Copywriting is the son of sales writing and applied psychology – and the best copywriters know exactly what to write to somehow magically increase your sales.
What they do isn’t a trade secret – it’s simply a number of strategies developed over time to make your brand voice stand out better and speak to your customers the way they want to be talked to.
How do you emulate the magic copywriters seem to have?
This answer can take ten minutes or ten years to be answered. To begin with, you can learn sales psychology and neuromarketing – but let’s admit it, you don’t have the time to become a copywriter as well.
So, instead of rambling on and on with a comprehensive guide for aspiring copywriters, let’s instead focus on precise, short, actionable copywriting tips that make a huge difference.
We are talking about some of the simplest things in the world, such as changing a single word or even better, changing a letter every now and then.
The most useful copywriting hacks to increase your clients base
There are hundreds of tiny copywriting hacks out there – but we chose these ones based on effectiveness and how easy they are to deploy. This will allow you to rapidly increase the performance of your copy without having to spend too much time on it.
#1 Use power words
Do you really use words such as “good” or “bad” in your copy?
Lame.
Some words activate signals within our psyches – most of these are adjectives that, when placed strategically, make your product or service sound extremely more desirable, or increase the emotion you are trying to convey.
For example, would you buy a week abroad for the family, or would you rather book an unforgettable holiday with your loved ones?
All of these words convey an emotion of happiness – but almost every other emotion can be triggered with powerful words as well.
Let’s pretend you are selling stock trading courses – in this case, you’ll know that your customers are in for the money, 99% of the time – so the emotion you are after is greed.
This is why you should give away a trading plan beginners used to make a six-figure fortune, only with your trading plan they’ll quadruple their profits and feel like they’ve just won a jackpot.
Interestingly, power words can also be used to make your customers angry.
Do you think it’s bullshit? Look at all those greedy, crooked media outlets out there that create hateful to have you watch stuff you hate just because you were so damn pissed off that you gave in to their morally-bankrupt requests.
Doesn’t it bother you in the slightest? Because it makes me furious just to think about it.
And all they did was use powerful words to rile you up.
#2 Tweak your buttons using possessives & alternative CTA (Calls To Action)
Changing a single word can increase your conversion rate by about 300%. This is actually something you can do in ten seconds.
How, you are asking?
Take a look at this button:
And now, change it to this:
It’s genuinely that simple. The use of possessives (“my”) invokes an idea of desire and makes the reader imagine that they own the product already. This is a new trend in web-copy, as the use of “you” possessives was preferred until only quite recently – however, as a performance marketing agency, it’s tweaks like these that make us smile.
Calls to action can also be edited to make them more specific. Commands such as “Enquire now” or “Contact us” are less effective than, for example, “Discover our range of products” and “Get my copy of the eBook”.
#3 Remove excessive options
Option overloading is a real thing deeply rooted in sales psychology. Someone who only wants a chocolate ice cream and walks in a shop with twenty different chocolate types is more likely to leave empty-handed than one who walked in and saw a delicious chocolate ice cream.
If you offer twenty different services, you are probably doing too much – instead, you should shrink it down to a handful of very meaningful pages that give your customers everything they wanted.
#4 Organise your web pages better
The layout of your web pages makes a huge difference when you create a copy. This is because the layout affects reading gravity – AKA what your reader’s eyes will fall upon first.
What you need to do is simple: organise your web pages so that your headlines can be seen before a text, and keep everything on a column – ideally, you don’t want your reader to move their eyes too much while on your page, which is why web designers tend to create compact, minimalist websites with only the most essential information present.
Imagine copy for the web as slowly spoon-feeding a customer with what they want, rather than giving them everything in one go, you need to give them bite-sized chunks that constantly keep them interested.
#5 Make them terrified of losing something they care about
People are greedy by nature. Which is why the prospect of losing something is often more motivating than the idea of gaining something better for themselves.
Now, why not use this in your business?
Loss aversion is a powerful tool, which is why you should use fear as a copywriting hack. Paired with the right power words, you should always show the customers what life without your product would look like.
Example of a loss aversion copy:
“You are losing customer every single day that you aren’t using loss aversion copy. The reason for this is simple: people don’t care about you, they only care about themselves – and what they can keep for themselves.
This is why you need to show them what they are missing out on – but if you can’t do that, show them what they are bound to lose without your help.”
#6 Get to the point already!
What is the difference between content writing and copywriting?
The way you’ll talk with the audience.
Whenever you are writing a blog, there’s a common rule people love to follow: “Write as you’d speak”. That means filler words, jokes, connectives, longer sentences and a whole lot of punctuation.
Take all of that and dump it.
That isn’t how you write copy. If you want to learn copywriting in just ten minutes, think about how a salesman would talk.
Not the annoying ones that knock at your door and start bothering you – we are talking about the ones you actually listen to.
A quick way to improve your copy is to follow this one simple rule: get to the point. The first sentence is the one that gets you the customers, and what people want should be sitting right on top of your entire paragraph without the need for an introduction.
An applied example. Here is the same paragraph, one written for a blog, and one written for website copy:
“Good website copy written by a real expert is key if you want to generate more leads since you are talking to your customers directly and it’s your job to show your unique value proposition in the shortest time possible. On top of that, your brand voice and personality should shine with every word you write.”
And here is the same paragraph, written for a website copy:
“Generate more leads using incredible website copy written by an expert copywriter with ten years of experience. Captivate your customers, put your product in the spotlight and impress the whole room with the magic of copy.”
Cut the fluff, get to the point, and boast a little. That is all it takes.
The importance of applying psychology in copywriting
Psychology is the force behind every good copywriter. Every word you write will impact your reader differently.
Sales psychology and emotion marketing are what we define as a power couple.
Good copywriters can exploit a precise emotion with their words, and that is literally all copywriting is.
Emotion marketing is three times as effective simply because it involves the customer almost unconsciously – when you sell them hope and dreams, you will be remembered much more than a business who only sells products and services.
To write good copy, you have to understand which emotion your customers are feeling before the buy – for example, if you are here writing this article, it’s because you want more website visitors to convert to buying customers – thus, you want more money and the emotion you’d exploit is greed.
And this emotion leads to impulsive decisions (buying five-figures copywriting courses, hiring expensive specialists), when you can simply pick up your phone, call topflight and get free advice on the ins and outs of emotion marketing.
Conclusion
Copywriting is a skill that takes ten minutes to learn but ten years to master – which is why businesses rely on experts to overhaul the tone of voice present on their websites.
Copywriting is a service included in our content marketing service and, even better, on our UX optimisation service – 90% of business owners only need some simple UX tweaks to really stand out, and today, this is possible when you get started with us.
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Alex Grossi
