The old way of writing copy is over. There is a new way of writing copy (marketing words) that focuses on:
– People over product
– Connecting with your right-fit people
– Adding genuine value
The aim of good copywriting is to have an impact and effect on people that inspires them to take action.
If you’re a coach or consultant, or you have a service or program that you want to sell to more people, it’s super important that you know how to inspire people to take action.
Some people say to me “What exactly IS copy?!”
Copy is a funny word, isn’t it? Some people don’t like the word, as it can feel kind of intimidating.
All of us – if we have something to sell that’s going to help people solve their problem – need to know how to use our words to link people to our product or service.
There’s a gap between your service or product, and the person who needs what you’re offering.
That’s what copy does – it closes the gap.
Different pieces of your copywriting have different goals.
For example, your social media posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram and your emails usually have the goal to bring people a step closer towards you, until you eventually make an offer to what I call your ‘right-fit person’.
If you think about social media posts for example, they are not generally designed to completely close the gap. Social media is meant to be social. It’s about building relationships and connections with people. So they’re meant to be more educational and conversational.
Other copy includes all the words on a landing page or your website, where people come to read about your product or service. This is usually a sales page with an order form that has a button that people click to buy your product or service.
The ‘buy here’ button closes the gap all the way up.
Compelling copy focuses on connecting you with your ‘right-fit people’.
There are people who are the right fit for you. And there are people that are definitely not the right fit for you.
The job of your copy is to attract the right people – the people are those who align with your energy and with what you have to offer.
The Old Way: Professional
The New Way: Conversational
The old way of writing copy was super professional and cheesy. Cheesy doesn’t work anymore. People don’t want that now. People want authentic, friendly and conversational copy.
Ineffective copy is often what’s letting people down in their business. Learning to write copy is a skill. And all skills are learnable.
You can learn it and get better at it and you can start to see a difference really quickly. You don’t need to do a two year degree in copywriting to actually make an impact. It’s the little tweaks that can make a big impact.
You don’t have to completely change your writing style. You just need to follow proven formulas and structures that work. And then you infuse your personality into writing your copy.
The challenge is: People assume that they’re good copywriters because they are good at their subject matter. Being a subject matter expert doesn’t mean you have specifically leaned the skill of copywriting.
There is a lot of freedom and creativity that you can infuse within the copywriting formula, but there is a structure and guidelines to writing content also.
You don’t start to play any game without having the right guidelines or without knowing the rules.
You wouldn’t play a game of soccer or even play a game of chess without knowing the rules, so it’s important to learn the guidelines.
When you’re learning an instrument, there’s certain notes that work well together, like C,E and G, that make a nice sounding chord.
Certain notes don’t work well together, like playing C and D, because their sound together does not work well.
It’s the same with copywriting. There’s a big difference between writing about how great your product is, and writing to influence or inspire someone to buy.
Breaking Old Copywriting Myths
There are copywriting myths relating to the old way of writing copy that we need to lay down in order to pick up the new way of copywriting.
Imagine being in an English class and handing in an essay that was written similar to how we write a social media post or email today. It would get an immediate fail!
The new way is different to the traditional way we write. One of the reasons how we write has changed, is because we are so bombarded with information now. We don’t like reading big, long sentences and long paragraphs.
People don’t want to hear old-school, colloquial and traditional language now. No one wants to read posts with long, hard words that you have to get your brain around.
We’ve trained ourselves to follow the path of least resistance, so we need to be able to make our copy simpler.
Big, fancy words is the old way of writing. The new way is conversational.
It’s more conversational, creative and friendly. It’s fun and playful, showing your personality.
There’s been a real shift away from typical, perfect grammar. It’s now about actually understanding how the human brain learns and absorbs – the ”buttons to press’ through your copy and what inspires people to take action.
The New Way Of Copywriting
The new way of writing copy is understanding how to make people feel something and be moved.
Dale Carnegie says when you’re dealing with people, you need to remember that you’re not dealing with creatures of logic, you’re dealing with creatures of emotion.
It’s important that we think about the reasons that people take action and the reasons that people buy. People buy to fill emotional needs.
Some Reasons People Buy:
- For popularity or status
- To be recognised
- To feel loved
- To increase our time or increase our money
- To save money, save energy and save effort
- To be healthier – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually
We buy for a whole lot of reasons and we need to understand what is driving human emotions. Napoleon Bonaparte says there are two motives to action: self-interest and fear. It ties in with pain and pleasure.
When you don’t understand this, you’re just writing traditional copy that is beautiful writing, but it’s not moving people to act. This does not work nowadays. It’s not going to close the gap and bring people closer to you.
It’s the professional versus the conversational. It’s about knowing formulas and structures, and knowing the rules of the game, but also being able to infuse the rules of the game with your personality.
Find Your Own Voice And Use It
Finding your own voice is a great way to call in your right-fit people.
You can do this by to find and use your voice to repeat your key messages over and over. Then repeat these messages throughout all your different social media channels, like your LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
These are different platforms, but the way you speak should be the same, because you are the same.
Your voice should be the common thread through your emails, your website and your social media posts. Your voice needs to be cohesive through all your copy, because that’s when people trust you.
The only way really to find your voice is to write a lot. It doesn’t come by thinking about it. It doesn’t come by reading about it.
You can read so many other people’s posts, but you will not find your own voice by consuming other’s posts. You find your own voice by sharing content consistently.
I was talking to a client today and we were discussing a famous leadership author John Maxwell and the reason he can write so many books is because he sets a timer and writes for 20 minutes every day.
With copywriting, it’s about writing freely and not stopping and getting stuck in perfectionism.
It’s actually allowing yourself to just get good at the craft by getting out there and doing it, getting feedback and self-correcting.
The Old Way: Method
The New Way: Outcomes
The old way of copywriting was to focus on the method of change, so that was always method focused. The new way is outcome focused, so it’s method versus outcome.
I often find people are talking about their method of transformation. They are talking about the interventions they do, or their limiting belief busters script, or a particular diet or exercise plan.
This is their methodology. The problem with that is that people don’t buy the method, they want to buy because of an outcome.
An example I encountered once was where a guy asked me to help him to change his marketing, because he wasn’t getting anyone signing up for his event.
He was running an event on how to use the kettle bell. A kettle bell is something that you use at the gym.
He had a poster and the title he used was, ‘Respect The Bell’. He had a big picture of a kettle bell. What was his problem? He was selling the method, not the outcome.
No one sits at home and thinks that they need to learn how to respect the kettle bell. But many people do sit at home and think that they need to lose weight and get fit. They think that they want to drop a dress size.
I see this all the time where people talk about their features and their methodology, rather than speaking about the outcome. We need to connect what we do with what the client is looking for and then close the gap with your copy.
Don’t make the mistake of selling your method before you’ve really imparted the vision and painted a picture of how awesome someone’s future can be. We’ve got to sell them on the outcome.
Your copy needs to create a scene where your ideal client can see themselves.
An example is: ‘It’s Monday morning, you open your laptop and you are fully booked with clients. You are living your dream. You know this because you have learned exactly how to write compelling copy…
…You’ve followed a formula and your right people are engaging with you and booking into your calendar. People are giving you great testimonials about how much you have helped them.’
This is the power of using someone’s imagination rather than just focusing on your method or focusing on your product.
The Old Way: Volume
The New Way: Finely-Crafted
In the old way of copywriting, volume mattered. The new way is to create finely crafted copy that hits the target.
When I was working in London I had a business coach, and I remember sitting in a cafe with him once and him asking me what my goals were for social media.
At the time I was working in a gym and I wasn’t really doing a lot of social media. He encouraged me saying I had to get out there on Facebook more. Facebook was relatively new at that point.
And his goal for me was to post 3x a day. But I was already so booked up with clients.
People often ask me how often they should post.
It comes down to the quality of the post and how much time you have to create effective content.
When you’re busy and successful, you just don’t have time to be doing volumes on social media.
For example, this week I’ve got 23 clients. I don’t have the luxury of being able to sit there and pump out social media content.
It’s not about pumping out volumes of posts to stay top of people’s minds. It’s choosing quality over quantity. You want to be top of someone’s mind because you’re actually giving value, not because you’re constantly in their feed with bland copy.
There is much greater value in crafting three great posts a week, over doing six sloppy, half thought through posts. When you take the time to think about your ideal client and what they’re going through and how you can help them, people will want to share it.
When I craft my content, people often private message me and say that I’ve really impacted them and they book into my calendar.
You could buy a really cheap bottle of wine and you’d get five or six big glasses out of this cheap bottle of wine.
Or you could just have this one really expensive, beautiful glass and you can just enjoy it and savor it.
You need to have this type of thinking around your copy and content. People will start to view you as genuinely giving value to people.
You’ll get a reputation of providing quality to people, whether they are a paid client or not.
Are you struggling to attract new clients with your content?
Would you like to know how to write more compelling copy that gets people taking action towards being a paid client?
I’m holding a free online workshop on Saturday 6th of February, called ‘How To Attract New Clients With Compelling Copy’.
I’ll be sharing the words to use to influence your right-fit people, power words, the words to avoid, and the words trigger resistance in people.
I’ll also be sharing a proven compelling copy formula that can save you sooo much time and confusion, and so much more.
You’ll learn the formula and skills to watch your income and impact transform in 2021!
Find out more about the event here
See you there!
Kat
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