“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”
Leo Burnett
Even tho the visuals are really important for getting you noticed on the web, the big part of a brand’s identity relies on copywriting – the verbal part of its identity. Of course images, CTA placement, and sleek UX all help create a more streamlined path to purchase, but it’s the words you write that are going to convince prospective customers to take a chance on your brand. Even if few in number, the right words carefully chosen and arranged in just the right way can be the most powerful message you can deliver. Whether you want your visitors to sign up for your newsletter or buy your product, a good copy on your site can help get visitors excited about you and push them toward converting. But to create a successful verbal identity and write copies that convert you need to take a deep dive into the world of engaging words.
Verbal identity is a crucial component of every brand strategy. It’s really important to research the market and the profile of your potential customers, define business goals and plans, determine the approach of your brand, its personality, special brand experience, and emotional connections to buyers. Without this prior research copywrites wouldn’t have the right foundation, because all these elements determine what will your brand name be and which style and tone will you use while addressing your customers through websites, brochures, and ads. Proper research will not only give you the words, phrases, and tone your audience wants to hear, it’s also going to take the hard work out of actually writing your copy.
A copywriter is responsible for writing the text for all marketing and promotional materials.
On any given day, a copywriter is researching, writing, editing, and even choosing images, all while staying on brand. This way copywriters ensure anything they create remains consistent with their company’s message, tone, and voice, and that it addresses their audience in a clear and approachable way.One of the great ways for a copywriter to decide what will be the best wording and tone for the website is to think about the voice of the customer.
Simply put, VOC is a way to describe your customers’ experiences and expectations for your products or services in their own language.
You can find examples of your customers’ real language in a number of different ways; for example, reading customer reviews and conducting surveys are two of the best ways to gather this data, as they provide customers with ample opportunity to tell you about their problems in their own words.By showing visitors your speak their language, you’re on their level, and you understand their problems. Show them that you understand their pain points (the problems that frustrate them) and that they could benefit from your product or service. Understand what would they want to see as a potential solution, what they desire and expect from companies like yours. Finish off with powerful or memorable quotes based on actual user experience. This is a great strategy that will help you create messages that draw in new potential customers.
After you throw yourself into the middle of your target audience and learn about their complaints, gripes, and the way they speak, you should start thinking about conversion copywriting that will elicit an action. Your reader is waiting to hear from you. Right when they land on your page, they’re ready to be persuaded. Your challenge now is to hold their attention. It’s about delivering the right message at the right time to the right people; a message so compelling your visitors won’t resist taking the action you want them to. That action could be:
- Clicking a button
- Sharing on social media
- Adding an item to a cart
- Signing up to a list
- Simply staying on the page for a longer time
While writing for landing pages it’s good to follow the rule of one. “Imagine the one person you’re helping with this piece of writing. And then write directly to that person (using „you“ as opposed to “people” or “they”). Connect your reader to the issue you’re writing about (again, why does it matter to him or her?), perhaps by relaying a scenario or telling a story. Put your reader (or someone just like him or her) into your story right upfront — because you want the reader to recognize and relate to an issue.” – Ann Handley in Everybody WritesAnn goes on to say, “Someone who lands on a landing page is leaning forward — in other words, she has had her interest piqued.
So speak to landing page visitors directly (lots of “you” and “your”) and use active verbs to match your tone to theirs.” Here are some great examples of how to use your audience’s exact words and make them feel like your message is for them and them alone:
- “You hate guesswork and busywork — so we made sales less work“
- Get the reports your CRM can’t give you — without the headache it does”
- „One place for all your work“
The last copy is for Clickup, an app that understands its target audience. It’s directly speaking to people who are tired of losing their work because it’s scattered through lots of different business apps. Because of that, they hit a bullseye with the slogan: „One app to replace them all“ that appears on their landing page.
While creating the content for the web you must also think about keywords. The best way is to put these keywords in headlines and subheads, that way your web page will be optimized for search engines. For the best optimization, you need to be clear and narrow about the things you offer.
Picture yourself in your prospective customer’s shoes and ask questions about your copy: Is it immediately obvious what your company sells or does? Is your web copy benefit-driven, and are those benefits clear?
While narrowing your copy for a website you can borrow some smart rules from journalism and literature. There is a famous rule for writing news that goes: “One thought per sentence. One idea per paragraph.” You should apply that to your website’s verbal identity. High-converting landing pages tell a cohesive story. You should have one big idea that connects all of the pieces of your landing page. Instead of naming all the features of your product, name one benefit that they all share. Kurt Vonnegut, one of the heavyweights of 20th-century literature, once said that every single sentence of a story should either reveal something about a character or advance the action. This rule can also be applied to writing copies that convert.
Ask yourself: does every single sentence of copy reveal some useful information about your products or services, or advance your visitors’ understanding of what you do? Besides following these rules and guidelines, you can get help from an in-house style guide and swipe files. In-house guides help you know at all times the strategies for every client in particular. You can write down if that client’s verbal identity is fun but not silly, expert but not bossy, or informal but not sloppy. This way you can manage to create content that fits in specific boxes of every client’s web identity. Also, you can have a swipe file – a collection of tried-and-true copy examples to inspire them when writer’s block hits. We create our form of swipe files through Wednesday Inspiration on our social media and it helps us get fresh marketing ideas. Go check it out!
Hope this article was useful no matter if you are a copywriter yourself or a client looking for a strong verbal identity. If you want to give life to your business with copies that convert, our Studio081 team is also at your disposal! Contact us now or request a quote.