Copywriting is hardly a part of any businesses’ expansion strategy — but they should be. Effective copywriting can play a big part in attracting more customers to your brand and increasing sales, especially in the e-commerce sector.
For businesses, curating the written word as part of the overall content marketing strategy is important. Words can speak volumes, literally, and the emergence of the global pandemic has exacerbated the need for higher engagement and mass personalisation like never before.
So, with social media more prevalent than ever, what’s the trick to powerful copywriting? Here, we dive into how you can build a content strategy around copywriting to draw buyers to your brand.
What is business copywriting?
Business copywriting involves writing persuasive marketing and promotional materials that encourage people to take action. These actions could be in the form of clicking on a link, making a purchase or sharing the materials with their friends and families.
Such materials can include content on a website, physical posters, social media posts, and more. The content and copywriting strategy varies for each channel.
Doing your research
Before you rush off to kickstart your copywriting project, it is important to start off with some form of market research. Doing so allows you to know what messages you want to push out and who your target audiences are. Your objectives should be clear and concise — set some measurable goals and implement steps to work towards them.
Start by creating a marketing content calendar. This calendar should tell you or the people working for you what events and promotions are lined up for that period. One angle to look at is to tap on festive seasons. Once you know how the general framework looks like, go deeper and decide which platforms you will be tapping on.
How to write a killer copy
You do not need to be a professional writer to create content that converts. For smaller businesses, look towards scaling the process. Start off with social media content that typically requires lesser word counts, and which can be complemented by compelling visuals. You can also follow these examples to create your own copywriting formula:
1. Connect with your audience emotionally
One of the most effective ways to build on your copywriting strategy is to create copies that are emotional. Many businesses make the mistake of pushing their products’ selling points upon their customers — this is a hard sell approach. Rather, take the soft sell way by targeting their pain points instead. They can be in the form of solving an annoying problem or by providing incentives to use the products. For example, a business selling organic snacks can generate content that showcases ways to live a healthier lifestyle.
While the same product can still take centrestage, the way you frame it matters greatly.
2. Get discovered
Beyond trendy captions and impassioned posts, it is also important to focus on optimising your brand for easy search. Search Engine Optimisation – or SEO in short – is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to a particular website. Your goal as a business is to show up, ideally on the first page, of the search engine’s results.
Once you know what the general audience is searching for, incorporate them within your website. A nifty trick is to create a section for blogs, which provides value to website visitors and helps them make informed decisions. You can generate blog ideas from everyday life, and even draw from your own experience as a consumer. Writing a blog post may be daunting, but there are many resources available online like this ultimate guide to blogging for e-commerce businesses.
Thought leadership content works well, as with lifestyle guides. Leveraging such engaging content is what makes a blog section successful and reaches your marketing objectives.
3. Guide your audience
Effective copywriting is not only limited to social media posts and blog posts. Work in compelling copies in other areas such as landing pages and pop-ups with decisive calls-to-action (CTAs). This can drive your target audience to visit pages or sections you wish to market.
Unlike blogging, CTAs are short and snappy. They drive people to do certain things or think a certain way. Try to be as personal as possible, so phrases such as ‘unlock the secret’ or ‘get help with cooking now’ works well.
Copywriting is s long-term strategy
When it comes to copywriting, you may not get the immediate results you want. However, it is a good way to build brand loyalty and create a sustained drumbeat on the digital space. Start by learning how to research attractive blog topics — you can use crowd-sourced ideas from websites such as Quora, or even a blog topic generator. Or try using emojis in your social media captions gracefully. With these, you will be on your way to becoming a copywriting maestro.
In a nutshell, creating a robust copywriting strategy involves proper planning and calculated execution. Set clear and measurable goals, create a content calendar and identify your target audiences and platforms. There are many tools such as Google Analytics and Hootsuite which can complement your marketing strategy. Once you do that, you will find your brand in a position to boost sales and influence purchasing patterns.
Content marketing plays a big part in a business’ go-to-market strategy. Improve your copywriting skills by attending free courses at Coursera or Udemy today.
