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I see copywriting as the art of creating motivation with the written word. The written word carries profound power to persuade and influence. How do you use this powerful tool to create motivation with microcontent? By mastering and implementing these five principles.
Principle #1: Benefit Driven Language
Most social marketers & businesses in general focus a lot of attention on telling followers why their company or product is the best. Yet at the end of the day, that’s not what people care about most.
Consumers care about what you can do for them. They don’t care that you have the biggest company, but they do care that you’ll always have something of value to them. They may not care that you’ve been in business longer than anyone else, but they do care about reliable service.
Translate statements from “about me” to “about what we can do for you.”
[bctt tweet=”Translate statements from ‘about me’ to ‘about what we can do for you.’”]
This can sometimes be harder than you’d think but it’s worth a look at your writing to confirm where the focus is.
Principle #2: Use Power Words
Power words or action words are words that pack an emotional punch. Instead of saying your product saves time, say it “gives you back 10 hours a week.” Instead of saying your product helps bring in leads, say “new leads will be flooding your inbox.”
Power words create mental imagery and have an emotional tone that helps sell your product or service.
Principle #3: Proof, Proof, Proof
Prove every claim you make. People today are extremely skeptical – and rightly so. There are so many people making bold claims that promising a benefit simply isn’t enough anymore.
Prove what you’re promising, then prove it again and throw some proof on top. It’s much better to include testimonials on the page you’re sending someone to or even within your microcontent post that shows how you helped someone lose 15 pounds.
People feel motivated when you can show proof.
Principle #4: Removal of Risk
Doing business with a company for the first time is very risky for consumers. They don’t know if you’ll fulfill your claims, they don’t know if your product is good, they don’t know how good your service is – they really don’t know much at all about you.
That’s why risk removal is such a powerful way to get people to act on their motivation.
Risk removal doesn’t actually create motivation. Instead, what it does is remove barriers to getting people to act on their desire for your product.
Add a powerful money back guarantee or some kind of return policy tied to your offering to reduce and remove risk.
Principle #5: Urgency
When people think they’re going to miss out if they don’t act, that’s a powerful motivator. It’s called the “Fear of Missing Out” or FOMO for short. You’ll see this a lot in landing pages or emails that use countdown timers nowadays.
Learn to leverage FOMO in your copy and you’ll be able to motivate and generate real action. Use it to take people from wanting your product to actually buying it.
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Featured Resource
I’m a fan of Nancy Juetten’s Bye Bye Boring Bio series and I know she has a virtual workshop here. I have the book and it’s been a great resource for me.
