For many business owners, writing marketing copy does not come naturally. But whether they are managing their social media pages, developing website content or writing letters to clients, many business owners need to write marketing copy at one point or another.  I recently spoke at a marketing session for the Lord Fairfax branch of the Virginia Small Business Development Center, and after my talk, more than a few people came up to me for pointers on effective copywriting.

Effective Copywriting Starts with a Goal

Well-written copy can make or break an ad or marketing piece. For marketing writing to be effective, it needs to accomplish your goal. What do you want that bit of writing to do for your business? Do you want it to generate solid leads, brand your company, establish your expertise, reinforce a message, raise awareness, combat a negative perception or increase referrals? Once you know your goal, you can begin crafting your message.

Here are the seven main steps I take when writing copy for a client:

1. Give the reader a reason to read. What is the benefit to them? Why is your service or product valuable to them? What can you do for them that your competition can’t? What is the added value that you provide to your customers? Knowing all of the benefits (big and small) and being able to clearly communicate them up front is essential.

2. Be the person you are selling to. Get to know what makes your target demographic tick. What are their wants and needs? What irritates them? What “language” do they speak? Are they male or female, young or old, educated or not? What are they passionate about? When you can get into the mind of the person you are selling to, and can speak their language, you will naturally be able to communicate appealing information about your products.

3. Don’t make it all about you. Eliminate most of the “I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours” and instead focus on “you, your, yours” when writing copy. This will also help you accomplish step number 1, above. When you have to talk about them and not you, it’s easier to focus on what is important to them. Instead of writing copy that explains what your company does and how it does it, tell the customer how their lives will be easier, better, more fun, more beautiful, richer, less stressful, healthier and more. Readers connect quickly to copy that identifies with aspects of their own lives. This connection personalizes your copy for them and makes it more effective.

4. Clean up the clutter. When you provide too much information and detail in your copy, you risk losing the prospect’s attention, or worse, the possibility of them forgetting or missing the most important part of your message. Stick to what they need to know to make a purchase, make a phone call or whatever it is that you want them to do. People don’t need to know all the technical details of how it works – they need to know how it benefits them and how it is better than the competitor’s product (faster, cheaper, more reliable).

5. Tell them what to do. The whole reason you are writing the copy is to motivate your audience to act. But, so many pieces of copy fail to actually tell the reader what to do. Include a strong call to action every time. Create a sense of urgency and give them instructions (“Call now”, “Share for a chance to win”).

6. Get a proofreader. Don’t lose credibility because of mistakes in your copy. Your word processing program’s spelling and grammar check is not going to tell you when you are using a word in the wrong context, and there are many other types of errors those programs cannot catch. So, you need to print out your copy and read it carefully and then show it to a proofreader who is an expert in spelling and grammar. This goes for social media posts, too. Don’t post on the fly. Type it, check it, have it checked again, then cut and paste.

7. Ask for help. If you still find the task of effective copywriting to be daunting, ask for help. Ask yourself if doing the writing is an effective use of your time. The Elliott Group provides extremely reasonable copywriting services to a variety of businesses and has expertise in every type of marketing medium. Let us craft an effective marketing message for you.