What is copywriting?
Copywriting is the act of writing with the intention of persuading the reader, listener, or viewer to take a specific action. This action could be buying a product, clicking a link, opting in for your newsletter, or giving you their contact information.
Writing copy is an important skill to learn. Whether you are writing direct response sales copy, marketing emails, copy for social media, or online sales letters and video scripts – it’s an important and valuable skill that’ll help you in so many different ways.
Effective copywriting can help you communicate better with your readers. Being able to write good copy can help you connect with your prospects, nurture relationships, and turn them into customers.It can boost your business by helping you make more sales and turn customers into raving fans and brand advocates.
Is copywriting hard to learn?
Good copywriting skills and concepts are easy to learn, but like anything, if you want to get good at writing effective copy it takes a bit of practice.
The more you write, the more you learn and the quicker you’ll improve your copywriting skills. You don’t need to be a literary genius to be able to write good sales copy – you just have to be willing to put in some effort.
The secret to writing sales copy that converts
Being able to persuade people to take a specific action is the goal of good sales copy. The best copywriters understand the psychology behind decision making, persuasion, and influence. They tap into those psychological principles and biases and use them to create powerfully effective sales copy.
If you understand some of these psychological principles and know how to incorporate them into your copy you will find that they make your copy yield better results.
I have summed just a few of these principles up into actionable copywriting tips to help you improve your copywriting skills and ability straight away.
1. Your headlines must appeal to your target audience on an emotional level
Your headline is the most important part of your copy.
(Check my more in-depth post on how to write catchy headlines).
It is the first thing that your prospects see. The purpose of your headline is to grab your prospect’s attention away from whatever they were doing and make them pay attention to what you’re saying.
If you have a weak headline your prospects won’t bother reading the rest of your copy and you’ll have lost the opportunity to engage with them.
The job of your headline is to grab your prospect’s attention and entice them to keep reading further. To do this your headlines must connect emotionally with your target audience. The best way to do this is to make your headline target either your prospect’s desires or fears – it should target something they’re either afraid of or something they desire.
Example 1: Target your prospect’s fears:
“4/10 people are overpaying for their home insurance – are you one of them?”
This headline targets the fear of overpaying and not getting the best deal which often leads to Buyers Remorse.
Example 2: Target your prospect’s desires:
“On average our customers pay 30% less for their home insurance – want to join them?”
This headline is selling the same product, home insurance, but is now appealing to their desire to get a better deal and save more money. Headlines that appeal to the emotional nature of your target audience will be much more effective in grabbing and holding their attention than a generic headline will. As a result, you will have a better engagement rate and dramatically increase the chances of your prospects reading the rest of your sales copy and making it through to your offer or call-to-action.
If you have an advert that isn’t performing as well as you’d hope then try changing the headline according to this principle and see if your results improve.
2. Don’t make generic statements or claims – be specific!
In order to impress your message upon your reader you need to make your claims very specific. The more specific your claims – the better your copy will sound to your prospects.
Example: Consider the following two statements:
- Our software helps entrepreneurs manage their finances better
- In the last 2 years, our software has helped over 13,987 entrepreneurs in over 9 countries manage their finances more efficiently
Which one was more impactful and impressive? The second one of course. Why? It is more specific.
It uses specific numbers which paint a clearer image in the prospect’s mind and quantifies the claim, thus making it more real and tangible than the first – which by comparison didn’t quantify any of the claims and was vague and unimpressive.
In order to make any claims about your product or service more memorable you need to be specific. Using numbers or facts in your copy is a great way to do this, and it makes the information more relatable to your users.
Anything that helps your readers to understand your business, product or service better is a good thing, so make sure you avoid being vague and get down to the details!
3. Emphasize your reader’s freedom to make their own choices
You’ve probably heard the expression “People like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold”.
It’s true. People love to buy things but they have a resentment of being sold to. This is because most of us are weary of anybody that seems to be trying to sell us something. We don’t trust salespeople.
It’s not that salespeople are bad, it’s just that human beings don’t like to feel pressurised in any way when it comes to making a buying decision. Even though we may need the product or service on offer, the moment we feel like we are being forced or manipulated into making a purchase we have the tendency to walk away.
This is known as Psychological Reactance. In a nutshell, this means we resent anything or anyone that we feel is trying to take away our sense of freedom and choice.
When our sense of freedom is threatened, we often act in the opposite way in order to assert and re-establish our freedom and independence. If your readers feel they are being pressurised by aggressive sales copy they will often leave your website and won’t take the action you want them to take e.g. click the link, buy your product, subscribe to your list, etc.
So how do you prevent your reader or prospect from running for the hills as soon as you present your offer and ask them to take action?
You have to reassure them. You have to emphasize that they are fully in control of their decisions and that they have full freedom to make their own choices.
You achieve this by using words and phrases that empower them.
- “It’s up to you…”
- “It’s your choice…”
- “The decision is yours…..”
- “Decide for yourself…”
Using these sorts of statements in your sales copy reduces your reader’s psychological reactance and doesn’t threaten their sense of freedom. They feel in control of their choices, and as a result, they are more likely to follow through on the actions you want them to take.
4. Use the power of storytelling
People love stories. It’s in our DNA – human beings seem to be hardwired to react to stories. Storytelling is one of the best ways in which to make your copy more readable and enjoyable.
People buy on emotion and then they justify their purchases with logic. Stories are a great vehicle for being able to take your reader on an emotional journey and introduce them to your product or service in a way that entertains and resonates with them.
By telling stories in your copy you are able to engage your readers on an emotional level and in some ways bypass their logical thinking. A powerful story can work wonders for your ability to grab and hold your prospect’s attention, form better relationships with them, appeal to their desires, address their fears, remove their doubts, and establish trust.
Stories also make you more memorable to your prospects. The most impactful stories are the ones where there is some sort of lesson to teach, message to convey or experience to share.
The best products and marketing campaigns are normally those that have a great story behind them.
Think back to Subway’s super successful Jared campaign. They leveraged the story of one of their customers called Jared, who was dangerously obese but managed to eventually lose weight and get in shape by eating Subway as part of his new diet.
By telling Jared’s story the company was able to make customers relate to him (and as a result the Subway brand) on an emotional level much more than if they simply stated “Eating Subway helps you lose weight”.
You can use stories in your copy to create the right buying environments, persuade people about the value of your product or service, position your product and service more effectively, and lead your readers to the sale without being too pushy.
Example: Using the Jared and Subway example lets see how we would turn this into a story for our copy.
To use stories in your copy you can follow this very simple outline:
- Set the scene – introduce the hero of your story and explain what problem they are experiencing. This character should be representative of your target prospect and the problem should the one that your prospects are experiencing and which your product/service solves.
Jared is an overweight guy who has tried and failed to lose weight so many times. He’s tried tons of fad diets with no success. Nothing seems to work for him, and he has lost hope of losing weight and being healthy.
- Agitate the problem: Explain how the effects of this problem are negatively impacting your character’s life and is preventing them from achieving their goals.
As a result of not being able to lose weight, Jared’s self-esteem was low. This affected all aspects of his life – he couldn’t get dates, he suffered from a lack of confidence, and his health was starting to suffer.
- Present the solution: Position your product or service as the solution. Explain how your product or service helped to solve the character’s problem or helped them achieve the desired goal, and how their lives have been improved as a result.
Instead of having to eat typical diet foods which taste like cardboard, Jared was able to eat a tasty and healthy Subway sandwich every day as part of his new diet regime. This made his diet a lot more enjoyable and easier to stick to. Jared finally had hope again.
- Detail the results: Explain the results the character got from using your product/service
Jared was able to shift those unwanted pounds and achieve his ideal weight. This has boosted his confidence and self-esteem significantly. His physical health has improved, he feels happier, and now goes out on dates regularly. He has improved all aspects of his social, work, and family life.
Do you see how effective a good story is? An effective story enables your prospects to identify on an emotional level with the character and their problems (which represents them), and with your product or service (as the solution to their problems).
The right story can convey the benefits of your products or services to your prospects without making them feel like you are being too aggressive with your sales pitch.
Ask your customers to share their experiences with your product or service. Make a note of any that stand out and get their permission to use their stories in your marketing copy.
Let the story do the selling for you!
5. Keep it simple – Limit the number of choices you give your prospects
When you present your prospects with too many buying options they will often get overwhelmed and avoid making a buying decision. Consumers don’t want to make a buying decision that they end up regretting
If we give our prospects too many options it forces them to make comparisons, compare features, compare prices, etc The more options they have to choose from – the more difficult it is for them to make a buying decision. This is known as Decision Fatigue.
If your copy presents your reader with too many decisions to make you will overwhelm them and increase the likelihood of them not taking the action you want. That’s why the most effective calls-to-action are simple and offer the prospect only one decision they have to make e.g. – click or not click, subscribe or not, download or not.
Good sales copy and call-to-actions should present your readers with a single decision to make/action to take.
Example: Let’s say the goal of your sales letter is to get prospects to click the buy button.
Your call to action should be geared towards them taking this buying action e.g. “click here to buy”, or “buy now” etc. You should not present them with other decision options in that copy, e.g. “subscribe to our newsletter”, “download a free demo” or anything else other than the option you want them to take, which in this example is to get them to buy your product.
If you do so you will confuse them and cause them to make a decision between the various options on offer. They may choose the easier option of signing up for your newsletter and avoid buying anything at all, in which case you would have failed in your objective to make a sale. Make it easier for them – limit the number of decisions they have to make by offering the minimum number of choices or options.
Likewise, if you offer your product at different price points, try not to offer more than three options. Three options are proven to be the optimum number of choices to offer your prospects. Any more than that and you risk making the decision too complicated for your reader and allow decision fatigue to creep in.
The more options you offer – the more decision fatigue they will experience, and the more likely it is that they will not make any decision at all. You can avoid this happening by simplifying the number of decisions they have to make.
Summary
So there you have it, some easy to implement copywriting hacks that you start using straight away.
Here’s a quick recap:
1. Your headlines must appeal to your target audience on an emotional level
2. Don’t make generic statements or claims – be specific!
3. Emphasize your reader’s freedom to make their own choices
4: Use the power of storytelling
5: Keep it simple – Limit the number of choices you give your prospects
If you start implementing the above 5 copywriting tips, tricks, and techniques you’ll start to see an improvement in your results.
Copywriting isn’t hard to learn, but it does take continuous practice and a bit of know-how. If you want to improve your copywriting ability and technique, then you have to study the best copywriters and learn the art of writing effective sales copy.
There are tons of books out there, some better than others. Check out my review on some of the best copywriting books every marketer should read and see which ones I recommend.
