Online Copywriting

It's About Content, Stupid (Article heading, webpronews.com)

Ok, so the headings a bit bold, but how much attention have you paid to the words on your website? In the online world it is easy to become so focused on graphics, features, and site architecture that the message delivered through your copy and content (your words) is not given the attention required. Research indicates that the majority of web users gloss over graphics and site navigation, moving straight to the introductory paragraph*. Once there, similar to your scanning of a newspaper headline and the first few paragraph sentences, the visitor decides to read further or move on. In the online world, this translates to "click" - with nary a backwards glance.

Is the message that site architecture and presentation are not important? Of course not, the message is simply that the attention given to the words on your site should be raised in priority to a position relative to their importance. As you will find, copywriting encompasses the entire user experience as your prospective customers follow the sales process through your site. Copywriting and site architecture combine to build to a successful sales outcome. However, far too often "The delivery and the presentation of the message are accorded a great deal of investment and attention, but not the message itself".

And, it's more than just your website. The words in your emails, newsletters, customer service correspondence, and for those of you using search engine Paid Advertising - those critical few sentences that comprise your ad, warrant appropriate attention. Offline marketers will tell you how changing just a single phrase or word can have a significant affect on results.

The Online World is Different

Online copywriters, or at least those who write about the subject, appear unanimous in their belief that what works in other media does not work well in the online world. Therefore you can not simply take your offline brochure and copy it verbatim onto your website and expect to be successful.

To explain why let's digress a bit. The web in its infancy was primarily a means for people to communicate informally through emails; for the most part communication was two-way and interactive. As the web evolved, a culture and style reflecting this interactive and somewhat informal aspect became ingrained. In traditional advertising, the message is typically a one-way communication, whether it is through television, radio, or print media. In the online world, the site visitor has an expectation that the experience will be much more of a dialog or conversation. A style reflecting that more informal means of communicating is often what's called for.

On the Net, you are much closer to your reader than in other forms of advertising. Therefore a style that is similar to how you talk is very appropriate. If you were having a conversation you would talk with someone - not at them - your writing needs a similar approach.

This is good news. It provides much more freedom to communicate in your own voice. Corporate speak does not come across well on the Web. Just talking to people in your own voice does. Is this easy? No. In the movie Closer, the Jude Law character, who has somehow evolved to writing obituaries, explains, "I started out as a journalist, but I couldn't find my voice..what I mean to say is, I had no talent". It's always a bit daunting when terms such as creativity, talent, and art, are thrown into the list of requirements. On the other hand, what could be simpler than communicating with people, one-on-one, in your own voice?

The Basics - Relevancy, Interest, and Persuasion

Relevance

"Relevance is the single most significant factor in getting your prospects to take action" (Persuasive Online Copywriting, POC). Perhaps not so coincidentally, being relevant is also the most important goal for every search engine out there - and for the exact same reason; it is all that matters to your visitor.

POC offers the AIDAS (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, and Satisfaction) tool as a framework for ensuring your online sales process meets the relevance test.

Attention - Does the page grab your visitors' attention - in about 8 seconds? Can visitors perceive the relevance of your page to solving their problem and meeting their need?
Interest - Does the page stimulate their interest and reinforce that they're in the right place? Does it suggest that your solution is among the most relevant and useful?
Desire - Does the page inspire the desire to take the action of clicking deeper toward a purchase? Does it explicitly engage the imagination of your visitors and make them feel they will get value from your solution?
Action - Is it obvious and easy for your visitors to take that action? Do you ask your visitors to take action? Do you give them relevant information at the point of action so they feel more confident in taking that action?
Satisfaction - After they've clicked, does the next page satisfy your visitors by providing exactly what they wanted exactly how they wanted it?

Note that AIDAS is appropriate at the micro (web page or action point) and macro (overall website) level. Just like in face-to-face sales where the end is accomplished through a series of little closes along the way, online sales follow a similar process. Clicking to get more information, compare prices, or fill out a form constitute a few of the little closes that result in a sale. Your copy and content needs to facilitate and close the sale at each and every point in the process.

Interest

"When you want to capture your customers' interest and speak to their felt needs (the things that make them want to buy). You sell the benefits, not the features of your product or service." (POC). Roy H. Williams expresses it as talking "to the dog, in the language of the dog, about what is important to the dog." Meat causes the dog to salivate.that's why Pavlov didn't use vegetables.

What is it that is important to your customers? Are you talking to them in the language of features or benefits? At some point your customers will care about the features of your product. At the gut level however, what they really care about are their wants and needs; benefits relate to needs satisfaction.

Toward that end, what is your focus? Is it on you? Or is it on your customer with emphasis on those critical needs and wants. At www.futurenowinc.com you can find what they term the "We-We" calculator, a tool that calculates whether or not your site is "customer" focused, or "you" focused. They accomplish this by simply calculating several ratios of self-focused words (I, we, our) to customer-focused words (you and your).

I love the following paragraph from POC; it's in their chapter titled "It's the Customer, Stupid".

"Have you ever been cornered at a party by someone who only talks about himself? Pretty annoying, isn't it? Do you respect that person? Are you comfortable around him? Do you feel such people care about you or what's important to you? Do you even want to be there?"

Are you doing the equivalent with your website? Are you talking about how your customers can benefit from your products or services, or are you focused on you, your company, and the features of your product? Following is an example, also taken from POC:

Homepage headline from NewsBios, a journalist profiling service:

We know more, about more journalists, than anyone else in the World.
- (Followed by the authors comments, "Yeah? So what! The first thing you want to do to engage your customers is brag about yourself?)

Compare that with:

Empowering you to know more, about more journalists, than anyone else in the World.
- By simply changing from "We" to "Empowering you", the headline speaks directly to the reader about what is important to them - and they are far more likely to keep reading.

Does this mean that you never talk about you? Of course not, at some point you need to provide whatever information is required to convince your customers that you are qualified to meet their needs. It's just that in most instances this is not paragraph one on the Home page material.

Persuasion

At the end of the day it's about persuasion. Does your site cause your visitor to take the next step, and then the next.and so on until the last action has been completed?

In his book "The Online Copywriter's Handbook, Robert Bly lists the following nine characteristics that differentiate persuasive online copy from copy that somehow misses the mark:

Gain attention. This is the ticket to play. If you fail to gain attention within seconds, no matter how well written the remainder of your content, it simply will not be read.
Focus on the customer. Example: not, "Introducing our Guarda-Health Employee Benefit Program", instead "At last you can combat the huge health insurance premiums threatening to put your small business out of business."
Stress benefits. Your prospects may be interested in both features and benefits, but it is almost never sufficient to discuss features only.
Differentiate you from the competition. What sets you apart? Can you look your prospective client in the eye and tell them they should choose you? Say that.
Prove your case. If you make advertising claims, many of your customers will be skeptical.if you say you are better, back up your claims with proof; track records, customer surveys, testimonials - whatever works.
Establish credibility. We've mentioned many times that the customer cares about their needs and your ability to meet those needs.not you. And that is true, up to a point. However, especially relative to professional services, a key part of the service is the professional's expertise and ability to deliver as promised. In commodity markets, what determines whether the customer buys from you is whether you can convince her that you are reliable, trustworthy, knowledgeable, and competent. Years in business, awards received, and number of clients serviced, all help to inspire confidence.
Build value. What is the value of your product or service relative to its price, and relative to your competitors?
Close with a call to action. Your site needs to be clear about the action required if your customers are interested in what you've said and want to precede to do business with you.
Give the user a reason to act now instead of later.

Words Can Set You Apart

Your customers are bombarded with information. You've read the statistics; the typical person receives thousands of messages per day. In this glut of information, it's your words that can set you apart.

The problem is that when its "the same old words, arranged in the same old manner, the result is painfully predictable and, therefore, eminently forgettable." (POC) It's a fact that we pay little if any attention to messages that are predictable.

Surprising Broca

Broca is the area of the brain "...where selected words are arranged into understandable sentences". After the distinct pieces [images and their representative words] are assembled into a coherent whole, we are able to "speak our mind" (Wizard of Ads). Roy Williams contents that "...while a speaker uses Broca's area to arrange his words into understandable sentences, the listener uses Broca to anticipate and discount the predictable." When your listener hears only what she expects to encounter, it's difficult to keep her attention.**

The down-home, country voice that promises, "We'll leave the light on for ya" surprises Broca. If he stated, "we cut out the frivolous in our motels so we can offer you a lower price" - your reaction is ho-hum and tell me something I haven't heard a hundred times before.

So how do you surprise Broca? Poets do it all the time...not that we should strive to be poets, but there is a lesson to be learned.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen ground swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.***

Robert Frost could have written:

There are things that can ruin a wall Like freezing Which makes the top rocks of the wall fall down So even two people can walk together through the holes.

Which is more memorable? Replace common, predictable phrases with unexpected, interesting ones.

Verbs

Roy Williams writes that the secret of persuasion lies in the skillful use of action words: "The magic of advertising is in the verbs.Describe what you want the listener to see, and she will see it. Cause her to imagine taking the action you'd like her to take, and you've brought her much closer to taking the action."

"You pack punch in your writing not with nouns or adjectives or adverbs, but with verbs. Nothing moves your reader like a good verb." As Strunk and White (Elements of Style) instruct, "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.It is nouns and verbs that give to good writing its toughness and character."

"For the purposes of persuasion, using active verbs keeps your visitors engaged and improves credibility. Passive voice can sound shifty and overly academic. As a general rule of thumb, when you want to inspire confidence and motivate someone to take action, you want to use the active voice." POC uses the following example:

Passive: Once the button has been clicked, the order is generated immediately and an e-mail confirmation will be sent automatically to you.

Active: When you click the button, we immediately generate your order and automatically send you an e-mail confirmation.

"The active description is short and sweet. You do this and we'll do that. There's comfort in the active voice. You can trust the active voice."

An interesting phenomenon

All of the above is a summary of the advice provided by several experts in the field of online and offline copywriting. And it really resonates with me. But here's the interesting phenomenon.as I look at what appears to be working for several insurance and financial sites that are successfully using paid advertising, often the message is very straight forward, sometimes doing nothing more than going straight to the quote page.

After wrestling with this, here's my take. Needs vary. Perhaps many people who use a search engine to find insurance.are already sold on the need. Great, take them straight to the application request, quote page, or whatever your process dictates (realizing you can experiment with this too). And, chances are, that if you look at the words on the Search Engine results page.those few sentences have been painstakingly crafted.

But that doesn't mean that many other visitors don't want to kick the tires, and your effective use of words can be the catalyst that prompts their action.

Another cut at this is the Style vs. Substance argument. Roy Williams writes, "If your product is mainly about style, you can promote it with style; if it is about substance, you better promote it with substance." I don't think any will argue that insurance and financial products are about substance. So by all means promote your products and service with substance.but still pay attention to the words.

Last but not least - the Creative Process

Read, study, think, and then set it all aside to percolate. I can't state it better than Neil French as captured in Net Words:

"Firstly I get a good bottle of red: ideally, Rioja, possibly a Vega Sicilia or a Castillo Ygay, from the cellar, and remove the cork. Then I find a large expensive wine glass, of the type that goes "ting" for a long time after you've tinged it, and place that in close proximity to the bottle and myself. This takes years of practice to perfect, but persist: I think you'll find it worthwhile.

Then I pour some of the wine into the glass and I think about the ad. Snatches of sentence, natty little phrases, excellent words, all come to mind. But I never write them down. All this while I am simultaneously drinking the red, slowly, from the tingy glass, (I warned you this was the tricky part), but I'm withstanding the temptation to pick up a pen. When I've finished the wine there frequently doesn't seem a lot of point in thinking about bloody ads any more, so I have a little lie down.

When I wake up, I let rip. Anything that survives the little lie down is obviously memorable, and goes in the ad. Anything I've forgotten obviously isn't and doesn't.

So, have some fun and let rip (don't forget the wine - tingy glass optional).

I hope you've found reading this article to be a productive use of your time; and as always your feedback will be much appreciated. My sources are listed below; I particularly found the Net Words and Persuasive Online Copywriting books useful. Roy William's books (Wizard of Ads series) are just plain fun and insightful reading.

Please feel free to contact me and/or forward any comments to jmperry@agentquote.com.

John Perry

End Notes

The Sanford-Poynter studies demonstrated that in the online environment, users actually engage with text before they examine pictures. And sometimes, they don't even bother to look at the pictures at all. Online, copy has priority (as referenced by POC).
"Mending Wall". Robert Frost. As referenced in POC.
Paul Broca, 1861. As referenced by Net Words and Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.

Resources

The Online Copywriters Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Write Online Copy that Sells. Robert W. Bly. Contemporary Books. 2002
Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank. Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, Lisa Davis. Future Now. 2003
Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs. Joseph Sugarman. DelStar Books.1998
Net Words: Creating High-Impact Online Copy. Nick Usborne. McGraw-Hill. 2002
Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads. Roy Williams. Bard Press. 1999