In this article, we’re sharing 6 quick copywriting fixes to get you more conversions from your ads and sales page, and in general, create more engaging content.
Here are the most useful ones:
Table of Contents
#1 Use an active voice
This results in shorter, sharper sentences. And for readers, it’s even easier to flow through the content.
#2 Be specific
Specificity separates noise from signals. Use numbers, data, and precise statements to describe the benefits of your product. People generally don’t like buzzwords and slogans that may sound neat (or bad) but don’t convey very useful information.
#3 Make them take action
The ultimate goal of your copy is to make people take action. Each sentence should be designed to make the prospect move to the next step, be it reading the next sentence or buying your product.
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#4 Build your copy around your prospects’ emotions and desires
People tend to buy with emotion and justify with logic.
This is a very common fact in the marketing community.
Still, many companies want to use logical facts and information to get them to buy.
Build upon their emotions, deep desires, and pain points.
#5 Give more examples
These help your prospects understand how your product works and can benefit their life. If appropriate, tell stories.
#6 Talk like your prospects
Use their words, their tone of voice, their common expressions. Study how they communicate and communicate the same way they do.
With that said, let’s talk about what kills conversions, both strategically (your general approach) and tactically (the specific things you do).
#7 Every sentence should convey one unique idea
That idea should do at least one of the following three things:
- Increase desire.
- Reduce confusion.
- Reduce labor.
With this framework in mind, take a look at your website.
Read every single line of copy, and ask yourself if it’s following the advice above.
Here’s one example:
- Useless sentence: “This is marketing news, done right.”
- Useful sentence: “We comb through 400+ sources to bring you the most relevant marketing news every weekday.”
You’ll find that most websites are littered with useless sentences that felt good when they were written, but aren’t doing much work to sell.
The more effectively you write sentences, the more effectively you sell.
Strategic & Tactical Conversion Killers
The worst thing you can do as a marketer is kill your conversions.
Read these bad practices to avoid self-sabotage:
3 strategic conversion killers
Not being clear
Are you sure you’re communicating the right message? Are you sure that the person on the other side understands what your product is about and what benefit they will get?
Not delivering a transformation
Your customer has two lives. One before your product; and one after your product. They must feel that after buying from you, their life will be better.
Lack of credibility
If a stranger came up to you and offered to sell you a $100 bill for $5, what would be your reaction? Skepticism… right?
If you don’t have trust, you can’t even sell with a discount.
3 technical conversion killers
Mandatory sign-up
This adds too much friction to the checkout, and it will likely make you lose impulsive purchases.
When you ask them to go through a sign-up process, they’ll start thinking about their decision again.
Make it as easy as possible.
Too many upsells
Putting too much pressure on buyers with too many upsells might scare them away and make for a bad experience.
Not being mobile-friendly
Nowadays, this is obvious, but yes… optimize your website for a mobile-first experience.
But it can sometimes be easy to lose sight of the fact if you view your website through the lens of a desktop all day.
Make sure that your CTAs, images, text, and every element look well both on mobile and desktop.
CTAs
Call-to-action buttons (CTAs) don’t get enough love.
While they may not seem as important as headlines or subheads at first, they’re the things you want people to click.
… Which means that their text, and the pages they link to, are actually more important than marketers realize.
The mistake many brands make?
Using the same CTA text on every page, like “Book a Demo” or “Buy Now,” and linking all of those buttons to the exact same page.
Here’s a better way to think about it
Think of your CTAs and links as a user flow.
- First, consider how users get to each page. For example, how do people find your homepage? If it’s mostly cold traffic, do you really want to send them to your “Book a Demo” page? Or should your CTA send them to a product page so they can learn more about your offering?
- Then, write page-specific CTA copy. If it’s a pricing page CTA, use pricing-focused text, like “Start today for $0.” If it’s an About page, something like “Learn more about our product” might make more sense.
Bonus tip
If it helps, try drawing out your ideal user flow on paper.
This will help you visualize the ideal path you want people to follow, and it’ll be easier to tailor your CTAs to guide people through that flow.
Following this simple flow can improve your CTAs and conversion. Give it a try and let us know how it goes!