Behind every successful marketing campaign, there’s a talented copywriter. Copywriting is one of the most essential elements of marketing and advertising – it’s the call-to-action that makes readers and viewers connect to a campaign and become customers.
If you’re looking to reel customers in and increase sales, you’ll need to be creating high-quality copy that drives conversions. So, how can you do that? With these 5 tips to help you improve your copywriting skills, I’ll teach you how you can create copy that converts and wows your clients.
1. Do Your Research
Research is always the first step to creating compelling copy that sells. I know you probably don’t want to hear that because research is not sexy. It just isn’t. But, it’s an essential component of copywriting that you need to do thoroughly before starting anything else.
You’ll want to know what your targeted audience is typing into Google’s search bar, so that you can create copy that targets those searches.
Find out what’s trending in your market, and what’s not working so well. Focus on creating informative, original, and high-quality content. Then, optimize that content by using keywords, links, and other methods to elevate your copy.
2. Know Your Audience
Before you start writing, you need to know who you’re writing for. Who is your target audience?
One common misconception for writers is that your client is your audience. Your audience isn’t the person who hired you for the job– it’s the people they are trying to sell to.
Essentially, you’re going to need to know the audience of your audience. There are four levels to your audience that you should now the ins and outs of.
Demographics
The first level of knowing your audience is in the demographics. How old are they? Where do they live? Are they married or unmarried?
It’s important to dig deeper than the surface-level demographics. You want to know and understand your audience, and the first step to doing that is to know exactly where they come from.
Social Factors
Next, ask yourself about the social factors. Think about things you would know about your audience if you were Facebook friends. Do they have a dog? What are their hobbies? What kind of books do they like to read?
Having the answers to these questions will help you build a genuine connection with your audience. You might also be able to use some of those tidbits of information in your copy to create copy your audience relates to.
Their Relationship To You
The next thing you need to know about your audience is their relationship with you. Are you speaking to cold traffic or warm traffic? Your cold traffic is someone that is not yet familiar with you, your brand, or your product/services. It’s the new blood of the business.
Meanwhile, warm traffic is the people who already know about you, your brand, or your product/services. They may follow you on your social media platforms or have seen your website before.
Think about your conversion rate on the type of traffic that’s coming in. Are your audience buyers? Think about whether they refer other customers or if they repeat buy. These are all questions that you need to know about your specific audience and how they’re relating to you.
Psychological Factors
This is the copy gold – psychological factors. Ask questions that will give you an insight into what your client is all about. What are they afraid of? What are they hopeful for? Is there anything that they’re worried about?
Getting to know your audience on this deeper level will give you an idea about who they are, and what drives them. The more you know, the more aligned your copy will be with the values of your client.
3. Use a Long-Form Landing Page
A long-form landing page may be just what you need to elevate your copywriting skills. You can use a long-form landing page for lead collection, which will give you the insight you need.
It gives you a bit more information about the downloads you’re getting and can build credibility and trust, especially with colder traffic.
You can test out different headline buttons, watch to see which performs better, and tweak what you have to from there. No matter what you’re doing from the funnel side of things, you must do conversion checkpoints.
4. Set Conversion Checkpoints
If you’re launching for the first time to cold traffic and just getting started, you’ll want to set realistic conversion checkpoints.
Each opportunity for an action is a conversion checkpoint. Keep a close eye on your ads. What kind of off-clicks are you getting? Take a look at your landing page opt-in stats, and make sure you know your numbers.
By knowing your stats at each of those places, you’ll be able to find the breakdown. If your funnel isn’t working, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your whole funnel isn’t working. It could just be one piece of the larger puzzle.
When you’re first starting out, shoot for a 10%-20% rate in the beginning, to give yourself room to grow. Keep a close eye on your ads. What kind of clicks are you getting? Knowing the exact numbers let’s you track your growth and see where you can make changes.
5. Get Out Of Your Head
Let’s face it, we are our own worst critics.
If you’re spending a lot of time overthinking your work, you most likely won’t be coming up with your best work.
Do what you have to do to get out of your head. That could look like zoom calling your best friend and selling them something, recording the call, and then transcribing it.
Whatever it is that you need to do to make yourself more comfortable – do it!
Copywriting takes time and practice. Once you get past your doubts and anxieties about writing – that’s when good copy happens.
Final Thoughts
Strong copywriting can completely elevate and transform your client’s business, which is exactly what they’re looking for from you.
By implementing these tips, you can take yourself from being an average copywriter to a great copywriter that stands apart from the rest.
Try some of the tips out on your next project, and email me to let me know how it goes! Or, post your results on my Facebook page to share with everyone. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.