Professional copywriters carefully select words for marketing campaigns and sales content that mean something to the reader and inspire them to take action. In fact, this is the point of business copywriting services: to generate inquiries, leads or sales opportunities. To do this, copywriters must choose the right words, based on the target audience, the method of communication, the offer and the desired next step.
If you need to copywrite sales or marketing content but professional copywriting services are out of your reach, we’ve got some great tips from our professional copywriters to help you to write your own content that converts into inquiries or sales.
With these tips, you’ll find it easier to write content that generates leads and inquiries; you’ll spend less time rewriting or editing as you’ll be more likely to get it right first time; and you’ll become a more confident copywriter for your business.
Tip 1: Be very specific
Words such as ‘best in class’, ‘best of breed’, ‘innovative’, ‘low price’ are all very general. They are hackneyed and vague, which dilutes marketing messages. Instead, make your content copywriting more impactful by being very specific. Being specific means knowing exactly who you are talking to and what you are saying to them. For example, who will be reading the content? What is their role, age, gender, location, knowledge? How will they access the content? Will it be online, emailed or presented at a meeting? How many words does it need to be? Will it be graphically designed or presented in a plain Word document? All these factors influence the style, tone and words in sales and marketing materials.
Tip 2: Don’t make it all about you
Writing about our own businesses, products or services is easy. But when we write about them, we tend to focus on how great they are, forgetting that our potential customers aren’t interested in hearing about our fabulousness; they’re only interested in themselves. In other words, your readers want to know how they will benefit from your product or service. That’s why content copywriting needs to focus on the reader – your prospective customer. It’s all about what’s in it for them. Remember this when you are copywriting content. It will help you to frame your key selling points in a customer-focused way.
You can assess how well you’re doing at this by calculating how many times the words “we”, “us” and “our” and your company’s name appear in your marketing content. Use the ‘Find’ tool in Microsoft Word.
- Highlight in green all the times you’ve used “you” or “your”.
- Highlight in red all the times you’ve used “we” or “us” or “our” or your businesses name.
Overuse of :”we” and “our” is one of the biggest mistakes made by inexperienced copywriters.
Tip 3: Be clear about what your business, product or service truly offers customers
It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing about the features of your product or service. Features are descriptions relating to size, colour, shape, frequency, delivery or location, for instance. As an example, an accounting firm might talk about its large number of clients, or its location close to a train station.
Whilst these features might be important to you as the business owner of the accounting firm, for example, they’re not necessarily relevant to your prospective customers. It’s not the features themselves that your customers are interested in, but rather the advantages that you offer them. For instance, if you’re writing about how great your product or service is, how experienced you are, or how long you’ve been in business, it’s easy to get carried away. But what does this mean for your readers, who are your prospective customers?
Customers are mostly interested in what’s in it for them: the outcome, result or benefit of your service or product. This is where the value lies for them. The accounting firm might talk about the speed and high value of tax refunds it achieves for its clients. It might add that this is why 90% of its clients have been with the firm for more than three years as a way of building trust.
If you’re not sure of the value that you bring to your customers, ask a few. You might be surprised by their responses!
Tips to help you find the benefits that you bring to your customers are to:
- List every feature, then put yourself in your readers’ shoes and ask yourself, “So what?” or “Why should I care?” for each feature. The advantages will be revealed in your responses.
- When writing about a feature, add the words: “…which means…”. This will help you to identify the benefit of the feature that you’ve described.
- Another way to work out a benefit and to give people a compelling reason why they should believe what you say is to use the word “because”. For instance: “This bag is the best because it will carry four times more than other bags of the same size”.
Tip 4: Get to the point
If you’re like most people when you start writing you’ll use the first sentence or two to try to get to the point of what you want to say. Then you’ll follow with other content that’s not entirely relevant.
There are a couple of tricks you can use to help you cut the waffle and get to the point:
- One tip is to delete the first couple of sentences that you’ve written. The crux of what people want to say mostly starts at about their third sentence.
- Another is to move the last sentence of your paragraph up to become the first paragraph. Often, we make our most important, crucial point last. So, trying moving the final sentence to the start of the paragraph and edit the remaining content so that it flows.
Tip 5: De-clutter your professional copywriting
When you’re reviewing what you’ve written, watch out for superfluous words. Tight, succinct writing is always more successful. Make your message crystal clear by getting rid of unnecessary words such as “really”, “that”, and “very”.
Tip 6: Make an offer
What can you offer as an incentive to encourage potential customers to take the next step? Offering something of value to the customer supports your content’s description of the benefits, results or outcomes that you generate for customers. If you’re not sure of which offer or offers might work, ask some of your customers what would appeal to them. Examples of offers include:
- Free or bonus product with a purchase
- Download of an e-book, tips or guide or information that is of relevance to prospective customers
- Bundling of services or products into a single value-for-money price
- Discount for a limited time
- Discount for volume purchases
- Money-back guarantee
- Free delivery
- Trial period
- Subscription model – offering 3 pricing options
Tip 7: Include a call to action in your professional copywriting
Professional copywriters include a call to action in their content writing. A call to action very simply gives the reader an opportunity to get in touch easily and quickly.
You could include a telephone number or contact us form or your email address with a hyperlink to an email form. Many websites include a chatbot, too, where you can type live questions.
Create a sense of urgency by using words such as “Call us today”, “Call now”, “Call now to order your copy”, “Click here for an immediate quote” or “Create an account now and receive our free book”.
Include calls to action across your marketing materials, including your website, newsletters, blogs, case studies, social media and search engine ads.
Tip 8: Read your content aloud
Before you release your content to your prospective customers, read it aloud. This might sound boring but reading your content aloud is a great way to ‘hear’ words that don’t sound quite right. When you read, you’ll hear sentences that can be edited for brevity or words that need replacing or even deleting.
Tip 9: Use a professional copywriter
The message of your content must be clear and easy to understand. Investing in professional copywriting services means you will present your offering in a concise, effective way which describes your business in the best light.
Contact us today for your professional copywriting, copy editing and proofreading needs
Partnering with the professional copywriters, copy editors and proof readers at Proof Communications will help you increase your opportunity for success. Get in touch or ring us on 02 8036 5532 to learn what we can do for your business.