3 Winning Content Marketing Tips

Engaging your user in the right way in order to generate more leads and ultimately grow your revenues doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. These expert tips prove that a quick copywriting tweak can seriously boost your sales – without costing you anything. My colleague, Joseph Chklovski, and I co-wrote this article about what we find to be most effective. So here are 3 winning content marketing tips:

Give A Reason To Buy – Even If It’s Lame

It may seem obvious, but potential customers have one question at the forefront of their mind – ‘What’s in it for me?’ Explicitly addressing this need will have a huge effect on conversion – even if your reason sucks.

In the classic marketing psychology text, ‘Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion’, the power of explanation was examined. The study subject attempted to cut in line at a Xerox machine, offering a variety of reasons for doing so:

• The first attempt offered no reasoning and resulted in a 60% success rate.
• The second trial added the explanation ‘…because I’m in a rush’ and saw a 94% success rate.
• Finally, the distinctly weak excuse ‘…because I have to make copies’ was trialed – and still saw a staggering 93% success rate.

Your copy doesn’t have to be masterful; it just has to be direct. If you want to your visitor’s to buy your products; buy more of your products; or buy your products right now, you just have to offer an explicit reason for doing so. Even if it sucks.

Get Personal With Your Visitors

If you want to engage potential customers, you need to speak to them. You need to grab their attention and pull them directly into your copy. You need to make your copywriting about the reader.

Personalizing your copy can be as simple as offering a bit of extra value to your reader; or as complicated as targeting your copywriting, and drawing upon first names and personal information. In a study into the effects of personalization on conversion rates, waiters were able to increase their tips by 3%, through the simple act of offering mints alongside the check. Overtly offering the mints boosted this to 14%, and offering another round of mints saw a 21% increase in tips.

To capitalize on this, address your copy and offers directly to your visitor. Point out the fact that your offer is exclusive to your visitor, and use their name whenever possible. Visitors are more likely to engage with copy that is directly addressed to them; so make sure that your emails, newsletters, and website copy uses your visitor’s opt-in data whenever possible.

Help Visitors Avoid Commitment

People are careful with their money – very careful. With so much choice available, your visitors have to be completely sold on your product before they commit to buying it – and the fear of making a wrong choice can seriously impact your conversion rates.

Your copy should avoid commitment – it should offer a get-out clause for would-be customers, should they change their mind. For a classic example of this style of copywriting in action, head to your nearest e-commerce site, and try and purchase an item. Instead of clicking a ‘Buy Now’ button, you’re more likely to come across ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Add to Basket’.

‘Buy Now’ is a more committal phrase than ‘Add to Cart’, despite no practical differences. By clicking through, visitors feel as though they’re painting themselves into a corner – and as a result, you’ll see a 9.6% decrease in conversion when compared to ‘Add to Cart’. ‘Purchase Now’ fares even worse, causing a 14.5% decrease. In other words, if you want to boost your conversion rates, simply avoid references to purchasing, buying, and other committal activities.

Copywriting is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal – and utilizing these 3 techniques in your copy could have a staggering effect on your conversion rates!

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