In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you my copywriting tips to increase connection and conversion.
This is a really good one and I want you to pay attention because I have six EPIC tips for you, and they are all really meaty ones.
Let’s jump in!
First and foremost I want to say that, yes you can:
- Hire copywriters for your business
- Do courses on how to write copy more effectively for your business
- Outsource writing a lot of the copy in your business
BUT if those copywriters are any good, they’re going to have a bunch of questions for you. Those questions are going to be really difficult for you to answer if you don’t at least try to learn and practise how to write your copy yourself.
This is especially vital in the early stages of your business when you are still finding your voice.
Doing your own copy is a really smart part of truly nailing your messaging, your value proposition and how you talk about your work, regardless of whether you can afford to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to copywriters or not.
I would recommend holding off in the early stages of business and just practising and learning how to write about your business in your own words first.
This is really critical, especially as your business starts to grow because you can’t outsource every piece of writing that you’ll ever have to do for your business. I know so many entrepreneurs who say that they’re a terrible writer, that they aren’t good with words and they just don’t know how to talk about their work.
But instead of asking yourself if you should do your copywriting or not, ask yourself: How can I become just dangerous enough with my own copywriting so that I can get those results? So that I know how to speak to my audience, and therefore I know how to hire a great copywriter? So that I know how to answer their questions, and I know how to create pieces of content and copy that I need to without always having to ask someone else to do it for me?
I think that writing is a non-negotiable skill for entrepreneurs.
It doesn’t have to be that you write your own book yourself or you write everything yourself, but some kind of writing for your business is a non-negotiable skill.
Here are my six tips on how you can improve your copywriting to increase the connection that you create with your audience and increase the extent to which it converts people into paying clients with you.
This is a hyper-focused, hyper-effective copy for your business.
1. Practise
Expecting yourself to write the perfect sales page the first time around is like expecting yourself to be able to do a double toe-triple axel spin on the ice when you first get in a pair of ice skates.
It’s not about doing it perfectly the first time around.
What you want to do is write it as best you can and practise and refine as you go.
The same goes for every offer that you write, every blog post, every tip that you share on social media, all of the posts where you’re sharing your story, the emails that you send your newsletters, it all comes down to practise.
I know so many people who are still waiting to be good at writing before they put out their first newsletter. In reality, you would be way better if you had started back when you decided you needed to be better.
Make sure that you’re not putting yourself in a perfectionist mindset when it comes to writing.
Allow yourself the opportunity to practise.
Don’t just practise behind the scenes and refine behind the scenes, practise by actually speaking to your audience.
Woman practicing copywriting on laptop for scaling and growth
In most cases, the way that we think we need to write in order to connect and convert is very different from the way we actually need to write.
We often over-formalise our language or think we have to write in these big broad general sweeping terms with shiny sparkly words, and that’s actually quite disconnecting, but you won’t know that for your audience until you start writing to them.
Whether it be practising with:
- A daily post on social media
- A newsletter
- An email that you send out once or twice a week
- Finally getting that sales page written, getting it out there, sharing it and seeing what people say
It’s important that you start approaching this as writing practise as quickly and effectively as possible.
It’s all a practise.
2. Listen
You have two ears and one mouth. You write with one hand (in most cases), and that is an important balance to have.
Many people are so busy trying to tell their audience what they need them to hear, that they’re not actually listening to what their audience says in return.
I don’t know how many times people come to me so frustrated saying that people need to work on A, B and C, and whenever I talk about it, they respond by saying that they need F and that these people just don’t get it.
To them I say: You are focusing on the wrong thing. Your audience is telling you exactly what they think the problem is. They’re telling you exactly what they think the need is, and what they think their priority should be. All you need to do is link F (the thing that they think they need) to what you know is the real thing going on for them.
Then all of a sudden, you’re meeting your audience where they are, and you’re helping them with what they need and what they think they need. You’re also moving them forward and closer to understanding the deeper challenge and the deeper issue that’s going on.
Listen to the replies. Read the replies. Listen to your audience.
3. ASK your audience
Hands up if when you first started your business, you got out there and you didn’t ask any questions.
That was me. When I first started my business, I thought that I had to be the expert.
I thought I had to tell, tell, tell, tell, tell.
All of my posts on social media were me giving great advice and sexy tips and “Look at how smart I am! I know how to do everything. Look at all these amazing tips I’m giving you!”
I would often do little question posts on my Facebook page because I was told that you want to get comments and engagement on your Facebook page. But if after three hours they didn’t have an answer, I would delete them because I didn’t want people to see I was asking questions and getting crickets in return.
What I really should have been doing is leaving those questions up there because you never know who’s going to stumble across them.
Back in 2013, the lifespan of a post on Facebook was billions of times longer than one now anyway, but also it helps me when I go back and look over what I’ve shared, posted and asked in the last month, to see which questions get great answers and lots of engagement and which questions get crickets.
The quality of the question is also a writing skill.
Ask your audience lots of questions (although don’t always end with questions because we know you’re doing it because you want engagement).
Just don’t be afraid to ask questions. Asking questions doesn’t say you don’t know what you’re doing, it says you’re keen to understand how you can support others better.
There’s a big difference.
Consistently ask your audience really helpful, meaningful questions that not only help you with looking at where you need to be meeting a need but also ask questions that help THEM as well.
Ask lots of yes/no questions, would you rather questions and open-ended questions.
Backtracking to point number two, make sure you LISTEN to the answer.
4. Make sure your language is tangible and conversational
Particularly in the spiritual entrepreneur spaces, the healer spaces, and some of the more generalist business coaching spaces.
I see people struggle because their modality can help everyone.
Their modality is working at the highest of levels, and you can get caught in this trap of constantly speaking up in the clouds and talking about broad brush things that obviously everyone wants (ie. would you like to be more productive with your time? Do you want your business to go to the next level? Do you want your children to be happy?)
You need to get more tangible. Speak to my 3D reality:
- What am I facing?
- What’s going on for me?
- How does it show up?
- What can I touch, feel, taste, hear and smell?
- Are my five senses telling me something?
- What do my results tell me?
- What do my frustrations each day tell you about how you can connect with me with your language.
Keep it conversational.
You don’t have to be this perfectly polished and manicured expert all the time.
When I tell stories on social media, in emails or in my podcasts the way that I would tell them over dinner with a glass of wine, they are the ones that get the most engagement. They are the ones where people are relating and thanking me for my honesty and help.
That is where people really connect with my messaging and my copy.
Be tangible and conversational as much as you can.
5. Don’t fall into the ‘advert trap’
This is a big one when it comes to copy.
The ‘advert trap’ is where everything you post and write looks like an advert.
You’ll know what I’m talking about:
- The headline is always in title case
- Every word is capitalised
- The way that you present it is always with your big flowy sexy words
- You’ve always got your hashtags at the end of every freaking post
- Every post has a hyperlink to your Facebook page and your website
- Every post has 25 different emojis
You’re trying to make it look like it’s sharp and polished and professional, and all you’re doing is making it look like an ad.
Studies have shown that people distrust advertising more than any other form of written content. Yet, so many entrepreneurs try to make everything look like a polished ad.
This also happens with the photos and the images that go with those posts. Is it ALWAYS your professional photos that ALWAYS have your logo in the corner? ALWAYS has some perfect words around it and ALWAYS has your brand colours somewhere with a border or something?
I understand it’s important to have visual synergy and for things to look like they’re on-brand as consistently as possible, but there’s a big difference between the perfectly polished advert version of you, and the real and raw and connecting conversational version of you.
Where possible, try to make your copy as organic to the platform as you can.
If you’re on Facebook where people share stories and personal insights and what happens to them, then speak in Facebook style language. Post it as though you were posting an update to your friends about that hilarious bus trip you went on. Post it with a selfie of you in the throes of whatever it is that you’re talking about.
Don’t be afraid to be HUMAN because social media is for humans.
It is a social platform.
Whether you are on Instagram or Facebook, doing videos, static, or written, as much as possible try and make it not look like an ad.
People don’t trust ads. Make it look like content that is organic to that platform.
6. Niche
This is a big one that applies to all five of my previous tips.
I talk about niche a lot, and I understand you probably think I sound like a broken record by now, but too many people are trapped in trying to speak to everyone.
Instead what your copy does is resonates with no one.
So many people think that they’ve got their niche down because their niche is busy mums who have a business and want it to be more successful. But I’ve never met a mum that isn’t busy, and I’ve never met an entrepreneur who doesn’t want their business to be more successful.
That is not a niche.
An age range is not a niche.
We really need to get educated on what a niche is.
It is a specific subgroup of people that you focus on when you are marketing your business.
It’s not:
- Everyone you could help
- Everyone you want to help
- People who are ready to do the work
Your niche is the specific group of people that you focus on when you are marketing your business.
There are five core niche decisions that you need to make that cover demographics, psychographics and sensor graphics.
It’s not just about demographic decisions or writing a long-winded love note to your ideal client.
It’s about making those five important decisions so that you can know exactly how to speak to your ideal client, the type of language you need to use, and the types of questions you’re going to ask so that you can listen out for their answers and get out there and start practising talking to those people.
It is the niching that actually helps you with all five of my previous copywriting tips.
That is why I am so excited that my free resource for you today is my new Nail That Niche training you can access whenever you like.
Normally I reserve my niche training for live training only. However, I have run the live niche training five times already in 2020, and every single time we get hundreds and hundreds of new people signing up to this. There are always people asking questions and when I ask about their niche, they are unclear and they have not made those important decisions.
Make sure you go and check it out HERE.
If you are struggling with copywriting or messaging, or you’re struggling to really create that connection and conversion with your clients, I always say start with niche and I highly recommend you go and check that one out.
Please head on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, let me know any insights and questions that you have using #podcastaha and the podcast episode number 222.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
