A moment of appreciation for Privy CMO Dave Gerhardt.
All good marketers know how important copywriting is.
The actual writing of words, that lead to sales, is critical to success.
Dave credits a huge part of his career with his ability to copywrite.
For those of us who are striving to get better at marketing, Dave has kindly and thoughtfully put this together for us.
Long story short. Want to get better at marketing? Learn good copy.
Here are the 10 Laws of Copywriting, for those of you in a hurry.
- Learn how people make decisions
- Uncover the selfish benefit
- Tell a great story
- Write like you talk
- Use their words, not yours
- Short, choppy copy
- Be specific
- Nail the headline
- Use social proof
- Address objections up front
Intrigued? Let’s take these copywriting rules further.
Wanting to dive deeper? Good. Let’s get started:
1. Learn How People Make Decisions
Sales and Marketing is a game.
To win the game you have to make people buy stuff.
Which means the game is to influencing decision-making towards making a purchase. Here’s the golden rule: People buy on emotion, and justify with logic.
I love this part of the game. I could talk about it forever. Instead I’ll give your four book recommendations.
And yes, in theory, they are recommendations, but if you’re serious about your job, these are must reads.
Get yourselves into:
2. Uncover the selfish benefit
Your customers ask it, every time. You ask it when you buy stuff too.
WHATS IN IT FOR ME?
Customers.
Even if it’s subconsciously.
Everyone always asks what’s in it for me.
Even the most unselfish purchase will give you the warm fuzzy feeling like you’re making a difference. But with your marketing hat on ask:
How does this purchase make your customers’ lives better?
3. Tell a great story
We are constantly telling ourselves stories.
We grew up listening to stories.
Stories are how we make sense of the world.
To convince someone that a product is going to make their lives better, you have to tell them a vivid, detailed story about it. How does it fit in? How does it make things better? Can they picture themselves using it in their minds?
Sally doesn’t need that 153rd pair of shoes, but her story is that her mates are laughing at her behind her back for wearing the same heels – she’s gonna buy another pair.
That’s a sinister example, but probably how the majority of the fashion industry works.
4. Write like you talk
Would you say what you’ve written out loud?
Is that something that would come out of your mouth naturally?
Don’t be stodgy and rigid, just because you’re writing it down. If it doesn’t sound like something you would speak, it’s not right. Unnatural and false.
Change it.
Customers have outstanding bullshit detectors.
Thing is, there is so much bullshit these days, customers are crying out for some genuine authenticity, give it to them. It’s an open goal.
5. Use their words, not yours
Use the specific words that your customers would use.
For example, would you call London: London, The Capital, The City, The Big Smoke, or something else?
For products, you can crawl the internet for reviews on competitors, and on similar products. You should also make notes on how customers specifically describe other stuff they would buy. Note the good points, and the bad.
This is especially important in Ad Writing.
Ads aren’t about you, they are about your customers.
6. Short, choppy copy
All killer, no filler.
When you waffle, you lose impact.
The rule of thumb is to use as few words as possible. Just make the point, nothing more.
Maybe I should delete that last sentence?
7. Be specific
Be descriptive.
Be detailed.
Be colourful.
Paint pictures.
Hit play on the mental movie.
BE SPECIFIC.
How exactly does this product improve your customers life? How will they feel using this?
8. Nail the headline*
It’s the way of the world.
We’re skimmers. Headline-only readers.
It’s rare that we actually dive deep into stuff. David Ogilvy said out of every 5 people that see your article, only 1 goes into the body text. That means your headline costs 80 cents of your marketing dollar.
While Ogilvy was a true great, he did his best work in the sixties.
In 1960, the internet did not exist. Is your headline more or less important than before?
I think you know the answer.
Amongst all the noise, the headline has to grab attention and get the person to read the first sentence. What do you reckon the job of the first sentence is?
It’s to get them to read the second….
The job of the second is? You guessed it, get them to read the third.
This is the advertising slippery slope. A concept from this brilliant book.
*If you’re this far down the article, I’d genuinely love your feedback on my headlines! Tweet me? @gkingsleysmith. Anyway…
9. Use social proof
Selling without social proof would be like hiking Ben Nevis barefoot;
Possible, but so much more painful that it has to be.
The whole social proof thing is a trust issue.
No-one wants to be sold to, but we love to buy shit.
So we’re so keen to take a recommendation from a friend, or heck, even a stranger, before we trust what a biased salesman says. Think about this –
What do you do when you buy from Amazon?
(After you’ve seen the product picture, it’s title, and it’s price, of course. But all that happens in milliseconds).
You’re straight down to the reviews aren’t you?
Your customers are doing the same, about you. So start collecting social proof and using it.
10. Address objections upfront
Get every reason NOT to buy your product out there.
Honestly, get it out in the open.
Talk about it.
It’s probably not a big deal anyway!
But the worst thing you can do is let customers come up with their own reasons NOT to buy something.
Customers trust themselves more than they trust you, and if they find a reason why you’re full of shit, and you a kiss your chances of a sale goodbye.
Address all the shortcomings. Remove the skeletons from the closet.
Reduce friction. Increase trust.
What do you think?
Do these cut the mustard? Are they enough?
Or have I achieved peak irony in neglecting any of these laws as I write this list?
Call me out!