Many may wonder what is the importance of copywriting in advertising. Your advertising copy is perhaps the most important determiner of your campaign’s success. Given the continuously decreasing attention span of consumers, marketers have to pay extra attention to the kind of copy they are creating. While a short and crisp copy can grab consumers’ attention and put the message across more effectively, a long and ill-crafted advertising copy can simply prove disastrous for your brand.
As such, excelling in the copy game is challenging, especially after the emergence of social media channels. If you are looking for help with creating compelling and effective copy, consider using the services of a copywriting company.
In order to understand the art of copywriting better, we asked some marketing experts the following questions:
1. What is the most important step in creating effective copy and why?
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
Here are a few copywriting tips straight from the experts’ shoulder:
Yan Kulakov
Copywriter and content manager
CS-Cart
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
Every valuable copy solves some problem. For example, an article about copywriting tips helps a writer create better copies. An article about how dishonest car mechanics deceive you at service stations to pump more money from you helps car owners save money on repairs. And so on.
So, the most important step is to understand, what exactly is the problem that you want to solve with your copy. You must clearly understand how your copy will help a reader and make his or her life easier. When you know it, you will hit the target.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
When Facebook users see hundreds of posts in their timelines, they don’t want to read much. That’s why SMM writers keep texts short and simple. A fullscale web copy is a different genre with its own rules. It must be informative, well-struсtured, and well-formatted. To my mind, it’s not social media that should influence web copywriting. It’s web copywriting that should change the way we write social media posts.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
– Help your readers solve their problems and take care of them.
– Re-check your facts twice.
– Keep your copy simple and easy to read: format, structure, get rid of every unnecessary word.
– Show more examples to inspire and induce potentials. For example, we showed live online marketplaces built on our Multi-Vendor solution on the product page. And it worked—we started getting more leads from there.
– Edit your copy 12 times before publishing 🙂
Nate Masterson
Head Copywriter
Maple Holistics
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
The most important step in creating copy is in writing coherently and for the consumption of an actual human being. Some companies have a tendency to write in a way that favors Google and what is believed to be SEO-friendly practices. The problem is, this can drive away organic leads and in fact work against you as search engine algorithms become more sophisticated and capable of detecting quality.
Therefore, copy must be well written, clear, and presented in an engaging, ideally humorous voice. This way consumers can be drawn in and are introduced to the company through a warm and friendly lens.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Social media has changed the way we write copy in that companies are no longer wholly interested in producing quality copy. Rather, companies are by and large attempting to produce eye-catching copy that has the potential to ‘go viral.’ This has given life to the rise of clickbait and a general disregard for the traditional rules of writing quality copy. While some companies are capable of catching lightning in a bottle with a viral post, most will suffer in vain attempts to create the perfect storm. It’s best to err on the side of quality – not click-bait’y.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
The number one tip that every copywriter needs to imbue in themselves is that there are no shortcuts. Period. The bottom line is, tricks and clickbait will only take you so far and even if you find fleeting success with it, your leads will quickly catch on and your on-page time and bounce rates will go in the wrong directions. Mother Google’s algorithms are only becoming more sophisticated so there’s no fooling them either. Just work on becoming as good a writer as possible and sustainable results will come. It’s the internet – if there is quality content out there, it will be found and consumed.
Michael Kurko
Copywriter and CRO Specialist
Fit Small Business
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
The most important step in creating copy is understanding your audience. This is essential for setting the tone (casual, conversational, formal) appropriate to your audience and understanding what they care about. There is no such thing as knowing too much about your audience. The more specific your copy is to the reader, the better the chance he or she will respond to it the way you want.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Social media has introduced the teaser into copy. Social media is mostly geared towards enticing the reader with a highlight of a longer article or product page that you want them to see. Social media has also enabled readers to promote copy like never before. If you understand what your readers and their friends and family like, you will have them sharing and promoting your copy for you.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
You need to understand what your audience cares about. Even if it’s a feature, it needs to be couched in the language of a promise. How will it make a particular aspect of their life or job easier, better, or more rewarding? You need to understand the solution they are looking for and deliver it with every word you write.
Cristian Rennella
VP of Marketing & CoFounder
elMejorTrato.com
Develop a STRONG desire!
The best marketing campaigns discover the gap between what the customer really wants and the products you’ve created for them. According to James Gilbert, good marketing specialists do not sell products, they create wishes.
There must be a strong desire. Otherwise, customers will not act on what you say.
If you can identify the gap between their desires and your products, you can talk to them more personally in a compelling copy, which will help persuade them to take whatever action you want them to take.
The best strategy is to increase the desire! While reducing the effort that the prospect must make to achieve it. In other words, make their trip as easy as possible. Eliminate as many obstacles as you can, so that they do not experience stress while making a purchase decision.
Thanks to this, we changed the copy of our Landing Page focusing on the best 3 benefits with the strongest captivating power and increase our conversion by 24.3%!.
Please, do NOT make a list of 10 benefits, concentrate ONLY on the 3 most important and awaken the desire of your users and close the sale with a great call-to-action!.
Jeff Kear
Co-Founder and Head of Marketing
Planning Pod
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
Knowing the key needs and pain points of your audience and how your product/service addresses those is the most important step in creating copy. The reason for this is, that without this knowledge, you are simply guessing as to what will trigger a buying decision for your target audience and you can blow through a lot of money learning this the hard way.
In fact, I did the exact thing when I launched an online logo design business in the early 2000s. I did as much research as I could about my target audience, and from what I was hearing people said the biggest two factors for them in getting a logo designed was cost and speed … they essentially wanted something inexpensive in a matter of days. So all my initial Google AdWords campaigns focused on these two pain points. But after several thousand dollars of fairly ineffective ad spend and talking with additional customers, what I discovered was their real pain point was that they wanted something that truly represented them without breaking the bank. Essentially, they were willing to pay a little bit more for something that required a few more rounds of revisions. After making those tweaks to our messaging, our conversion rates on our PPC ad campaigns went up 40% and our cost per conversion went down about $8.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Oddly, social media has changed us in two ways.
First, it has forced us to be even more economical with our words and dial in our message. Most social media and online ad platforms serve like billboards in that you have to catch someone’s attention with a few words in a fraction of a second. Add to that the fact that many ad platforms place limits on headline lengths, and what you are faced with is making tough choices regarding your diction and ideas, which is always a good thing.
Second, social media has allowed us to test and iterate like never before. Yes, we may be forced to whittle down our headlines, but when we can write up a dozen headlines and body copy blocks and test them against each other almost immediately, it gives you actionable information fast so you can focus on the ideas and phrases that resonate with your audience.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
My first tip is to always be presenting problems and solutions in your copy. The online content that performs the best on our blog and generally on the Web is content that lays out a common problem experienced by people and then delivers a solution to that problem. And I have found that setting up the same problem/solution dynamic in my ads also resonates with my audience.
My second tip is to synchronize your ad copy with your landing page copy so that there is no disconnect for the potential customer between the two. I used to create PPC and display ads with links to more generic product pages or even our home page, but once I started writing specific landing pages to go along with my ad and promotional copy, I saw my conversion rates increase anywhere from 7% up to 40% for specific campaigns.
My third tip is to compile a list of prominent, well-followed blogs in your industry and monitor their posts for which are the most posted on social media. These popular posts are great indicators of what your audience members are looking for and will give you fresh ideas and approaches as to the types of content and messaging that resonates with them. This step is essential in building out something like a content calendar.
Louisa McGrath
Content manager
Rebrandly
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
I would definitely say planning and research are the most important parts of copywriting. If you plan out the points you want to make, the piece will naturally read well. It will also let you see how you can include your product in the piece without it being a blatant over-the-top promotion. If you start writing without having a plan in place, discussion of your product will seem awkward.
And obviously, precise research is essential. Anything that is incorrect will be picked up on – and commented on. Most brands are trying to position themselves as thought leaders and the last thing they want is for false information to damage this image, and their brand trust. An important part of the research is knowing your audience and what they want, which is also essential if you want to create something they will engage with.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Well as I mentioned, social media will magnify any mistakes that are in your copy, but this immediate feedback can be a good thing. It lets us know exactly what engages our followers and what doesn’t. Comments can often let us discern exactly why this is.
In terms of how we write copy, social media has definitely made it more important to include visuals in copy. And the easier this is to share on social platforms, the better.
You can also contribute the popularity of memes to social media – though it often appears in all sorts of web copy now.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
I’m a big fan of the 80/20 rule for content marketing – that only 20% of your content should directly promote your products or services, while the other 80% is content that is of interest to your audience. Very few people will read your content if it is just one giant sales pitch. It’s important to remember that when you’re writing – and it can be just as important to explain this tactic to whoever you’re writing for. But if you provide your audience with useful, valuable content that is of genuine interest to them, when they see that 20% promotional content, they’ll be less likely to hit the back button and more likely to give you some of their time. Good copywriting builds brand loyalty, as well as helps to boost sales.
At Rebrandly, we like to make our content as educational as possible. Our target audience is people working in digital marketing, so we provide content with advice on all areas of digital marketing, though our product is primarily concerned with branded links. It shows we care. Of course, we talk about branded links when we can, but we want to leave readers with actionable takeaways and knowledge on a broader range of topics.
A simple way of following the 80/20 rule is to include what you’re advertising in a broader story. Tell the story of one of your customers – set up the problem and then mention how your product helped solve it.
Finally, another important tip whether you’re writing PPC adverts or blog posts, where appropriate always include CTAs – they are essential to creating copy that converts.
Kate Sullivan
Managing Editor
TCK Publishing
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
Thinking about what the copy’s meant to do – what problem does it solve for the reader/audience and how are they likely to find it? You can write the best article in the world, but if it’s not targeted to a particular problem that YOUR audience has and optimized in a way that ensures they’ll be able to find it easily, you’re not going to get any views, let alone conversions.
Think about your audience’s needs, their search methods, and what you’re trying to help them with before you ever start writing. That’s how you get good copy.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Absolutely! Social media has changed the way we write copy as we now write shorter, snappier copy, that gets in and gets to the point fast. It’s possible to write longer copy that’s still effective, but the intro has to be quick and has to promise very clearly what it’s going to do. Even if you write a longer piece, there has to be some sort of soundbite that encapsulates what you’re talking about, ready for sharing out on social media – or for readers who just want to scan for the main takeaway.
Copy that provides both that quick fix/soundbite AND more details, depth, and actionable opportunities is most likely to be effective.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
– Think about your audience’s needs
– Make it easy to read – particularly to scan if someone is short on time
– Solve a problem, and then show how your product or service can build on that win
– Provide value, then go back and provide even more value – become a trusted resource, and readers will come back to you when they need more help, becoming regular customers
Ramsay Taplin
Founder
BlogTyrant.com
Social media has lead to shorter, more impulsive campaigns as copywriters, bloggers and journalists try to make waves in a 24-hour news cycle. Ironically, however, this is not the copy that converts the best and people really do seek out long-form, detailed copy that has a story and case studies and a deeper perceived value. Copywriters should do their best to make sure that new content is focused around a long-term goal, and, at each step along the way, helps their readers as much as possible. By identifying problems and trying to solve them in a meaningful way, copywriters can be a lot more effective.
Shelby Rogers
Content Marketing Strategist
Solodev
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
Know your audience, and make it personal to them. When I think of effective copy, I immediately think of Apple. Each product launch tells a user exactly what the latest iPhone can do for them. The copy makes you feel like you’ve already got the iPhone in hand, and Apple brilliantly weaves narratives that combine features of the product with how they can impact your life. Readers don’t care about your product’s features until they know how those features affect their lives.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
If anything, social media has made writing a brief, compelling copy of utmost importance. But it’s also added another level to web copy — shareability. That was enough for The Atlantic to completely abandon optimizing their web copy for SEO entirely a few years ago. Sure, businesses have more to gain from search engines than social media, so abandoning SEO might not be feasible. But companies looking to spread their messages faster have a lot to gain by crafting social-friendly content. Whether it’s crafting a blog post or deciding landing page copy, content strategists and copywriters must ask themselves this question more frequently: does this draw someone in and compel them to share the message?
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
First tip: Never forget that you’re writing for real people. Real people are the ones reading your copy. Real people are the ones clicking on CTAs or downloading case studies — not an SEO crawler. At the end of the day, you’ll always be writing for people.
Second tip: Treat copywriting like dating. There are plenty of guys who think that they need a few magic phrases and voila, they’ll have women falling at their feet. That mentality is both laughable and completely untrue. In order to win someone over, you have to know what will pique their interest. Use your copy to catch the reader’s eye. Land a successful ‘first date,’ and give your company the ability to prove yourself as more valuable than just some clever copy.
Jake Tully
Head of Creative Department
TruckDrivingJobs.com
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
The most important step in creating copy is to get to the “Why” part of whatever you are crafting. Rather than writing simply for the sake of expounding on a topic or flexing one’s knowledge about a particular subject, there needs to be an end goal in mind for whatever the subject of the copy may be. In other words, copy needs to have teeth, but it also needs to eventually lead the reader to a call to action or a specific point.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Social media has been a large disruptor for copywriting. In the sense that there is certainly still an ethos one must appeal to, but it is a very specific ethos that needs to be targeted in a limited number of characters. On social media, users are looking for the ‘too long, didn’t read’ answer. So it’s important that it is given to them. With social media, we also see many companies and entities appropriating slang or a much more casual demeanor than what might have been purported in the past. Copywriting is no longer intended solely for the well-informed consumer or the intelligentsia. Rather, through social media, a copywriter needs to be the great equalizer, especially when targeting a certain group or subculture.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
One of the best tips for creating copy that converts is imagining that you are writing for a conversation between you and a complete stranger. It needn’t be a situation where you are pitching a product or service, either. Imagine a simple conversation wherein an explanation of your product is taking place – if a writer knows their product/subject well enough, they will be able to explain it simply.
Another tip for crafting copy that converts is to imagine that every reader has seen all of the tricks in the book. In other words, a writer should assume that no one is going to be bowled over by a new or inventive way of conversational or entertaining writing. In that case, one should stick to the facts and assume their reader is slightly skeptical. Through this, honest writing is more likely to happen.
Erin Letson
Senior Content Marketer
Logojoy
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
The most important step is taking the time to understand your audience, the problems they’re trying to solve, and the actions you want them to take. You also have to know the top benefits of your product or service – and remember, benefits are different than features! Once you have a solid understanding of your audience and how you can help them, you’re in a much better place to write compelling copy.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Social media has moved web copy into an even more conversational zone, and it means people aren’t afraid to have fun. For example, calls to action go far beyond the usual Learn more, and hashtags and shortened words appear on websites. The way you write on social media is part of your brand’s voice, so it makes sense to carry it into web copy. I also think social has helped people understand that walls of text don’t make for engaging content. Break up the copy with images, pull quotes, and shorter paragraphs.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
– Use you, not we — it’s all about the customer!
– Start sentences with a verb, especially when writing benefit-focused copy.
– Write conversationally. Use short sentences and contractions, and read your copy out loud to make sure it packs a punch.
Sumit Bansal
Founder
TrumpExcel.com
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
The most important thing when writing a copy is to make it absolutely clear what problem the product/service/offering solves. With a short attention span of readers, it’s important to be as clear as possible. If your reader doesn’t understand what the landing page is about in 5 seconds, he/she is likely to leave. A big headline is a great way to grab attention, and then you can immediately follow it up with a few bullet points or a video + bullet points.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Copywriting is about taking your reader on a journey where you try and convince him/her of the offer. With social media, the reader gets started with the journey even before landing on the page on your website. For example, maybe your reader has come from Facebook ads where you promised a great offer on the landing page. Or they have come from a link in the email where you have already addressed the pain points. In these cases, make sure your landing page is a continuation of that journey.
If your Facebook ad addressed a pain point, make sure you don’t repeat it on the landing page, but instead, have the testimonials and call to action (to buy or enroll) at the beginning of the landing page. Also, you may choose to keep your landing page short in such cases. Of course, you can hire a Facebook ad agency if all of this seems overwhelming.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
These are my top 3 tips for writing a copy that converts:
– Focus on the problem that your product/service/offering solves. When someone lands on your landing page, they have some pain points or needs that need to be catered to. If you can ensure that staying on the page would help them in solving that problem, you are likely to have their attention for a longer period of time.
– Use the language your customers use. When I was creating my online Excel course, I ran a survey and asked my readers about the pain points and the topics they would want to be covered. While creating the sales page, I picked up some of the phrases that my customers mentioned.
– Make your copy easy to scan and visually appealing. There is a high chance your reader is scanning your sales/offer page on a mobile device. It’s best to write short sentences with paragraphs not exceeding 2-3 lines. As a best practice, I also make some parts of the sentences bold. This makes the content easy to scan. Also, using relevant images makes your copy more intriguing and professional. While creating one of my courses, I hired a graphics designer to create images for each module of my course. Even if someone doesn’t read the topics, he/she will have an idea of what’s covered in the course just by looking at the images.
Mandy Menaker
Head of Brand Development & PR
Shapr
1. What is the most important step in creating copy and why?
The most important step is identifying what one action you want people to do after reading your content. Are you hoping for them to buy a product? Are you wanting them to share the piece? Figure out the reason this content exists, and then write the content to meet that goal.
2. Has social media changed how we write web copy?
Social media has helped copywriters to get more concise. With 140/280 characters to tell a story, we have to be more careful to use the best 10 words. Social media has also allowed us to add images and infographics, and get creative in how we tag people that can help share our content.
3. What are your top tips for writing copy that converts?
Make sure you know two things: what action you want people to take and who the people are that you are trying to attract. Write with both intentions, and add a little personality to your copy to help it stand out!