Add sales copy so readers act on your great content

Good content is essential but it’s not enough

These days, it’s tough to get attention from an audience that’s overwhelmed with information and choices. That’s why you need good content that lets you build trust with your readers and provides you with an opportunity to show them the reasons why they might want what you have.

No matter how they’ve first encountered your business; through search, social media, or a live event, the next step is a visit to your website or online store. There, you provide lots of information and education that helps them understand what you have to offer, and how it’s different from all the other businesses in your niche.

That kind of content on your site is essential to getting and keeping customers who buy more than once.

Sales copy is vital

There’s one more thing that’s essential, and that’s a way to gather leads and generate sales.

Sometimes creative people are allergic to words like ‘leads,’ ‘sales,’ and ‘marketing,’ but if you need to earn an income from your creative business, that activity is necessary. The business jargon, however, is not. For a different way to look at marketing, read this post.

You don’t have to come off as a stereotypical pushy marketer. It’s possible to integrate sales copy with the rest of your content in a way that lets you feel good about selling what you’ve spent all your time, energy, and talent creating.

After all, it would be a shame to put so much effort into showing readers all the reasons they should become buyers, without asking them to actually take that final step.

Connect with them on their first visit to your site, keep reaching out to feed their interests, and let them know what’s next.

What is the next step?

One critical function of good copy and the thing that is most often overlooked by people who aren’t copywriters, is to guide the reader to the next thing they should do. Copywriters and marketers call this bit of copy the call-to-action, but you can think of it as What is the next step?

The next step, or call-to-action, is not just for sales pages. If you make a youtube video, tell the viewer where to find more information or ask them to subscribe to your channel. When you post on social media, point readers to a relevant post on your blog, or ask them to DM you with questions. On every blog post, suggest additional relevant content or ask the reader to join your email list.

Everything you publish is an opportunity to continue the path that leads to a sale down the road. You never want someone to hit a dead end.

Places where sales copy matters

• Product or service descriptions are an opportunity to have fun, but don’t have so much fun you forget to use words that people might actually search. 
• The tagline: the punchy bit at the top of your site that tells people what you’re all about, in just a few words.
• Blog meta descriptions. These show up in search results, so it’s important it’s written to compel a click-through.
• Your home page, which expands on your tag, provides more information about what you do and why visitors should care, and gives them motivation to explore further.
• The about page. Sometimes we don’t think of this page as something that requires persuasive writing techniques, but it’s one of the pages visitors read most often. Done right, it helps build trust and shows visitors why they should explore further.
• Sales pages. The purpose of a sales page is to make an offer and prompt the reader to act. Here’s where good copywriting really shines.
• Landing pages. A landing page is a page on your site that’s a link destination from elsewhere on your site, from social media, from online advertising, or from other websites. Sometimes a landing page is a sales page, and sometimes it’s a page with relevant content. It focuses on a specific topic or product.

Follow-through is really important

In the context of your website, people need to be told what to do or they won’t do it.

• Give them a reason to want more
• Tell them what to do next
• Provide a reason to act
• Make sure it’s really easy for them to follow through

Do you need help developing the kind of messaging that pulls interested visitors through the steps to becoming a customer? Here’s where to start.