IF you think I’m a copy-leftist, go ahead because the mood is political right now. But, either way, you’ll agree with my sales-welfare views.
Today, I spoke to a prospect who told me about the several amazing copywriters she’s hired in the past to write her landing page copy. They all wrote beautiful prose-clad copy, BUT, nobody really bought from the page
Why?
Here are the TOP 5 Reasons why sales page copy tanks:
1. Your funnel is distorted – you don’t have a connected conversion strategy
2. You don’t have a consistent voice, and hence, shockingly foreign copy
3. Fluff words that sound cool and sassy – but do NOTHING
4. Prose that sounds fab except, it can’t make sales
5. Your copy is unintentionally threatening!
You can fix the first 4 problems if you have the right systems in place.
But if your copy constantly sounds like you’re scaring and threatening people by using big bad words in unintended places just to grab their attention, the following copy better be worth their adrenaline activation. Or else, their logical brain is going to curse you for leading them to a high that you forgot to satisfy.
So if you’re finding yourself writing threatening copy, you really need to work on your mindset game.
What’s a mindset to do with writing copy?
E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.
If your writing voice sounds:
1. fake
2. desperate
3. needy
..you’re more likely to write threatening copy that uses trigger words like WARNING, make it unnecessarily “rhymy”, drop in powerless punches AND…
Most likely to cook copy that speaks to NO-ONE!
Pretty sad.
But, all of these annoying copy problems can be resolved if you have a stronghold on your audience’s pain points – big, small, and unsaid.
Start your copy with THEIR specific pain points and lead them towards a specific outcome THEY desire and keep the tempo on with headlines that are not just H1 text, but are there to keep moving your reader towards mini-conversions throughout the page without deviating from that one pain point they want to get rid of right now.
Which means, you’re not writing for people who don’t want it that bad. May be they have to put other things in place before this problem becomes their big priority. So, write for that prospect who wants to get done with their biggest challenge right NOW, not later.
If you organize their priorities on the page, your copy converts effortlessly.
“LONG-FORM SALES COPY converts better or SHORT SALES PAGE is enough to sell my tripwire product?”, asked my client today.
Here’s what I told her:
**It** doesn’t really matter to the buyer.
Because..
1. The buyer is not here to measure the length of the sales page
2. The buyer is not here to count the number of words
3. The buyer is not here to admire the beauty of your design. If the design is fab, they’ll definitely admire it. But the sole purpose on the page is to **know** the product.
Your potential buyers are here to see if they’re:
1. Getting the right product – is it the right fit? What am I getting?
2. Is it worth the money – even if it’s a tripwire product
3. Who’s the creator? Is the creator credible?
4. What kind of results have past buyers seen?
5. What am I really getting if I buy this product today?
6. What will I lose if I don’t buy this product today?
7. What can I do with this product? The ROI?
8. What big worry can this product get rid of for me?
9. How much time can I save per week if I use this product?
What should you keep in mind before writing a Sales Page
1. What stage of the customer journey is my audience at? What are their major needs at this point?
2. What’s their biggest worry right now? What are their current roadblocks?
3. How are they looking at solving this?
4. List of product features + benefits
5. Prove your authority and credibility as the product creator
6. List of Frequently Asked Questions so that you don’t leave them frazzled at any point
7. Ample social proof to back up your claims and offer
8. What’s the purpose behind the purchase of a product like this?
9. Address the possible objections to buying this product
10. How can I speed up conversions and maximize sales?
Writing a sales page is not just about the number of words and the length of the page. It’s a multidimensional process that involves a myriad of moving parts to bring in conversions.
#Elementor decided to inject my feed with their ads.
So I decided to tear down their sales page into Conversion Copy.
The biggest dilemma before writing a sales page is:
Should you start your sales page with benefits over features?
Not necessary.
You don’t have to force benefits out of the page when the benefits don’t want to come.
What does that mean?
Look at the Elementor sales page screenshot below.
It looks like they were hell-bent on leading with benefits and in the process, the message sounds blah..
Alternatively, fluff-free positioning and features list looks like this, in that order:
Build the page of your choice with the form builder
Choose from a variety of well-designed, visually appealing testimonial carousels instead of the same old monotonous templates.
Built-in pop-up forms so that you have everything hosted on one integrated platform instead of scattered forms and pages.
Countdown timer to catalyze conversions.
Capture real social proof to boost your credibility with the Star Rating Widget.
Go over these options and compare it to the copy in the screenshot.
What’s the difference?
Copy Positioning in the screenshot is so weak and bleak that you CAN fall asleep reading it
The tone and voice in the screenshot is plain blah. There’s ZERO personality. It doesn’t even sound like everyone else. It sounds unsure and shallow which is worse than sounding like everyone else.
The copy sounds desperate. It’s trying so hard to be clever by using phrases like “Make it count” — what does that even mean?
The point is — to state the facts and speak the truth straight instead of mincing your words.
So every time you sit down to write sales page copy, do this one thing:
Try and make sense out of it
Go apply the above DON’Ts to make your copy pop out and shine.
And if you need help with copy audits, reach out to me at roshni@contentprimer.com
Exactly like the same old click-bait market research question, everyone asks in Facebook groups – “Looking for an amazing web designer”. And that’s it.
These posts don’t indicate the nature of the industry. They don’t give — at least a hazy picture of what the work is going to be like. No requirements specified. Nothing. Nada!
Posts like these smell scam from a mile away. On a post that gets 97 comments, nobody gets hired. Sounds familiar?
Now the experienced business owners know that such generic posts are time wasters and avoid the trap because they know genuine posts are super-specific.
Let’s reverse engineer that mindset. If you are looking to attract experienced, well-established businesses as your CLIENTS, you should stop being generic in your copy.
There! I told you what not to use. But what should you be using instead of these words?
The answer is nothing. You should never think of replacing these words. You should think of replacing the sentences that need these words. These words indicate (read: scream) that your writing is amateurish. That is exactly why you depend so heavily on safe words like the adjectives.
Adjectives are merely fillers. They make your copy shallow.
Ouch! Sorry if I made writing even more difficult for you but..some hard truths are epiphanies on their own.
And here’s one – Copy that can convince is never backed by loose, commoner adjectives.
You don’t know how to evaluate the value of what you do.
You don’t know the impact you’re creating with your work.
If you can articulate the impact, they’ll never question your price.
But..
If a price objection comes up and you dilly your way by matching up the price to the time you’re spending, the creativity you’re using or years of experience you’re carrying — it doesn’t cut it!
Because what’s your client gonna do with your experience? Creativity? Time spend?
How’s it beneficial for them?
Noo – it isn’t!
Show them what’s of value.
Show them WHY they should hire you instead of your competitor sitting in the adjacent browser tab.
Because your creativity, experience, and time is NOT a measure of the outcomes they’re expecting.
The same shit applies to online sales as well.
Your copy should just CONVERT – by stating the VALUE your work brings to the table.
Not the hours you’re pouring into the project.
And if you’re finding it hard to articulate the value of the work you do, I help you do just that.
To do that, you should know how to meet your audience. Meaning? You should know how you can match “your solutions” to the audience’s expectations.
You should know how to make your reader choose you. To make that happen, you should prove it to them that you:
You understand them and you know their problems well
You know how to solve their problems
Your solution – be it product or service – is their best bet because, you have proof to back your claim.
You empathize with their fears and frustrations
You are totally capable of giving them the results and outcomes they have been craving for
If your copy can do this, you win. They pay. You win again 💪
But how do you make sure that every word you write is ticking these points off of your copy?
Register for my talk at #DCMC on The Science Behind Online Sales and Conversion Copywriting where I give you all the marketing moolah you need to write copy that makes money.
Register for this once-in-a-year, no picth only 100% value, FREE content marketing congress, and sit tight because your copy ride at #DCMC z gonna be funtastic!
Premature positioning without translatable proof crashes your credibility.
The job of a value proposition is to gravitate your prospects towards your business.
Humans are constantly looking to benefit. Use this behavior to your advantage.
Let’s look at the value propositions of various websites and audit the copy for conversions.
Ready? Cool.
Stop defining your company with a weak adjective
The above value prop is – braggy.
Also, I had never heard of Cypher learning until now. Adjectives like best, world-class, and high-quality mean nothing.
High-quality just means high-quality. There’s no other way to say it or measure it. Because the one thing that defines this word is “quality” which is subjective.
That is why your value proposition should never depend on adjectives to define it.
Adjectives can never communicate the real value your business offers. Behead the adjectives out of your value prop and focus on bringing the outcomes to the forefront.
Why your value prop is not your USP
Few days back, Peep Laja, the founder of ConversionXL tweeted how the concept of USP is obsolete and I agree with him.
Because in 2020, it’s impossible to be running an extremely unique business.
Especially, if you’re in a SaaS market – you know how crowded this industry is. So describing your brand as unique in 2020 is definitely not a good idea.
how to write value propositions
What the absence of a value proposition does
My first thought goes – how do you make your results colorful? Colorful pie chart? Colored graphs? Rainbow data?
I feel confused and I start wondering about what the product actually is.
Unfortunately, it’s a web development company.
Solution: They could have actually spoken about the approach they mention in the CTA and position their brand with a clarified message.
Why it’s important to state the biggest benefit – FIRST
Nobody actually needs more data in this data-saturated world.
So saying “Need more data” in one of the headings is not only useless, but also intimidating.
And having data is not a benefit. It’s actually a liability to deal with if you don’t know how to tackle the data overflow problem every company faces today.
So if you’re a company offering a solution to analyze, organize, optimize and monetize your data, you should as well state this fact in your value prop and lead with it to bring in conversions.
Otherwise, you confuse your readers. And confused readers get off the wagon ASAP.
Lesson: Lead your value prop with your biggest benefit
Keep your first screen clean
Again, here’s another value prop starting with an adjective. We know what the problem is. So let’s talk about the UX here.
The goal of a business website is to make your reader’s job easy.
You start with clean websites. The screenshot of a login portal to the left is confusing and meaningless. It doesn’t add any value in to the message.
The objective of your message is to take your reader from one awareness stage to a deeper, better understanding of your brand.
When you add screenshots like these, that make the reader think hard, they panic and quit the page.
Conclusion: The reader cannot grasp what this company is about until they read the tiny text that uses two keywords (AI and data analytics) in an unnatural sentence.
Solution: A hero section with no image is better than having a confusing, deviating image with an unclear value proposition.
Avoid writing unprofitable value propositions
It’s narcissistic to state your own name in the value prop.
Instead, take this opportunity and use your online real estate to own your message, connect with your audience and bring them closer to your brand.
3 simple ways to make your brand more approachable
Write an engaging value prop with a call to action with an immediate value add like in the below example. Appsumo doesn’t waste a second in adding value to their audience.
Connect with the ideals of your audience. Connect with a belief your audience stands for. Meetup does this so well! Their value prop says – “The real world is calling”, which connects with us on so many levels because we’re all fighting this digital age and screen toxicity. We’re all striving to make our lives a little bit more outdoor-ish. The gist is – to find out how you can match with your audience’s mindset and convey that.
State your why loud and clear just like 450GSM. They’re not afraid to break the rules. The moment you land on the homepage, it’s clear where you have come. No clever tactics, no desperate messaging to sound badass – only clear messaging.
Action steps to writing a clear value proposition
Avoid adjectives – because adjectives repel clarity and are subjective
Highlight the biggest benefit
Use social proof to write your value proposition if you can
Connect with the values and beliefs of your audience
Connect with your reader’s mindset and intent
Clean UX around your value prop means higher conversions
Stop trying to be unique and focus on being useful to your readers
When you Google the keyword “benefits of content marketing”, close to 1.3 billion blogs are fighting for the same keyword.
Why?
Visibility, credibility, conversions, and a full sales pipeline to grow your business the easy way.
Last year, I helped an LA-based e-commerce brand rank #1 on Google within days for a high-competition keyword using the on-page SEO techniques I’m sharing now.
Guess what? One year later, it’s still taking up the top spot.
Even though the founder has stopped publishing new content.
Last month, I helped a logistics intelligence SaaS brand to rank #1 on Google within days instead of months.
For a popular keyword in the supply chain space beating billion-dollar sites like FedEx and UPS.
This happened within 5 days.
Day 1: The blog goes live
Day 3: The blog appears on the first page of Google
Day 5: The blog ranks #1 on Google
And I get a message like this from the client.
So what’s the secret behind ranking #1 on Google consistently and staying on top?
Write better headlines for better SEO and Conversions
80% of your readers don’t read your copy if you can’t get them to read your headlines – David Ogilvy
Most companies fail to grab their prospect’s attention because their headlines never offer a benefit the prospect is looking for.
Are you helping your audience save time?
Are you helping them bring down operational costs?
Is your solution accessible from anywhere, anytime?
Then you mention that in your headline.
The benefits should go straight into your value proposition to get your prospect interested FIRST.
Then comes the solution.
Now, why is something as simple as highlighting benefits a deal-breaker?
Because the benefit IS the solution your business has been thriving on.
And what a catastrophic mistake you’ll be making if you’re not strapping the benefits to your headline, right?
Pro Tip: Ensure you optimize your title tag with the main focus keyword.
Use Quality Keywords To Boost SEO
Google Crawlers are constantly looking for relevant keywords (the keywords you want to rank for) in your content.
The keywords your prospects are searching for.
But how do you predict what they’re searching for?
Think like them.
They’re on Google because they want to do one or all of the below 4 things:
Save time
Save money
Make more profits
Bring down operational/admin costs
This applies to anyone with a browser tab open.
And when you’ve predicted those keywords in your content, there’s a pattern match and your site shows up in the SERPs.
This means that the right keywords in the headline not only help you grab your audience’s attention, they also help you rank on search engines with ease.
Upgrade Alt Text to Rank on Google Image Search
My website ranks #1 on Google Image Search for a high-competition keyword and here’s the proof.
No FB ads. No Google ads. Simple optimization techniques helped me achieve this with ease. Look at the screenshot below.
If you see, the top 3 results on the search page are displaying images from my website for the keyword empathetic copywriting.
Now I won’t say that this is a product of mere updating of your alt text tag.
But for now, let’s see how updating your alt text becomes the communication channel between your website and search engine spiders that help you rank.
How descriptive alt text and captions help rank #1 on Google:
It indicates the purpose of the image and the exact content of the image
Increases relevance to the content and brings clarity
Specific information increases the chances of matching with the search keywords and bumps your page to the top
Tip: Run an instant SEO Audit of missing alt text images on your website now for FREE.
Add social proof to bring congruence to your content
If you noticed, I added proof in the form of a screenshot about how I ranked on Google Image Search in the previous section organically. By giving your readers instant proof, you are deleting your reader’s doubts even before they appear in their minds.
Because marketing and sales is all about resonating with your audience through – relevant content, connection, and social proof.
Social proof is not just to increase conversions amongst readers, even Google understands that including proof, customer reviews in the form of testimonials is a sign of authenticity and reliability.
Understand Humans And Write For Them
Humans are wired to react to interruptions.
The reason why mobile phone notifications are so easy to give into.
So how do you make your reader stay focused?
By using Pattern Interrupt Techniques.
Pattern interrupt is a psychological approach to shifting your reader’s focus and influence their behavior.
How can you use this psychological phenomenon to keep your readers interested in your content?
Create Disruptive Content Without Switching Context
Influence your reader before a notification takes that power away from your content. Make your content MORE interesting than their distractions – By dividing and displaying content differently. This is how:
Ensure the headings carry appropriate H1, H2, H3 tags
Use graphs and visual charts to make information more memorable
Use screenshots to offer proof and explanation then and there
Use snappy gifs to make content memorable
Use bullets instead of a clunky text box
Highlight to bring the focus back – bold, italics, underline, color
Use images to explain instead of a long boring paragraph
Use content highlighters like, colored blocks
Create carousel content to keep your audience hooked
GIFs when used appropriately can pattern interrupt much better than stagnant, dull images
Anchor Text and User Experience
The fundamentals of creating content for your audience is to be helpful.
Anchor text is the tool that makes the web so powerful. It makes access to relevant information in just one click.
Linking to related topics in your content creates a content repository your audience comes back to for their other information needs.
To get anchor texts right, every time you create anchor text, connect back to the primary intent –
Can this link introduce my readers to topics they need to know?
Can this link open up new channels and learning experiences for my readers?
Is this link connecting to a pre-requisite topic that’ll bring them closer to their desired outcome?
On the downside, too many external hyperlinks may take your audience away from your website. So, make sure that you’re bringing a balance. Also, make sure you don’t drive your audience to competitor’s sites either.
Summary: 6 easy steps to SEO Content to increase conversions
How to rank #1 on Google
This is how I went on to rank on Google and generate qualified leads from the traffic. Now, try these 6 steps and let me know if you have any questions in the comments.
What’s the point of having a website when nobody scrolls past your hero image?
If your value proposition doesn’t catch your prospect’s attention and fails to lead them past the following copy, you’re losing business faster than a descending aircraft.
Your homepage is the most important real estate online. And a bad homepage can tarnish your reputation.
Homepage copy should highlight the benefits your reader can reap out of working with you. It should talk about how you’re capable of pulling them out of their current situation and building a bridge that enables them to move closer to their goals.
Use these simple homepage copywriting techniques to empathize with your audience:
Replace “I”, “We”, “Our”, “Ours” with “You”, “Your” and “Yours” to make your copy appealing to your prospects instead of tooting your own horn. Let the message on your website invite them already. Show them you’re here..solely..to serve them. Prove it to them that they are your priority and you’re nothing short of value.
Make sure you state what you do – loud and clear. You could be a startup owner, creative entrepreneur, agency owner or an angel investor – whoever you are – Say it. Declare it. Announce it. But do it in a way that highlights the one biggest benefit you offer, the one big problem you solve for your prospects.
Highlight the outcome of your product or service. You are in business for a reason. You work hard for that one purpose – to help your clients. But a majority of the homepage copy found online barely scratch the surface of communicative marketing.
Explain the outcome and let the message sink in. Let them relate, imagine, desire and own the outcome. Then, they’re ready to buy.
Offer an incentive. A homepage without an incentive is a waste of your online real estate. You are letting your hot leads slip away in a snap instead of catalyzing the opportunity to bring them closer to your brand.
Show them what it’s like to work with you. Let them taste your work. At first, give immense value. And then give some more. This goes without saying.
Include conversion metrics in your testimonials, include real stats from real people and bring the number game on. This makes your prospects trust you more. It’s like feeling safe to get treated by the same doctor who treated your uncle earlier rather than landing up in a certain Dr. Strange’s office. It’s pure human psychology at work.
Optimizing your homepage is easy. You just have to make sure you’re checking the above list.
Do that in an easy to understand manner without distracting or boring the reader
Keep the reader reading until the end
Also, your writing shouldn’t jeopardise the quality of the subject by:
Insulting a reader’s intellect and analytical capacities
Underestimating a reader’s breadth of knowledge
Assuming that the reader knows what you’re talking about
Writing with clarity is all about designing your idea to be simple, comprehensible, and memorable.
Today, you’ll learn:
The exact process to attain clarity before you start writing
Exercises to strengthen your message
How to play with adverbs to make your writing more powerful
What’s the one thing you need to write with clarity
Your ability to break an idea into simpler sub-ideas to help the reader absorb information easily – is writing with clarity. It’s having to anatomize your thought.
To write clearly, your mind should watch your thoughts slow down, sit and settle. It’s like snorkeling. Too many suspended particles affect your visibility. So you wait for the water to settle down. Likewise, to write with clarity, you should wait, think and understand clearly.
Understanding an idea happens in 3 stages:
Acknowledgment – Introspecting your idea and taking the liberty to understand what happens when you agree/disagree with it.
Organization – Logical structuring of your ideas with the help of a clear goal and outline to steer your writing.
Mapping – Drawing relevance. This is where all the connection happens. The place where you say – “Makes sense!” Example: Connecting the subheadings to the main idea so that you don’t deviate from the subject and stay focused.
Without the above steps, it becomes impossible to bring your ideas to life.
If you follow the above process, you can bring clarity to your writing — one sentence at a time.
6 Tips strengthen your message
Use power words that evoke a feeling, emotion or stimulate a response
Kill your favorite sentence mercilessly if you think it confuses your reader
Eliminate filler words
Carry out several rounds of edits to make sure your writing is clear, has a flow, and gets to the point quickly
Replace big words with simple, smaller, and unambiguous words.
Replace adverbs with stronger, better verbs.
How to use adverbs smartly
If you are using an adverb, you have got the verb wrong. – Kingsley Amis
Adverbs weaken your writing by sucking the energy out of a phrase. Adverbs make your writing bleak and powerless which can bore your reader.
But how do you avoid using adverbs? By replacing (adverb + verb) with a better verb.
Example:
She sighed irritatingly in pain and despair.
She groaned in pain and despair.
What sounds better to you?
In the second example, the better verb has a stronger effect because that word was created with just one purpose – evoke the emotion it evokes. Also, it just sounds good. And writing well is also about sounding good.
But there are times when adverbs are a must to set the context. Sometimes, you’ve got to describe your verb more accurately to narrate the situation. And these are the only times you should pledge to use adverbs to make your writing stronger – to read your emotion.
Example:
The company urged the employees to avoid misusing the resources.
This sentence implies that the employees are/were/could be irresponsible in using the resources and hence the company issued a notice.
The company urged the employees to use the resources sparingly.
The above sentence sets the context. Why did they mention sparingly? Is the company running losses? Are they running out of resources? Is replenishing their resources becoming a big problem? The readers put on their thinking caps instantly and that’s exactly what you want as a writer.
You see – one adverb could imply so much more meaning when used smartly. So, choose your adverbs wisely.
Conclusion
When your message is clear, you naturally attract followers who’re eager to hear and learn from you. They listen to you and you matter to them. This is how you build authority with clear messaging.
Questions on clear messaging? Let’s figure it out in the comments!
