How to improve your copywriting’s conversion rate by writing for individuals, rather than groups

March 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Your copywriting should speak to people as individuals

What do you think is the the most important element of your copywriting? The headline? The benefits? Or the product itself?

Well, this was the topic of Eric Graham’s (aka The Conversion Doctor) recent video – ‘My #1 Conversion Boosting Secret Revealed’ – and I don’t think I’ll be sending any shockwaves by revealing that it’s understanding your reader.

In the rush to get websites live, emails sent and direct mail in the post, assumptions are often made about the target audience’s hopes and fears. But this can be a mistake, because copy is read by individuals, not a homogeneous group. And making assumptions about your reader could mean missing a lesser known critical pain point that triggers them into buying.

So how can you build a better understanding of your readers as individuals, and avoid lazy stereotyping?

Eric’s video is packed with useful advice, so I’d recommend sitting down with a notepad and watching it all the way through.

But if you’d like a quick overview, here are a few tips you might find useful:

1. Read the magazines and blogs your target is likely to read. This will help you get inside their head and build your knowledge of the issues they’re dealing with, as well as identify what type of language to use.

2. Visit the forums frequented by your readers. Note down any questions, comments or complaints on common problems they need solving.

3. Interview at least 10 people from your target market. Prompt the interviewee with a few questions and then just let them talk. Record the calls (this free Skype recorder will do the job) and get them transcribed. You should then use THEIR EXACT WORDS in your copy so you can reflect back at your readers their language and mental dialogue so it engages on a deeper level (watch Eric’s video for an example).

4. Create a customer profile of 1-3 paragraphs based on your research. Your profile should describe an imaginary person matching some of the typical characteristics you’ve discovered. This could include their family, education, income, occupation and hobbies. Then imagine you’re addressing this fictional person when you’re writing.

It’s easy to make assumptions about target readers. But often the key to effective copywriting is finding that hidden pain point or desire which unlocks people’s resistance to buying.

The best way of discovering what keeps your target reader awake at night is to actually talk to them, which is why I think tip 3, in particular, could make a big improvement to conversion rates.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting 

Does Your Website’s Copywriting Make These Mistakes?

March 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment

You can't bore people into buying

As you know, there’s an abundance of horribly written corporate websites out there – with too much back slapping self praise and not enough focus on the customer.

For us copywriters, this presents an opportunity: if you can point out to a company why their website’s copy is ineffective, they might ask you to give it a makeover. Many companies complain about how poor their websites are at generating sales - often weak copy is to blame.

Here are a few classic corporate web copywriting mistakes you might want to point out:

Irrelevant copy that wastes visitors’ time – You know the sort, packed with meaningless marketing clichés – ‘paradigm shift’, ‘modular best of breed solutions’, blah, blah, blah…Copy that’s not focused on the reader is more likely to cause yawns and glazed eyes than people hopping in theirs seats about a product’s benefits.

No structure or call to action – Every page should have an point of what it wants the reader to think or do. Rather than endlessly boast about ‘market leading solutions’, the copy should be creating an image in people’s minds of how a product can solve their problem. As you know, hitting people’s emotional buttons is a time proven way of persuading them to respond to a call to action (which is another key element many corporate web page’s are missing).

Copywriting by committee – In theory, asking people from different areas of a company to contribute to what the website needs to say makes sense. But you then often end up with the website’s copy becoming drowned in track changes and amendments. Yes, getting feedback is important. But it should then be one person’s responsibility to pull all the elements together into a concisely written website page.

Copy pasted from the corporate brochure – People skim read online and have the attention spans of goldfish. So web copy needs to use short sentences, short paragraphs, plenty of subheads, bullet pointed lists and provide succinct, usable summaries. The internet is also a robotic medium. So addressing the reader as ‘you’ and writing copy in an approachable tone can help it sound more human. Ideally, pages should be kept to less than 300 words. You can always use arrows or drill down menus to break up long pages into more digestible chunks.

Hasn’t been split tested – Not sure which headline or call to action works best? Try split testing the page to find out. Google’s Website Optimizer will do the trick.

Too many keywords (or not enough) – SEO is a complicated beast, and has evolved a lot since the days of hidden text and keyword stuffing. But you still need enough words in the right places to make sure Google knows what your page is about. Luckily, there are some great tools out there for finding out whether your copy’s on the right track - SEOBugz is one tool I use regularly.

So, if you’ve got a spare window next week, have a look at corporate websites in your area to see which are making these mistakes to drum up some business.

Any corporate web copywriting mistakes you’d add?

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting