Imagine you are sitting on an Adirondack chair on the beach, your feet being tickled by the waves as they wash in and out. Imagine you listen to the seagulls as the warm summer air dries the sand and water from your skin. Sounds nice, right? That’s the beauty of e-commerce copywriting.
Let’s go on…
Now, imagine, you are on that same beach, but you are also devoid of every care. You watch your loved ones frolicking in the sand with huge smiles and boisterous laughter. The burdens placed upon your shoulders are evaporating with every minute under the sun. You feel at peace.
These two paragraphs above perfectly illustrate the difference between simply creating copywriting for your web products and optimizing your copy for conversions.
Yes, there are many tips and tricks to help you optimize for conversions in your e-commerce copywriting; however, the absolute most important thing you can do is to help your audience feel something when they read your writing.
Our first paragraph above is nice and seems pleasant. It is appealing. However, our second paragraph touches your emotions. It pricks hearts. This leads us to the key to developing e-commerce copy:
Knowing is good. Feeling is better.
How to convert customers with stellar e-commerce copywriting
You may wonder if customers actually read product descriptions and product details online and if you can boost your online sales with solid e-commerce copywriting.
The answer is yes — if you create copy that sizzles. People are more likely to act when they feel something rather than simply when they know something.
You should make the goal of helping your audience feel something a part of your pre-writing, writing, and post-writing processes. We’re going to give you some tips on how.
Pre-writing
When you are in the pre-writing phase of e-commerce copywriting, you first need to answer these three key questions:
- Who is my audience?
- What is my objective?
- What is the desired outcome I hope occurs?
Audience
Demographics are important to know. You know, things like age, gender, location, income, etc. However, if you want to make your audience feel something with your e-commerce copywriting and optimize for conversions, you need to focus on psychographic.
Psychographics are based on why a person does what they do. It is based on a person’s opinions and interests.
Some examples of psychographics include:
- Attitudes
- Lifestyle
- Social class
- Personality type
- Culture
- Values
You can never have enough data about your intended audience. Create copy that touches a person’s core values — rather than a person’s age or gender — and your ability to convert with your copy will increase.
Objectives
For what purpose are you creating content for your audience? What do you want your audience to do? What are the pain points you want to address for the audience? Why is it important for you to share this content with your audience? Before you write a word of copy, you must first answer these questions.
Desired outcomes
Don’t confuse the desired outcome with the objective. The objective details why you are creating the copy, whereas the desired outcome is specific in what you hope happens because you created the copy. For example, you might say that you want to “expose more people to your product” (objective) by getting them to “register for your monthly newsletter” (desired outcome).
The call to action in your e-commerce copywriting should ultimately be specific in inviting people to do something associated with the desired outcome. This call to action is instrumental in allowing you to increase conversions/sales.
Writing
OK, but how precisely do you create good e-commerce copywriting? Whether you are an established brand or an e-commerce startup, the principles of effective e-commerce copywriting apply across the board. The types of media we use change over time — but the principles of good storytelling persist across all media.
Here are some precise tips for creating ad copy and other content that caters to your audience’s attention span and creates conversions:
Be a storyteller
You should never tell anybody their job is to “write product descriptions.” Bleh! No! The role of anybody who develops content is to be a storyteller. You can do this by:
- Telling your brand’s story.
- Sharing customer success stories.
- Encouraging users to create their own user-generated content to tell the stories themselves.
Remember to “show” don’t “tell” with your e-commerce copywriting. This, again, will help your potential customers feel something in your copy. Don’t just tell customers your product or service is good — show them through your descriptions. The user experience on your website should be pleasant.
Write a solid product description
Now, you can help your audience feel all the wonderful feelings in the world, but if you haven’t actually explained the product’s benefits, you’ll have an elated — but confused — potential customer.
A good product description should include the following six elements:
- Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Don’t overlook the simple elements that make good writing… well… good writing. The purpose of your writing should be to answer the questions about the product that customers may have. Ensure you are always answering the basic questions.
- Be quick and simple. If your copy starts to approach the same length as a John Grisham novel, it might be time to tone it down a bit. Short is good. Simple is great. Use subheads and bullets to make it easy to scan your copy for key elements that help readers more easily find answers to their questions.
- Connect with your readers. Remember, your job is not to simply inform your readers — your job is to make them feel something. It is that connection that will allow your copy to optimize for conversions. A friendly, knowledgeable tone of voice will help.
- Use powerful words. A vivid verb and a concrete noun are your best friends. An adjective is your enemy. Keep your prose tight and choose your words meticulously.
- Develop urgency. Create copy that informs the reader that a deal is only available for a certain time or why it is most valuable now. The sense of urgency makes a reader more likely to convert.
- Make it short. Remember, web consumers don’t read — they scan. Make it easy for consumers to find the information they seek by making the copy short. Never use three words when two words will do.
If you follow the e-commerce copywriting guidelines above, your product descriptions will no longer be boring for your readers to consume — or for you to write. Likewise, you will significantly increase your potential to convert.
Post-writing
The worst thing you can do is write something, cross your fingers that it works, and then never look at it again. Check up on the writing on your product pages frequently. An eye-tracking heat map software can help you learn where people are looking on the page.
Likewise, doing some A/B tests with the copy on your page can help you better understand if one description better resonated with your target audience than another. You can hire freelancers to provide multiple versions for you to test. Just remember to measure, report, adjust. Repeat.
Fine-tune your e-commerce copywriting
- Now that you have a better idea about how to create copy that converts, you also will want to know how to create a high-converting sales funnel in which your copy can reside.
- Regardless of if you are representing a B2B company or a B2C company, the principles included above will relate to the work you do. Conventional wisdom says that B2B content can’t be spark emotions, but recent changes have shown this simply isn’t true.
- Focus on solving problems for your customers. When the content you develop makes it clear how your product will solve your customers’ problems, they will have a greater incentive to make a purchase.
- Avoid jargon or cliches. It can be easy to fall into the trap of using lazy language, but the extra effort you put into your work with solid writing will be rewarded.
- Pay attention to SEO. Just because you are writing to optimize for search, that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice content quality. You can write for SEO and evoke emotions.
Effective product descriptions, engaging headlines, and persuasive call-to-actions can make all the difference in converting potential customers into loyal buyers. If you need help creating persuasive e-commerce copywriting, talk to a content specialist at ClearVoice today about our managed content services.
