Today, modern entrepreneurs are making a killing using copywriting techniques in their businesses. Bear in mind, selling things online is a lot harder than selling things offline because you lack the sincerity of voice and body language.
However, if you know how to tap into the power of copywriting to excite the emotions of your prospects, you’ll be laughing your way to the bank.
Remember, the ultimate goal of copywriting is to get your readers to perform your most desired outcome. Such as making a purchase or signing up to your mailing list.
The Basics
It’s very important that you determine what your desired result is before you embark on your copywriting crusade. Clarity is power so it’s important to know what you are after so that when you write, things will go the direction you want them to go.
Let’s look at some basics. Bearing in mind that we want our readers to perform our most desired result, so be cautious so you’re not percieved as being too forceful
Keep it Casual
You want to be seen as a friendly person who is also an authority figure in your field and not like a blatant salesman. The latter will cause people to dislike you can treat you as spam.
The next thing you must know is that some rules are pretty illogical. But one thing that makes sense is this, good practices have been tested and proven (split-tested) by top online marketers for years, so rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, follow what works and reap the rewards! However, I strongly encourage you do a little split testing of your own as well. Eliminate things that don’t work and duplicate or multiply things that do – that is the surefire way to success!
Next up, we’ll look into one of the most important components of a good copy – headlines.
The headline is the most important part of any copy. If your headlines fail to grab the attention of your readers, it doesn’t matter how good your offer is or how good the rest of your copy is. You only have 5 seconds to make an impact on your readers before they move on, so make it count.
The headline has to be eye-catching and bolded to immediately get your reader’s attention. The sub headline will reinforce the message of the headline.
Here’s an important thing to note: You should never use FULL caps for your headline. Only use it when necessary. For instance:
“IMAGINE WHAT THIS WOULD LOOK LIKE IF THIS WAS ON THE TOP OF YOUR WEBPAGE!!!”
It looks like someone screaming at you – Who would like that? Also, full caps looks spammy and nobody nor Google would like that.
Also, headlines have to use eye-catching words which can instantly excite the emotions. Have you ever seen magazines at a newsstand? The headlines usually sound catchy and uses words which excite curiosity and emotions with topics like sex, money and drama.
Follow up your headline with a sub headline. The subheadline’s goal is to exemplify the idea of the headline and should ideally be slightly smaller in font size compared to the headline.
Ask yourself, what niche are you in? What words can you use to excite emotions and create drama in your niche?
A Good Converting Sales Copy
1) Whenever promoting something, always remember to show the benefits or give compelling reasons for buying the product. Show how much that not getting the product can result in more pain than getting the product.
2) Have a FAQ section for your product. When you promote a product, there is bound to be many questions that would pop up in the heads of your readers. Having a FAQ serves to be a place where you can handle or deal with any last minute objections to your product.
3) Call to action. Possibly, one of the most important components is the call to action. It will be the place where people make a purchase or performed your desired action so make sure you include it in before your “add to cart” button.
4) Post scripts. These are last minute call to actions which capture “page scrollers” or people who just need that final push to purchase that product.
5 Copywriting Mistakes To Avoid:
As mentioned before, Copywriting is an essential skill of any online marketer. Your ability to write good copy can determine the make or break of your business.
When used correctly, it can increase your conversions and bring you massive profits. However, if you commit these common mistakes, you will sabotage your business.
Here are 5 mistakes you should avoid:
1) Not addressing your audience. Remember, the person reading your copy is a human being. Hence, treat your audience with respect and talk to them as though you would be talking to a friend on the phone.
Always start your message with a “Hi friend” or simple greeting to let them know that there is a human connection.
2) Selling too hard, too fast. How would you like it if you started your copy with “Don’t buy this and you ears will fall off!” Instead, try starting your copy by trying to relate with your audience’s problems and perhaps talk a little about yourself before going into the benefits of the product. Remember, in the long run the soft sell always wins.
3) Screaming into their face. Talking about some crappy headlines, one that comes to mind is the headline with EVERY SINGLE LETTER IN CAPS. This is not just bold, it’s literally screaming in their face and nobody likes that. Instead, only use capitals for the first letter of each word.
4) Using long spammy looking affiliate links in your email copy. Nobody trusts weird looking links, your best bet would be to use a link cloaker or a link shortening service such as Tinyurl.com or bit.ly.
5) Talking like a robot. Nobody likes to listen to a machine. Instead, use a casual tone when dealing with your customers, it’s more human-like.
Play With Emotions
Emotions play an extremely important role in online marketing. In the offline world, you can use body cues and verbal cues to excite emotions to get sales. But in the online world, you have to use the power of copywriting.
Creating a sense of urgency is one of the best ways you can increase your conversions.
It must be used concurrently with other copywriting methods to stir up the emotions in your audience. There are many ways you can create a sense of urgency:
1) Time sensitive offers. This is probably one of the oldest, yet most effective ways to create a sense of urgency. Tell your readers that this launch is only up for 48 hours, of better still, for added impact, include a countdown timer onto your page.
2) Limited copies available. I love this. Tell them that only 50 copies will be made available and possibly strike out 50 to become 48 upon announcing. As the launch goes on, you may further reduce the number of copies made available.
3) Excite the emotions of greed and fear. These two emotions are extremely powerful. The human mind does things based on the pain pleasure principle, which is to do things that would bring them pleasure and avoid things that will bring them pain.
4) Make purchasing your product before your launch closes the more pleasurable thing they could ever do and show them the pain of losing out on tons of money by not getting your product before their competitors do. This is a sure-fire way to boost sales.
