A copy can be a big deal. Depending on when and where you are selling it, the product might change in value between one sale to another. To ensure your potential buyer is an ideal match for this investment, you need to know how to close the deal with your copy. If you want to get better at copywriting, you should know how to close the deal with your composition. You need to make sure that your audience likes what you’re selling enough so they will buy it. What’s the best way to seal the sale with your copy? This is a crucial point because you may write great content that catches your clients’ attention, draws them in, and then drags them down a slippery slope to the Conclusion of your copy, but if you don’t know how to clinch the sale, all of your hard work will be for nothing.
This is referred to as “asking for the sale” in the sales world. Every good salesperson understands that you have to ask the buyer to purchase what you’re selling at some point. You may talk yourself out of a sale if you speak too much, and if you don’t ask them if they’re ready to buy, they may never decide to buy. Getting to the point when you ask for the sale is critical in every sales process. It may be as easy as asking, “Which choice would you want to choose for your first purchase?” “How many would you want to order today?” or “How many would you like to purchase today?” This is known as asking for the sale and occurs in a typical, face-to-face sales transaction. A call to action is akin to a call to action in copywriting.
Ways to close the deal with your copy:
The All-Time Favorite Call to Action
A call to action is comparable to a sales pitch, except it’s in print. You’ve probably seen it in a variety of ways. You may have seen a sentence on a sales letter that said, “Order your copies today!” “Start Your Free Trial Now!” you may have seen on a website. Both of these are instances of actions that should be taken. So, what exactly are they? A call to action is a short order that encourages clients to do something, such as purchase, join up, or begin a free trial. However, you may be wondering, “Why are they needed?” at this point. They’re required since they’ve been demonstrated to be the most effective method of persuading prospects to take action. Simple, straightforward, and prominent calls to action have been proved to be the most successful approach to convince your consumers to act, even if they seem direct or perhaps smarmy.
An example of a website call-to-action button is the orange “SELECT A HOSTING PLAN” button. Another alternative is to request that consumers take action. “Would you want to sign up right now?” or “Are you ready to sign up for our service?” are examples of phrases you might use. Both are appropriate approaches to requesting a sale, but when it comes to copying, neither is as effective as a specific demand. Whatever the cause, it’s been demonstrated that calls to action in print and online text are the most effective approach to convince consumers to take the next step.
Imbuing a Sense of Importance
In addition to including a clear call to action, your language should also convey a feeling of urgency. Customers are often on the verge of making a purchase, but they aren’t quite ready to fork over their cash. They’re almost sold, but they’re not quite there yet. The creation of a feeling of urgency, which motivates prospects to take action, is a tactic utilized by marketers all over the globe. Using language like “purchase now” or “order now” is an easy method to achieve this. To generate a feeling of urgency, both of these brief statements employ the words “now” or “today.” They’re both subtle, yet they work together to persuade consumers to act. Another technique is to develop a compelling argument for customers to act now rather than later. Limited numbers and limited-time deals are among these factors. Offer you ever noticed how clothes retailers constantly have sales around the holidays? They use copy like this in their advertisements:
Save up to 50% this weekend at Macy’s Labor Day Sale! One technique to generate a sense of urgency is to provide limited-time deals. Another option is to offer limited amounts, either because the quantities are minimal or because you intentionally limit portions (although you should never lie about limited quantities to increase demand because that would be unethical). Here are some instances of copy:
- While supplies last, get a 50% discount!
- There are just a few left! Purchase today!
- Dinnerware that is only available in limited quantities. Only 1000 seats were ever produced!
- The first 100 clients will get free popcorn!
- This is a one-time promotion! Purchase today!
Noah Kagan uses a limited amount of accessible places to generate a feeling of urgency for his course “How to Make Your First Dollar.” All of these examples show how to convey limited numbers or availability to urge consumers to act, and if your product or service is restricted in some manner, it’s an excellent method to push specific clients over the edge who may already be sold but need a little additional nudging to act right now.
Make a Strong Proposal
Making a convincing offer is also a vital component of the copywriting process. You must not only write persuasive writing that properly showcases your product and conveys its merits, but you must also develop the most appealing offer imaginable.
If you’re selling home security systems, for example, you might use content like this to promote your service:
This copy is decent, but it has the potential to be considerably better. Are you able to explain how? Yes, by sweetening the deal and offering an irresistible offer to your clients. Here’s some more copy that works:
Do you think you’ve seen a difference? To make the deal more appealing, the free installation was included. It’s a copywriting strategy that many organizations use, such as:
- Free delivery is available if you order today.
- Orders of $50 or more qualify for free delivery.
- All premium packages include free installation.
- Get a $300 gift card when buying a TV + internet combo today.
- Get a free carrot peeler worth $19.95 when you order today.
These copy samples add something to the offer that makes it more appealing. Bonus materials, free shipment, free installation, and a lot more are all possible deal sweeteners. When it comes to your text, the issue is: how can you make the offer more appealing? What can you do to make your product more appealing to your target market? Is it possible to offer more features or free shipping? What about a 30- or 60-day risk-free trial? Is there anything you can do to improve the value of your offer? If you answered yes, write it down because we’ll need it in the exercise after the article.
Don’t Forget to Include a Guarantee.
The tried-and-true promise is another copywriting standard. Thousands of businesses provide warranties on their goods. When you think about it, they’re rather intriguing. Almost all products come with a guarantee or warranty. This is a frequent example of copy:
- For 30 days, try it risk-free.
- We’ll refund your money if you’re not entirely pleased. There were no questions asked.
- Limited guarantee of one year.
- If you return it within 90 days, you will get a full refund.
All of these possibilities make the transaction seem to be less risky. They also give the product greater credibility. It must be pretty excellent if a corporation is ready to guarantee it for 5 or 10 years. And if they’re prepared to refund your money if you’re not entirely happy within 90 days, there’s no reason not to buy. However, how frequently do consumers use these warranties or guarantees? This does not happen very often. Here’s a real-life example from QuickSprout:
We compared the efficacy of a free trial with a money-back guarantee for the $197 QuickSprout Traffic System over two years. He discovered that only 12% of individuals sought their money back, despite a 30-day money return guarantee increasing sales by 21%. With a monthly income of $19,700 without the contract and $23,837 with the warranty but before refunds, the monthly revenue would be $19,700 without the guarantee and $23,837 with the guarantee but before rebates. Revenues would drop to $20,976 after refunding the money to the 12% of consumers who requested it. This resulted in a 24 percent rise in overall income.
What about trial offers? What kind of influence do they have? The change was startling. A 7-day free trial that requires a credit card upfront attracted almost twice as many individuals as a money-back promise. The 7-day free trial would attract 200 sign-ups if the money-back guarantee produced 100. That’s important for front-end conversions, but what about back-end conversions?
Surprisingly, the 7-day free trial resulted in a higher number of cancellations. The guarantee resulted in 12% of customers requesting a refund, whereas the free trial offer resulted in 33% of people canceling their buy. That indicates that just 132 people signed up out of the original 200. In addition, just 79 percent of the remaining 132 customers had correctly charged cards, implying that 29 cards were denied. Despite the cancellations and declined cards, the 7-day free trial resulted in a 15% increase in income above the money-back guarantee alone.
So, what if both were presented at the same time? Front-end conversions remained unchanged when a 7-day free trial was combined with a 30-day money-back guarantee. No one requested a refund, indicating that a 7-day free trial with and without the contract produced similar results.
Here’s a list of outcomes for each offer to give you a better picture of the ultimate tally:
- The first free offer was $19,700 per month with no free trial and no money-back guarantee.
- When a 30-day money-back guarantee was implemented, revenue increased by $20,976.
- When a 7-day free trial was introduced, income increased to $24,428.
- When the free trial came with a money-back guarantee, the income was $24,428.
“Wouldn’t it be preferable to merely give a free trial with no money-back guarantee because revenues were the same both times?” you could ask. Yes, in some ways, but no, in others. Over the offer without a guarantee or a free trial, the money-back guarantee increased sales by 24%. As a result, the money-back guarantee offer outperformed the original request substantially. So, in this situation on QuickSprout, the free trial offer worked equally and the free trial offer with the money-back guarantee, implying that the money-back guarantee was not required, but this may not be the case in other circumstances. It’s conceivable that a free trial isn’t appropriate for your product or service, and a money-back guarantee might assist boost sales. Finally, testing is the only way to know, and general generalizations should not be taken from this one product’s test.
As previously said, you may be asking what happens if too many customers want a refund. Many businesses are concerned about this, and it is something to consider. If many individuals ask for their money back, it’s feasible that a money-back promise will result in a drop in income. The majority of the time, however, this is not the case. Money refund guarantees almost invariably enhance sales, as seen in the QuickSprout example. In most circumstances, just a tiny fraction of customers seek their money back. It’s essential checking to make sure this is true for your company but don’t be hesitant to do so since guarantees are utilized for a purpose, and that goal is to help most companies grow income. It’s worth, at the very least, giving it a go with your product.
From beginning to end, be persuasive.
Remember that copywriting is a distinct breed of beast than other types of writing. It’s not always about being a good writer. It’s all about persuasion writing.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a literary genius or a world-class wordsmith. Your conversions will suffer regardless if you can’t correctly take readers through the proper stages and finally persuade them to purchase. I’d want to provide you with a simple formula you may apply to become a persuasive copywriter with the ultimate objective of increasing conversions throughout the remainder of this piece. I’ll cover both the fundamental framework and the precise tactics you’ll need to become more persuasive from beginning to end.
Begin with a compelling Proposition of value.
According to Nielsen Norman Group research, you only have a few seconds to capture a visitor’s interest before they abandon your website. In most cases, you have a maximum of 20 seconds.
Your first order of business should be to make your value offer very obvious. There are numerous approaches to this, but I like to keep things simple. Excessive complexity serves to dilute the message and confuse potential customers. Keeping my value offer brief, sweet, and unambiguous has proven to be the most successful strategy.
As an example:
I also believe the Moz homepage does a great job with this:
Don’t leave it up to them to figure out what you’re giving. Instead, with your crystal clear Proposition of value, let them know precisely what you’re delivering in a split second. To do this, strive to distill the core of your product into a few words.
Quickly move on to the advantages.
“How does it benefit me?” That’s what most visitors assume when they hear your value offer. But here’s the thing: there’s a catch. The majority of individuals prefer to focus on features over benefits. It should, however, be the other way around. Consider the following Venn diagram from ABC Copywriting:
It’s worth noting that advantages are prioritized above features. First, of course, you must describe how your product functions. But you may go into more detail about it later. The first thing you should do is explain how the product meets a need or desire. In other words, describe how your consumers’ lives will be improved due to purchasing your goods. Here’s an excellent Moz example:
Isn’t it amazing how quickly prospects grasp the value of Moz? It will save them time and help them be more productive. They also don’t have to worry about understanding complex data since Moz handles it.
There are three categories of advantages to consider while discussing them:
- Tangible
- Intangible
- Commercial
ABC Copywriting’s picture discusses the different sorts of advantages in further depth.
“Benefits do not have to be unique,” they say, “but they must be compelling.” When choosing an angle, keep this in mind. I think it’s better to start with the advantages and work your way down to the specifics of the features. Prospects will be more responsive and eager to comb through the particulars if you do it this way. However, if you cover the elements before the advantages, you’ll almost certainly lose many of your leads—just a thought.
Now, describe the characteristics.
“Can you tell me what’s in the box?” That’s what David Mills, played by Brad Pitt, wanted to know in the movie Seven’s last scene.
While the package contents were extremely gruesome (his wife’s severed head), this inquiry highlights the significance of informing your leads exactly what they’ll receive if they buy. To put it another way, tell them what’s in the package. They’re already aware of what you’re selling and the advantages. Now it’s time to break down the characteristics of your product clearly and concisely. Again, I think Moz does a fantastic job with this, so I’ll give you an example:
Like Moz, I like to divide features into bullet points or minor parts. However, the importance of “digestibility” cannot be overstated, and you want to explain your product’s characteristics in an easy-to-understand, intuitive manner. You should also provide details to set your product apart from the competition and offer value. Here’s how I used Quick Sprout to do this:
Keep it short and sweet, but add a few crucial elements that demonstrate why your product is the best.
CTA
Your prospects should now understand what your product is, how it will help them, and what characteristics it has. Then, tell them what to do next as your last assignment. To put it another way, it’s time for your CTA. This is comparable to fighting a boss in a video game’s previous level.
It’s the most challenging part of the procedure, but you should notice a respectable conversion rate if you followed the instructions in the previous phases. Again, simplicity rules supreme, and I see no need to make your CTA more complicated. On Quick Sprout, I use the following approach:
And this is how it appears on NeilPatel.com:
It’s worth noting that I make it very clear what action I want prospects to take. I highly advise doing at least some basic A/B testing on your CTA to see which version performs better.
The following are some particular items to test:
- button design
- color of the button
- wording
- positioning
Being very persuasive
Now that we’ve covered the fundamentals of good copywriting let’s move on to the next step.
The following is a basic outline of how a landing page should be structured:
- Proposition of value
- Benefits
- Features
- CTA
But how can you be sure you’re hitting all the proper notes and sounding convincing? The Proposition of value and benefits will offer some motivation, but here are some other things I’ve found to be impactful.
Make sure that your material is scannable.
I’m not going to give a long sermon on how important it is to provide scannable material. People consume online material differently from physical stuff, as you surely well know. But if you want to efficiently get prospects from Point A (your Proposition of value) to Point B (your CTA), it helps to make everything in-between easily scannable. Fortunately, creating scannable material is straightforward. Just be sure you include headings, bullet lists, and plenty of white space along the way. On their MacBook Pro landing page, Apple, being the astute marketer they are, nails it. Here are a few such screenshots:
It’s completely seamless.
Words that persuade
According to an article on Business 2 Community, we have three different brains:
- the new mind
- the prefrontal cortex
- the old mind
The article claims that the old mind is the part that controls decisions, and it also happens to be the most primitive. In this way, the words you use to market to the old mind will often be the most direct, simple, arresting, visual words you have. So if there was ever a copywriting hack, it’s using highly Words that persuade that make the “old part of the brain light up.” The following is a list of those words:
And according to research, the five most Words that persuade in the English language are the ones in blue, which are:
- New
- You
- Free
- Because
- Instantly
The use of these terms is essential places throughout your text that should visibly influence conversions.
There is social evidence.
This is the last point I’d want to make, and it’s a huge one. Incorporating There is social evidence. Into your copy is the icing on the cake. One of Robert Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion was this. According to this theory, individuals are more inclined to undertake specific acts if they can connect to others who have done so before them. I’m not going to go into all the gory details of social evidence. Here. This Kissmetrics article will teach you all you need to know about it. However, I would add that, pound for pound, and testimonials are typically your best choice. Here’s how I’ve used them on NeilPatel.com’s landing page:
You may also make use of:
- ratings
- logos for the media
- the number of subscribers
- relationships with others (your number of followers)
- clients with whom you’ve collaborated
Just be practical, and provide whatever type of There is social evidence. You think you would most persuade your prospects to take action.
Conclusion
Effective copywriting, in my opinion, consists of two essential components. The first step is to organize your material to display it in a logical and linear order. This means explaining your product to make sense to an average person and systematically covering your Proposition of value, benefits, features, and CTAs. The second step is to use persuasive aspects to ease concerns, clear up any ambiguities, and eventually urge prospects to act. You can develop compelling content and smash it in terms of conversions by appealing to individuals on these two different levels.
We go through four key strategies to clinch the sale with your content in this piece. We’ve taught you how to boost your sales by doing the following:
- Making use of a call to action
- Imbuing a Sense of Importance
- Making a persuasive offer
- Providing reassurance
These are the four essential stages to hammering home the argument in your copy and completing the sale. Make a mental note of the four recommendations in this piece and use them in your text to increase sales.
Frequently Asked Question
How do you close a sale with copywriting?
A: By using a conversational tone. It’s important to use terms like you, we, and our. You might also want to include an action word such as taking or buying, phrases like you’ll need this sooner rather than soon, and words that convey the feeling of urgency.
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