copywriting


How to make your content more informative

There can be various purposes for publishing content on your website or blog but when you want to generate business from your content, you need to impart the right information as clearly as possible. What’s right information depends on how your customers and clients perceive your content, not you, unless there is a parity.

Whenever you are writing content (or working with a content writing service) for your business you should step into your customers’ shoes. This means not only presenting the greatest benefits of your product or service, but also addressing their concerns before they raise them themselves. This means highlighting even the negative aspects of your product or service. But this doesn’t mean you’re conveying something negative about your business: you are simply informing your visitor so that he or she can make the right decision. Here are a few things you can consider to make your content writing process informative:

  • List all the benefits: What do your customers gain when they purchase your product or service? Don’t go on a boasting binge. For instance, if you want to avail my content writing services it doesn’t matter much to you if I’ve done my higher studies in linguistics or if I read abstract literary classics in my spare time. You are interested in knowing whether I can consistently provide you quality content or not, and if yes, what system I have in place to ensure it. Additionally, what benefit you get by working with me and not by working with another content provider?
  • Who might benefit the most: Don’t try to sell your product to everybody under the sun (although this seems very desirable). When you are selling, you’re not selling a product or a service, you’re selling a benefit, a usage, a value. So whereas selling combs to bald men may seem quite smart, you are simply cheating people and when they realize it they’re going to have a really bad feeling about your conduct. Help people make a better purchase decision.
  • Clearly mention if there are any drawbacks: You may think, what am I talking about? Am I trying to help you increase your sales or lose your prospects. The truth is, if you think there are too many drawbacks then may be you should reconsider your offer, and if you think their are more benefits then drawbacks then your customers are going to thank you for informing them. Don’t let your customers find out what your product doesn’t do — tell them on your own and also tell them when a particular feature will be available in case it is currently missing.

Conveying your ideas better through story-telling

Does your content or copy tell a story? Story-telling engages your readers. When you’re reading a story, there is something in it that grips you, that exhorts you to read further. You want to know what’s going to happen next. Whether you can relate to the narrative or not (mostly you can) reading a story is always more than reading uninspiring, drab text

Smashing Magazine has an interesting post on creating a better use experience with story-telling.

A good story is like a journey, and when you start reading it, you join that journey. There is a beginning, there are various ups and downs, joys and conflicts, and finally there is an end that changes something inside you. The beauty of every story is that it brings about a change: significant or infinitesimal.

Although the post mentioned above mostly talks about design, you can apply the art of story telling better on content writing. I’ll soon write about this to further elucidate my point.

Doing better networking using social media

Networking is an exercise you have to conduct almost everyday if you’re in a business of selling — whether you work for an organization or for yourself (as a freelancer). Networking as a concept has existed since time immemorial but it has been taken to an entirely new level by social networking websites like Twitter and FaceBook.

Networking doesn’t just mean hanging around with people, although it also doesn’t mean befriending others just for commercial gains. It basically means knowing the right people (people who have use of your products and services or who can recommend your products and services to others) and establishing a communication channel so that you can reach each other when needed. It may involve:

  • Attending the right gatherings
  • Keeping in touch and communicating on a regular basis
  • Letting people know how you can serve them

This Mashable blog posts highlights 7 things you can do for better networking. Basically, networking takes time and effort and some people do it as a full-time job, although this is not called for if you have to run a business. For instance, being a content writer, if I post messages and updates on FaceBook and Twitter all the time and keep interacting people will soon think, “Heck, when does this guy do his work?” And this is true indeed. If you don’t strike a balance you’ll end up neglecting your core business.

For most, keeping in touch is enough. Keep in touch, and help people if you can. Sometimes go out of your way, but you don’t have to be unreasonable. Give people an incentive/reason to remember you in good stead, and convey to them that you are available if they require a particular service, content writing and copywriting in my case, for instance.

Does your content writing solve your reader’s problem?

Problem solving through content writing
Image source: arkworld

What makes your content writing effective? When it addresses exactly the issue faced by your reader. Whether you are writing a product description, a corporate profile, a blog entry, a tourist destination description, your whole agenda should be solving a problem, because once you solve a problem, you have delivered a solution, and everybody is looking for a solution.

But how does your content solve a problem if all you’re concerned about is help yourself or your client sell more? When you’re writing content for a website that needs to sell a product or a service, you need to take into consideration the following facts:

  1. Does your reader really need that product or service and is simply exploring various options by visiting multiple websites?
  2. Is your reader looking for a solution that can be provided by your product or service? (better anti-virus protection, or better search engine ranking)
  3. Is your reader there just to read some interesting trivia and has no intention of ever buying your product or service?
  4. Does your reader has no clue why or she is here and plans to go somewhere else within half a second?
  5. What sort of readers do you actually want to attract, and if possible, convert?

The first thing to do is, forget about trying to provide a solution to all the categories…it’s simply not possible through a single page and on the very first visit. Your most important readers is of the second category, and then the first category? Why second category?

Primarily we’re solution-oriented people. Even if we’re buying something just for a fad, we need to believe that that product or service actually achieves that. The reader of the second category has a problem. He or she may not be bothered about what product or service he or she is going to buy, provided his or her problem is solved. So you have a good chance of selling to that reader.

Take for instance your reader’s need to rank higher on various search engines on a long-term basis without having to spend lots of money. An SEO company can improve his or her search engine rankings, but so can a trained content writer. So how can you sell your solution (higher search engine rankings) by offering your content writing services? Explain to your reader as clearly as possible how good content helps improve search engine rankings. You can use client testimonials, you can refer to other authoritative articles, and you can use your own skill as a communicator: the basic idea is providing a solution to your reader, a solution he or she can afford, and believe in convincingly.

That is why you’re repeatedly told that don’t highlight features, highlight benefits. Of course some people do find features appealing (explaining the features of a RAID drive to a nerd) but basically we want to know eventually what a particular product or service is going to achieve for us.

Here’s another post on empowering your visitors by publishing solution-oriented content.

The importance of call to action

“Call to action” means telling your visitors in plain words what they should do, now that they are on your page, as nicely explained in this blog post at Copyblogger. It can be like, “Contact me now”, or “Go to this page to know more”, or “Subscribe to my newsletter” or even “Buy it now!” and so on. It may seam very simple, but it actually increases your click-through rate.

An average visitor to your blog or website is highly distracted due to hundreds of things competing for his or her attention. So while creating copy we shouldn’t assume that he or she will understand what you want him or her to do on your website. If you want to make a sale, display your “Buy now” link or graphic as soon as possible. If you want someone to subscribe to your newsletter or RSS feeds, tell them to subscribe. People like to be told what to do, and sometimes they just do it when they see a call to action word. This is a tried-and-tested fact. Our mind is trained to follow instructions.

A good list of killer headline creating formulas

You have won half the battle if you’ve created a good headline for your website or blog post. It’s all the more important in the times of social media and social bookmarking where your well-prepared headlines can attract lots of attention. Having said that, do pay close attention to the following when you are creating your next killer headline:

Don’t create a headline just to create attention

This proves counter-productive and incites lots of WTFs if your headline doesn’t match your content. Make sure your headline truly represent the message of your blog post or web page.

Use your main keywords in the headline

It not only helps your search engine rankings but also helps you better represent your message. Take for example the headline of this blog post — it clearly tells you that the post intends to tell you some good ways of creating highly effective headlines.

Enough of my ruminations, head to this excellent post on Copyblogger titled 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work.

Make an offer your customer or client cannot refuse

The blog post I just read calls it The Godfather Guide to Direct Marketing: Make Me an Offer I can’t Refuse. Although I’ve neither read the book nor seen the movie (I know, I know) but I can totally relate to the expression and this should be consistently kept in mind while preparing promotional literature. Offer something great and highlight it. It should be bigger than your company name. It should be the first thing your customer or client see as soon as he or she comes to your website or unfolds your brochure.

Not everybody is dying to do business with you or awed at the marvelous things you’ve done with your products or services, but how do you solve my problem? For instance, I’ve been thinking of buying a slightly higher-end digital camera for a couple of months, I don’t want to buy a cheap brand and I don’t at the moment have the needed cash to buy a reputed brand like Canon, Sony, Nikon or Panasonic. This is my problem and I’ll immediately buy the camera if a vendor offers me a good solution. There must be thousands of customers like me and if the vendors are not addressing this problem I think they are losing a big chunk of sales. The answer to my problem would be being able to pay in easy, multiple installments and that would be an irresistible offer for me.

But what if you don’t have an immediate offer?

An offer doesn’t always mean giving something tangible. If it is not a direct consumable then it can be some emotional benefit. The point is, your message should answer the question “What is in it for me?” immediately. We’re all besieged with problems and consciously or unconsciously we’re looking for solutions. I’ll revisit my problem again with a new angle. Diwali, one of the greatest Indian festivals, is approaching fast and such festivals bring lots of moments that you would like to capture with your camera and you won’t miss them for the world. It’s a time when families get together and since we live in different cities and even countries, such gatherings are all the more special. Personally, I’d like to click my daughter enjoying a phooljhadi (a tiny firecracker you can hold in hand). An ability to click such moments can also be an irresistible offer for me. Make it so genuine and enticing that I buy the camera at the cost of another expense.

Of course this means you cannot target every customer or client under the sun with that single offer. There might be many who can spend the money but are not crazy about buying a camera although once they have it they can make good use of it. Then there might be some who despite having the ability, and a flicker of desire to buy the camera, are going to spend the festival alone or are not particularly attached to their families and friends. This is where targeting comes. Narrow down your target and you’ll sell more. Don’t worry about losing sales by not offering everybody something; you’ll compensate that by narrow targeting.

A good thing about online copywriting is that you can always perform split-tests. Prepare different pages for different targets and observe how they perform. With pay-per-click advertising it is even easier to see the results quickly.

Sometimes you don’t get paid for your online copywriting job, big deal!

Once in a while clients don’t pay the remaining amount once I’ve delivered all the content. While trying to find the folder of a repeat client on my PC I came across a few folders belonging to clients who simply vanished after getting their online copywriting job done. The only saving grace is that I rarely start work without taking an advance. As mentioned on this advance for copywriting work link, I charge 100% if the total estimate is less than or equal to $100, 50% if it is between $100 and $200, and 40% if it is more than $200.

So does it make me bitter when clients vanish without paying the remaining 50% or 60%? Of course I feel bad, but no, I don’t become bitter and consider other clients suspiciously. First of all, it rarely happens. Ever since 2004 (when I stopped designing and developing websites and started writing content for websites) I have served more than 300 clients (according to the number of folders I have on my laptop currently) and among these it must be just 15-20 clients who didn’t pay the money they owed. So it is hardly a worrying trend. I wasn’t worried even when I think my 3rd client used the content and never paid the remaining amount.

Second, it gives me a psychological level playing field. Some clients are suspicious: what if I take the advance and never deliver? Most of the clients are overseas and it will be very difficult to chase me (legally or physically) in case they pay the advance and then I vanish or stop responding. Very valid fear and I try to assuage it by encouraging them to go through my website, my various blogs, my social networking profiles and search for my name on Google. I couldn’t have survived by taking advances and not delivering content. About the level playing field thing – if they are still doubtful, I tell them that I too have the same fear. What if I deliver the content and they don’t pay? Just like them, even I cannot chase them, and like me, they don’t even have an extensive profile on the Internet. So I’m at a greater risk.

Why did I start writing this post? It’s because of the writers I work with. Almost all of them are so cautious about getting paid that it begins to sound cheap after a while. They don’t ask what sort of work I’m going to give them and what must be their level of writing skill. They ask, “When are you going to pay, how you are going to pay, are you actually going to pay?” Imagine if I start asking such questions from my clients. Will I get work from them? Fat chance.

The reason they give is that they have had a “bad” experience. Well, when you work on your own you do have bad experiences but it doesn’t mean you carry your frustration out on the person who is trying to give you work. I don’t work with such writers unless they are exceptionally good.

Online Copywriting: difference between features and benefits

Recently I needed to prepare two documents for a client selling a software product: one describing features and the other, benefits. When I delivered him the documents he said I needed to get clear about the difference between the two, and I had basically written the same thing in both the documents. Ever ready to learn more I eagerly agreed to re-write the documents and do more study on the differences between features and benefits.

While working on an online copywriting project my main focus is understanding features, and then communicating the most compelling benefits. Below I’m trying to lay down the basic difference between features and benefits

Features

Let’s suppose you are selling a desktop blog editing software. It’s features would be:

  • Ability to add multiple blog accounts.
  • Inbuilt word processor, thesaurus and spell-check.
  • FTP functionality to upload images.
  • Support for offline and online editing.
  • Support for CSS formatting.

These are the features, things that the software lets you do. But how do you benefit from these features?

Benefits

  • Post blog posts extremely fast and conveniently.
  • Work in a familiar, world-processor like environment.
  • Reduce spelling and grammatical errors.
  • Upload images easily.
  • Format your blog posts to your heart’s content.

All in all, become a better, prolific blogger.

Not all features are equally beneficial to all, but we use products and services for their benefits and not for their features. This is why it is very important to highlight the benefits when you are preparing the copy to sell a product or a service.

Want to be a better copywriter? Know your customers/readers

Effective copywriting and content writing is always preceded by a thorough understanding of your target market – your customers, your readers. Want to be a better copywriter? Think from the perspective of your customers. And in order to be a better online copywriter you also need to understand how the search engines interpret what you have written.

Of course we all have different definitions of being better. By being a better copywriter I mean you can improve your conversion rate and by being a better online copywriter along with improving the conversion rate you also improve your search engine rankings. In the end what matters is what the results are and how consistently your copy can perform.

When you understand the needs and desires of your target readers you can provide them exactly what they are looking for. An average surfer on the Internet is looking for solutions. Even when people are looking for brands they are actually looking for solutions. For instance if I am looking for an iPhone, although I am looking for a particular brand I am actually looking for two things: my desire to own a trendy gadget and the things that I can do with all the functions the phone carries. You have to cater to both the aspects if you want people to buy iPhones from your online store.

So when you are working on a copy understand what your customer is looking for and highlight that thing. If you are promoting yourself as an online copywriter, along with highlighting the sort of service you are providing, also highlight the greatest benefit your clients are looking for in case they want to hire you.

  • Do they want a more professional voice on their website or blog?
  • Are they looking for a particular style of writing?
  • Are they looking for a particular expertise (technical writer, medical writer, film critic, instructional writer, blogger, SEO writer, etc.)?
  • Do they want to improve their conversion rate?

These kinds of things immediately convey to your prospective customer or client you have what they are looking for. If you simply go on and on about what a great writer you are and how many clients you have worked for it is not going to make much impact.

This goes for any kind of product or service. Whenever you are starting to write think about what your customer or client would like to read. If it helps make a list of all the things your customer can gain if he or she purchases your product. Feel enthusiastic about all the benefits your product can offer. Why must your customer feel excited about your product or service? This should be the starting point.