Despite what a designer may tell you, copywriting is one of the most critical elements of marketing and advertising. It’s the words used to get your audience to take action.
To achieve that action, a copywriter must hit a persuasive cord to build awareness and create interest, driving customers to buy a particular product or service.
Let’s look at some tips and techniques that can help make your copy stand out.
One of the biggest ones comes from the grandmaster of advertising, David Ogilvy. Even though his book harkens back to the golden age of print, a lot of his wisdom is still applicable today. One such nugget is, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.
This doesn’t give you much time to get your point across, so you must be very clear and concise in your headline, especially when you think about adding keywords in their somewhere. Another point Ogilvy makes in conjunction with this insight is don’t use tricky or irrelevant headlines, because people read too fast to figure out what you are trying to say.
Which leads us to our next point: prioritize your copy. Even with Google’s expansion of text ads, smaller devices like smartphones and mini tablets can’t show much more than a headline or two and a description line. So put your most compelling copy in the first two headlines and the first description line. That way, you’re getting your message across to all users.
Here’s an excellent blog from WordStream for some tips on how to serve up compelling messages to users — regardless of their device preferences.
Remember, your customers need to understand how your product or service is going to help them. It’s about making their lives easier, making them feel better, helping them save money, or helping them save time. You need to write copy that speaks to your target audience and not at them. It’s about them, not you.
It also follows that you should always talk about the benefits of your product, not the features. Again, focusing on benefits means talking to your customers to tell them why your product is better.
And don’t forget to Profread, Proofread.
One of the quickest ways to lose credibility is to have spelling or other grammatical errors in your copy. Customers translate carelessness in your work into indifference in products and services. They ask themselves, “If this company doesn’t care enough to produce an ad without errors, how much effort are they going to put in taking care of me?”
So Now You Know
Writing good copy takes time and practice. However, by following the tips above, you can improve the quality of your marketing materials. And if your materials are good enough, they might stick in someone’s head long enough to make the sale. And for clients, that’s what matters.
Questions? Give the Brickstreet Marketing a call at 517-680-7957 or email us at info@brickstreetmarketing.com
benefits of good copy • prioritizing copy • tips on writing good copy
