6 Ways To Craft Killer Copy That Catapults Your Conversions

In order to survive, business owners, marketers and advertisers must craft exceptional copy.

Exceptional copy engages the reader, communicates a clear and relevant benefit, and ultimately convinces prospects to part with their hard-earned cash.

However, most people are aware of the above facts, and pour their resources into making their copy as exceptional as possible. Your challenge is to rise above their best efforts and create a superlative message.

With the above in mind, whether you are writing for your blog, website or marketing campaign, here are six ways to craft powerful killer copy that will increase readership and conversions.

1. Craft a Captivating Headline

A captivating headline is the foundation of amazing content that people will actually want to read. Your headline needs to speak to prospects and make them want to keep reading to learn more.

An ideal captivating headline will grab the reader’s attention and be memorable. Catchy headlines have a better chance of getting shared and read by a larger audience – helping drive traffic back to your website and attract new prospects.

There are several different types of techniques you can implement to help craft engaging headlines, including:

• Offer a ‘how-to’
• Identify and solve a problem
• Strike a note of controversy
• Ask questions

CopyPress have put together a list of the 34 best, worst and ugliest headlines. Here are our favorites:

• The Good: “7 free Apps That Can Make Planning Your Next Vacation Easy” uses key words that emphasizes benefits to the reader (i.e. free, easy).
• The Bad: “Monkeys Hate Flying Squirrels, Report Monkey-annoyances Experts” is simply too complicated to be effective.
• The Ugly: “Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25″ shows that you should always reread your copy and ensure it makes sense.

2. Write a Gripping and Positive Introduction

Once your awesome headline captures the reader’s attention, you can’t just stop there. You must continue to maintain their interest by leading with a gripping introduction to convince prospects to continue reading the rest of your content.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information recently released information that indicated the average person’s attention span is eight seconds – which is one less second than a goldfish. That’s not a lot of time to capture your readers’ attention so your content has to be strategic, precise and have a positive and welcoming tone.

Adopting a positive and engaging tone will help readers gravitate more to your content and your site. According to Psychology Today, positive emotions toward a brand have a greater influence on customer loyalty and trust along with other judgements that are based on a brand’s attributes.

In your introduction, you should unleash powerful verbs and set the tone for the readers to get excited and be inspired by the copy. Positive and upbeat copy is informative and solution-based, a pleasure to read and contributes to a great overall experience for a customer.

3. Be Personable

You would probably purchase a product or service from a friend in a heartbeat. Why? Most likely because you trust them and relate to them on a personal level. You can establish a similar relationship with your prospects by being more personable through your copy.

People love personal anecdotes and informal writing. You have to admit, it makes the reading process more enjoyable. Exceptional marketing and sales copy is almost always conversational, and sharing a little personality can definitely set you apart from competitors.

It’s up to you how personal you decide to get with your content. You can share a brief story about the humble beginnings of your business or about a recent success or milestone you achieved and how you got to that point.

If you don’t want to share a personal story, you can still talk to the reader in a personal tone by employing these simple strategies:

• Use personal pronouns like “I” and “you”.
• Refer to them by name if possible.
• Always offer a way to interact with you – either by replying via the comments section or via social media channels.

4. Provide a Solution

You probably already know that you should be offering customers viable solutions and unprecedented value through every aspect of your business. Your copy is no exception.

While your copy should be informative, it should also offer up a simple solution. It should draw attention to goals that your prospects want to achieve and solve problems they may have. Stating the benefits and features of doing business with your company is not enough. You need to clearly spell out what you can do for readers and make it all about them.

Statistics and data are a great way to draw attention to problems or achievements. Then use your creativity to hook your prospects and offer an amazing and proven solution.

In 2013, Forbes released a list of words and phrases to help companies describe the solutions they can offer in order to drive traffic and conversions. Some of those keywords include:

• Affordable
• Convenient
• Easy
• Fast
• Guarantee
• Reduce
• Safe
• Time

5. Be Concise

Have you ever read something online and had no idea what it meant or what the author wanted you to do with it? Unorganized, lengthy and wordy content will only frustrate prospects and prevent them from ever wanting to read anything else you release in the future.

To make the reader’s (and your) life easier, organize your copy beforehand by creating an outline detailing the bottom line. Eliminate wordy phrases and sentences and try to be as direct as you can. Maintain your audience’s attention by getting to the point early on and establish a maximum word count for your copy to ensure it remains tight and concise.

6. Provide an Assertive Call to Action

Your call to action is almost as important as (if not equally important to) the headlines and headings you use when it comes to increasing your conversions. Writing killer copy is a great way to boost sales in a non-pushy way, but in order to do so your call to action has to be assertive. Otherwise, people will just read your copy, enjoy the content and move on to the next website, unaware that you wanted them to take a specific action.

Being assertive doesn’t mean you have to be rude or extra pushy. You just need to make your call to action as clear as day. Telling the reader exactly what they need to do and how to do it can actually help someone who may be interested but is confused about how they should proceed.

During your next campaign or the next time you draft some marketing copy, try a little polite assertiveness and see how it helps your bottom line.

Conclusion

One cannot understate the power of well-crafted copy, but you will need to master all of the above techniques to achieve the best possible results.

It’s crucial that you take your copywriting skills to the next level by:

1. Crafting captivating headlines.
2. Writing a gripping introduction.
3. Being personable.
4. Promising a solution.
5. Keeping your message concise.
6. Implementing a clear and assertive call to action.

What other techniques can you use to improve your copy and increase conversions? Please let us know in the comments below.