For your business to grow, you need effective copy that sells. It is that simple. Simple doesn’t always mean easy, though. There is a lot of free and expensive advice for how to achieve this with varying results. One way to make creating effective sales copy easier is to avoid errors that new copywriters and inexperienced business owners often make. By avoiding these common mistakes, you can increase your chances of making a sale. After all, you’ve worked hard to create your products, you want your sales copy to match their quality so potential customers can clearly see the value in investing in them.
Here are some tips to help you learn to identify them so you can adjust your content around avoiding common copywriting mistakes.
Not doing enough research
Before you start writing, it is important to do some research on your target audience. You probably know your products inside and out. Now get to know the people who will be using them. Answer the following questions before beginning your content strategy: Who is my audience? What are their needs? How can my product help them achieve results or fulfill their desires? This process of identification will help you create effective copy that resonates with all of your readers and speaks to their specific goals and needs.
You will also want to research your competitors. It is important not to copy their content or sales copy. Not only is it unethical, it will do nothing to differentiate your products. You will want to highlight how your products or services are different and how they’re superior to anything else available in your market.
Finally, you’ll also want to research your potential keywords. The focus of this article isn’t SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but knowing the basics and how to choose the best keywords is important for any sales copy you want to be discovered via Google or other search engines.
Lackluster headline
While it is a good idea to avoid gimmicks, the headline of your sales copy should be attention-grabbing and draw people in. It should tell readers exactly what they can expect to get out of reading the post and be relevant to the content you’re writing. A catchy headline shouldn’t come at the expense of professionalism but there is a way to make it all of the above at once. Some recommend writing one hundred headlines after you create your copy so you can choose the best one which contains relevant SEO keywords, properly prepares your audience for the content, and piques their interest. If you don’t have time to write that many, write twenty and choose the snappiest of them.
Forgetting the CTA
A call to action (CTA) is essential for all sales copy. This encourages readers to take action, whether it’s buying a product or signing up for a service. This needs to be integrated into the storytelling of your copy. Don’t worry about appearing too sale-sy with your CTA. It is what tells readers what to do next and is an essential part of effective copy. Once they’re hooked and engaged, then you tell them their obvious next step. An example for social media content is asking them to click the like button. Keep it short and sweet. Without a clear CTA, readers finish your posts and move on, which results in missing out on sales opportunities.
Not highlighting the benefits
It is important to focus on the benefits of your product or service rather than just listing its features. These may be interesting to you (and your competitors) but boring to your target audience. Your readers don’t care about technical specs; they want to know how it can help them in their lives. Focus on the potential results they could get by engaging with your products and frame them as the hero of the story.
A focus on selling rather than telling
This one may be controversial. Isn’t the point of sales copy to sell? It is in the name, after all. Yes but there is a way to do so that isn’t overtly sale-sy and clumsy. Good content isn’t only about your products and why they’re great. This information should be fit into and contextualized by storytelling–and that story should be about your customer and their evolution that is made possible by using your product. Selling happens in the process of telling this story to your audience.
Not proofreading
So you’ve got this amazing story now that you’ve intentionally crafted around your potential customer’s needs and desires. You have spent time setting the scene and showing off your products and all they can do for people. You hit send on your newsletter or publish on your blog… only to realize there is a glaring typo in the introduction. After all that investment of your precious time and energy. We’ve all been there at least once.
Before you publish the sales copy you invested your time in creating, make sure to read through and check for any spelling or grammar mistakes. Better yet, get a second set of eyes on it to make sure it reads how you are hoping for it to come across to your ideal customer. This will ensure that your posts are professional and error-free.
Conclusion
By avoiding these common copywriting mistakes, you can write effective sales copy that showcases your products or services in the best light in a story about themselves and their own potential transformation as a result of using your products. If you don’t have the time to do research and craft exciting sales copy, there is nothing wrong with hiring a professional. In fact, hiring an experienced copywriter can free you up to focus on other aspects of your business and ensure quality without spreading yourself too thin.
Source: https://gotranscript.com/blog/9-common-proofreading-errors