How to write web content that produces action

You’d be forgiven for thinking the art of getting people to act is some kind of Jedi mind trick, only available to those who whisper a prayer to George Lucas each night.

Well, not quite…  

When it comes to writing good copy, getting your audience to act is the gold standard for success. Regardless of your area of business, your website is there to get your audience to perform a set of actions. The things you might want your audiences to do include:

·        Clicking a link

·        Signing on to mailing lists

·        Downloading an e-book or whitepaper

·        Making a purchase

This blog will cover the basics of how to turn your web copy into a lethal, action-inspiring weapon - a lingual lightsabre if you will.

Establishing the end goal

This might sound obvious, but when you set out to write web content that produces action, you have to have a clear idea of what your end goal is. For most of us, that’s going to be some kind of monetary transaction.

·        If you sell software, your end goal is your audience buying a software licence

·        If you’re a freelance copywriter like me, your end goal is getting a new client to sign a work contract

·        If you’re a charity, your end goal is likely to be charitable donations

You get the picture. The pound/dollar sign is what drives most of us and on that basis, our content needs to be geared towards getting our customers to part with their hard-earned cash. That’s no easy feat, so there’s a lot of pressure on your web content to be up to the task.

In light of this, you might think every part of your content needs to be pushing the sale, but that’s a one-way ticket to failure town. There are times where you should go for the jugular and push your customer to the checkout, but you won’t be able to do that without first establishing a relationship. That’s why large parts of your content should be pushing things like mailing list sign-ups, downloading a free e-book or even clicking on your latest blog.

All of these actions will help you towards making a sale indirectly, by building brand awareness and trust between you and your customer. But this is a topic for another blog. Let’s get back on track!

Who are you talking to?

Now that we’ve established your end goal, it’s time to pull together a picture of who your ideal customer is.

To start, it’s important not to fall into the trap of trying to please everybody. It’s an impossible task, so don’t even try. What’s more, you’ll be less successful at converting the people who are your target audience.

So how to get started?

You should have a handle on who your target market is, so try to think about who an average person is in that category.

·        How old are they?

·        What kind of hobbies are they likely to have?

·        What’s important to them?

·        Are they likely to live in the city or rurally?

·        What kind of media do they consume? 

·        Are they the kind of person to dress the dog up like Elton John and bang ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ on?

Ok, that last one is not that relevant, but you get the picture. You need to be building up a profile of the kind of person that is going to dig what you do. If you have the resources to do some market research on your audience, that’s even better. For those of you that don’t, simple common sense will do the job.

Why is this necessary? Because you need to establish how it is that you, your product or your service will improve your ideal customer’s life. Once you understand that, you can begin distilling messages that will connect with your customer and seduce them into clicking your links, signing up to your email lists and giving you their money.

Setting out to write action-inspiring web content without a good handle on who your target audience is will only lead to poor results.

Develop your tone of voice

You’ve now established who your average customer is, so you can now start tailoring your brand tone of voice to them. This is a branding technique and not directly related to conversion copy, but it's still useful when connecting with your customer. Not only will it give your brand a bit of pizazz, but it will give you a boost when it comes to that all-important call to action.

What is ‘tone of voice’ I hear you ask? It’s the kind of language you use to communicate with your customer.

Need an example? Here’s some content I wrote for two very different brands. One was an accountant and another a youthful outdoor clothing brand:

‘Our garments and accessories embody a get-busy-living spirit and a yearning for all things wild and wonderful. We strive for quality that doesn’t break the bank and materials that hold up when you’re out experiencing the outdoors with your nearest and dearest.
 

‘When you set up a limited company, you’ll enjoy many advantages you don’t get as a sole trader. Not only is it a tax-efficient way to run your business, but it’s also a great way to limit your personal liability and increase your credibility with customers.’

See the difference? The tones are tailored to different audiences. One for adventurous souls looking for outdoor clothes and one for contractors looking to improve their tax position. If you were to switch the tones of voice around, they wouldn’t quite hit the mark with their respective target markets.

Benefits, Benefits, Benefits

Benefits are the holy grail of all action-driving web content. If you’re only going to put one piece of advice into action, it should be this – Put benefits front and centre in your web copy.

When it comes down to it, your customer only wants to know one thing:

‘What’s in it for me?’

It’s your job to give them a good answer. How do you do that? You give them benefits!

A benefit is simply the ways your product improves your customer’s lives. Common benefits include things like:

·        Saves you money

·        Saves you time

·        Gives you a better result

·        Has more uses in more situations

Typically, benefits follow features. The biggest mistake most people make is that they just list the features of their service or product. The problem is, people simply don’t care about features, they only care about themselves!

‘But, Luke. Features do improve people’s lives!’, I hear you say.

That might be true, but you need to tell your customer how the features improve your customers’ lives. Otherwise, how are they to know any different? They don’t care that your brand of tyres is made of some fancy new type of rubber. They care that the new rubber results in fewer punctures, and hence fewer puncture repairs and less money spent on new innertubes.

Here’s some simple example with the feature in bold and the benefit underlined:

‘Our AA gaming batteries give you up to 100% more power so you can game for longer.’

‘Our bikes come with a light carbon fibre frame, giving you speed without compromising on stability.’

‘50% less sugar. Same great taste but easier on your waistline.’

Remember, it’s not enough to simply tell your customers the features of your product, you’ve got to tell them how the feature improves their lives (benefits).

A well thought out message that puts your products benefits front and centre is the most powerful weapon in your action inspiring arsenal. That’s why whenever you’re asking your customer to do something, you lead with why they should do what you’re asking. That ‘why’ is always going to be the benefits.

It's not about you, it's about your customer

Here’s a quick thought experiment. The morning after the Christmas party, you wake up to find one of your work colleagues has posted pictures from the party on social media. 

What’s the first thing you look for?

That’s right. The pictures that you’re in! Because that’s the first thing we’re always interested in – ourselves.

This is an important thing to remember when you’re writing web copy. All too often, businesses talk about themselves too much, using pronouns such as, ‘We’ and ‘Us’ where they should be talking about their customers. An easy rule of thumb is to always find a way of making it about your customer, using the ‘you’ pronoun as much as possible.

Here’s a little example.

‘Mick’s Mechanics is the number 1 auto garage in Manchester, rated 5 stars by our customers on Google.’

This is a great achievement and one worth shouting about. The only problem is that it’s too self-absorbed. This business’s potential customers don’t care about this business, they only care about what they stand to gain. With that in mind, we can tweak this copy to be more customer-focused by using different pronouns and shifting the focus to the customer.

‘With Mick’s Mechanics, you get a 5 star rated service you know you can trust.’

This is a simple change that makes a big difference to how much your customers engage with you. Remember, when it comes to your web copy, you’ve got to keep your customer in mind in every last syllable. They want to know exactly how you or your product will improve their lives. Anything else is wasted space.

Grab your reader’s attention with a killer headline

Whether you’re writing some web copy, a landing page, or a Facebook ad, you won’t get very far without a kick-ass headline. When a reader comes across your content, the first thing they’ll see is your headline, your subheadings and the first few lines of your copy. For that reason, the information there needs to be top-loaded with seductive, benefit-rich copy. This section is often called the information above the fold – a throwback to the days when sales copy was primarily a print business. In the present day, we deal in clicks and downloads but the turn of phrase persists.

So how do you write a headline that hooks your reader?

You guessed it! We’re going back to those benefits again. Remember, human’s are always on the lookout for information that’s relevant to them. More specifically, they want to know how you can improve their lives, so it stands to reason that your headline should answer that question. Here’s an example of an imaginary chocolate health food:

‘Finally, an indulgent chocolate treat you can enjoy every day without feeling guilty. Buy a pouch of ‘Chocolate vitality’ today and get a second half price.’

Let’s break this down:

Target audience – Health-conscious people who have a sweet tooth.

Feature – A chocolate treat that tastes indulgent but is good for you.

Benefit – Spotted it yet? You can enjoy the chocolate treat every day because it’s healthy.

Can you see how the benefits are directly tailored to the target audience? One of the problems with chocolate is that it’s full of sugar and not good for you to eat every day. That’s a problem if you enjoy leading a healthy lifestyle. That’s where ‘Chocolate Vitality’ comes in. It improves the lives of its target audience by allowing them to eat a tasty chocolate treat every day without the guilt of eating unhealthily.

Another aspect of this headline is that it provides an offer with a sense of urgency.

‘Buy a pouch of ‘Chocolate Vitality’ today and get a second half price.’

Offers are a great way to make your calls to action juicy and persuasive. Creating a sense of urgency can also be that last element to push your customer over the edge into making the purchase.

Paint an emotional picture for your audience

One of the best ways to engage with your audience is by painting a picture with your copy. Human’s are emotional beings. We’re always looking for that next binge-able Netflix show or that next un-put-downable page-turner. We’re simply addicted to emotional narratives.

It’s worth noting that emotions can’t be turned off. In fact, we’re slaves to them. Want a good example? Try watching ‘It’s a wonderful life’, or a Disney Pixar film without shedding a tear. You can push it away as much as you want but them tears are a-coming.

This is good news for us copywriters. If we can provide a good narrative, then our reader’s can’t help but feel what we want them to feel. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that you turn your content into ‘Of Mice and Men’ with a call to action at the end. I’m saying that narrative can be used to conjure hundreds of useful emotions. Those include:

·        Happiness

·        Desire

·        Fear

·        Jealousy

·        Irritation

·        Relief

Let’s turn our attention back to, ‘Chocolate vitality’. A little picture painting might read something like this:

‘Chocolate cravings - we’ve all been there.

When you’re craving something sweet, honey and Greek yoghurt just don’t cut the mustard.

You need something luxurious and indulgent.

Something rich and silky.

Something that makes you go ‘mmmmh’ with chocolatey delight.

The problem is, these cravings are often at odds with our health goals. All too often we have to say no, even though our heart says yes.

Now, imagine a chocolate snack that hits all the right notes while being good for you.’

Notice the frequent use of the second person pronoun, ‘you’. I’m involving the reader in the story and tugging at some emotional fibres. What emotion? Well, desire really, or a kind of chocolate lust. The important thing is that the reader is feeling something.

Get your call to action bang on

Your calls to actions are the final hurdle and the part of your content where you push your customer over the line into action. A click, a download, a purchase – it’s all an action that the rest of your copy has been building up to. If you’ve done your job correctly, the hard part is already done. However, there are a few things you can do to give your call to action a little boost.

At a basic level, you just need to select the right verb for whatever action you want your customer to take. If you want them to download a whitepaper, your verb is going to be ‘Download’. If your call to action is to sign up to a mailing list, your verb is going to ’subscribe’ or ‘sign up’. You get the picture, nice and simple stuff.

Delving a little deeper, there are other tricks we can employ to make our CTAs a little more tantalising. One of the best things you can do is to pop a benefit in there. Let’s take an email list sign up as an example. Instead of

‘Subscribe Now’

You could have

‘Subscribe now and get weekly tips on the best up and coming stocks’

See how one is more tantalising than the other? Another thing you can do is create limited availability or scarcity. For example, let’s say you’re running a coaching problem with limited places. Instead of

‘Book your place now.’

You could have:

‘Strictly limited places. Book your place now to avoid disappointment’ 

This method is a way of giving your reader that FOMO feeling (fear of missing out for those of you not down with the kids). Us humans love to procrastinate and will often put things off. Adding scarcity or limited availability can sometimes be the perfect way to get them over the line. That being said, this method isn’t always appropriate (if say, you’re offering a free whitepaper for instance). Make sure any reference to scarcity seems genuine. If your reader sees the claim as dishonest, you’ll lose credibility and all your hard work will be undone.

-

So there you have it, a crash course in how to write web copy that get’s customers to act. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Thousands of books have been written on the topic, many of them very good. But this guide will set you on the right foot to getting more clicks, more downloads and more sales.

-

If you’re here reading this, you probably already realise the importance of good copy. You could have a go at it yourself, just like you could have a go at fixing your car, but let's be honest you’re better leaving it to the professionals. If you’re looking to turbocharge your copy into a brand exploding, customer-seducing, money-making machine, check out my services and give me a shout. We’ll get your audience hanging on your every word.