How to Create Copy that Sells

Is Your Blog Getting Results?

Blogging is all about connecting with your customers by addressing their immediate needs. The reward is in knowing how to create copy that sells your product or service, builds credibility, and earns a profit for both the merchant and the blogger.

The content that you create forms a relationship with your readers. The challenge is to grab their attention and spark interest in your brand.

You don’t need to be a professional writer to blog. Just jump in, picture your customer, be yourself, and start writing.

Know Your Target Audience

A target audience is a group of potential customers who are likely to purchase your products or services. Target audiences share similar demographic traits including, but not limited to:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Education
• Socioeconomic status

It is particularly important to know who you are addressing in your blog posts. This will depend on your niche and the potential customers that are likely to be interested in your products or services. Refer to Finding My Niche Market for more details. Examples of niche blogging include:

• Reviewing portable solar generators to a niche audience of campers or RV’ers.
• Yoga exercises for people 50 and over.
• In-home care services for seniors.

First, make sure you know what’s important to your intended audience. Research the demographic you are targeting well. Get to know them intimately before you write any copy. Here are some points to cover:

• What are your target audiences likes/dislikes?
• What are their passions?
• What problems do they need help solving?

It’s easier and more efficient to write copy for a smaller and more specific audience. For example, if you are selling snowshoes, a target audience would be in the colder locations. In that case you would want to include folks in the colder climates.

Headlines

Only about 10% of your website visitors will read the headline of your article. Then only two of those ten will read the rest. Therefore, it’s important that the headline of your webpage entices the reader to read more.

Effective headlines grab the readers’ attention and drive them to click on the title and read your blog post. This fact holds true whether your blog is posted on a search engine results page (SERPS), social media, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

The importance of an effective headline and sub-headline at the top of your blog cannot be stressed enough. The headline should grab your target readers’ attention and entice them to read the rest of your page.

Bullet Points

The majority of your visitors don’t read your pages, they scan them and head right for the bottom lines to see what you are selling and for how much money. Therefore, you need something that catches the reader’s eye and that they can absorb quickly as they scan through your page. The three most important attention-grabbing items you need to include in your content are:

• Headline
• Sub headline
• Bullet points

Engage Your Audience

Everyone is looking for something that satisfies their needs or desires. Tell visitors how the product or service can make a positive difference for them.

Discuss your own experiences with the product or service.  Make an honest assessment by bringing out the pros and cons of the product or service that you are reviewing on the page.

Avoid using complex wording or jargon that some readers may not understand. If a site visitor doesn’t understand your article they will most likely move onto another site. Speak to the visitor informally as you would to family or friends.

Perceived Value

A professionally designed and well-written web page makes a good representation of your brand. Create a positive impression, and your perceived value will increase.

Knowing what the reader wants and providing useful information to fulfill their needs creates satisfaction, credibility, trust and generates perceived value in your products or services. The readers are looking for a useful take away from the time they invest in reading your blog.

Perceived value is ultimately about making the consumer feel confident that they made the right purchase that best satisfied their needs, and with an overall good feeling about themselves.

Include Testimonials

Credibility and trust are earned from your site visitors. Valid testimonials from happy customers go a long way in earning that credibility. One of the first things I look for when making a purchase is customer reviews or testimonials.

Like many other shoppers, I want to know how it went with other people who used the product or service. Positive testimonials speak volumes for a product or service and can give your sales a huge boost.

Have a place on your pages/posts for a visitor to leave comments. In the conclusion section of your page, invite them to ask questions or leave a comment about the product or page. These comments can also be used on social networking sites. This allows personal engagement and increases credibility as your audience knows that you are listening to their concerns.

Social Media

Social media is diverse as it exhibits a unique voice, tone, and approach to ideas, products, services, and much more. Writing content for social media allows you to extend your brand by gathering followers within your niche. Your followers are then notified of your new posts and two-way conversations should be encouraged.

Informative and entertaining posts will make your followers aware of your brand and what you have to offer and will likely be read. As you gain their trust and credibility, you become their go-to person when they are ready to purchase.

Be Consistent

It is important to be consistent throughout your page layout. Designing a standard template for product and service reviews is a good idea.  A template will help maintain a consistent layout and will also be easier for returning readers to follow. Informational posts that give “how-to” instructions are best with illustrations and a bulleted list of steps.

Call to Action

A clear call to action that tells your website visitor exactly what you want them to do. Whether it’s to sign up for your email list, download your e-books, or complete the sale.

A great sales page is incomplete without a call to action and will usually end with no sale at all. Some of the most common action verbs that prompt the reader’s response: click to order, subscribe, or download.

Thank you for browsing my website. Feel free to share your thoughts or questions about how to create copy that sells or affiliate marketing below and I will respond to all of them.

 

 

Bibliography

Brennan, M.L. (2018, October 31). Creating Web Content That Sells. Retrieved from https://matthewbrennancopywriter.com/creating-web-content-that-sells/

Edwards, R. (2016). How to Write Copy That Sells: The Step-By-Step System for More Sales, to More Customers, More Often. New York, NY: Morgan James Publishing