5 Ways to Write Marketing Copy That Will Actually Get Read!

You spent ages writing your website, didn’t you? It was easily one of the best things you’ve ever written.

Why, then, is no one reading it? Why does Google Analytics suggest that your carefully-crafted paragraphs have gone down as well as a fart in a lift?

It’s because, frankly, they’re not good enough.

Please don’t take this to heart or feel like you’ve failed. Inadvertently writing poor marketing copy is one of the easiest things to do and the internet is absolutely full of it.

The good news? You can avoid this trap and instead write marketing copy that will draw people in and keep them engaged. You just need to stick to these five brilliant tips.

5 Ways to Write Marketing Copy That Will Actually Get Read!

1. Get to the heart of their difficulties – quickly

When potential customers reach your webpage, they’ll have one thing in mind: themselves.

They’ll want a solution to a problem they’re experiencing, an answer to a burning question, or they may simply have a desire to buy something new and shiny.

What they don’t want is five paragraphs of you waffling on about your awards cabinet or how the company was founded thirty years ago in the CEO’s attic.

No one cares.

Once again, please don’t take this to heart; marketing is about one thing: giving customers what they want. (Which incidentally, may differ from what they need.)

So, before you write a single word, figure out what your prospects want, need, or desire, and get straight to the point in your copy.

2. Tell great – not lengthy – stories

There’s a theme developing here, isn’t there?

Your audience doesn’t always have time to hang about – but they do like a good story.

This means that you need to rely on the age-old marketing tactic of telling stories, but doing so in a way that doesn’t leave visitors reaching for the ‘back’ button.

There’s always a story behind your product or service, but you can cover the beginning, middle, and pay-off far quicker on a webpage than you might around a campfire.

Write an enticing version of your story, and stick to it.

3. Hit the 5% diet

This is a classic tactic used by copywriters, and one that should be applied to any piece of marketing copy.

When you’ve finished your marketing copy, take note of the word count and promise yourself that you’ll remove 5%.

That isn’t very much at all, which means it’ll force you to look for the most obvious instances of waffle and needless or repetitive sentences.

Identify and remove the following:

• passive sentences (give me a shout if you’re not sure what these are);
• needless feature lists;
• redundant words;
• clumsy sentences (you’ll discover these by reading the words out aloud); and
• pointless adverbs.

If you can go further than 5% – do it!

4. Stop repeating yourself

There’s nothing wrong with repetition in marketing. In fact, it’s encouraged; it’s a brilliant way to drive home a benefit or brand value, and will help prospects remember what it is that makes you special.

But you can overdo it. For instance, do you really think the reader needs to be reminded that your software offers 99.9% uptime in every single paragraph?

Once will probably do.

Rather than repeating, try drawing the most important stuff out either with highlights or in callout boxes. That’ll get it noticed far more than constantly repeating yourself.

5. Fall in love with subheadings

Subheadings are brilliant. I’ve used them throughout this blog post in the form of numbered headings.

In fact, they’re usually better at telling a story than a paragraph full of text. Visitors will be drawn to them and many will only read those subheadings.

Therefore, the more in love you are with subheadings, the more you’ll rely on them to tell the story and highlight the most important benefits for the visitor.

It’s also a great way to help the visitor navigate the page; if one subheading provides the answer they’re searching for, they’ll find it quicker and stand more chance of becoming a customer.

So, what have we learned?

There’s no ‘magic’ involved in great marketing copy. It simply relies on good, old-fashioned common sense.

If this post has sparked your creative juices but you have more questions on how to write the best marketing copy, just get in touch. We’d love to show you more of the ‘under the hood’ stuff that goes into the copy we create for ourselves and our clients.

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