Writing Copy That Converts

Use Your Copy to Guide Customers Along the Path to Profits.

Effective sales copy is the MOST important component of your website. Your copy needs to give your readers information about your product or service and needs to convince them they must buy it! Your choice of words will therefore greatly impact your sales. The key to great copy is that it guides your customers through the buying process.

There are four pillars of good copywriting:

1. Attention – Capture your customers attention.
2. Interest – Spark you customers interest.
3. Desire – Create desire for your offer.
4. Action – Induce action (your most wanted response).

In this tactic, we’ll teach you how to use these four pillars to write compelling copy that will lead your customer to carry out your most wanted response. Let’s start with 3 basic rules to take into account when writing your copy.

The 3 Basic Copywriting Rules

Rule 1: Don’t Make Your Copy Look Like an Ad

As an offline or direct marketer, you are competing to grab your customer’s attention away from whatever activity they are currently doing, whether it’s watching a TV program, reading an article, or listening to music. Whatever form of offline media you use, such as TV, radio, newspapers, or magazines, your sales piece must scream “Hey! Over here! Look at me!”

Online marketers face a different challenge. Expert copywriter Nick Usborne explains that it’s very important to take into account that most people find websites through search engines. This means your readers are looking for you, or someone like you. They are in the driver’s seat. They have an objective in mind. They are task-oriented. They are focused and intent on finding a particular product, service or piece of information.

People are in a different mindset online. Although they may not be set on a specific product, they know what they want and what information they are looking for. They want to know if your site can answer their questions and if your product or service will satisfy their needs. Your site copy must therefore address their concerns and lay their doubts to rest.

Since they have found their way to your site, you do not need to lure them in like an offline marketer does, but you DO need to demonstrate the value of your product or service. It would be a mistake to make your website look like an ad.

Focus on providing your customers relevant information, not a sales pitch! You’ll get some examples as you go through this module. Offer compelling content that progresses smoothly into a cleverly integrated sales pitch.

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Rule 2: Grab and Hold Attention

You have less than 10 seconds to grab a customer’s attention and keep her from clicking the back button. What do you do?

The way to grab and hold attention is to use a powerful headline and sub-headline. Something that the customer can read in less than 10 seconds and that will compel her to stay on the page.Once you’ve convinced her to stay a little longer, you need to get her to read your copy and take action.

If the copy is the most important part of your sales strategy, then the headline is the SINGLE most important part of your copy (we have devoted an entire tactic on developing headlines and scientifically testing them).

Rule 3: Take Action

The third step is to persuade the customer to take action and carry out your most wanted response. This could be signing up for a free online course, downloading software, or making a purchase on the spot.

While going for the sale is important, for many new and unique products you will need to allow customers to test-drive and experience your product first before attempting to sell it to them. Even on the best websites up to 95% of customers will not buy on their first visit. You need a backup plan to stay in touch with these customers and bring them back over and over again as you warm them up to a sale.

A free online course helps to keep many of these customers in touch with you and gives you an opportunity to sell to them over and over again (you can learn more about developing a free online course in another module).

Content Writing vs. Copywriting

There’s a difference between web content and web copy.

The purpose of web content is to inform, communicate with or entertain the customer. Web copy, however, is written to make the customer undertake some kind of action. For example, this could be purchasing your product, subscribing for free training or making a call to your toll-free number.

Content writers typically produce editorial, such as articles, instructions, reviews and descriptions, whereas copywriters write marketing copy and sales pitches. There is, however, some commonality between the two roles. In order to keep people reading and poised to make a purchase, content writers must also add some “marketingspeak” to their work. And on the flip side, copywriters cannot solely focus on pushing the product.

You don’t want people to leave your site uninformed or confused; you want them to stay longer and buy something. This can be achieved with the right combination of editorial and sales talk.

The number 1 desire of customers is finding what they want on your site. Once they understand what content/material is there, you can sway them with your words. We use this principle in every piece of content we write. Look at the way we present the tactics and you’ll notice that we start off each lesson with a headline and sub-headline. These elements usually belong more to sales copy, but we use them here to keep the casual customer interested and excited about reading further.

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Creating the Blueprint

Before you start writing your copy, you’ll need to determine your message. The following blueprint, developed by top copywriter Maria Veloso, works well to provide a framework.

Ask yourself these 5 questions:

1. What is the Problem?
2. Why Hasn’t the Problem Been Solved Yet?
3. What is Possible?
4. How Does Your Product/Service Make This Possible?
5. What Should You Do Now?

Question 1: What is the Problem?

Identify the problem of your target audience and how it can be solved with your product or service. We’ll use this book and the problem we are trying to solve as an example.

Ecommerce is a highly profitable and growing field. However, it is also a field that requires commitment and a desire to learn and develop your skills. Without proper guidance many entrepreneurs could lose their savings or burn out before hitting profitability.

Existing guides offer tips and software reviews but do not offer a clear step-by-step framework that entrepreneurs can follow to take their sites from a tiny idea to a fully launched, profitable business that is geared for growth.

In addition, the field is changing and evolving so rapidly that people often have trouble keeping up with the pace of innovation and change. A $400 ecommerce manual you buy in September may be obsolete by December.

This is the problem we’re trying to solve.

Question 2: Why Hasn’t the Problem Been Solved Yet?

Why does this problem still exist? If the problem has been solved, you really have no point in selling your product or service online. Your copy must show why the problem still exists.

Think about why this problem is still a concern for your audience. Maybe existing solutions were too expensive, or not comprehensive enough, or hard-to-acquire. We found that many existing solutions to our problem were overpriced and over-promised. A $1,000 ecommerce seminar may motivate audience members, but won’t give them the step-by-step skills needed to take their businesses from launch to high-profitability.

In addition, many of the $400 ecommerce courses on the market that come in four 3-ring binders with recorded audio tapes are mostly hype – they contain a lot of useless padding but few real tips. And their nature as a printed physical product makes them obsolete very quickly.

Question 3: What is Possible?

What is possible now? Here you need to paint a picture of what life will be without the problem. Will customers be happier? Can they spend more time with their family? Will they be able to afford to travel more, acquire a bigger home, or send their children to better schools? Create a dream of what is possible once the problem is solved.

In our case, we want our audience to know that they can possess a comprehensive online guide that lists and organizes all the latest knowledge, tactics and tips they need to boost their site and trump their competition. This guide is updated several times per year.

You don’t need to fork out thousands of dollars to attend multiple ecommerce seminars or buy different guides from different gurus. Whatever you need to know is right here at your fingertips, summarized and organized for you to implement quickly.

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Question 4: How Does Your Product/Service Make This Possible?

Here you describe what makes your product or service special and how it makes the picture you previously painted possible.

This is often called your product’s USP (unique selling proposition). What is a USP? A USP answers the question, “Why should I do business with you instead of your competitors?”

The USP clearly defines your competitive advantage and states what makes you better than your competitors. A powerful USP contains three parts:

1. It makes a very clear proposition: If you buy this product, you will get this benefit.
2. The proposition must be unique. Your competitors either can or cannot offer this benefit.
3. The proposition must have value. The offer should be so compelling that it motivates people to buy.

For example, our USP is, “A personal, actionable, and constantly updated step-by-step ecommerce training system that rapidly transforms an average site into a site that sells. Guaranteed!”

Question 5: What Should You Do Now?

Once you’ve answered the 4 questions above you need to clearly state what you want your customers to do. Should they sign up to receive more information? Make a purchase? Pick up the phone and place the order?

This is called the “call to action.” Our call to action is to get customers to test us out by subscribing to receive free ecommerce tactics. Each tactic is then designed to impress customers sufficiently so that they decide to purchase the entire book.

Our entire site is designed to get customers to sign up. This is what we have determined to be the best call to action to generate sales.

Once you’ve answered these 5 questions you’re ready to turn your responses into a powerful piece of web copy.

The Elements of Copy

A well conceived piece of online copy will almost always consist of the following elements.

1. headline
2. sub-headline
3. body copy
4. use of testimonials
5. bonus gift
6. guarantee
7. call to action
8. price
9. P.S. line

Right now, your goal is simply to create a working draft that you can put online and then make improvements and tweaks from there. It’s important to use your best material at the beginning and end of your copy. A weak ending will leave a lasting impression and cancel out all the good stuff you may have said in the beginning. A good beginning starts with a great headline.

The Headline

Use your headlines to grab the attention of your customers by aiming to solve their problem. You don’t need to take time to write an introduction, just get directly to the meat. Use short to medium length sentences with punchy, active words. Your headlines are what draw customers in, and the rest of the copy has to keep them interested.

Your headline must be catchy enough to make customers want to read the rest of your copy. Use “What if?” “Think back” or “Imagine what would happen if…” to introduce the possibility of something to customers and allow them to paint their own pictures and draw their own conclusions. Try this versus a straightforward factual claim like “You can increase revenue by 25%” which readers may not believe.

According to many copywriting experts, the headline is the SINGLE most important element of your page.

In another tactic about headlines we’ll provide a detailed framework to create a great headline and apply testing methodologies to make sure your headline works and converts well.

The Sub-headline

The sub-headline sits below the headline and further stimulates the customer to stay on the page. If you don’t use a sub-headline, be sure to make an impression with the first paragraph. This is crucial. Customers may not go beyond this.

Immediately demonstrate there are reasons to keep reading. It doesn’t have to be long—you can use short, punchy sentences as long as they keep the customer’s attention. A good strategy is to ask a question that will spark the interest of your customers and make them continue reading to find the answer.

The Product Image

The product image is a must! Eye-tracking studies show that it’s one of the most looked at points of a website (we cover the placement principles of the product image in another tactic on landing page design).

If you’re selling a virtual product like an ebook or audio it helps to create a virtual cover (we talk more about this in another tactic as well).

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The Body Copy

Remember that the headline is part of your overall copy. That’s why the first sentence of your body copy should flow naturally from the headline. After reading your headline, your customers expect you to immediately give them information, so give your customers what they want! Don’t chat away the first three paragraphs with nonsense because your customer will probably not continue reading.

Know the difference between features and benefits. Features are attributes, properties, or characteristics of your product. Benefits are what you can do, what you can have, or what you can be because of those features. People buy benefits, not features. Keep your eye on the benefits and use wording like “this means to you that” or “with this you can”.

Use of Testimonials

Scatter testimonials all over the main page of your site. Testimonials with pictures help most. We cover the process of getting and using testimonials in another tactic.

The Bonus

The bonus gift is used to strategically raise the perceived value of your product. We will talk more about this in another tactic.

The Guarantee

The guarantee is a powerful tool used to build trust and to get customers to take action and buy your product. We cover this in detail in a separate tactic.

The Call to Action – Your Final Paragraph

The final paragraph is the call to action. It must respectfully ASK customers to make a decision and take an action based on what they just read. The action could the act of purchasing a product, or it could be signing up for a newsletter or free course.

A call to action can have a major impact on the number of sales. Give precise instructions and tell your customers what you want them to do. People tend to comply when given a direct order. To further encourage action, add an incentive or benefit to the order.

We’ve gathered a list of examples you can use as your call to action:

1. Limited Edition, Order NOW before it’s too late! 1-800-555-1234.
2. 20 Ways to immediately increase your dating success. Sign up now to get this $29 value FREE!
3. Increase your web site traffic by 200 percent! Click here to find out how!
4. Visit this link here to receive this FREE audio.
5. Click here to subscribe to our “Ask the Professional Web Designer” ezine.
6. Click here to instantly download your online training program!
7. Join our FREE update list.

Price

Don’t mention your price before you’ve told customers about all the benefits of your offer. You don’t want to scare them away. After you have communicated all your key points you can mention the price in comparison to a very small purchase or a daily cost.

For example,

“For as little as the price of 2 movie tickets, you can now learn how to create your own movies!”

or…

“For less than $1 a day, you’ll get to build a million dollar website this year!”

The P.S. Line

The P.S. line comes at the bottom of the page and is ironically one of the most read pieces of copy. That’s why it’s used so often.

Many times people quickly skim through a page and read the headline and the bottom. Don’t overlook this valuable component. With a P.S. at the end of your copy you can gently remind the customer about the benefits of your product, any special promotions, deadlines, and whatever else you want to use to tempt them to buy.

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How To Get Started

At this stage we recommend you start building a first draft of the copy using all the elements we described here. It takes weeks if not months of tweaking to make your copy really sell.

Remember, your web copy is always a work in progress. For now, it’s important to create an initial working draft that you can place online.

So where do you start?

Step 1: Create Your Blueprint

The first step is to create the blueprint using the 5 questions we provided at the start of this tactic. Be sure to spend some time asking yourself these questions and writing down your answers.

The next step is to understand the elements of good copy, starting from the headline all the way down to the P.S. line.

Now you write.

To begin, we recommend examining your competitors and seeing what else people are writing about and how they are trying to sell their product or service. As you read your competitors’ copy, ask yourself if they answer the 5 questions we defined. Also observe how their copy flows and their use of the copy elements we described above.

Be a great copywriter in 5 hours or less. Find a website that does a good job with copy and generates lots of sales. Copy the sales letter in your own handwriting two or three times over the next week. You will find it effective because you can internalize and develop the rhythm, wording, phraseology, and even the mindset of the person who wrote it. This technique is suggested by master copywriter Maria Veloso.

After studying the copy and style of a few competitors, you’re ready to begin crafting your own copy.

Step 2: Improve Your Copy

After you’ve created your first draft of copy, use the checklist below to gather ideas to make your copy better.

1. Inject Emotion

People’s emotions are primary motivating factors for buying. People buy on emotion and justify purchases with logic. Emotional drivers include anger, exclusivity, greed, guilt, salvation, and fear of loss. Using conversational language adds to emotional appeal. Replace rational words with emotional words: e.g. Use “speed up” instead of “accelerate” or “tough/hard” instead of “difficult.”

2. Relate to Your Customers on a Personal Level

Incorporate stories and language that your customers can identify with. Use your words to satisfy their needs and answer their questions. Don’t talk about what is best about your company; they don’t care. Tell them how you will solve their problem. Paint a picture of their life without this problem.

Authenticity builds trust and trust sells. One copywriter who uses this tactic extremely well is Stephen Pierce. You can see an example of his style of copy here.

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3. Use Real Images of People

Remember the rule of copy that says that copy must look like an article and not an ad?

This applies to images within the copy too. DO NOT use stock photography as a substitute for real, natural pictures of your clients, products, and services.

4. Choose Your Words Carefully

Refrain from cliche words and expressions like “think outside the box” and “advanced system design.” Don’t stuff your copy with keywords, this doesn’t come across very natural.

Breathe some personality into your words by being natural and chatty. We cover the subject of “conveying personality and trust with your words” in detail in another tactic about creating trust.

Here’s a cheat-sheet of Do’s and Don’ts.

DO’S

1. Use a personal tone, be conversational and friendly.
2. Use contractions, like doesn’t and can’t, to sound more personal.
3. Strategically place testimonials on your site to add credibility, flow and reassurance.
4. Use the word “You” rather than “I” or “We.” Keep your focus on the customer.

DONT’S

1. Use words and expressions that could be misunderstood by international customers.
2. Use industry jargon and corporate lingo.
3. Try to impress your readers by using fancy words.
4. Be arrogant; instead of boasting about your own greatness, use customer testimonials
5. Use complicated wording; anyone with a decent level of English should be able to understand you.

Avoid sexist terms wherever possible. This will offend a large portion of customers and turn them away. For example, use “firefighter” instead of “fireman” or “business professional” instead of “businessman.”

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5. How Long Should Your Copy Be?

The length of your copy should depend on your most wanted response. For example, if you are selling something, having detailed copy is probably better. Your copy can extend to several pages in length. Don’t worry, readers are used to scrolling and long copy in most cases out-sells short copy.

However, when you are you are giving away free offers (such as a free course, white papers, or newsletter subscriptions) then short copy might do far better. For free offers you might not need any justification.

But remember to keep it focused. Long copy is fine but eliminate fluffy words. Keep cutting out excess words, sentences, and introductions. You can only get focused copy after many iterations, so write your first draft and then start cutting it down.

As a rule of thumb, if you’re going to have long copy, keep it focused and tight! According to Jakob Nielsen, one of the web’s top usability experts, “People rarely read web pages word for word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences…79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”

As a result, web pages have to employ scannable text, using

• highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
• meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)
• bulleted lists
• one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
• the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
• half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

Nielsen offers an interesting chart on his site that will show you how you can reword simple sentences to improve readability by as much as 124%. See that chart here.

Step 3: Boost Your Conversion Rate

Once you’re drafted your copy and put it online, the next step is to boost your conversion rate by making your copy easier to read.

We’ll discuss this in detail in the tactic on readability. In later tactics you’ll learn more advanced techniques for boosting the power of your copy. These include:

1. Developing headlines and using tools to test them
2. Designing pages based on eye-tracking studies
3. Strategically using testimonials
4. Designing advanced signup forms that convert
5. Applying advanced triggers within your copy to motivate readers to take action
6. Using principles to create more trust within your copy
7. Applying multivariable testing methodologies to rapidly test and refine just about any element of your copy

Summary

Good copy is a crucial determinant of your website’s performance and ultimate success. That’s why it is so important to spend enough time drafting great sales copy and testing and improving it along the way.

Copywriting should guide your customer to carry out the most wanted response, whether it’s a purchase or a subscription. The copy needs to gradually lead customers through the four steps of attention, interest, desire and action.

In this tactic we’ve given you A LOT of guidelines to follow when drafting your initial copy. In upcoming tactics we’ll spend more time on different aspects of your copy and improving your site one step at a time until you’re able to enjoy that million dollar business.

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