If you haven't found out yet what copywriting means, you should know that this concept is quite different from actual writing. Specifically in copy-writing, you don't just write to inform the readers about a certain topic/product, but you urge them, convince them to access the link, buy the product, participate in the event, etc.
So regular writing informs, and copywriting persuades the reader to learn more and possibly take that action.
Copywriting differs from ordinary writing by 3 rules of writing:
- Promote a specific topic
- Target a specific audience
- Has a specific purpose (achievable at the same time)
Now, you've learned what copywriting is, but what are the best tips for creating a successful one?
Focus on the needs of your readers
Although it is the most important rule of copywriting, it is the least used.
Focusing on your reader means researching what they like, what they hate, the language they use, their fears, their emotional factors, and many other aspects that help you visualize your perfect customer.
You need real and relevant audience
As I said earlier, copywriting is aimed at a specific audience, so you need to make sure that your ad attracts the right customers who will also want to do business with you.
The most important aspects that attract customers, at first sight, are the titles. They must be specific, concise, target a specific audience, with a specific topic.
They should:
- Be aimed at the ideal customer
- Give a strong sense of what will be included in the rest of the ad
- Make the reader want to read by empathizing with a problem and/or promising a benefit or solution
Tailor your content to engage your readers
As a basic rule: Your focus must be on your readers!
Otherwise, you risk writing content that will not be of interest, and ultimately, will not be read!
To avoid writing uninteresting content, ask yourself:
- Does this content answer a question my customer might have?
- Does this describe something my client wants to achieve (that can help them)?
- Does it empathetically talk about a problem my customers have?
Try using symbols instead of words
People are looking, when reading content, for the information to be as easy to consume and read as possible.
So for example you can use "&" and "+" instead of "and" or "together" and "$" instead of money.
Use numbers instead of writing numbers in words
As I said, people prefer the information in front of them to be as easy to read and process as possible.
Thus, using the actual numbers (1,2,3,4) makes it easier to understand the information you are transmitting. It is much easier to use numbers when presenting data or discounts, and they are much easier to enter into different systems.
Use more interesting and meaningful titles
Every headline you write is as important as the title of your page. After all, they are the ones that attract readers to learn more about the topic.
Thus, if your topic is about types of plans and prices, it should not have the title "Plans and Prices", but rather a call-to-action text and design:
Talk to potential customers as if you were in the same room
Visualize yourself standing face to face with the reader or right next to them...and then start writing.
This technique is a great way to keep yourself from talking down to your reader by focusing on YOU and not their needs – helping you craft more engaging messages to speak through with They.
It appeals to emotions and feelings
These are what drive us and it is good to take into account the fact that, often, we, the people, make emotional choices and only then justify them with logical arguments. Often the biggest promotional campaigns and advertisements appeal to our emotions to buy. (ex: Christmas, Black Friday, etc.)
Give your readers numerous benefits
Every function should have an advantage. What's interesting is that each benefit brings additional benefits by itself.
For example, the main benefit of your online fitness training course may be that users can exercise at any time of the day. What are the advantages of such convenience? They can spend more time with their family; doing everything at your own pace; exercising anywhere, even on vacation.
The more benefits you provide to your readers, the more you will receive.
Highlight your best product.
If you have a product that is "most popular" or "best", make sure that your website visitors can easily see this.
Use visual cues and clear, simple words to showcase your most important product or service.
Replace long words with short ones
Shorter words usually mean a clearer, more understandable read for your readers.
So, try replacing polysyllabic words with shorter ones.
What do you bring uniquely to the market?
Your product (and company) needs a valuable accessory or something that is unique about your product and highly desirable to your target market.
Try to include that unique element, right in the title if possible.
Why should people buy from your site?
This is especially important if there are many merchants in the same field in your target market!
Your website itself needs its own element of value. Something extra, compared to the others.
For example, our Mensis agency can help you create a fast loading site and optimized for search engines.
And your customers need to understand what that unique element is.
If it is the case that you offer something more than the competition, you should communicate it!
Let your own customers promote your business
Use high-quality opinions (reviews) from your customers/readers to replace or support your copywriting whenever possible.
Be specific about your product's target customers.
An "ideal for" statement on your home page tells your visitors they've come to the right place, which can reduce churn and improve site exploration.
The clearer and niche-specific this statement is, the better.
Tell people that the featured product is ideal for them (if applicable), like this example:
Use "click-triggers"
If you want people to take a certain action, place "click-triggers" next to the button they should click for that action. For example, add "free shipping", "no need to create an account", "100% safe", various incentives in close proximity to the button.
Get informed first!
Where do you get the ideas for your titles?
The key messages your visitors will see must come from what you've learned about what your potential customers want. They need to see that you have thoroughly researched their consumer profile and know exactly what they want. So, get informed, first of all.
Don't stick to the first idea
The title or subject, which you write for the first time, will no longer always be the final title/subject of your home page, contact page, etc.
It is normal to edit and re-edit the first draft until you arrive at a final draft, regardless of what form it will take at the end.
Steal from your customers' ideas
The last thing you should be doing is making up phrases!
Instead, survey your customers and website visitors through reviews left on Emag, Google Maps, Facebook and other reviews for products and services similar to yours, then take the best phrases you find and write your content in the desired manner. But, don't change the words too much, but IMPROVES words.
Clearly, your customers know what they need better than you! So a smart copywriter who uses their clients' words, not their own, will win. More details about this you can find out here.
Gather 10x more information than you need
As legendary copywriter John Caples said, “Overwriting is the key. If you need a thousand words, write two thousand. Cut vigorously. Fact-filled messaging can turn customers off. "
Add the main idea from the reviews into a mini-headline
Create a 4 to 5 word summary title of what the review is about. This is a very good example:
"Show and tell"
In creative writing, the rule is “show don't tell".
But in copywriting, the rule is "show and tell, tell and show."
That means you have to take everything you want to communicate and actually put it on the page (to say) and then back up what you're trying to say with lots of demos, product photos, samples, reviews and more (to show).
So once you say it, it shows. And once you show, tell. Your readers need both from you.
Smartly customize your thank you page
Don't say goodbye on your thank you page. And don't stop "communicating" after your user has logged out.
Always give more. Let the user decide when to leave your article/page. Freshbooks understood this very well:
Show key messages on screen in demos / videos
To add information about a specific topic to any narrator or voice in your product demo or video, put your key messages in the text. For example, in the case of videos from paid ads on Facebook, the highest conversion is obtained when the clip also has a caption in the respective language, or calls to action written in capital letters.
Build your content to be unique and wanted by others
To be able to increase sales, you need unique and never-before-seen content. If you haven't yet figured out what your unique values are or how to better leverage them, now is the time.
Check the spelling of the content
Nothing will decrease your website traffic like typos. To avoid appearing untrustworthy, check the spelling of the text several times.
Don't write for the whole audience
The most important rule in copywriting is to find your target audience. Don't try to write something general because it won't suit everyone, but rather focus on a specific segment and address it accordingly. For example, if you have a product/service aimed at 20-40 year old women, you will write specifically for this segment, specifically targeting 20-40 year old women. Any specific segment or target audience will only be composed of 20-30% from the general public, but for sales to be truly successful, these percentages are enough.
Don't use generic addresses like "Welcome!"
You can't start an article with a trivial address like Your welcome!
Try to show that you put effort into composing that article, right from the first impression, by using your originality.
You don't need more information to compose the title. Most of the time, the first sentence of the paragraph can be the title in an ingenious way if you know how to adapt it.
Don't put all of your content into one video
Both for SEO and for those who don't want to sit 2-3 minutes to watch your video, it's important to spread the information you want to reach your audience across the entire page.
Don't put the best content you have in one clip because you'll run the risk of it not being seen by everyone.
Try to let users know what video they will be watching, and how long it will be.
Don't limit yourself to x number of words
You may have thought (or heard) that your title should be a maximum of 7 words, right?
Well, the truth is that there is no maximum number when it comes to choosing an appropriate title for the article/page/paragraph you want to share with others.
The headline should contain just as many words as you need to capture all the information you want to share and communicate it correctly.
Don't consider yourself well-known yet
Why can Apple get away with it, smartly? Why can Google get away with no descriptive text on their page? Why can Microsoft get away with a bad online shopping experience?
Because everyone knows who they are, what their values are and what they can do.
If you don't have the same site traffic or popularity yet, don't try to copy these examples above.
Don't use small fonts or tight spacing
With CSS and HTML5 around, you have no excuse to "cram" your content with small fonts or tight spacing.
Don't deprive your readers of the information you want to convey by using different types of writing styles that tire the eyes.
Here's a good example of NOT:
Don't forget your slogan.
Your company logo, as well as other page elements, can stay with your visitor throughout the experience.
So, through your tagline, you can state or re-state your values and goals to every visitor, at any time.
Don't follow old rules like features vs. BENEFITS
If you've heard that you should talk about benefits first, then features, that's totally wrong.
There is no rule about this, it all depends on what you are publishing.
Features matter especially when you come up with a new version of a product, and benefits when you come up with a new product on the market.
The only rule in this case is to write about what your audience wants, be it features or benefits.
Don't try to sell everything at once
Try to pick one product/service to focus on and write your content about.
The most suitable product to be the main one is the one that has received the best feedback from consumers.
Remember why you created the page in the first place
As your business and product line evolves—and as your copywriting team grows—don't lose sight of the original goal of each page.
Yes, let your pages evolve. But don't load product/service catalog pages just because you want to sell more products or services.
Every page needs only one goal – and that goal shouldn't be "sell everything we can."
Don't compromise clarity for ingenuity
A classic "rule" is that you should always strive to be clear first.
If, after you have reached a point of clarity that convinces your audience, then you can consider going the smarter route.
Here's an example of how one company – join.me – combines clarity + ingenuity quite well:
Don't let your headline, or what you want to sell, disappear from your visitors' eyes
What you want to sell/broadcast or your headline should stay static, not move off the page.
You don't want your visitors to miss the chance to see that content or forget it just because it moved off the page.
Don't let your most important message get lost. Do not put it in a slider, from which it will become invisible:
Show the safety certificates
It might surprise you, but these logos are very important to your audience.
They can give your visitors the confidence and push they need to call your business.
Don't take the easy way out
When writing starts to feel difficult, then do it well. As Thomas Mann wrote, "A writer is that person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
Keep this in mind while doing copywriting.
If it starts to feel too easy, you may not be pushing yourself hard enough to select the right words. You can thus miss the chance to position a product for a target audience.
If editing texts to promote an online store or business seems difficult to you, you can always turn to an agency that offers copywriting services.
Don't get in the way of buyers
If your visitor is trying to convert into your customer – that is, if they are trying to buy your product or sign up for your service, don't interrupt them!
That means you shouldn't ask them to create an account during the purchase process.
For example, at the end of the order, you can proceed to invite the customer to create an account. This is when he has completed a task (which makes him feel good) and is open to reading reasons to complete a new task:
Don't spend more on how it looks than what your copywriting contains.
It's good to make content that looks very interesting, visually, but that's not the most important aspect!
How many hours you spent writing that content is much more important than its design.
The following example shows us a great homepage design and a good aesthetically made demo, but the quality of the content is not the best… It does not clearly explain what the company's goal is, its values, or why you would want to call to them.
Don't bore your readers with too much content
Except for blog posts and large font titles, be very careful about writing copywriting that spans the width of your page (Especially if your site is designed to be responsive... where the widths can become enormous .)
Long lines of text are hard to follow. So don't go over 500 pixels in length.
Don't sacrifice whole sales today for the chance of a small income tomorrow
This is a tricky one if your main site income comes from ads, but if a display ad is preventing your site from being used, you're losing more visitors than you're getting 'clicks', aren't you?
That doesn't mean don't use ads. Just be careful – and don't let them interfere with key content or site navigation, as in the example below: 
Don't ignore the buying environment
If you owned a store, what would you like it to look like? Would you like it to be cramped and crowded … or comfortable and easy to navigate?
Remember that every purchase takes place in a buying environment... so it's all up to you. To make sure the buying environment is the right one, don't overcomplicate things.
Frequent questions
What does copywriting mean?
Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing content for advertising or other forms of marketing. Product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade an individual or group to take a specific action.
What are the most important elements of a child?
- Focus on a target audience
- To promote a specific topic
- Have a specific goal (goal), preferably measurable and achievable.
What does the BBB rating mean?
BBB ratings are BBB's opinion of how likely the business is to interact with its customers in a fair way.
Why do you need copywriting?
Whenever you write content to promote your business writing techniques, keep your message clear and compelling.
This can even include "behind the scenes" content such as emailing potential affiliates, partners and customers.
In business, persuasive writing always comes in handy.
Copywriting can help you when you want to:
- Bring attention to your business.
- Attract a community of people who would love to be your customers.
- Build your email list from blog readers
Is it better to write your own copy or hire a specialist?
It might seem more correct to call on someone more skilled in this field, but most businesses started by writing their own copywriting content.
Not only because it helps you practice a skill that you can use to engage customers through many aspects of your business, but because in the early days, you'll most likely want to keep experimenting with your voice and messaging.
If you're in the real early stages of figuring out what kind of audience you want to attract and what you want to do for them, I wouldn't recommend hiring a copywriter to write for you.
If you don't know what your goals are and who you're trying to attract, you'll waste a lot of money paying a copywriter to help you figure it out, rather than spending that time writing a clear and compelling sales message.