Online success in 2021 depends on effective copywriting – whether that’s in the form of a blog, video, or a social media post.
To be good at copywriting and stand out from the crowd, you have to be cognizant of your customer’s exact pain points and learn to address them head-on.
It’s like stepping into their shoes to extract their exact thought process. But you’re no mind reader – and sometimes, the product/service doesn’t make sense to you since you’re out of the loop.
So how can you sell something that you don’t know? Simple – most products and services require very similar marketing strategies. These 7 copywriting skills will help you create high performing copies that sell.
1. Writing Eye-Catching Headlines
How do you get more people to read what you write? You’ll need more than good design or content to get more eyeballs. The secret sauce lies in mastering the art of writing headlines. Yet most copywriters neglect this part of writing a blog post. They just gloss over it at the last possible second. In reality, you should deliberate over your headlines for 30 to 60 minutes before finding one that works.
Here are a few simple tricks you can learn to write a catchier headline:
- Use numbers to indicate the content length
- Use emotional adjectives to grab attention
- Use what, why, how, or when
- Make an outlandish claim – that’s also true
2. Writing Effective Call to Actions (CTAs)
This is what ties your entire narrative and sales copy together: the CTA.
The CTA is the response a business hopes to get from their reader. It doesn’t have to be making a purchase per se, it could be anything from clicking on a new landing page, subscribing to a newsletter, or dropping off feedback.
Let’s look at an example:
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3. Learn How to Write Content that is Skimmable
Don’t get us wrong, long-form content isn’t dead. If anything, it’s growing more relevant than ever because people want all their research done on a single web page. It’s why most top 10 results have blogs with over 4,000 words and counting.
With that said, most of your readers won’t read the whole thing. That’s just not how it works. They will want to get the gist of what you’re trying to say while exerting the least bit of effort. Online reading mostly boils down to skimming content.
This means your copy has to be ‘skim-friendly’, if that makes sense. Instead of writing gigantic walls of text, break up the content into little pieces that are easily digestible for anyone running against time.
Use H2 headers and H3 headers that help even the least-invested reader find what they’re looking for.
4. Writing Plainly
You’re not in a writing contest – so drop those big words. Your goal is to be relatable to your customers and speak to them in a language that they best understand.
In other words, your copy should mimic what a conversation a person would have when they convince themselves to buy a product or service.
If you want to convey a feature or benefit, make it plain so users can understand. For example, you want your customer to, say something along the lines of, “This service lets me put up engaging blog posts in a short period of time while still fitting my budget. It’s done relatively quickly too so I don’t have to wait too long.”
You can easily say this in one sentence, “Keep your customers engaged with actionable content strategies every week.”
5. Learn How to Tell the Difference Between Features and Benefits
All copywriters have to learn how to differentiate between features and benefits. You have to learn how to write both to help readers understand what the product or service does, and why it helps them.
Feature: They describe what the product does. Think smartphones and their specs. For instance, when Apple tells you that their iPhone has a six-core CPU design.This is a precise description of what you can expect from the product.
Benefits: This will describe the emotions or experience your products will give to the customer. If the iPhone has a six-core CPU design, the benefit is that the customer can quickly and reliably install intensive apps and video games without the fear of slowing down.
In other words, features give you specs. Benefits describe why those specs matter.
Most online shoppers don’t make their purchase decisions based on features – they rely on benefits.
6. Doing the Research
All copywriters have to do research. This is the part of the write-up process that can take a long time.
Your research will help you unveil several key points about your customer:
- What drives them?
- What are their pain points?
- What type of individuals are they?
- Why is your ad even relevant to them?
- What’s in it for them?
This often means that you’ll have to spend a great deal of time researching your competitors and find out how they sell their products.
Competitor research isn’t cheating. If you’re researching your competitor, chances are, they’re looking you up as we speak – taking notes and picking up your trade secrets. It’s ironic, but competitor research is a deeply collaborative effort where you learn from your competitors and they learn from you – neither party admits to it.
7.And Finally, Just Start Writing
Don’t let that writer’s block hold you back from realizing your writing goals. Don’t wait for ideas to come to you – instead, just kickstart the writing process and the ideas will start flowing.
Do something that can get your blood flowing and charge you up. It could be working out, going for a walk, playing video games (Fortnite?), listening to music, or whatever you like doing best.
Don’t worry about perfectionism – the important thing right now is to put up an imperfect copy that you can touch up later on.
