How to Write Better Sales Copy in 6 Simple Tips for E-mail, Website Copy, Product Listings
- William Ferrer
- Mar 4, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 6, 2019
GUIDE OUTLINE
TIP# 1: AIDA
With your sales copy, you'll want to keep to a tried and true formula, the AIDA model.
AIDA is one of the most effective strategies for advertising and marketing. In fact, it has stood the test of time. AIDA was developed in the late nineteenth century and is still widely used today.
AIDA is a 4 step model and an acronym which stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action.
Here's a quick breakdown of the steps.
Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the product, service, or brand. Usually through eye-catching advertising such as attractive product images, commercials, flyers, and so on.
Interest: The consumer becomes interested in learning about the benefits of the product or service. Essentially, customers learn how the product or service will improve their life.
Desire: The consumer develops a favorable attitude towards the product or service. This is usually done through supporting claims with information and visual aid which creates confidence and belief in the product.
Action: The consumer develops the intent to buy. This is usually achieved through a call to action such as "buy now, order now, or add to cart".
TIP #2: FOCUS ON THE BENEFITS
A common mistake I see a lot of novice sales writers commit is they just write down facts and features, that's it, nothing else.
While facts and features are definitely important, it's not enough, you need to add more. I'll explain why.
When customers buy products, they'll have a variety of questions in mind such as:
How does this product fix my problem?
What are the advantages of having this product?
How is this product better than a similar product sold by a competitor?
Why do I need this product?
You need to anticipate these questions and address them in your copy.
The answer to these types of questions is what I like to call "benefits."
A common question people ask me is what's the difference between features and benefits?
Well, features are technical specifications or attributes of a product
while
benefits are the explanations of HOW the feature is USEFUL AND BENEFICIAL to the customer.
Let's take a look at the features and benefits of a fictitious power bank as an example.
Feature: 10,000 mAh capacity battery
Benefit: with a 10,000 mAh battery, you can fully charge your iPhone 3.5x times which allows you to use your phone 3.5x longer when you're away from home.
Feature: 16mm thickness
Benefit: 16 mm ultra-thin design takes up very little space and can easily slide into your pocket.
As you can see in this example, benefits provide a better explanation of your product while at the same time answering questions customers may have.
The lesson: Customers aren't persuaded by features, they're persuaded by benefits!
I have to note that the benefits of your product don't have to be overly complicated to persuade customers to buy, they can be simple.
An example of a simple benefit is being easy to use or a compact design, that it!
TIP #3: KEEP IT SHORT
Nowadays, everyone is extremely busy working 12-hour shifts, doing household chores, as well as taking care of themselves and their loved ones.
You also have to be aware that people are constantly bombarded with messages all day long from social media, friends, family, work, and elsewhere.
As a result, people's attention span has severely declined.
With your ad, the last thing you would want to do is to burden potential customers with a long message because to put it simply, they don't have the attention span or the time to read your long message.
When customers are presented with long messages, they'll take a quick glance at how long it is, get turned off, feel too lazy and tired to read it and end up throwing it in the trash.
You don't want this to happen to you, that's why it's so important to be concise with your sales copy.
Concise: Giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words; brief but comprehensive.
What you're striving for is to quickly get your point across in as few words as possible to avoid turning off customers.
A general rule I have is "if a point is not absolutely necessary, don't include it" in your copy.
Also, if you can get your point across in 5 words instead of 7, it's best practice to choose the shorter version.
By following this piece of advice, you will shorten your sales copy by getting rid of any unnecessary fluff.
TIP #4: KEEP IT SIMPLE
A common mistakes I see a lot of novice sales writers make is they use a lot of complicated words and technical jargon to impress customers with their intelligence.
Complex words and jargon will make you sound smart, but it won't do any good for your sales.
Let me explain why.
When you're writing sales copy, your message is most likely going to be directed at a mass audience.
A mass audience will have varying language skills, especially if they're foreigners or immigrants,
they'll have a varying vocabulary. And they'll have varying technical expertise on the product being sold.
Either way, you'll need to craft a message that's understandable to all.
When you use a lot of complex words and jargon in your sales copy, you'll just end up confusing a lot of your audience and making their head hurt.
As a result, they'll get turned off and won't want to buy your product.
That's why its best practice to keep the language simple and explain things in layman's terms.
That way, your message will be clear and understandable to all.
TIP #5: BREAK UP YOUR TEXT
As I mentioned before, people nowadays are extremely busy and don't have the time to thoroughly read through every message they see.
As a result, a lot of people tend to skim and scan through text, especially if they're reading on a screen.
Customers skim and scan as a means to reduce the time and effort required to read a message.
The problem with long paragraphs is that information is buried and hidden amongst a large block of text which makes it hard to find.
Also, large blocks of text look tiresome to read which will turn off customers.
What you want to do is break up your copy into short paragraphs to make it easy to read.
Other great ways to break up your sales copy is to use bullet points and numbered list.
You can also break up your text according to benefit and features, that way, you'll be separating the bits of information (benefits/features) customers are looking for which will make your copy an easy read.
TIP #6: CONVERSATIONAL STYLE
In school, we're taught that we should write in a formal manner and write objectively in third person, now this lesson may hold true for writing essays, news articles, and legal documents, but this lesson does not hold true for sales copy.
Let's do a one question survey.
Who would you rather have a conversation with?
robot,
bureaucrat
friend/acquaintance
The answer is obvious, you'd rather talk to a friend/acquaintance.
To avoid sounding like a robot or a boring bureaucrat, I recommend writing your copy in a conversational tone.
You want to make the customer feel as if they are talking to a friend or colleague, and not feel like they're speaking to an emotionless robot or lectured to by an uptight bureaucrat.
Writing in a conversational tone is pretty simple, all you need to do is write in first and second person manner. You'll do so by using words like I, we, and you.
That way, your sales copy will sound like a personal message from a friend which will better engage customers.
This concludes our short and simple Amazon listing optimization guide.
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