Do you want a salesperson who beats down the doors of your potential customers all day and all night long, 365 days a year, takes no breaks, and asks for no vacation? Well, good copywriting is that salesperson you are searching for.
A well-written piece of sales material can do the job of many salespeople because it’s always out there, on the Internet or some billboard, selling your message to the audience who matters.
A stat by the Nielson Norman Group says that people online only end up reading 20% of all the words on a page, which is ridiculously little.
Imagine putting all that effort to write something, and the people who matter don’t even bother reading through it. In fact, most people scan blog posts or long articles, skimming the headlines to get the gist of what’s being said.
This makes good copywriting even more crucial in our battle against people whose attention wanders faster than a housefly. Read on to see what copywriting is, and how it works.
What Is Copywriting and How Can It Help Your Sales
Copywriting is the art of persuading people to buy something or do something through the use of words. It’s persuasive tactics at its finest, requiring a refined perception and palate.
With good copywriting, you will be able to convince the reader to do what you want them to do—be it buy a product, or sign up for a newsletter, or even share that blog post with your friends.
When the copywriting can do its thing right, it gets the customer excited and even enthusiastic about doing its bidding. There’s no lackluster reaction here. It’s all overjoyed excitement, like a box full of puppies.
The reason good copywriting is so enticing is that it attempts to get into the customer’s head to figure out their pains and motivations.
When a good copywriter does their thing, they will ask a hundred questions about the customer to get to know them inside out. That’s how you know that they are a copywriter to keep around for a long time to come.
What Does a Copywriter Do to Entice Customers Better
Great copywriters ask questions about the customers, they attempt to get into the customer’s head, and then they write as if they were speaking in the customer’s language.
The important thing to remember here is that all writers are not copywriters, although all copywriters are writers.
It’s not a mutually inclusive category; thus, you can’t hire any writer off the street and expect them to do a good job of persuasive copywriting.
A great copywriter will also be a lot more expensive because they have certain well-documented and high-performing formulas that they use to do the persuasion tricks.
They are a high-end maestro who strings together words in a formulaic fashion to make the customer believe that they wanted to sign up for that newsletter, it was their idea, and no one persuaded them to do so.
Unfortunately, a good copywriter isn’t born but made. It takes hours and hours of practice, with A/B testing of copy, to see what works and what doesn’t, experimenting with different words and images, to learn the art of copywriting.
If you are interested in becoming an adept copywriter, there are some great copywriting ad schools out there that can help you achieve that goal.
What Are Some Tips and Tricks to Good Copywriting
Even though each copywriter has many tricks up their sleeve, there are some rules that you can follow to ensure that you write good copy. Some of these rules are outlined below.
But great copywriting always goes beyond the rules to create something unique.
1. Headlines Matter
A great headline will grab your customer’s attention in a jiffy and allow you the time to convince them to do what you want them to do. A good copywriter knows this and spends hours creating the perfect headline. It’s worth the time you spend on it.
2. Use the Words Your Customer Would Use
This is one reason why good copywriting tries to get inside the customer’s head by asking lots of questions. The better you can emulate your customer’s words; the more relatable your content becomes to them and their plight.
3. Try to Imagine Your Customer’s Pain
Your customer has a pain that they are trying to ease. It might be their relationship that needs work or their job that needs changing. Whatever it is, understand your customer’s pain and write the copy based on that pain.
4. Have a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)
A call-to-action is usually the second highlight of the sales piece, after the headline. Without a strong CTA, your customer will not know what to do with the particular copy. What are they supposed to do after reading it? Sign up for something? What?
5. Understand the Goal of the Sales Piece
If you, as a copywriter, understand the goal of the sales piece, be it a billboard, a flyer, or a signup form, you will be able to write better copy for it. The narrower you can make the goal, the easier it will be for you to write the copy.
With these five starter tips, you, too, will be able to write good copy. Remember that it always starts and ends with the customer. The customer is king, and understanding them will get you further in any copywriting action than anything else.
How to Be a Copywriter—Stand in the Customer’s Shoes
The most important thing for great copywriting is to be empathic to the customer’s pains. Stand a day in their shoes, understand what hurts them, and what they want to fix—all this will change your copy from blah to wow.
Good copywriting takes time and effort. It isn’t whipped out during lunchtime while you juggle a Zoom meeting and a sandwich.
Don’t get frustrated with your first attempt or even your tenth. You will know when it’s perfect. Keep at it.
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