Five ways to influence the minds of your potential customers - with web copy.
Ok, so you’ve got a super-slick design for your website and your marketing campaigns are sending a nice number of potential customers to browse its attractive pages - but what happens once they’ve arrived? Just like a sales person in a shop can employ verbal sales techniques to convince someone to whip out their credit card, the words on your site (or web copy) can act in the same way, all year round - and you don’t have to pay them a salary! Apart from applying some basic principles, such as good grammar (!), interesting and informative content and the inclusion of keywords, there are five clever, mind-bending tricks you can employ to tap into the minds of your potential customers and influence what they do on your site.
1. Make your copy scan-able - Influence what they read
People don’t read on the web, they scan. Therefore, picking out the most important words and making them stand out (bold, italic or underlined) means they’re likely to scan those. Bullet points, engaging headings and subheads are great too, as they summarise content. Usability expert Jakob Nielson wrote a great article on this subject, based on research on how people read websites.
2. Insert testimonials - Build up trust
When you’re asking someone to buy something from a website, without any personal contact, you’re asking for quite a bit of their trust. Review sites such as Tripadvisor have become incredibly popular as they contain unbiased reviews from past customers, which carry much more clout than a sales pitch from the vendor. Therefore, inserting positive testimonials in key areas of the site (the homepage, just before a call to action) gives your web copy more credibility.
To-Tuscany.com (click to enlarge)
Above is an example of a homepage (incidentally one of our clients) that employs bullet points and bold text to make text more scan-able. The Good Web Guide icon and Telegraph logo with testimonial both stand out as well and immediately inject trust.
3. Ask questions - Use their imagination
What would it mean to you if you could convert an extra 20% of visitors to your site into customers, just by making some simple changes to your web copy? This type of question engages your readers, which means they stay longer and also lets them imagine a life with what you’re about to sell them. A less effective way of writing this without the psychological factor would be: If your make some changes to your web copy you could convert an extra 20% of visitors to your site into customers. While the latter is a simple statement written by you (which your readers may or may not believe), the previous has prompted readers to draw their own conclusion, thus making the hidden statement more believable. Any question in web copy is a good way to engage a reader, as their brain will automatically want to answer it. (Just look at the title of this blog post.)
4. Hidden orders and assumptions - Make your copy more persuasive
You can indirectly tell your readers to do something by cleverly hiding it in your web copy. For example, the phrase “It’s never too late to pick up the phone” contains the hidden order “pick up the phone”. This is made even more effective by using an italic font for the hidden order. A similar technique is to insert an assumption in your copy, implying that the reader has already decided to act on your advice. For example: “When you call us, we will give you an initial consultation, free of charge.” In this example, you are implying the reader has already decided to call you.
5. Inject emotion - Engage the reader
People are led by their emotions and these are often a deciding factor when a sale is being contemplated. Injecting a fear of loss is one method to play on those emotions. For example: “Don’t miss out on this exclusive offer - it expires in 2 days!” Starting a sentence with: “Are you frustrated that” or “Wouldn’t you be happy if” is another way to inject emotional words to connect with the reader more. Even injecting some humour can relax the reader and engage them more. Generally, a conversational writing style contains more emotion, is therefore more engaging and books the best results.
The shopping cart on iwantoneofthose.com reads “disappointingly empty” when no purchases have been made yet. A great example of a humourous and engaging piece of copy.
The trick of all tricks!
.. is not a trick, just common sense.
Read through your website, from start to finish.
When is the last time you did that? The chances are your copy is crying out for some TLC and more than likely there will be some unsightly typos lurking in the depths of your content. Once you’ve read it, scan it. You’ll be surprised at how many things you’ll want to change.
But I’ve only given you 5 mind-bending tricks to transform your copy into cash - if you want more tips on conversion optimisation; you know where to find me! (And that’s called the “Cliff-hanger Principle“.)
Tags: Annelies Van de Velde, Content Creation, Conversion Optimisation, Web Copy
Of course you knew that your final cliff hanging trick conflicts with your first
“Persuasion, Emotion & Trust” - (c) HFI - are the new frontiers of e-commerce user experience. (See also books by Robert Caldini “Influence”, Stanley Milgram “Obedience to Authority” Barry Schwartz “The Paradox of Choice” and Joshua Porter “Designing for the Social Web”.)
It is mightily exciting (and a huge relief!) to be able to talk about psychology when it comes to marketing and selling online. It illustrates we have reached a certain milestone in online strategy and tactics.
However to have competencies here as well as with the old ones of usability (get these checkout obstacles out of my way!) — AND add on all the competencies of getting good traffic to your site AND getting people to find the suitable content / product AND getting them to check out / email it to someone / link to it / pick up the phone and call you AND measuring it all meaningfully…
It’s getting tricky for mere mortals to keep up, let alone prioritise what is *actually important*.
Do you think agencies will start thinking a bit more holistically about this issue for clients?
DJ
Thanks DJ, I will check out the references.
I don’t think agencies have a choice but to think holistically for their clients, and I share your enthusiasm for bringing customer psychology into the realms of online marketing.
CPA currency and technophobic marketers made the early commercial internet a playground for spammers, and prevented traditional marketers from bringing their expertise to bear. Real customer insight was forgotten, and a numbers based culture focussed on click-throughs, unique users and keywords prevailed. As a result, the internet hasn’t been particularly engaging, at least not in the way that it can be.
I think we are turning a corner, and customers are now making their way back to heart of digital strategy design. SEO, PPC, Conversions, Email, Social Media, Analytics, Affiliates, Copy, design, will remain as silos unless they are unified by a holistic strategy, and the unifying element is of course the customer……..enter traditional marketing and psychology.
But as DJ says, this holistic approach brings challenges for an agency. I have been wrestling with these challenges for some time now and have discovered the following:
- You also need lots of experts (recruitment challenge) to work together (collaborative workflow planning challenge). For example at Propellernet we need Linda to set the brand success vision and customer KPI’s, Gary to develop a sense of who the target customers are, what they want, and how much they are worth to the brand, we need SEO people like Dave and PPC people like Eshe to raise brand awareness to drive more customers to the site, we need copywriters such as Annelies and conversion specialists like Stu to turn customer consideration into commitment, and we need online PR people like Stella to channel customer goodwill into loyalty and social media advocacy. We need everyone to work on their specialist part of the jigsaw, and be ever mindful of where their work fits into the bigger picture.
- The next challenge is to help our clients realise that if we are developing the full customer journey, a great deal more resource is required. We have solved this challenge by introducing a new model which clearly demonstrates the revenue associated with carrying our work at each customer stage, so any budget is signed off against a clear return.
Our mission……The full online journey optimised around the customer, with clear financial control for our clients over budgets and forecasting. As one customer recently said “It’s like a dream”. Our mission at Propellernet is turning this dream into a reality. Very challenging, but then all worthwhile things normally are.
Jack
Jack,
As a human science graduate (sounds like psychology, but it’s sociology really) and a seller I enjoyed Annelies article.
In reading your response to DJ and as a BUSINESS DEVELOPER I find it inspiring to learn how highly you value expertise and how vital you feel this is, if a truly holistic agency service is required to deliver measurable success for clients.
It seems to me the “recruitment challenge” you refer to is indeed testing, as EFFECTIVE JUDGEMENT in this area will REWARD YOU with not only an agency that is highly attractive to prospective clients, it will also ensure managing such a capable collective team is efficient, allowing you to concentrate on BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS. No one wants the hassle of ego!
What would it mean to you to find a NEW BUSINESS DIRECTOR able to carry this collective message by creating meaningful strategic discussions between prospect and agency?
My TOP TIPS for accelerating profit? 1) Use a proven salesperson. Expertise in selling is crucial not a history within your industry (a good salesman will impress you with the working knowledge he will have developed between invitation to.. and attendance at interview) 2) You can call him a BDM or Account Director or Business Director but make sure he is a salesperson.
Of course I have many more top tips but I am sure you have spotted my objective here. I have forwarded my CV to you today. When you call me you will find me smiling, but focused.
John
Linkedin http://uk.linkedin.com/in/johncharleswoodley
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that are made in his subject, and how to avoid them - Werner Karl Heisenberg
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