Copywriting basics: How to boost conversions

Once you have immersed yourself in the world of e-commerce, you will be constantly confronted with all kinds of marketing terms: Leads, conversion, hook, brand identity, ad copy and many other technical terms lurk around online shops. Most of them come from marketing and are ultimately related to what is always the biggest goal of every shop: generating sales.

Once the shop has been created and the products have been added, boosting sales is at the top of the to-do list. After all, all the effort should be worth it.

This is exactly where copywriting comes into play. It acts as a link between product development and sales and should ultimately ensure that potential customers are enchanted with carefully chosen words and persuaded to buy.

Accordingly, good copywriting should be a high priority in every e-commerce and shop project. It often turns an ordinary product into a “winning product” for your shop.

Why copywriting?

Even if you have no ambitions to become a copywriter, you should read the text to the end. Copywriting is relevant for every company and a cornerstone of modern marketing. Knowing the basics will make you much more flexible and your marketing more efficient. After all, not every start-up can afford professional copywriters right from the start.

So it makes twice as much sense to get to grips with the topic. If in doubt, you can simply write your own advertising copy.

Since copywriting is so important, it’s worth taking a closer look at what it’s all about. What is copywriting anyway? What skills do I need to write good copy? And above all, how do I write first-class copy that turns my visitors into customers?

In this post, I’ll answer all these questions so that you’ll be eager to pick up your pen and get started!

What is copywriting?

Before we start with the implementation, we should talk about the definition. The term comes up a lot in the marketing world, although most people don’t even know the clear definition.

Copywriting is an English term that basically means nothing other than “advertising copy”. This refers not only to the writing of texts such as product descriptions, but everything that is part of a company’s marketing. This includes brochure and flyer texts, blog articles, adverts, email newsletters, video scripts and much, much more.

Nowadays, copywriting has become a fundamental pillar, especially in e-commerce, but ultimately it is relevant for every company that does marketing (which, as you know, every company does).

As a copywriter, you have the important function of bridging the gap between product development and sales. This means that the copywriting must express the marketing message of the company or product in a concise and target group-orientated way.

The main task is therefore to emphasise the added value of a product (or any object to be advertised) and to communicate it clearly and comprehensibly to potential customers.

You can find out how this works and which skills are required in the next chapter.

What skills are needed for good copywriting?

Copywriting is much more than simple “copywriting”. It encompasses numerous aspects from the fields of marketing, product development, branding and data analysis. Creative copywriting is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

These are the essential qualities you need to write killer copy:

Extensive expertise

As already mentioned, you need to have an overview of all the key areas of the company in order to produce the right advertising copy. You need to know the target group, the product concept and the company’s long-term brand strategy. These data points act as a compass for you when writing the copy and are essential in order to reach your goal. Otherwise, you’ll be writing “blind” and the likelihood that your copy won’t express the marketing message well enough, won’t describe the product correctly or will even reach the wrong target group increases enormously.

A feel for the written word

As a copywriter, you deal with texts on a daily basis. Your feeling for words must be correspondingly good. You need to know exactly which word arouses emotions in which place. Precise writing that is concise and gets the job done without a lot of fuss is required here. This also requires a high degree of linguistic accuracy. Spelling, grammar, commas and punctuation must not be foreign words, but must be second nature to you.

Creativity: giving old things new lustre

Logically, every copywriter needs to be creative. Very few companies completely reinvent the wheel with their products and concepts these days. With the help of copywriting, you need to be able to communicate familiar ideas in a new, modern way while also conveying added value. That’s why copywriters usually have a gigantic vocabulary. This serves as a source of creativity and makes it possible to always give concepts something new and unique.

Empathy: understanding your target group

Empathy, i.e. the ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes, is always needed in copywriting. You need to be able to understand your target group at the deepest level, fathom their problems and desires and understand their emotions. Empathy allows you to understand your potential customers and tailor your copy accordingly. Always remember that you are not writing your texts for yourself, but for your target group. They are the centre of attention and must be guided through your copy as comfortably as possible.

Natural curiosity and an open attitude

Curiosity is a very important factor, because in copywriting you need to understand your target group as well as your product and company. What characteristics make it what it is? What characterises it? What benefits does it bring to people that many may not have on their radar? Curiosity helps you to develop interesting content and write exciting texts that captivate your readers. This also goes hand in hand with an open attitude, because the more open you are to (still) unfamiliar possibilities, people and facts, the more precisely you can write your text. If, instead, you close yourself off and only write about what you already know without learning anything new or having new experiences, your texts will be limited from the ground up. Openness and curiosity, on the other hand, turn simple words into an adventure.

Let’s get started with the preparation

You now know what copywriting is all about, why it is so important and what skills you need to be equipped with. Now it’s time to put it into practice. How is professional copy produced?

It’s like so many things in life: first comes the preparation. Good preparation is crucial in order to achieve the desired results afterwards.

Define your target group

One point that is unfortunately still far too often underestimated by the best writers is the target group. You can write the most creative, witty and enchanting texts. But if it doesn’t reach the right people, you won’t see any results.

Time and again, I see outstanding texts gathering dust in a tired corner of the website and not inspiring anyone. The reason is quite simply that the wrong people have been approached. All the writing effort and valuable creativity that has gone into it becomes completely worthless.

To avoid this, you should always (!) know exactly who your target audience is before you start writing.

You must be able to answer the following questions:

1. what are the demographic basics?

This includes origin, gender and age. This is important because an 18-year-old man from Germany should be addressed differently than a 40-year-old woman from Spain.

2. what language does the target group speak?

On the one hand, this refers to the national language (there have already been cases where texts were created in the wrong language), but the language style is also important. What is the typical jargon of the target group – colloquial language, youth language or technical language? Even if you can offer a good product and a suitable solution for your target group, they will still turn away if the communication is wrong.

3. what needs, problems and wishes does the target group have?

Your text must be tailored to the problems and goals of your potential customers. Know the “pain points” of your target group and address them clearly and unambiguously.

4. what is particularly important to the target group when making a purchase?

Some people attach the greatest importance to a favourable price. Others are happy to pay more if the service is right. Know your target group’s relationship to money and costs so that you can take this part into account in the text and possibly present it as an advantage.

How to find answers to these questions

It’s not easy to get precise answers here. But it’s definitely worth it, so you should take your time. In my opinion, social media is one of the best places to find out about user behaviour.

An example: Your task is to create advertising copy for a company that manufactures sportswear.

To clarify important questions about your target group, you can simply follow sportswear pages “undercover” on Facebook or Instagram.

Take a look around the comments section and discover how people talk and interact with each other there. This is an ideal opportunity for you to get up close and personal with your target group and gather insights. What conversations and interactions are triggered by certain products? Are there any controversial topics, running gags or other leitmotifs in the target group that you can capitalise on?

Social media is the most efficient way to get to know your target group in the 21st century.

Define your goal

The aim of the text itself is just as important as the target group. Are you writing a blog article, a product description, a flyer text or a video script? The format also has a major influence on the goal that the text is intended to achieve.

In order to write as efficiently and precisely as possible in the copywriting process, you need to define the goal.

In most cases, one of the following goals is to be achieved:

• Purchase
• Lead
• download
• Click on a link
• Newsletter entry

Almost all of these popular goals can be summarised under the term “conversion”. A conversion is an action taken by users on your website or shop and may turn visitors into buyers.

If you don’t know what goal you’re pursuing with your text, you’re like a pilot who doesn’t know where to fly. Even creativity, great formulations and innovative wording can’t hide this, because even the most modern and technically advanced aeroplane is useless if it flies around without a plan.

Knowing the goal helps you to structure your text correctly and guide readers step by step to the desired action.

Reach for the pen: tips for implementation

Definition and preparation are behind us: now it’s time to start writing! Many newcomers to copywriting find it difficult to get started, even after extensive preparation. A structured approach can help here.

The perfect headline

Whether it’s a blog article or a product description, the headline of any text is a key success factor. It is seen first and decides whether readers stick with it or bounce.

Writers therefore often grit their teeth on the headline and scribble various drafts on paper for hours until they decide on a mediocre version. There are simple methods to create the perfect headline and save yourself this frustration.

My tips for a “catchy” headline

Use numbers

Numbers are very popular in headlines and titles at the moment. They make the headline extremely concise and convey the added value very precisely and unmistakably. Example: “7 quick tips and tricks to optimise the conversion rate”.

Make a promise

Promises are a sure-fire way to attract attention and draw users to your site. Let’s stick with our example: “With this trick, you can optimise your CR by 3% in a flash”.

Describe the added value

With very clear wording, you can show users the added value within seconds. They then know exactly what they will take away from the article or your product and are therefore willing to take a closer look. Example: “Reasons why your conversion rate is still stagnating”

Playing with emotions

Use certain words to make it clear to readers what emotion is waiting for them and what problem is being solved. If you manage to establish this feeling in your headline, clicks and traffic are guaranteed. Examples: “Effortlessly boost your conversion rate”; “Goodbye headaches – how to optimise your conversion rate”.

The more experience you gain, the easier it will be for you to develop headlines. You can also combine the methods to get the most out of them: “3 tricks to optimise your conversion rate effortlessly”.

Always make sure that the headline is easy to read and not too bulky. A good guideline for headline length is six to eight words. In general, most people take in the first three and last three words of a headline.

A length of six words therefore seems ideal. Ultimately, always decide individually which length is right for your text. Also compare yourself with the competition to find reference points.

Use the APSA principle when writing

There are virtually endless different ways of structuring texts. These are usually based on the same marketing insights and also have the same value. The only important thing is that you choose one. This will give your texts a clear structure and a common thread.

My favourite is the so-called APSA layout, which I would like to introduce to you here. You can use this principle to structure any text, whether it’s a blog post or a product description.

A: Attention

Point one is attention. Logical, because we want to grab the reader’s attention at the very beginning. Then we can introduce them to the product, company or whatever the topic of your text is.

You can attract attention with a snappy headline (as explained in the previous chapter) and exciting introductory lines. Address the emotional needs of your target group and make it clear to readers what added value the text will provide them with.

For example, remember the opening words of this article:

What is copywriting anyway? What skills do I need to write good copy? And above all, how do I write first-class copy that turns my visitors into customers? In this article, I’ll answer all these questions so that you’ll be eager to pick up a pen and get started!

In this way, you address the reader’s problems as specifically as possible and take the most important pain points into account. Since your readers know right from the start that they have learnt something new after reading the text that is relevant at the moment, they will stay until the end.

So ask yourself which questions are most important for your target group and present the answers right at the beginning.

P: Problem

Nowadays, a particularly serious mistake is often made in marketing, because you keep hearing that you have to “sell a solution”. This is basically true. But before the solution can be sold, the problem must first be sold. This means that your readers need to realise why your product or company is relevant in the first place.

Imagine a technology company developing a laptop with unprecedented values: fastest processor, largest RAM and many other technical highlights.

Now the question arises as to whether it makes more sense to emphasise these highlights (the solution) or the problems instead.

Which text do you find more appealing?

Variant 1: “The new MegaNoteBook: 8.0 gigahertz processor performance, 2 terabyte SSD”

Variant 2: “The new MegaNoteBook: No more loading screen and error messages”

The second variant should be preferred to the first. Here, the specific problems are emphasised. Readers can identify with them. These are usually much more tangible, as each of us has experienced them at some point. We are all familiar with annoying loading screens and error messages on slow, outdated PCs and laptops. We could all do without them.

On the other hand, most people don’t know the processor performance or RAM of their hardware at all. Confronting them with bare facts and figures – the solution – is not yet effective here.

The problem should therefore always take centre stage first. What pain is the problem causing the customer? If you have expressed this well enough and your readers identify with it, they will also look at your solution.

S: Solution

This now comes into play. When presenting the solution, always make sure it is concrete and relevant to everyday life. This is where you need to describe exactly how the problem is solved and how it adds value for the customer. Highlights and facts can also be mentioned at this point.

A: Action

You have now attracted attention, described the problem and presented the appropriate solution. The biggest part is done, but there is still one essential detail missing. If you forget this, all your work may be wasted.

If you’ve managed to keep your readers’ attention from start to finish, you absolutely must include a call to action (CTA) at the end.

A CTA is a call to action that is intended to convert passive attention (reading) into a concrete action (conversion).

This could look like this, for example: “Would you like to find out more about conversion optimisation? Then sign up for the newsletter now and look forward to new tips and tricks every day. ”

In this example, I have once again emphasised the benefits next to the call to action. This makes the CTA even tastier and more efficient.

This completes the APSA layout. Each point builds on the others, so you should devote the same attention and dedication to each area. If one adjusting screw does not fit, the whole text may no longer work.

With a well thought-out text based on the APSA principle, you guarantee a comfortable user experience and increase the likelihood of a conversion.

Always think customer-centred

The last tip I would like to give you in this article is to always think customer-centrically. This means that you should always write from the customer’s perspective and put yourself in the shoes of your target group. This requires a great deal of empathy, but is one of the most important success factors.

Many copywriters focus too much on their own idea of added value and a good text and disregard the customer’s perspective. As a result, the content of your words is only partially absorbed because the target group cannot identify with it 100 per cent.

In addition to detailed target group research, you should therefore always prioritise the needs, wishes and goals of your potential customers. Choose a topic that interests you and a shop where you repeatedly buy products. How would you like to be addressed? What points interest you and what do you not care about? What questions need to be answered for you to buy the product?

You then proceed in the same way with the target group for whom you are writing texts. This way, you are guaranteed to strike the right note.

Copywriting Basics – Conclusion

In the introduction, I wrote that you should at least master the basics of copywriting in order to become active yourself and enhance your website or shop. Now you’ve learnt a lot about the basics (and beyond).

From the definition and meaning to the right preparation and practical implementation. Of course, this is no guarantee that you will be able to produce outstanding copy from now on. As with any other topic, “practice makes perfect”.

You now have the tools and knowledge you need to get started with a plan and write your first texts, gain experience and convert visitors into customers!