Eight out of ten people focus solely on headlines when reading an article, meaning that most of your audience will be skimming over the body text. This statistic encapsulates why it is so important to write good copy—you want people to be engaged with your product. This engagement starts with good copywriting. By hooking your audience and producing copy that is relevant, useful, and original, you can ensure that your target market doesn’t leave you on ‘read’.

What Is Copywriting?

Half of it is in the name: writing. However, instead of writing just for the sake of it, the aim of copywriting is to persuade audiences of something. Copywriters try to convince their readers to take some sort of action, such as buying a product, downloading an app, or following a company’s social media. 

Copywriting is everywhere—from advertisements, to emails, to landing pages. In order to develop effective content, copywriters need to understand the product or service they are trying to sell, as well as the needs of their audience. Good copy can give brands a “voice” that resonates with prospective clients. 

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Why Is Copywriting Important?

Here’s another shocking statistic: businesses that hire content marketers report conversion rates that are six times higher than businesses that don’t. Since copywriting is involved in every step of marketing when it comes to developing written content, it’s important to recognize the significant impact that good copywriting can have on your business and its profits. Utilizing thoughtful, high-quality copywriting can mean a high return on investment (ROI) that can help your company generate more leads and conversions. 

Knowing the benefits of good copywriting is important, but how can you use copywriting to your business’ advantage? We’ve included some helpful tips below to help you leverage your content and guide your business’s copywriting practices.

Developing Copy That Your Readers Will Remember

Identify Your Audience

Identifying your audience is the first step to writing memorable copy. Knowing your audience—what they like, what problems they have—is crucial for writing good copy. 

Your copy should be customized and tailored for your target audience. You want to make them feel heard, understood, and spoken to. This means that your copy will be personalized and tailored specifically for your audience. In this way, you can use the copy you develop to tell your audience exactly what they need, strengthening your connection with potential clients. This also means you will want to address your audience personally to foster this connection. 

Knowing who your audience is can influence your tone and the language you use. If your audience is industry-specific, using jargon may improve your credibility. However, generally you’ll want to avoid jargon and keep your copy simple. In fact, emails that are written at a third-grade reading level receive 36% more responses than messages that are not. The way you write will depend very heavily on the audience you’re writing to, so it’s important to identify who your target audience is.

To identify your audience, ask yourself these questions:

• Who would purchase my product or service?
• Who is my typical customer?
• Who is my ideal customer?
• What problems do they have that my product can solve?
• What do they like/dislike?

Understand Your Product

This is what you will be selling to your audience, so it’s crucial that you truly understand your product and its benefits. Writing about something you are very familiar with can lend you (and your product) more authority and credibility.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself about your product:

• Why is it important?
• What are its features?
• What value does it bring to its intended audience?
• How does it solve customers’ problems?

Include Clear Headlines

Headlines offer your readers a first impression of your brand and product. They determine whether your audience continues reading or ignores the rest of your copy. Without a captivating headline, only two out of ten people will continue to read the remaining copy. 

Here are some questions to check how good your headline is:

• Does your headline answer a specific question your target audience has?
• Does your headline clearly state what value your target audience can gain from the rest of your copy?
• Does your headline make your target audience want to read more?

Hook Your Audience

A good hook, or lead, will engage your customers and make them want to continue reading. You need to ensure that you have a strong hook; one study found that you have around 20 seconds to grab a visitor’s attention before they lose interest. 

To identify whether you have a good hook, ask yourself:

• Is your hook intriguing and creative?
• Is your hook clear and strong?
• Does your hook leave your reader wanting to know more?

Write for Scannability and Repetition

Readers scan a lot—not everyone reads every word of your copy. This means you must emphasize the key takeaways. You can do this by including headings, writing short, digestible paragraphs, and repeating important points throughout your copy. Be sure to establish some sort of hierarchy of information, with more important copy in larger, bolded, or emphasized text at the top of the webpage or email. Including bullet points and easy-to-read fonts is also a good idea.

Because few viewers will read every single word of your copy, it is important to repeat the key points you want to emphasize. Using synonyms can help drive your point home. You’ll want to include your most important points at least three times—once at the beginning, middle, and end. This can be especially helpful for scrollable landing pages, so you can include a link or call-to-action (CTA) button during these intervals. 

This also means that it is crucial to trim your content. If a section is not relevant or does not provide value to the reader, cut it out. However, be careful not to trim things that need emphasis. For example, saying “a small fee of $5” rather than “a fee of $5” can influence the interest levels of your consumers.

If you don’t want your copy to be too long, you can always use hyperlinks that lead your audience to more information. In addition to legitimizing your claims, it can improve your website’s navigation and make things easier for people to find.

Here are some features to improve your copy’s scannability:

• Bullet points
• Headings
• Emphasis (bold, italics, colors, text size)
• Short paragraphs
• Repetition of important points

Use Positive Language

The purpose of your copy is to try to get people to say yes. This means you will want to use positively-worded language rather than using negatives. As an example, instead of  “don’t hesitate to call,” try wording it more positively—write “please call today.” 

You can also improve your copy by asking questions that you know your audience will say yes to. Your questions can help you hook your audience, start a positive dialogue, and have customers feeling agreeable towards your product. Getting people to say yes means they are more likely to say yes to your sale.

Appeal to Your Customers’ Emotions

People like hearing stories; it’s part of the reason why we grow up on fairy tales and fiction novels. Using copywriting to tell a story can engage the interest and emotions of your readers. Applying imagery, suspense, and metaphors as tools to hook your audience can be beneficial for getting them to engage with your copy. If your story has a character, you can make the character easy for your target audience to identify with. In this way, you can use your character to help drive customers’ decisions in a positive and personal way.

Humans are also very loss-adverse. This means they weigh potential losses heavier than potential gains. You can leverage this by emphasizing a sense of urgency or scarcity, making your audience more likely to take action to prevent missing out.

Here are some things you can do to evoke emotion in your readers:

• Use strong and descriptive words
• Tell a story
• Emphasize the drawbacks of not using your product or service
• Create a sense of urgency using limited-time offers
• Mention scarcity to increase conversion rates

Have a Strong Call-to-Action

Your CTA, or call-to-action, is meant to prompt your audience to take their next steps with your brand, whether that be signing up for a newsletter or contacting you for more information. It is important that your CTA uses verbs to encourage your audience to take action. 

Having a strong CTA often means being specific and tailoring your wording to better address your target audience’s needs. Check out the examples below for a comparison between a generic CTA and one that is more specific. 

Generic CTA

• Learn more
• Click here
• Buy now

Specific CTA

• Get to know the product
• Collaborate with the influencers who matter
• Get better sleep now!

Leverage Social Proof

Leverage social proof by including testimonials from other users. This shows that your product is trustworthy and credible. If potential customers see that others are using your product or service, they are more likely to do the same. You can also emphasize any ratings, followers, or reviews your product or service has. 

Here are some methods to leverage social proof:

• Showcase user testimonials
• Include a reviews section or a quote from a positive review
• Emphasize positive ratings
• Include your follower count on social media
• Use statistics, data, or case studies of your product or similar products
• Include success stories as a blog article or spotlight feature
• Mention how many years you’ve been in business
• Display any media coverage on your website or social media

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Play the Devil’s Advocate

This may seem counterintuitive—why would you want to tell your audience not to buy your product or service?

By playing the devil’s advocate, you are actually making your argument stronger; studies suggest that arguments framed in this style were more persuasive and garnered more support of the original argument from readers. Framing your copy this way allows you to address your audience’s concerns and assuage their worries, making them more likely to take the intended action.

Check Your Spelling and Grammar

Three-quarters of internet-users notice the quality of spelling and grammar on a company’s website. In addition, more than half of these people avoid doing business with a company that has obvious spelling or grammar mistakes in their copy.

These statistics showcase how important proper spelling and grammar are to the credibility of your business. Be sure to double-check your copy—not only for content and structure, but also for spelling and grammar.

Let Us Help

We’ve given you our advice, but crafting the perfect press release or drafting the ultimate Tweet takes years of practice. If you still need an expert eye on your copy, get in touch with us at Imagine Better Solutions. In addition to copywriting and content development, Imagine Better Solutions also helps with search engine optimization (SEO), and web design. Maximize your impact, create with intent, and connect your brand to your marketing content with Imagine Better Solutions.