Every business needs conversion copy to turn browsers into customers. Learn what is conversion copywriting, why you need it, and how to use it to your advantage.
I fell into copywriting unexpectedly. When I started, I only had a vague idea about it. I thought it was mainly writing creative slogans for ads and product descriptions for Amazon.
And no wonder. Copywriting is still one of the best-kept secrets of the marketing world. It’s not talked about enough, and many business owners - especially those who are new to the online marketing space (I’m talking to you, Boomers) - still don’t fully understand what copywriting is and why it’s so important.
There are many types of copywriting, such as direct response copywriting or SEO copywriting, but the main one every business owner should understand is conversion copywriting. Why?
Because conversion copywriting is what actually moves the needle. It’s what turns readers into customers.
So, here’s everything you must know about conversion copywriting.
What Is Conversion Copywriting?
In simple words, conversion copywriting is writing copy that turns readers into customers by persuading them to take action - whether it’s buying a product, sending a form to inquire about a service, requesting a demo, or signing up for your email list.
Conversion copy has ONE goal and ONE goal only: to persuade your audience to take a specific action that aligns with your business objectives and, therefore, increase your conversion rate.
That action, which we'll call conversion, can be anything from clicking on a Google ad, visiting a sales page, signing up for your email newsletter, purchasing your product, etc.
This type of copywriting goes beyond just conveying information about your product, service, or brand. It's about crafting messages that resonate with your audience's emotions, desires, and needs, ultimately driving them to make a decision that benefits them (and you).
But how exactly does conversion copy persuade people to take action?
By using various persuasion techniques.
Great copywriters use numerous psychological triggers proven to influence readers to take action. The principles of conversion copy aim to subtly guide the readers through their thinking process and towards making the final decision: to click, buy, or sign up.
Overall, the effectiveness of conversion copy lies in its ability to address the pain points and motivations of the target audience. Essentially, a good conversion copywriter uses words strategically in a way that triggers an emotional response and compels the reader to act.
💡 Want to learn about copywriting and its different types? I have an entire article dedicated to this on my blog.
Why Do You Need Conversion Copywriting?
I’ve seen many businesses with terrible copy that surely doesn’t convert at all. I believe it’s because they don’t understand the value of well-written sales copy - nor do they understand the art of persuasion.
Some business owners think they'll win the market by focusing on their brand, company, and product and making it look more “professional” and better than the competitors.
They won’t.
If you want to sell, you need to use words that truly resonate with people and get them to think, “This is right for me!” when they come across your product or service.
Writing lengthy descriptions about how great your product is or how your company “is the leader on the market” and has a “team of experts that care about customers” will only create a gap between you and your potential customers.
That’s what conversion copywriting does: it uses words that resonate with people and subtly persuade them to take action.
Great product or service alone won’t make the sale.
If you aren’t using the right words to convince people why your product or service is right for them and why they should invest their hard-earned money into it, you’ll struggle to sell.
And it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the most groundbreaking, brilliant product in the world. Unless you can use the right words to convey to your potential customers why your product is so brilliant and why they need it, they won’t buy.
Great branding alone won’t make the sale.
Think of your brand as a sailboat and of your words as the wind that propels it forward. Not even the best sailboat in the world can move forward without wind in its sails.
While building a strong brand is a must to stand out on the market and create an identity for yourself, it's the words you use that ultimately convert potential customers into actual buyers.
Conversion copywriting complements branding by giving you a brand voice. Using voice to speak directly to the needs, pain points, and desires of your target audience is what turns a brand from being visually appealing to being emotionally compelling, driving customers to take action.
Great marketing alone won’t make the sale.
If your copy sucks, not even the best digital marketing campaigns or Facebook ads will help you make the sale. No matter how visually stunning your ads are or how strategic your placement is, if the accompanying copy fails to resonate, your potential customers will remain just that - potential.
Marketing may attract attention, create awareness, and generate interest, but it's the conversion-focused copy that closes the deal. A well-executed marketing strategy might bring people to your door, but it's the compelling copy that invites them in and encourages them to take the next step.
9 Principles for Writing Conversion Copy That Brings Results
Writing high-converting copy isn't "just writing." The conversion copywriting process requires a deep understanding of your target audience, the psychology of persuasion, and marketing principles.
Plus, you must know how to choose the right words to get a message across and understood. If you don't know the principles of conversion copywriting, you can't expect your words to convert, no matter how eloquent they might be. It's like trying to hit a target in the dark.
So, let’s explore some of the main principles of writing compelling conversion copy.
1. Understand Your Audience
You can’t write copy that converts unless you know exactly who you’re talking to. You must do customer research, and I don’t just mean demographics. Demographics, like age, gender, or job title, may be important for some businesses and completely irrelevant for others. It depends.
But what matters the most is your audience’s psychographics. You're writing for a potential buyer with unique needs, desires, fears, pain points, and motivations. And if you truly understand what they want, fear, and need, you can then write copy that connects with them on an emotional level.
What keeps them up at night? What are their day-to-day challenges? What does their decision-making process look like? If you can answer these questions, you’ll be able to come up with the right message and get it across in a way that resonates with them.
2. Speak Their Language
The best way to truly get to know your audience is through voice-of-customer (VoC) research. Doing VoC research can help you understand two things:
Exactly what your potential customers are thinking,
The exact words and phrases they use to talk about their desires and pain points.
Knowing these two things is the ultimate persuasion weapon. It allows you to craft copy that feels like a personal conversation rather than a sales pitch. When you use the language of your audience, you're not just talking TO them. You're talking WITH them. It's a subtle but powerful difference.
Here's how to conduct VoC research:
Read their conversations.
Browse online forums (like Reddit or Quora), join Facebook groups, and read through Instagram comments under your competitor’s posts. Observe the language they use, including the slang, the technical terms, and the emotional expressions.
Conduct surveys and interviews.
Directly ask your potential, existing, and past customers about their needs, wants, and frustrations. Pay close attention to what they say and how they say it. The words they choose can reveal a lot about their emotional state and priorities.
Analyze customer feedback.
Look at reviews and testimonials for your services or products and those of your competitors. What specific language do customers use to describe what they love or hate?
Test and refine.
Use your findings to craft your copy, then test different versions to see which resonates the most. Sometimes, a single word can make a significant difference in conversion rates.
3. Meet Them Where They Are
Aside from understanding your audience’s psychographics (wants, needs, pain points, etc.), you must define their stage of awareness in relation to your brand.
This will differ depending on where they come in contact with your brand.
Your copy should always meet your prospects exactly where they are and guide them through their thought process to the next awareness stage.
Here are the 5 stages of awareness and how to approach each stage:
Stage 1: Unaware
At this stage, your prospect doesn't know they have a problem or need. Your job is to educate them and make them realize they might have a problem. Here, you can focus on creating educational and information content. Blog posts are a great way to address prospects at this stage.
Stage 2: Problem-aware
Your prospect knows they have a problem but isn't aware of the solutions. Here, you should focus on empathizing with their pain and elaborating on the problem, leading them toward understanding the need for a solution.
Stage 3: Solution-aware
Now, your prospect knows the solution exists but isn't sure which one is right for them. This is where you position your product or service as the best choice. This is where you should talk about your USP, benefits, and what sets you apart.
Stage 4: Product-aware
This is where your prospect knows about you and your services (or products), but they haven't yet decided to buy. Here, you need to build trust, provide social proof, and overcome objections. Focus on testimonials, case studies, and guarantees.
Stage 5: Most aware
Your prospect is now ready to engage your services or purchase your product. They just need a final nudge. Make the buying process as easy as possible, and include a strong, clear call to action. This is where you close the deal.
Let’s illustrate this with an example.
You might have found my website through a Google search for a "conversion copywriter." At the moment when you did the search, you were solution-aware - you knew you needed a copywriter’s help, but you didn’t know me. But after you've explored my website, followed me on LinkedIn, and read a few articles on my blog, you're now in the "product-aware" stage.
The way I'll write copy for you at this point will be different. Here, the goal is to transition you from merely knowing about my service to believing I’m the right copywriter for you, bringing you closer to the "most aware" stage, where you're ready to hire me (you can do so here).
4. Focus on One Message Only
One of the biggest copywriting mistakes I often see is copy that lacks focus. Listen, you can’t communicate effectively if you’re trying to get multiple messages across at once.
Nor can you communicate effectively if you don’t know what message you’re trying to convey (that happens way too often).
So, before you start writing your copy, you must know exactly what you’re trying to tell your prospects.
The golden rule of conversion copy is what we copywriters call the Rule of One:
One message,
One purpose,
One action.
Focusing on only one message takes away the guesswork and the overwhelm out of the equation for your readers.
💡 Want to learn what are some other big copywriting mistakes people often make? I have an entire article dedicated to this on my blog.
5. Guide Them Through Their Thought Process
Conversion copy has one goal: to take your readers from merely browsing and exploring to taking action. You can influence your readers’ end decision (whether to take the desired action or not) by guiding them through their decision-making process.
Think about it.
When you’re looking for, let’s say, a website designer, you’re going to want to know a few things about them before you decide to take further action (for example, book a consultation call with them). You’ll want to know who they are, their experience and expertise, the type of customers they usually work with, etc.
After you learn one thing about them, you’ll ask another question and another until you finally have enough knowledge to make a decision you’re sure about.
If the website designer in question skillfully wrote their website copy, it’ll guide you seamlessly through your thought process, answering all the doubts you may have and handling your objections before you’re even able to formulate them in your head.
6. Tell Them What’s In It For Them
One of the biggest conversion killers I often see businesses make with their copy is talking only about themselves. Websites filled with boring phrases like “We are the leaders in our industry,” “Our team of experts…,” “We won 14 awards,” “We have 10+ years of experience and expertise” only put people off.
See the pattern? It’s all “we, ourselves, and us.” Plus, that’s a lot of blah, blah, blah without substance.
No one cares that you’re “the leader in your industry” and how many awards you won unless they already know what you can do for them. Only after they already know how you can help them get rid of their problem and the benefits of working with you will they want to know more about you.
In copywriting, we call that the “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) factor. Your copy should always be focused on your audience and answer the WIIFM question for them. It should be about them, their needs, and how you're the solution, not just about your company's achievements or attributes.
For example, instead of saying, "Our software has the most advanced algorithms in the industry," shift the focus to the customer by saying, "Enjoy faster, more accurate results with our industry-leading algorithms." Here, you're not just flaunting your features. You're clearly presenting how those features benefit the customer.
7. Use the Psychology of Persuasion
Conversion copywriting is all about persuasion. A skilled conversion copywriter uses a variety of psychological triggers to make their copy more persuasive. These triggers tap into the subconscious mind of the reader, encouraging them to act.
However, this doesn't just mean throwing in a few buzzwords and clever phrases. It's about understanding the deep-seated motivations and desires that drive human behavior and using them to your advantage.
When you use persuasion techniques in copywriting, you're engaging with your audience on a more subconscious level. You're not just presenting information but rather creating a narrative or presenting a scenario that resonates with their innermost thoughts and feelings.
8. Handle Objections
Every buyer has objections. No matter how great your product or service is, no matter how brilliant of a salesperson you are, or how many amazing testimonials you’ve received from past clients, every new prospect will have objections.
If you want to receive a position decision from your prospect and get that conversion, you must anticipate and address their potential objections in your copy.
There are specific ways to do so in your copy, such as including specific sections on your sales page that deal with one objection each, offering a money-back guarantee, or adding an FAQ section at the bottom of your page.
Typically, the three main objections people usually have are:
Is this worth my money?
Will this work for me?
Is this right for me?
9. Use a Call to Action
We’re generally lazy. We don’t want to put in extra effort. In fact, we’d rather give up than go through extra hoops. So, unless you tell your readers exactly what you want them to do and make it super easy for them to do it, they won’t do anything.
Placing calls to action strategically in your copy is the key to getting those conversions. Even if you wrote great copy that makes your potential customers ready to take the next step, if there’s no CTA, they’ll likely drift away, possibly never to return.
Whether it's "Buy Now," "Subscribe Today," or "Start Your Free Trial," a compelling and clear CTA is what guides these ready-to-act customers through the finish line.
Wrapping Up
Effective conversion copywriting is more than putting words on a page. It requires a deep understanding of your audience, human behavior, the psychology of persuasion, and the art of persuasive writing.
But more than anything, at its core, conversion-focused copy is about connecting with your potential customer - understanding their desires, fears, and needs and presenting your solution in a way that feels tailored just for them.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Thank you for reading, and if you’re looking for more helpful articles about copywriting and content writing, I’ve got more on my blog. See you soon!
Comments