader’s attention and make them want to read more about your product or service.
Step 2: Find the Pain. They may have forgotten they are in pain, so you need to remind them and make them really feel it. If they don’t have this, they’re not likely to buy.
Step 3: Story and Credentials: Give your audience a reason to care about you by telling them your story (everyone loves stories). How you struggled for years, found a solution, and made a product or service. Then you showed your expertise and got respect.
Step 4: Talk about the product’s benefits and how they meet their needs and solve their problems. And yes, you do need to tell them exactly what you mean.
Step 5: Social proof/testimonials. Getting third-party confirmation of your sales pitch is a great way to build trust, so don’t skip this step.
Step 6: Make an offer. Now you can make your pitch and name your price. They are ready to hear it, but they may still have objections in their heads. Usually, these objections are: it won’t work, it won’t work for me, and I can’t afford it.
Step 7: Offer a money-back guarantee to take away the risk and make the offer risk-free.
Step 8: Create a sense of scarcity. You want them to buy, and you want them to buy right now. Later never happens. So, give them a reason to sign the contract right away.
Step 9: Tell them EXACTLY what they need to do to make the sale.
Step 10: PS etc. Add PSs to your sales messages and calls to action to make them clearer.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR PRODUCT MORE INTERESTING
We all like a good deal, let’s face it. If you can add features to your offer that your competitors don’t have, this will help you stand out!
When you make your next sales proposal, try adding some of these. When in doubt, look at what Amazon does and do the same thing.
- If you spend more than £20 on Amazon, shipping is free.
- Fast shipping/next day shipping (Amazon Prime)
- Free gift with a purchase
- Setup or installation is free.
- No setup fee
- No long-term contract, and you can stop at any time
CONCLUSION
These ten secrets are just the beginning of mastering copywriting, which is an activity that is incredibly exciting and enjoyable to perform.
It takes skill to write compelling content for websites.
Because of this, many companies seek the assistance of professional copywriting services or an individual who specializes in the writing of web content.
It is helpful to have an understanding of the components and characteristics of high-quality content, whether you choose to employ copywriters or do the work on your own.
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