Quality copywriting is often a blend of art and logic. On the one hand, it manages to combine words effectively and naturally, making audiences feel welcome, empowered, and safe. On the other, it’s much more than just wordsmithing. It relies on principles and cold-hard figures to find just the right phrase and just the right keyword.
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Here are seven tips that will help you engage and convert your visitors with the kind of copy that just intuitively works.
Speak Directly to the Site Visitor
Audiences want to feel valued and appreciated. Every single person who lands on your website will want to feel like an individual, as opposed to just another faceless credit card.
And while you certainly can’t speak to everyone on a deeply personal level, what you can do is use pronouns and phrases that will make people feel like they are being addressed. It will help them relate to your content better and feel more a part of your brand.
FE International does this simply but effectively. They say, “Are you interested in selling your SaaS business?” This pronoun makes readers feel seen, so they are much more likely to view the brand as an ally.
Source: feinternational.com
Focus on Customer Benefits, Not Product Features
No matter how great the features of your product are, no customer wants to hear about them. They just don’t care. So what if you’ve come up with a groundbreaking solution? If you don’t tie it directly with the benefits your customers will experience because of it, they really won’t want to know anything about it.
Benefits-oriented marketing always performs better than features-focused campaigns. It’s just basic human psychology: people care about themselves more than they care about a brand’s bottom line or its innovative solutions.
Instead of selling your product, sell what it means to your customers. Don’t talk about the product more than you need to. Talk about the solutions it provides.
Basecamp is great at this kind of copywriting. While they do mention the features of the product, they focus on “how it’s better” and how their solution will help their customers get more done in less time.
Source: basecamp.com
Keep your Main Point Very Simple
Effective copywriting is all about distilling your messages down to short, effective, punchy sentences. The longer it takes for a customer to get to the main point, the less likely they are to convert.
Your header copy is the first point of contact a lot of leads will have with your brand. It needs to say what you are selling in as few words as possible so that people know what to expect. They need to know what they are getting and what the benefits are. The shorter the message, the more effective it will be.
Kopi Luwak Direct uses nine words: Smooth and Flavorful Kopi Luwak, From $49.00, Shop Now. This is it. This is all you need to know: one amazing product, at this price.
Source: kopiluwakdirect.com
ConvertKit has done a good job too, albeit in more words. They say: ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators that helps you grow and monetize your audience with ease. The key words to focus on are “creators,” “grow,” and “monetize.” If you are not a creator but a brand, or if you aren’t looking for growth but project management, this is just not the solution for you.
Constantly A/B Test Your Copy
The only way to know if your copywriting efforts are working is to A/B test different versions consistently. The data you collect about your audience is, after all, here to help you understand them better.
When running a split test, you want to be very clear about your goals and what you are actually testing. Do you want to understand which pronouns or keywords work better? Don’t make too many changes all at once, as you won’t be able to gain any insight from the info you gather.
Don’t forget to take your visitor’s devices, location, source, and other demographics into consideration. People surfing on their mobile phones have less screen real estate, so the messages for them need to be even punchier.
Pay Attention to Your CTAs
Your CTAs are another vital element of your pages that need interesting, clear, engaging, clickable copy. They need to do more than merely tell a visitor to “click here” and do something. They need to align with your brand’s messaging as much as possible.
Unscramblex, for example, has taken advantage of their name and are telling visitors to “unscramble it.” That solution might be obvious to most copywriters, but it’s just the kind of contextualized simplicity you are aiming for.
Source: unscramblex.com
If you don’t have the room to get overly creative, at least try to stay away from the usual tropes. Just a tiny bit of creativity can go a very long way. Also, aim to involve your audience on an individual level. Phrases like “get my copy” sound better than “download now.”
Avoid Industry Jargon
If you are selling a product that is highly complex and technical, you want to avoid industry-specific jargon as much as possible. Unless your audience consists of expert users who will be familiar with the terms you are using, you want to keep it simple.
Use a conversational tone and words that most people will understand. Don’t try to impress anyone by sounding too complex and overly technical. You will more likely alienate your audience. Your aim is to be accessible, not exclusive.
Produck is a good example. While their product is not all that technically complex, they could have easily gone down the jargon terms route and talked gibberish at their audience. Instead, they describe their tool in simple terms. They’ve even made sure to address different members of their target audience, which makes everyone feel valued and included.
Source: Produck.io
Make Believable, Measurable Claims
When something sounds too good to be true, it most often is. If you make outlandish claims and promise your audience something magical, they may just walk away feeling disappointed and betrayed.
After all, there is no way you can be certain a product or a solution will always work. Instead, whenever you can, provide measurable expectations, without promising the moon.
A lot of digital marketing specialists have made the mistake of promising very specific metrics: bounce rates, keyword rankings, conversion rates, visitors. But since they can’t actually control the market and algorithms change way too often, it’s nothing but grief for all parties when they fall short of their claims.
Articulate Marketing has done something better. They tell you exactly what you can expect, but without tying themselves down to specific numbers. They prove their expertise without sounding pompous, and they sound just like the kind of brand you can trust.
Source: Articulatemarketing.com
Wrapping Up
Writing converting copy comes down to understanding your audience and their pain points, and delivering on the promises you make in your copy. Sometimes the simplest solutions work the best. So, rather than trying to impress, speak your brand’s truth, and do it in your audience’s language.