Effective Copywriting

Sales copy, or copywriting, is the most important aspect of a business that “sells” online.  Copywriting is what drives sales, and without sales there would be no business.  There are several techniques that can be used to become good at writing sales copy and increase your online conversions.

Benefit of Good Sales Copy

Now before you develop the skills to become effective in copywriting you should learn how it will benefit you and your business.

It will…

• Increase the amount of conversions and overall conversion ratio
• Allow you to better connect to customers on an emotional level
• Increase the number of products sold (up-selling)
• Earn respect from visitors and create a relationship
• Increase sales, which will result in an increased list of buyers.  Once they have a positive buying experience they will probably come back to you the next time they are in need of a product or service.

Essentials of Effective Ad Copy

Certain phrases or aspects of copywriting trigger emotions in people that will influence them in the buying cycle.  Here are a few that are found to be effective.

• Tell a story – Make your visitors feel connected to you by sharing a similar experience.
• Original Content – Stand out from your competition and give you visitors what they want, not what they can find everywhere else.
• Customer Service – Stress the customer service they will get when purchasing through you, and make sure to fulfill your promises.
• Be a complete resource – Customers like to have their problems solved in as few steps as possible, so become a complete resource or guide them in the right direction.
• Popularity – People are influenced by others, there is no doubt about that.  Make it known that others are raving about your product or service and it will have a positive influence.
• Prove it – Show solid results proving your product or service is worth the time and investment.
• Sneak Peak – Offer a trial with no risk to give them a “taste” of your product or service.
• Exclusivity – Make them feel as if they are the only one (or few) that are getting your product or service.
• Sell the benefits – Clearly articulate how your product or service will provide the solution to the problem that initiated their visit.

These are only a few tactics and there are many more out there for you to experiment with.  Not all tactics are needed to be effective, but using one or more will increase your chances of meeting your company goals.

Headline

What is the first thing you see upon landing on a website? That’s right, the headline.  If you have a horrible headline and amazing sales copy then kiss the majority of your customer’s goodbye.  Spend the time to really test and see what is triggering your customers to continue reading and complete an action.
Some Ideas to begin a headline with…

• How to…
• Discover…
• Imagine…
• Attention…
• Learn…
• How to…
• Warning…

Call To Action

Another important factor when copywriting is your call to action.  Without a call to action your visitors are not going to know how, or what you want them to do.  You can have the best sales copy in the world but if you don’t have a strong call to action you are going to lose a huge amount of potential customers.
Here are some terms that will entice your visitors to take action…

• Join Today…
• Order Now…
• Order Today…
• Don’t Wait…
• Buy Now…
• Sign-Up…
• Subscribe…
• Become a Member…
• Learn More…
• Find Out…
• Get Your Free…
• Take Action…

Try to keep your calls to action to a minimum because you don’t want to put your visitors in a predicament of choosing between multiple actions.

Another driving sales technique are the videos. You’ve probably visited some sites recently that featured a video clip explaining why the company’s product or service is perfect for you. While some sites let you start the video at your convenience, others launch the video when the page is loaded, forcing you to either:
a. Stop reading anything else on the page and watch the video
b. Stop reading anything else on the page, find the stop button and stop the video
c. Do your best to read the contents of the page, while trying to ignore a talking head
To determine what impact automatically starting the video has on conversion, we performed an A/B test of the exact same page for a B2C lead generation site – the control was the video automatically starting at page load; the test page required the visitor to start the video.
Here are the resulting conversion rates:
Video starting automatically 9.9%
Video not-starting automatically 11.9%
The results don’t surprise me, except I would have expected an even greater difference in conversion rate between the two pages.
Stay tuned as we plan to replicate this test on a B2B lead generation site as well as an eCommerce site.

No matter what kind of product or service you are providing you should always spend a great deal of time creating your sales copy; it will prove worthwhile in the long run.