Every business needs to resonate with its target audience.
Get it right, and youâre honing your craft and getting better at what you do. At the same time, you reap the benefits.
This brings up the big point: if your prospects arenât converting, you need to reconsider your copy. The words you write always have an impact â for better or worse.
The first thing you should do is remember that your target audience dictates everything. After all, a group of 50-year-old lawyers isnât the same as a group of 35-year-old construction workers.Â
If you try to write for lawyers and construction workers at the same time, you might as well not bother trying to sell to either of them. Itâs not even because the construction workers or lawyers canât understand what youâre saying. Itâs because the copy and the offer itself wonât resonate with at least half of them.
Instead, your words should help the target audience understand their specific pain points and problems. The copy should offer them a realistic, simple solution which will drive up your sales.
So how do you manage that while avoiding pitfalls, common mistakes, and undetailed briefs?
Letâs dive a little deeper into that. In this article, weâll determine which copywriting oversights kill conversions and what you can do to prevent these issues in the first place.
Table of Contents
Research, listening, and observation will help you write copy that converts. Take these steps, and the words you choose should move people in the directions you want them to go.
You donât have to become a rocket scientist to be able to write compelling copy thatâll get their attention. You will need to read some of what they read, observe what they say and how they say it. Speaking to one or two of them could also give you a lot of insight.
You should also consider many other aspects when building a picture of your audience. Everything from their educational level to their feelings about religion can help you find the right words to drive the point home.Â
If your copy doesnât resonate with your target audience, it might be missing integral information. For example, you canât do without a unique selling proposition or an evocative, emotional pull. Consider both of these things early in the briefing process if you want a higher conversion rate. Â
See, poorly written copy doesn't only convert or sell your product. People don't buy a product or service if the language in the offer appears forced, unclear, unemotional, or unimportant. Thatâs why you should edit and weigh your word choices. Have others read the language youâre choosing â more than once.Â
If your copy reads like it was written for English 201 in college, itâs off track. Sales copy shouldnât be dull, and itâs a waste of time to write copy if it doesnât compel anyone to buy.
The goal of copywriting is to get people to act. Youâre using words to signal what's for sale (a solution to the audience's problem) and why they should buy it now. Creating that urgency leads to more and faster sales of your product or services.
Learn how to do better audience research with the help of this article.
Even the most experienced writers and business owners arenât perfect. Successful copywriters juggle several projects at once and that can lead to ânot seeing the forest for the trees.â Then they can end up overlooking glaring missteps. One of the most frequent issues is writing copy that relies on industry-specific jargon.
Almost every fruit seller will understand the meaning of âDonât let brown spots destroy your wares.â However, if youâre also selling to people who sell all sorts of groceries, they might not understand.
So steer clear of most jargon, even if youâre reasonably sure that your target audience will get the message.
People donât buy things they donât understand. They also donât develop relationships with people who make them feel stupid. Itâs easy to avoid that by getting rid of technical terms and overly-specific language.Â
Every writer has their own pet peeves when it comes to writing. Some writers canât stand misplaced quotation marks and apostrophes. Others hate run-on sentences. Some even seem like theyâll break out in hives when people make mistakes like using âaffectâ for âeffect.âÂ
There are also plenty of common mistakes that copywriters and advertisers point to. These include things such as the derisive term âfashion singular.â Thatâs something you might have seen if youâve visited a clothing store in recent years.Â
The proper way to refer to a pair of trousers isnât âpant,â but fashion writers and sign makers have a habit of referring to them like that. If someone tries to sell you a new âpant,â you might roll your eyes back into your head and go buy somewhere else. Â
Granted, with that example, millions of fashion-conscious types might not raise an eyebrow. Even if thatâs true, alienating even five percent of your intended demographic could lose you thousands of dollars in sales. The losses could be in the millions if you sell something like yachts.
Some people also use the âfood singular.â One example is referring to a serving of french fries as âa fry.â In todayâs internet-savvy, hyper-connected world, only a small percentage of people might feel alienated by that.Â
Still, I wouldnât want to bet my business on the idea that itâs a small percentage. Would you? The bottom line is that sloppy word choice and grammatical mistakes affect your credibility. Credibility and trust are crucial if youâre trying to get readers to convert.
In no particular order, here are a few other examples of mistakes that should never get past you:Â Â Â
Using language like âNo thanks, Iâd rather miss out and be a loserâ in your pop-up checkboxes doesnât create the connection every business needs to be successful.
Imagine someone who has a sordid affair with the em dash (â), even though theyâve been told not to use them on every piece of writing.Â
They claim that they like the rhythm the em dash provides. What they donât realize is overloading copy with the dashes makes the reader focus on them. Instead, the reader should always focus on the message of the copy.
Other crutches can be words thrown in to make a sentence or paragraph longer, otherwise known as fluff. Things like âEveryone knows thatâ or âAs weâre all awareâ donât need to be included. If everyone knows, thereâs no need to point it out.
Sales would be down because readers wouldnât trust the business. If they noticed and fixed it, their sales might increase by a respectable amount. So remember, the copy you use and the clarity and correctness of it is everything.Â
Learn how to effectively proofread and self-edit your copy with the help of this article.
Donât plagiarize your copy, ever. Thereâs nothing new under the sun, but even so, you need to be cautious about word choice. You canât argue that it was just a coincidence that 30% of your copy is identical to someone elseâs. Sometimes nobody will notice if they rewrite someoneâs copy. Thatâs still plagiarism.Â
Not only is plagiarizing bad form, which will give you a bad reputation, but itâs also a crime. Plagiarism can even be punishable by up to $50,000 and up to one year in jail. Itâs more difficult than ever before to get away with stealing other peopleâs work, so donât even try.
It can be tempting for any writer to try to rephrase someone elseâs work when time is tight. Deadlines loom, content still isnât what it needs to be, and thatâs where the danger lies.Â
Many writers have been caught by an editor checking their work for originality. All an editor has to do is use one of the many online anti-plagiarism tools that are available.Â
Nothing is 100% foolproof but the fact remains that plagiarism will be discovered. Freelance workers are at the most risk as theyâre unlikely to get much work after such an occurrence. If you havenât guessed, editors arenât known to be tolerant toward plagiarists.Â
One of the many things to bear in mind when writing copy is how people like to be treated with respect. If you write to them like theyâre idiots, they wonât feel moved to spend money with you. So you should evaluate your copy for its tone. What you think is lighthearted can read to others as being disrespectful.
If one week your copy says you sell âwidgets,â and the next week you say that you sell âapps,â your branding is less effective. Many firms deal with this by developing an official style and branding guide. In other words, they create a written set of directions about how to represent the company.
You shouldnât assume your company is too small to worry about something like this. Smaller companies need to develop their brand in the same way as large companies.Â
Donât believe it? Ask yourself which company is affiliated with the color brown. They became known in tandem with that color through consistency.Â
Your target audience doesnât need to fall in love with you or even like you. What they do need is to feel a connection to you and the company you represent. Without that, they wonât convert into customers thatâll return time and again. Keep in mind, a regular customer could be the most valuable customer of all.Â
So how do people create and cultivate a connection? By knowing what the other party values and engaging with those values. Every person values something. They crave connection, engagement, and acceptance.Â
When writing copy, you have to know your target audience well and be able to produce content thatâll strike a chord with readers. Getting that right isnât always easy to do but itâs critical if you want the copy to do its job. Try to put yourself in that readerâs shoes and think about what they want to see and read.
You have to build connections and have copy that moves the needle and gets people to take notice. Your copy canât be aimed at your 90-year-old birdwatching grandma and your 16-year-old rock-climbing sister. Instead, assess your target audience and see if your copy is the kind of thing thatâll make them take notice.
Age isnât the most important demographic marker, but itâs a good place to start. Look at the way other marketers have aimed at the demographic youâre targeting. What did they do well? Do you see anything they could have done better?
Compare and contrast with your own copy. Are you clear about the message and the target audience? What are you asking that audience to do? Make sure that comes across in clear language.Â
Here's how you can make your copy hyper-specific to improve conversions.
Some of the most memorable advertising campaigns and copy choices are actually the simplest and shortest of all.Â
For example, if you were old enough to watch USA television in the early 1980s, youâd have seen the famous âWhereâs the Beef?â commercials. They simplified their message down to three words, and it passed into common language. People started using the phrase to ask, âWhatâs the real substance here?â
Thereâs also the well-known âGot Milk?â campaign that started in 1993. They simplified the ad down to two words, and the results were so good that they continue to run it. It was first developed for the California Milk Processor Board and was later licensed for use by milk processors and dairy farmers.
You need well-written, well-thought-out, well-edited copy to hit home with your target audience. Too bad that kind of copy doesnât grow on trees. Thatâs why thereâs so much clutter that communicators have to cut through.
Try to be mindful of the fact that youâre not always the target audience. Your audience might know much more or much less than you do about your business and offer. For example, they could be much younger or much older. Figure out who youâre trying to communicate with, and everything else follows.
Your copy has to be clear about who it speaks to. Know what the audience wants, needs, or will do to make something happen. If you don't know who youâre talking to, you can't communicate well.
The only way to find your audience is to determine your ideal customer, figure out whoâs reading your copy, and research your buyers. Ignoring this process is one of the biggest copywriting mistakes that can kill conversion.
Good copywriting is also like writing poetry or short stories in a sense. Every word serves a purpose and works together to make the point clear.Â
Even though copywriting requires attention to detail, thought, and research, you donât need to get too serious. Being humorous has its advantages.
There are many examples, but one effective ad involved an attractive woman in a white dress. The ad had to do with a somewhat new technical development in broadcasting resolution.Â
The actress comes in and, with confidence, says something like, â1080p? I donât know what it is⌠but I WANT it.â Thatâs a clever, memorable way to get the point across that you donât have to know everything about the technology to desire it or to decide to buy it.Â
The commercial no doubt sold many subscriptions to the service or the hardware to use it. Why? Well, the message was clear and it made an impact on the right audience.
You can do the same and you should give yourself the advantage that excellent copy brings to the table.Â
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