In the digital age where artificial intelligence, big data and virtual reality are constantly grabbing our attention, it’s easy to lose sight of the key elements that really connect them with customers. This is especially true for arts like copywriting services which can fall down the list of priorities at the expense of exciting buzzwords like video marketing and chatbots.
However, the best brands all get one essential element right: copywriting. They hire expert teams to find the right words to capture people’s attention, create an emotional response and turn them into paying customers.
No amount of viral marketing or lead generation is going to sell your products/services if the copy on your pages and other material falls flat. So what do you need to look for in a team of copywriters in order to turn words into sales?
It starts with concise, clear language
The worst thing to see in a piece of copywriting is bloated, ambiguous language. Make it concise and ensure your meaning is 100% clear. People aren’t going to buy into something if they don’t know what you’re selling and why they should care about it. Simply filling pages with words isn’t going to turn website visitors or brochure readers into customers – especially when there are countless other brands out there who do a fine job of crafting copy.
The general rule with copywriting services is to remove every word that isn’t absolutely essential. Adjectives, adverbs, superlatives and all kinds of emphatic language can be compelling if used sparingly, but don’t overdo it.
Also, avoid jargon and clichés like the plague* unless you want to sound like a brand that doesn’t know how to describe itself or have anything original to say.
*intentional cliché for illustrational purposes
Great copywriters stir emotions
Nobody cares how you came up with the formula of your revolutionary hair loss shampoo, they just want to stop seeing more hair in the sink than on their head in the mornings. Likewise, you don’t see Gucci selling handbags by telling everyone how great the quality of their materials are or how great their factory workers in China are at stitching (probably not the best sales pitch).
A brand like Gucci focuses on the feeling that comes with walking down the high street with that logo glistening in the sun as people turn their heads at your perfectly matching bag and boots combo.
Now, our friends in the hair loss industry are a little different in all fairness. Customers want to know their product is backed up by science; they want to believe this is the product that is finally going to solve their ongoing battle with hair loss. It’s not the formula your copywriters should be selling here, though – it’s hope.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling luxury sports cars, accounting software or feather dusters. Great copywriters stir emotions because this is what people are really buying into. Nobody in their right mind would spend £150,000 on a tiny, uneconomical sports car when they could get a reliable, comfortable and substantially more cost-effective car for less than a third of the price.
Consumers are emotional, impulsive creatures and it’s your copywriters’ jobs to trigger these impulses with a few compelling words they can’t resist.