Alan Gayle is a sales and marketing consultant specialising in the construction industry. In this column he offers advice on how to make an impact in the market. This time he takes an initial look at copywriting.
Following some recent experiences with my clients, I think it’s about time I covered the subject of copywriting.
Marketing is all about communication and the written word is still the most prevalent way to get your message across.
Some may doubt that in this digital age with videos and podcasts, but every video we watch is preceded by some writing to entice us to play it. It’s the writing that makes us want to watch it. Even in face-to-face selling, where it’s about conversations and personalities, advertisements in magazines, brochures and manuals are often used to support the salesperson and increase the chance of a sale.
I’ve heard some of my peers say that brochures are yesterday’s news and that all we need is a website and some engaging videos. In some industries that may well be true but not in the building industry. Not yet anyway.
In my opinion, writing is more important now than it’s ever been. Why? Because of information overload. Whether viewing your website, reading your brochure or visiting your showroom, your potential customers have dozens of options at their fingertips, and you have just a few seconds to capture their attention and persuade them to take action.
Since starting my own marketing business I’ve found that there’s a big problem with copywriting. To an extent it’s the same problem that affects marketing in general. Almost everyone thinks they can do it. And, of course, anyone who can write can do it... sort of.
Just because someone can write, even if they can write well, it doesn’t necessarily follow they can write effectively – and by effectively I mean they have the ability to write persuasive, rather than just informative, sales copy.
There is so much more to copywriting than telling your customers what you offer. But because most people don’t realise that, they produce ineffective copy then blame other factors for the poor results.
There’s a reason copywriting supremo’s like Joe Sugarman and Dan Kennedy are worth millions. And for the millionaire pioneers of internet marketing like Frank Kern and John Reese, email, websites and squeeze pages were the key to selling their products and making their fortunes. Before YouTube, writing was the only way for marketers to communicate.
It’s the same for us. If our potential customers are met with mediocre, uninspiring copy, our marketing efforts will almost certainly fail. So if you want to market your products effectively, you simply must know about copywriting. The growth of your business could depend on it.
As a marketer, when I talk about copywriting, I’m talking about copywriting that gets readers to take some form of action – such as sending you an enquiry, buying your product or even just watching your video. The marketing term is ‘copy that converts’ because it converts your visitor or reader into a customer or, at least, a prospect.
OK. Now that I’ve laid the foundations I’ll get into the real detail next month and give you some of the easy-to-apply copywriter’s secrets so you can write copy that converts.
Here’s a preview of what I’ll cover:
- Headlines
- Use of images
- You language
- Appeal to emotions
- Towards and away from motivation
- Call to action
- Long copy v short copy
- Writing for print v writing for the web
See you next month for Copywriting Part 2.