In our previous post we discussed the importance of good product photography and how you can take good pictures. The second element that plays a large part in your online sales is the quality of copywriting.
Copywriting well means writing excellent product descriptions, titles and call to actions. Good copyrighting helps a potential customer to convert to a paying customer, immediately or in the long run.
Copywriting is a skill that you would do well to learn more about. It is an important sales tool and therefore employs all triggers and techniques that any other selling process does.
There are many ideas, approaches and principles behind ‘writing to sell’. For example, ‘telling a story’ is one such principle. You may speak of the inspiration behind the creation, a fun use for the craft, an interesting anecdote about something that happened during the making process and any other similar information that makes for interesting sharing.
The thought behind storytelling is to get the buyer involved with the your craft and business in more ways than one. You are attempting to have an impact on the buyer’s mind, create a deeper recall value, and a better brand image overall.
You are getting the buyer to see more about your craft than just price he has to pay. Hopefully a good story will you give him more reasons to make the purchase.
If you want to learn better copywriting you should pick up guides from some known copywriting experts. One of the best known copywriters is Joe Sugarman. Pick up one of his books about learning how to write great copies and put his strategies into practice. Here are a few tips that we would like to make. Some of them may seem obvious but its surprising how often they get overlooked.
Check your spellings.
Every time that I have encountered a spelling mistake in an article or the product listing I have lost trust in the website. This is basic. It is elementary. Do not make spellings and grammatical errors.
Stop writing to impress
Most of us get programmed to write to impress right from school days when only objective is to impress the teacher with bigger words and complex phrases. ‘Writing to sell’ seldom employs the same principles. You need to get out of the mindset of writing to impress. Instead learn to write clearly, in short phrases and using simpler words.
Use the Flesch Kincaid reading test.
The Flesch Kincaid is a free tool that you can use either through Microsoft Word or online. It evaluates your writing style and gives you a readability score. The higher the score, the more people will with different educational backgrounds will be able to read what you wrote.
If your score is low people only with higher education, college pass-outs etc will be able to comprehend what you are trying to tell them. This is a very useful tool and gets you to simplify your copy of a great deal. You really need to remember that your buyers might come from all kinds of backgrounds unless you are targeting a very special niche. You may might surprising but a large section of your clients may not have highly developed reading skills, or enjoy reading complex writing.
Remember you are writing to sell. Remember your goal behind writing each and every sentence is to sell, regardless of whether you come out outright and say so or not. Do not waste of space and words, and the buyer’s time by writing about things that will not further his decision to buy in any way.
Be objective and always read what you write. Ask yourself if this is helping the buyer make a decision to buy. Even if it is the decision you are aiming for in the long run. If it seems unnecessary, do not write it.
Remember the emotional triggers.
What emotions you want to evoke in the buyer? Use emotional triggers to make the customer want the craft by offering amazing value, assurances and guarantees, conveying exclusivity, rarity, beauty, sense of urgency, pride of ownership, desperation and the need to own something.
Remember all buying decisions not based on practical and sound reasoning. In fact a large section of art and craft buyers are emotional buyers. They are gratifying an emotional need by making the purchase. If you can offer this kind of emotional kick back with your copywriting, you will have a successful online listing on your hands.
