Any tricks for making copy sound authentic to you but also speaking to your client avatar? With this in mind, I feel that if I lean one way, I lose sight of the other.
Morning! Long overdue copy Q and A today. It’s question I get asked a lot which is how to write a copy that sells without being salesy? And I think you know what I mean by that. It’s a copy that feels shouty and in your face and pushy and slick and you know, just feels a bit icky.
The thing is, that obviously works. It still works because there are a lot of marketers out there using that kind of approach and there’s some really successful marketers out there still using that approach. But if that’s not for you, how do you sell without being like that? So here’s you find it: It’s your voice. It’s your voice that sells.
The first thing that you need to do and it’s the first pillar of NeuroCopy and I talk about this in all of my videos is KNOW. Get to know your ideal client. You really need to get into their head and understand how to communicate with them and learn about what they care about to engage them and connect with them to enter that conversation that they are having in their mind about your product or service. The second thing you need to do is find you voice. I actually did a video on this a couple of weeks ago. If you want to dig into that a bit further. But I’m still going to cover both of those things today.
So, knowing – who do you want to sell to, you ideal client or clients is about, making sure you do lots of research. Really, what you want to know is: Why do they need your product or service? The real reason, not the reason you think. Because there’s always a real reason. You might think they need something from you but you need to dig in further.When I’m coaching or working with my clients, if somebody comes up with a potential reason a client might want something for the USP I will use this technique and I love it! It’s called “so what who cares”. If they say “well, you know, it’s going to make them feel empowered.” I go “so what who cares?” and then they go “oh it’s going to make them”. So you keep doing that and asking yourself critical questions to get to the real essence of why they need what you have. “so what who cares” just remember that. It’s quite confronting to ask people that but you can ask yourself the same question.
Your ideal client, why do they care about what you’re selling? And how can you make it a must have? So these are the things that you need to know to get into their head space and to be able to write copy without being salesy. To figure that out, you need to get to know not only the client but also the product or service, company and the competition.So you need to spend lots of time doing awesome, juicy research. That’s actually one of my favourite things to do.
Your ideal client – you need to know demographics and psychographics. The demographics are really like age, where they live, family status, occupation, average salary or income, Those kinds of things – basic kinds of things. Psychographics is where it gets really interesting from a copy perspective because that is things like as it relates to your product or service. What are their goals? What are do they want to get out of your product or service? What are the pain points that drive them to need your product or service? The are the objections they might have about buying from you? What are the things that might stop them?
And feelings.. let’s talk about feelings. How do they feel now and how do they want to feel or how will they feel they have your product or service? This is all really awesome stuff – gold you can use in your copy. With all of that, spend a lot of time doing it. It’s worth it. You get a really picture of your ideal client and what matters to them as it relates to your product or service which is exactly what you need. So once you’ve got that, then how do you put that into a compelling kind of different copy that’s not that salesy. shouty style we talked about earlier? It’s about finding your tone of voice. Whether you’re a brand or soloprenuer, you can define a tone of voice. Is your tone of voice for example: warm, conversational, quirky, funny, formal, professinal. There’s a bunch of different words. You can just google brand tone of voice to get ideas to start. If you’re not sure, you’re like “I don’t know what my tone of is”. How would brand speak if it was talking?
You’re still not sure, look at other examples of copy out there and when you find something that really vibes with your brand, your values, your vision, your mission, all those kinds of things. If you don’t have those that’s okay. You can come up with those anyway with a brand specialist if you want to. It really helps you define everything. But you can look at other examples of copy and then come up with what are the tone of voice about this that I like that vibe with me. If you’re a solopreneur, it’s easy. Just talk in your own voice. Write in your own voice. That’s what people want to hear.
And now I’m going to talk about something that I think is one of the most overused words in marketing. Well, potentially right now – authenticity. And there’s reason for that because things like live videos like these are really popular in marketing and people being authentic, conversational, open, story telling. These kinds of things are really what’s working in marketing right now. People are craving more authenticity. So if you go “well, i cannot write in my own voice”. Yes you can! Your audience wants it and if you’re a brand and “we’re going to be formal and stiff because that’s what we do.” That’s fine if you choose to do that. But let me tell you, if everybody else in your space is formal and stiff even though you’re not. You’re missing an opportunity to stand out for the right reasons and to connect with people because that’s what all of this does. It helps you to really connect with your ideal client and inspire them to buy.
So, in summary – my three commandments to sell without being salesy: Know thy ideal client and why they need you product or service. Know thy brand voice and be authentic. That’s it for me today. If you have any copy questions then feel free to just pm me and I will love to answer them! Have a great day, week or wherever you are in the world!