For the sake of argument, let’s say you know the basics of copywriting.
Blah blah, write a compelling headline, know your audience, be persuasive, find your unique selling proposition, keep copy clean, blah blah blah.
At one point, this advice was great. But from where you’re sitting, “write compelling headlines” isn’t helpful anymore, is it?
In the world of conversion optimization it’s always a good idea to keep your eyes open for case studies that you can learn from, adapt to your needs and go test it.
Here are six studies that had some pretty surprising insights.
Most articles will tell you that poor grammar can kill sales. While not as important in blog posts as in sales copy, grammatical errors can dissolve credibility, possibly resulting in fewer sales.
But what does the actual data say?
It takes one wrong word to put your foot in your mouth. We’ve all done it and, in the process, squandered an opportunity to impress someone (or some crowd).
With copy, you have a chance to slip up on every homepage, product page, or ad.
Have you ever heard of the “significant objects” project?
As a literary & anthropological experiment, Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn wanted to see if they could resell cheap knickknacks (avg. cost $1.25) on eBay and turn a significant profit by adding personal stories to the item descriptions.
You turn up the volume of your marketing efforts to meet quarterly KPIs—sending out more posts, emails, and ads. But instead of increasing leads, you see diminishing returns. What’s going on?
Customer-focused content marketing can help you stand out from the din of competitor marketing and connect with audiences. But knowing your marketing needs to be customer-focused is one thing; producing it is another.
Where do you start? Here are three steps to execute, not just hope for, a consistent customer-centric content marketing practice:
Knowing what your customers want, when they want it, and how they’d like it served up to them is at the core of developing winning test hypotheses.
It’s the why behind the quantitative data that shapes your copy and gives your visitors an easily navigable path to becoming a customer.
POP QUIZ TIME!
When you think about optimizing your website to increase conversions, what are some of the first things that come to mind?
Do you think about copy? Headlines? The need for a strong call to action?
If you thought about any of those things, you aren’t alone. Recently Ott mentioned in the Mastering The Call To Action article, a study of Visual Website Optimizer’s customers shows most people are testing:
Every marketing team needs fresh content ideas.
Maybe you’ve been producing content on the same subject for so long that your idea well has run dry.
Writing copy that converts is a lot like boxing.
Your shots need to flow, and you need to be 3-4 steps ahead of your opponent. You have to predict their counters, slips and movement patterns before they even think of doing them.
Similarly, to craft high-converting copy, your sentences have to flow. And you have to anticipate your reader’s objections and be mindful of each word, sentence, and paragraph that enters their brain.
Regardless of the technique you use, according to Copyblogger, the goal is “strategically delivering words to get people to take action.”
Using NLP and neurolinguistic principles, we can boost the chances that your copy will resonate with your target audience and move them to action.
Here’s how.