Adam Oakley - Express Writers

Copywriting that Sells: 5 Tips To Help You Write For Your Buyer

December 31, 2020April 13, 2013 by Adam Oakley

While copywriting is all the rage in the digital business world, online content is only worthwhile if it can drive real results. Copywriting that sells is worth its weight in gold, and it has the potential to overhaul a company’s online presence entirely. From driving more conversions to helping businesses rake in the cash and build their bottom lines, persuasive copywriting is a powerful sales machine, and every company wants it. The catch, though, is that not many people know how to craft copywriting that sells. To be persuasive and compelling, content needs a precise mixture of things, and copywriters and businesses who understand how to create this are at a distinct advantage. With that in mind, read on for our top five tips to develop copywriting that sells. Copywriting that Sells: 5 Stellar Tips to Start Creating Conversion-Oriented Copy Today Think about a brand like Apple. Among its followers, Apple can do virtually no wrong. People rave about its products, its phones practically began the smartphone era, and every time it has a product launch, people sleep in tents on sidewalks for days in preparation. Now that is a company that knows how to create material that sells. Of course, it’s true that Apple has developed a premium product, and that you can’t enjoy such widespread evangelism without it, but it’s also true that Apple knows a thing or two about copywriting that sells. While Apple is one of the most prominent examples of a brand that does this well, it’s far from the only one. For many marketers, the prospect of becoming a sales machine like these major brands feels out of reach. Fortunately, that’s not the case at all. Whether you work in e-commerce or you have a local, brick-and-mortar business that’s in need of a sales boost, creating compelling copy is an excellent way to reach your goals, and these five tips can help you do it. 1. Create a headline your readers want to click When it comes to copywriting that sells, your headline is, without a doubt, the single most important piece of your content. If you think about it for a minute, a headline is a gatekeeper. It tells people what your article is about, and then invites them in. If your headline is a magnificent one, it brings people in in droves. If it’s not, people get bored and go looking for other content. With this in mind, you need to the time to craft incredible headlines. While learning to develop click-worthy headlines can be a challenge, it’s one investment is virtually guaranteed to earn a high ROI. By asking your readers a question in the headline, inserting power words, inspiring curiosity, or using a negative headline to inspire a reader’s sense of risk aversion, there are dozens of ways to ensure that your headlines are doing what you want them to do with your content: drawing readers. Although headlines are frequently overlooked in online content, they’re easily some of the most important pieces for promoting conversions and bringing in new traffic – all of which helps promote big sales down the road. 2. Break your content into short chunks If we’re honest, we can all agree that content that looks and feels like an unabridged dictionary isn’t very fun to read. And if you click onto a web page that’s just one long string of unbroken text, you’re probably going to click “back” in a hurry. When you evaluate copywriting that sells, you’ll notice that 100% of it is broken up into short, succinct sentences. Again, Apple is a fantastic example of this. Heck – the iPhone 7 announcement on their website is only four words long! By breaking your text up into short chunks, you do two things: you make it easier for readers to scan and you set your most important ideas apart. This, in turn, allows users to navigate swiftly through your content and can help your viewers make more sense of the information within it. 3. Keep your content credible with facts and statistics For copywriting to be compelling, it has to be credible, and there’s virtually no better way to ensure this than to add relevant facts and statistics to your copy. Well-researched facts pack a punch that almost nothing else does, and you can bet that readers will be much more willing to bite if they know there’s a financial, social, or emotional reason to do so. With this in mind, use facts and statistics to back up your statements. If you’re claiming a product will improve a person’s quality of life, add a bit of research to demonstrate your point. If you’re solving a common problem, add a statistic to prove just how common it is. People who are going to purchase anything from you must first be able to trust what you say, and quality stats are some of the best ways to inspire consumer confidence. Additionally, inserting relevant facts and statistics can help improve the authority of your copy and serve to position you as an expert in your industry. 4. Focus on the benefits rather than the features In the world of sales, this is an oldie but a goodie. When people make purchasing decisions, they tend to focus on the benefits first and the features second. For example, if you are looking for an in-home voice assistant system, you might want one that would help you streamline your days and stay organized. If a company appealed to those desires with copywriting meant to showcase the benefits and the lifestyle a voice assistant would offer, you’d probably bite. When you’re crafting your online copy, focus on selling a lifestyle or a feeling first, and the actual tangible facts about the product second. To revert to the Apple example once more, Apple doesn’t sell phones and computers – it sells efficiency, beauty, creativity, and “buck the man” rebellion. If it only focused on the features of each of its products, it’s safe to bet that the company wouldn’t have grown into the globe-dominating enterprise it … Read more

Content ROI: Writing In Action, Writing That Sells (Client Case Study in the Business Space)

March 1, 2021March 14, 2013 by Adam Oakley

It gets tweeted around by the Twitter birds. Facebook fans start a whole discussion on it. People mention it in their blog. What’s the fuss about? A well-written blog with a catchy title. You see it circulating and gaining popularity like a snowball, and that makes you wonder (if you’re an Internet user, let’s say), how exactly did that person do it? Content ROI: Copy that Sells Well, it didn’t happen by chance. That little piece that raked in feedback was written by someone who knew how to get content ROI (that’s content return-on-investment, folks). Content ROI is the skill of the copywriters. It’s when someone knows how to create copy that sells. It will either sell the product on someone’s home page, a service from a creative expert, or an idea in a blog. Creating copy that sells is when you have content ROI. Now content ROI doesn’t happen by chance, and it sure doesn’t happen by someone who sat down at their desk and decided they’d write their own copy with no previous experience. It happens when a skilled copywriter takes a pen to paper for their client, when a writer gets inspired with a muse on fire, and when a journalist finalizes a PR going to launch. Always, always remember…the job of a copywriter can’t really be “DIY”, or done at home. I’d like to use Si from Duck Dynasty to illustrate that point: Content ROI is what it takes to create content that makes it to Google’s page one. It’s made up of: Awesome headlines Informative, well-written content with no grammar errors Introduction and ending that ties in together Search engine optimization with a few keywords sprinkled in Note how keywords come last. A good content ROI expert knows that she/he can’t sit down and write with the starting point as the keyword. The foundation must be a good idea and informative writing. Content ROI In Action: Clientele Case Study — A Business Topic that Was Successful Let’s go over a little case study here. Wendy, one of our staff writers, wrote a blog for a client in the entrepreneurial and business space. He returned the feedback that not only was it very good, but it sparked discussion and feedback from his social media fans. Title of the blog: Business Ownership: Do I Have What it Takes to be a Successful Entrepreneur? This is actually 12 words, 6 or less is “optimum”, but really in content ROI topics that hit on key points of your interested followers are the ones that will go most viral. We like to go outside the rules. Do not try this at home (unless you’re born with copywriting blood). Intro of the blog: Just about everybody has a good idea that can be turned into a business, but only a small percentage of people successfully convert their fabulous idea into tangible results. Wendy took a problem that can appeal to a universal group of people who would be following the blog, and directly addressed them. She basically looked at the crowd and said, Hey, Jim, I’ve got something that will interest you. The meat of the blog consisted of a list of 20 questions that the reader, an assumed wannabe entrepreneur, had to read to answer. Wendy wrapped it up with this: If you answered 15 of the 20 questions above with a yes, you may be a successful entrepreneur in the making! If not, then you may not be equipped to handle the immense challenges of running your own business. While success or failure can be determined by external factors such as the market, economy, and luck, underlying personality traits and soft skill sets are often the most influential determiners in an entrepreneur’s success. Hey, Jim! Want some more of this? At this point, Jim is definitely hooked and will now follow and perhaps even return with some feedback to the source of interest. Your Content ROI: The Client Compelling content that serves for ROI helps you, the marketer, tell a story (YOUR story)—but it can be difficult and expensive to create, if you don’t find the writer people to tell it right away. To avoid expenses and save on time, knowing which content strategies get the best ROI for you is important. Emarketer, from a study conducted and verified in 2013 by CopyPress, says that the best content strategies for ROI are the following: 1. Articles 2. Video 3. White Papers Note how items #1 and #3 require a writer—and a good one, if the end point is to sell your services. For best content ROI, it’s wise to invest in a versatile copywriting service that can offer exactly what you need.