When it comes to writing sales copy, it’s all too easy to tick all the right boxes, and write something that should work in theory, but that in reality, just leaves the reader stone cold.
If your copy doesn’t get read, it doesn’t matter how good your offer is because nobody’s buying!
Oh and by the way, if you think that ‘sales copy’ is only found in traditional sales letters, I’ve got news for you. It’s not. What about your newsletters? Website text? Emails? Blog posts? Tweets?
All of these utilise sales copy, driving people into your business (or away from it). If this is leaving you in a bit of a cold sweat, I’ve got good news for you. There are two easy ways that you can make your copy much much more readable, more enjoyable and much more effective.
Botty’s Copy Writing Rule #1 – Tell a Story
We love stories don’t we? We’re conditioned to listen to stories from childhood (my favourite was the Three Little Pigs!) and by building stories into your copy you’ll naturally find people engaging with it.
There are plenty of ways that you can use stories in your copy; about you, about your business, your staff, your customers, your product, your children, your pets. Perhaps the simplest is the ‘before and after’ story though…the key to finding the right ‘before and after’ story for your copy is to visualize your prospect, and think about what they’re thinking, what they’re looking for, what they’re scared of and what excites them.
Make sure that your story paints the full ‘before’ picture: the emotion, the unhappiness, the stress, and then goes on to explain how buying your product has helped them
become happier, wealthier, and more respected in the ‘after’ scenario.
Whatever kind of story you decide to use, make sure that you fill it with detail. Rather than write something like “Miranda was living with her two children in Solihull, and struggling to make ends meet” use “Miranda was living in a cramped flat on the ‘wrong side’ of Solihull with her 2 children, Ben 3 and Sophie 5.
She’d go without sleep for nights on end, worrying about how she was going to pay Ben’s nursery fees that month.” These specifics help to paint a much stronger picture in your
reader’s mind, and bring your copy to life. If you’ve identified your prospect well, perhaps they worry about paying their nursery fees too!
Botty’s Copy Writing Rule #2 – Inject some Personality
Please, don’t fall into the trap of ‘corporate speak’ and start writing like you’re a contestant on The Apprentice. For some reason, when people are writing anything that’s going to be read by more than one person, they start to sound all ‘corporatey’.
The thing is, nobody likes to read corporate b*llocks! Nobody. Sometimes we have to, but nobody wakes up in the morning thinking that they’d like to read their way through mindless jargon, tired clichés and overused buzzwords do they?
So if you want the copy on your website to be read, make it easy to understand. Want your sales letter to sell? Make it as simple as you can. More than that though, try to inject some personality into your copy. Write everything as though you’re writing it to a close friend. Don’t be scared of using humour and of sharing your own view.
Have a quick read through some of the copy floating around your business, would it pass the personality test?
