Big companies can spend enormous sums on advertising. However, you can enhance your small business marketing strategy by applying some of the techniques that they use to get great sales conversions.
Copywriting is the art and skill of creating compelling sales text. It introduces your products or services to your customers, in terms of the benefits that will encourage customers to buy. Customers shouldn't have to do any work to decide how a product or service might benefit them.
With the speed of life these days, you have just a few short seconds to make an impact. This means that any ad or marketing copy will need to get straight to the point of the prospect's interest, and be very direct.
The four questions that every prospect asks when reading your copy are:
- What is this (product or service)?
- How much is it?
- What is good about it?
- Why do I want it?
Study the product or service. Write down the features. Features are facts, i.e. size, color, options etc. Now write down the benefits. Both features and benefits are important to selling, however benefits win the sale. If you know your prospect well, one of the benefits will leap out at you as the most obvious one. Use this in your headline.
Write your headline. Take your list of benefits and write 20 headlines. Put your headlines away for one day, and then come back to them. If you feel stuck for ideas about which headline will make your readers want to learn more - books like Joe Sugarman's 'The Adweek Copywriting Handbook' will walk you through the entire copywriting process. Mr Sugarman says that the headline needs to be written to encourage the reader to read the second line. According to David Ogilvy, the advertising guru, five times more people will read the headline than the copy body.
Write the body. Detail the features and benefits of the product or service. If you need inspiration, find an ad or copy that you feel inspires you. Then study it to discover what it is about it that makes you want to read more.
Use the AIDA sales technique. A = Attention. Demand attention with a powerful headline. I = Interest. Pique curiosity and create interest. D = Detail. Provide details about the product or service. A=Action. Call to action.
Anticipate consumer objections. Anticipate and deal with any potential objections before your reader raises them for you.
Add Testimonials. Testimonials add credibility. They can be very powerful and are often used as headlines.
Calls to Action. At the end of the copy, add your call to action. You need to tell your customer what you want them to do. If you want them to buy from you, then tell them so. If you add an element of urgency or a time pressure, this will most often result in more sales. For example - Order Now at 0-800-555-5555 or Call Us Now To Ask About Our Special Discount. To get ideas, study what the advertising material that big business circulate. They have spent time and money analyzing what works.
The internet (apart from a few images and videos) is made up of words. Learning good copywriting is essential for use in the small business marketing arsenal of tools.