Want to learn about copywriting? You’ve landed in the right place. Copywriting can be tricky to pull off without the correct tools, but once you learn some simple nuances, you’ll convert your readers into customers instantly!
Copy is considered the art of framing sentences in a way that makes people want to buy your product. Copywriting lets customers engage in your content or identify with your brand.
“Writing copy” involves generating content for web pages, ads, promotional materials, social media, video scripts, landing pages and many, many more. In a lot of ways, it’s like using your words on the internet as the salesman pitching your product–except it’s not to one person, but your target demographic and you’re pitching it to them in a carefully tailored manner.
Copywriting is what ties all the digital marketing tools — branding, design, content marketing and SEO together. You might have an incredible business, but if you’re settling for a generic template in your emails, banner ads or sales letters, it would be difficult to make a sale. If you can hold your readers’ attention, and convince them that they need your product by the end, there’s no limit to how much your business will soar.
That sounds too good to be true, right? The good news is, it’s achievable. As long as you follow some time-tested copywriting practices and tune your copy to resonate with the persona of your business, you should see tangible results.
But how does one even become a good copywriter? Fortunately, it only costs time, and a little effort that goes a long way. To understand this vast subject, we first have to understand the basics.
Where do I get started?
When planning to copywrite, the must-need preliminary data is understanding your target audience. Take the general idea of your brand and create a “dummy customer” who would be prone to purchasing from you. What are their demographic– age, gender, location, job etc. You can then go beyond that by looking into what kind of needs and challenges these customers could have that you would want to address by selling them your products and services.
Do this by going on social media and finding people who fit into your idea of a customer. Examine their lifestyle and problems. What kind of intentions/problems/successes are they talking about?
You can also read amazon reviews of products similar to your firm’s and see what people are saying. This is a great way to understand your customers’ language. Now you have data on what kind of words to use in your copy to attract the customers you want.
Developing your business persona AKA your brand’s voice
Your brand’s voice is the driving factor in your copywriting style or tone. For example, Netflix uses a playful, pop-culture filled copy in their branding because they want to attract people who are interested in watching entertainment content.
There are tons of choices for the kind of tone you want to set- playful, goofy, flirtatious, serious, intriguing, authentic, fearful etc. To know what kind of tone you have to set, first you need to know your customers, and also fully understand whatever product you’re selling. If David Oglivy, a legendary copywriter, took a whole three weeks to write for his award winning Rolls-Royce ad, imagine how meticulous ones’ study of their product can be to get the best copy.
Picking the medium that’s right for you
The medium on which you’re writing can heavily influence your copy and it’s content. One necessary avenue is a company website. This is where you can truly shine with the unique tone of your copy as you have somewhat free reign on the limitations. However, it will be hard to generate traffic for your website without some advertising on external websites.
There’s various kinds of social media like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Pinterest etc. where you can push your content so people can find you. The advantage with social media marketing is, the customers’ are already there, and the app already holds their attention. You just have to compete with other content on the app to reach the customer, which is achievable with a good copy that’s backed by SEO. Make sure you look into which social media your target customers use the most so you can direct maximum resources to that avenue and get the most bang for your buck.
What are the components of a well written copy? A flow breakdown
- Headline
A good headline is crucial to get people to actually pay attention. The distinctive thing about copywriting that differs from other writing is that its’ specifically structured to be easy for one to skim the contents and understand the gist of what you’re trying to say.
This is because copy is not something people seek out to read start to finish. We have to entice them to look at our brand. And the only way to do that is with a phenomenal, attention grabbing title. However, you have to be careful to not oversell it, as this becomes clickbait which readers do not like and will instantly click out of.
- Content
In the actual body of the copy, make sure you use simple and concise language that’s conversational. Be generous with your content, and don’t use buzzwords or jargon. Your blog should be easy to follow no matter what the reader’s level of knowledge is. If it is an advanced or technical copy like found in B2B blogs, then you can backlink the more difficult topics with the necessary context. Remember to use an abundance of keywords in an organic way to help you get SEO traffic (more on that later).
- Call to action
A CTA is a very important component in a copy structure. If your headline was flashy enough to grab attention, and your body was concise enough to keep it, the CTA is what makes the readers finally join your brand and convert into buyers. A call to action is like a clickable hyperlink to buy a product or read more about your company or join a mailing list etc. Writing a great CTA is the necessary final nudge to have guaranteed customers.
This can be done in various ways– you can create urgency “Buy now and get 10% off!”, you can create security— “Click here to buy. 100% money back guarantee” or you can be intriguing— “60% of robberies have happened because of bad security. Find out more about home security systems”. Whatever tone you use, make sure you are direct and use active, powerful language to inspire people to take action.
Copywriting is a massive subject to dive into–like copywriting formulas, content writing tricks, making your article SEO proof. However, with this introductory guide, you can get started on effective copy today and let your business reach the heights it deserves.
