Jul

Quick, Practical B2B Copywriting Advice

By Sid

core-emotions Landing pages, squeeze pages and sales letters… OH, MY!

A friend and colleague gave me a not-so-subtle reminder about effective web copywriting when he reviewed something I’d written for a client.

He converted my gab fest into this: “Want more customers? Get some here…”

There’s a beauty to this kind of simplicity. It addresses the primary concern of the target market and says, “get your solution here.”

And It’s All About the Desire

Advertising legend Eugene Schwartz said that you can’t create desire in your prospect. You can only connect with and amplify an already existing desire.

Although Schwartz never sold anything online, the principles are the same. Here are a few bits of advice – things I’ve learned from what works and what doesn’t.

B2B Copywriting Tip #1: Find the already-existing desire.

It’s simple… and it’s not. What is the core emotional desire held by your target market? Fame… popularity… to end loneliness… to be special? These are the things that your customers really want. They are the CORE emotions that drive all of us to distraction and beyond.

They want more customers… but why? What’s the underlying motivation for getting more customers? More customers can mean more work, so maybe what they really want is the peace of mind that comes from not having to worry about money, and they know that more customers means more money.

So, perhaps the question I would ask for my client isn’t if their prospect wants more customers. Maybe they really want peace of mind.

B2B Copywriting Tip #2: Speak directly to their CORE desire.

You can do this through metaphor, story, or directly. Stories often work best, but the direct approach can work as well: “Follow these investing tips, or you’re likely to lose every penny of your retirement in the next ten years.“

Customer stories are great for speaking to the core existing desire. “Harry spent just one week using our secret process, and without knowing a thing about the internet made his first $467 online.“

The idea is that you don’t pussyfoot around with the core emotion. You hit it directly, and you hit it hard.

B2B Copywriting Tip #3: Show, don’t tell.

Where possible, demonstrate proof that you can fulfill their dreams by showing instead of telling. Schwartz offered this example:

… Just picture the scene as these college horticulturists began this amazing flowering test of roses. For here gathered in a test field were all the highly-praised queens of rosedom… floribundas, hybrid teas, polyanthas… Just picture the astonishment on these experts’ faces when in the first month alone, Nearly Wild produced over 15 times more blossoms than the average of all other roses combined…”

Isn’t that more powerful than saying “Nearly Wild will produce 15 times more blossoms…”?

B2B Copywriting Tip #4: Pull the weeds.

My second draft of web copy is usually about half the length of the first. The third draft is even shorter.

Even when they’re reading an intriguing story, people tend to skim online. My friend was right-on when he cut my copy down to just a few words. You want to use enough words to paint a clear image in their minds, but not so many that their eyes go somewhere else on the page.

When they read a book, all they have is the book. Online, they’ve got ads, Twitter, E-mail, and a whole host of distractions. Give ‘em what they want and do it fast.

B2B Copywriting Tip #5: Design matters.

And finally, design does matter. Eye tracking studies show that our eyes first go to the dominant image on the page, then to the dominant headline, and next to the site navigation (It’s like a big letter “F”).

If you use an image, make sure that it leads to your headline. Have your headline lead to the subhead, and the subhead to the body.

Put as few distractions on the page as possible. That’s why simple landing pages work so well to capture leads. They’re only one thing for them to do on the page – enter their name and email address.

On longer sales pages, use breakout boxes, blockquotes and images to break up the text on the page, making it easier to read and follow.

In other words, you’ve got to get their attention and hold it long enough to get them to take a desired action.

It’s not easy, which is why conversion rates online are getting smaller. There’s simply more competition for their attention.

Which brings me to the bottom line…

Want to be a copywriting rock star? Follow your customer’s already existing core desire…

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