By Team ONTRAPORT
You know that really strong copy on your landing pages is key to better sales, but sometimes it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to copywriting. Luckily, there’s a simple mantra that is guaranteed to make your copy better if you live by it.
Are you ready for it?
Copywriting is not about you.
When visitors to your landing page read your copy, the single most important thing to them is whether or not your offer will give them what they need and want. Talking about your company and product or service is useless if they can’t immediately see the connection between you and getting their desires met.
Since all great copywriting starts with understanding what those desires are, you have to put yourself into your customer’s shoes as often as possible. You need to know who your ideal buyers are, including what’s important to them and what problems cause them the most frustration. You need to immerse yourself in their perspective, and let the desires that drive them shape the way you talk about your company or product.
To understand how bad copy drives potential buyers right out the door, think of people you’ve met who won’t stop talking about themselves. Maybe they drone on with every single detail about their job, personal life, or a subject that you have no interest in. No matter what topic you bring up, they somehow manage to direct the conversation back to themselves, even if no one in the room is interested.
Is that the type of person you want to go out to lunch with? Probably not. Copy that’s all about you makes your customers feel the same way.
If you’re not going to be talking about your product or service, you might be wondering how your copy will help increase sales. It’s simple: people like hearing about themselves, so keep your focus on how your offer speaks to your customers’ problems, interests and desires.
Good copywriting is customer-centric.
If you want to start tailoring your copy so it speaks loudly and clearly to your prospects’ desires, here are the three steps you’ll need to follow:
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Research your customers’ pain points. First of all, you need a clear understanding of the problems and frustrations of your customers, because these will be their biggest motivators to buy. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes, and ask yourself: What keeps me up at night? If I could change something about my life, what would that be? What are my biggest priorities? Add more questions based on your knowledge of your market and your product.
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Make the connection between your product and their pain. Now that you’ve wrapped your head around your customers’ pain points, you have an opportunity to show them how your product or service is the answer to their problem. They will listen to you as long as you relate everything you say back to them. As you highlight the features of your offer, always bring them back around to the explicit benefits for your buyer. Focus on how the cool things about your product or service will make their lives better.
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Spell out what you want them to do. Good copywriting will get your readers to listen, but an expert call to action will get them to buy. What do you want your readers to do? You should have a clearly defined goal for each piece that you write. Whether it’s to get visitors to your landing page to buy a product or to get readers of your email to watch a video, your goal for the piece should be made completely explicit in the call to action at the end of it.
Doing these three simple things will make a huge difference in the quality of your copy, but great copywriting is a skill that you’ll develop over time.
At ONTRAPORT, we’ve learned a lot lately about the right mindset for copy from Liston Witherill, copywriter extraordinaire. He recently shared a guest post with us called How to Think Like a Copywriter that goes over advanced copywriting techniques to pinpoint customers’ pain sources, map the buyer journey, and effectively bridge the gap from prospect to customer with great copy. Head on over to read his post if you want to get further into the mindset of an expert copywriter.
Based in Santa Barbara, CA, ONTRAPORT is an all-in-one small business management platform that integrates all the software tools an entrepreneur needs to start, systemize and scale your business. Follow the company at @ONTRAPORT.
