Your website is a 24/7 sales rep for your business. It’s the first interaction that most customers will have with you and your company.
And if you’re keen to sell a product or service, whether online or offline, one skill can dramatically change everything that you produce in a massive way.
The best part? It works in every single niche.
This skill is a craft. It’s the ability to understand what people want (and also what they don’t want) and translating it into something that is compelling enough for your customer to take action.
By persuading with the words you choose, you can turn more of your visitors into happy, paying customers.
Here’s how…
Why Deadly Copywriting Matters
Copywriting is the creation of text (copy) that persuades people to take your view on something. It’s called “copy” because the text is intended to be copied in print or other media.
Whatever you read that has been designed to persuade is called copy.
This is why it matters:
Bad copywriting kills your message, ruins your product, hinders sales and ultimately cripples a business.
Good copywriting gets your message across, is convincing enough to result in some action, and can be read easily.
But deadly copywriting is unbelievably persuasive. It resonates loudly with your target audience. It breathes life into your ideas, products and opinions and results in email subscribers, boosts sales, creates successful launches and results in 100% comprehension.
Deadly copywriting makes your readers wonder how on earth you got inside their head.
So how do you craft deadly copy that works?
4 Simple Principles for Crafting Deadly Copy
1. Be simple.
Have you ever fooled yourself into thinking that using big long words makes you seem smarter? Well, while it may work when you’re talking with someone, if you’re writing for people and they don’t understand what they’re reading, who wins?
A: Nobody.
Why confuse your reader’s time with stuff they don’t want to read or understand? If you think that more words and more big words will mean better chances of getting the point across, think again.
Make your copy scannable so that it’s easy to skim through. Well worded sub headings, shorter sentences and bullets make your work easy to read and scannable.
Be simple and focus in on the main points – your readers will praise you for it.
2. Be different.
If you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody.
In your copy, you need to have an opinion, and that opinion is your unique perspective on a matter.
Controversy sparks conversation, and if you’re promoting something in your copy that you want others to take on, you need to have a pretty good reason why. If it’s different, people will talk about it.
Being different to what everyone else is doing gets remembered and encourages conversation. 🙂
3. Use the language of your audience.
Think of the words utilize vs use – they both have the same meaning.
But how often do you actually say utilize instead of use? Not as often right?
In your copy, this is critical. Use common language, but go one better – figure out how your audience interacts and use that language.
With everything you create, focus on serving your audience – you’re doing them a total disservice if you’re wasting their time with too many words, being too wordy, using words they don’t understand, adding words that aren’t needed, waffling on and on about something… (See what I did there?)
Seriously though, think about a speaker you enjoy listening to. The best teachers, marketers, sales reps and motivators make challenging things easy and simple to understand.
They don’t use big language, stringy sentences or huge presentations. They don’t waste your time – they cut to the chase so they can resonate with you; their audience.
Using the language of your audience gives your message the best chance at survival.
4. Write just enough to resonate.
How much should I write?
Easy – when you read over your copy and you find yourself skimming, start culling – cut out what you skim over and leave the rest.
Every word you write has only one job to do, and that’s to get the next word read – if you’re skimming, the words you’ve chosen simply aren’t doing their job.
And if you’re wondering now about how many words is enough, stop worrying about length and read that last line two more times.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of loving all of your words, but bring it back to your core message and ask yourself this question: does this help make the point I’m trying to get across easier or harder to understand?
Stress over your word choice. Be a word nerd and boil your message right down, because if each word you write does its job, your message will resonate with your audience.
You Can Do It!
Getting your point across in your copy isn’t an easy skill to learn, and I’ve only just scraped the surface.
Follow these simple steps when crafting your copy (or outsource the work to professionals) and you’ll be way ahead of your competition.
And if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read, this is part of our free digital marketing guide (which you can get right here).
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