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Writing is a skill, which as author Stephen King says, that one is born with. Either you have it or you don't. While this may hold good for fiction writing, there are certain facets to writing that can be learnt, practised and developed into a skill. Copywriting is one such area. True, even here, there are blessed souls, whose copy most of us can never even think of matching. But for the purposes of communicating with customers, this is a skill that can be imbibed by most people.
Simple rules can make you an effective copywriter
One can follow a simple set of rules given below in order to become a good copywriter. While there are some simple rules to follow, lots of practise makes your copy perfect. You can become a consummate writer, appealing to the hearts, minds and wallets of your customers.
These rules are simple and logical. The basic rule is to be brief. Keep your copy tight, crisp and pointed. To keep the reader's interest, personalize your mails and other communication. To highlight important points, use bullets. Finally, your writing must inspire the customer to take the plunge and actually buy the product/service. Clear and away, this is the most important rule.
You would do well to remember that while eighty percent of people read headlines, only twenty percent take the trouble to glance through the whole story. Remember your sales pitch is a story; your sales story.
To make your copy relevant to your target audience, you must;
Make clear the unique benefits that the product/service offers to your reader Impress upon your reader the need for urgency for action Make the material useful to the reader Make all this very specific, fitting the context in which your audience reads this
Writing copy has two facets, One is content, material that informs and hence important in its own right. The other is actual copywriting; the material which is used to make a sales pitch. While writing copy, mere words will not make the cut. You need to realise that copywriting is a reflection of your thought process. Writers need to think deeply about their subject and write something that will add value to the reader. It is the duty of the copywriter to ensure that he or she lures the reader into buying. At this stage it would be useful to recall that in direct sales, a salesperson has to 'push' in order to close a sale. In writing it is very important to realise that customers prefer to 'purchase' rather than be 'pushed' to buy.
The sequence in writing a sales pitch is first defining the 'problem' for a customer, for which then, a product or service offers a 'solution'. Then comes 'closing the sale', the actual transaction of business.
Useful tips to keep in mind
The following are some of the important points to be borne in mind while writing copy.
Mind your language. Make it an easy read. Break up long sentences into short ones. Readers' attention spans are notoriously short and long sentences can be boring in a mail or on a website. Write tight, but write well. Mind your grammar. Remember poor language in your pitch could lead your reader to associate this with poor quality of your product/service. Attract audience attention with a single big idea. What is the message that you want to send across when your write your headline? Concentrate on a single item. Clearly explain what you are trying to say and tell your readers how they can benefit by buying your product/service. So, if you are trying to propose a buy low - sell high algorithm based product or solution, how about the big idea sounding something like this: "Now, time the market smartly, every time!" Stories to enthral your audience. The best way to grab attention is to tell a story. A story that the audience connects with. This helps them to recall key features as well as the solutions to the objections they might have. Explain the idea behind the product/service, or the difficulties faced in bringing it to the marketplace. Aim on charming your audience. Make sure that what you write is more about your potential customer rather than the product itself. For example liberal use of words such as, you, your, can help keep reader interest. Write in such a way that the reader is able to imagine using the product/service. Be persuasive with problems. Product specifications, features and capabilities are hard facts. Equally they can often be boring for a reader looking for a quick solution to his/her problem. Lay stress on the problem and on the feature that solves this problem. If the problem does not attract the customer, neither will the solution. Staying with our example, if the investor is not really enthralled by the prospect of timing the market but has yet to find a way to do this, he may not be the right target, as he does not relate to the problem. Limit risk. Most people are very conservative when they buy. The fear of loss usually outweighs the gains they might potentially make by buying. In the investments world, you can't talk of guarantees and money-back offers - but you can certainly highlight risk mitigants - ways to minimise and deal with risk effectively. Overcome objections. Often, in direct sales, one comes up against objections voiced by customers. As a writer you can use this tendency to your advantage. Put yourself in your readers' shoes and try to think like them. Rather than telling them how good the product/service is, try to foresee their objections to the purchase. Then answer them one by one to reassure them of the worth of the product/service. Brainstorm and come up with viewpoints on behalf of the reader. You can even take their inputs for this purpose. Take care to bring up some common objectives, which can then be used to answer the objections. Use sound bites to tickle your readers' memory. Search the web or consult a book of quotations. Internalise the quotations for some time. Then try writing your own stuff. Remember to keep it brief, meaningful and make it as catchy as possible. But stick to one idea, so that the audience is clear about what you are saying. Use technical details to increase your effectiveness. Details when presented properly are impressive to the reader. He/she gets an idea that the product/service in question has been brought to them by professionals. So, if you are talking about how your proposition can help an investor buy low and sell high, provide details of your algorithm or the product's algorithm that will actually enable this to happen. Give past performance to demonstrate how this actually worked in past market cycles, to reinforce your point. Readers need a feel good factor. A sales pitch is as much a story as any other. The goal of both is to make readers happy. A sales pitch, is first to state a problem, then come up with a good solution, and later make the reader buy it. At this stage you can reemphasize the good qualities of your product/service. Make a convincing argument on why the reader should act. First you must be aware that the customer may not be willing to buy. Your call for action should be specific and riveting enough that it encourages the customer to act. Persuade your customers to follow your call for acting and clearly explain the benefits they can hope to get by doing so.
A final tip would be to read carefully the marketing emails that you receive. Look carefully at those which catch your attention, study them to understand what in them made you read rather than dump into trash. This will over time, give you great practical insights into how you should keep honing your writing skills. After all, write well - sell well - grow well is the new age sales mantra!
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Sell Well - Grow Well
