5 Proven Tips for Impactful Copywriting

Effective copywriting tips that bring specific outcomes. This is what we share below covering best practices and expert advice.

Writing impactful messages that convince and sell is not an easy job, and is often mistaken with content creation which is informative, engaging, and SEO oriented.

Learn more: Copywriting vs. Content Writing: What Is the Difference?

The right copywriting tactics are often backed by science, psychology of consumer behavior, and proven methods for influence and conviction. Here are some effective tips and good examples from marketing campaigns and product presentations that boost brands’ and products’ awareness and sales.

Tip 1: Be as Specific as Possible

“A unique product”, “best quality”, “everything you need”. We all have heard these promises within product presentations, but they hardly help you remember a brand or a real product property and advantage. And, the more abstract the message is, the lower the impact on the consumer, according to a research by Jonah Berger in the book “Magic Words”. He emphasizes on a great example by Oreo proving that a slight change in the wording of the ingredients’ description results in real sales increase.

Turn Features into Benefits for Consumers

Think about what is more important for a customer: the parameters and characteristics of your product or how it makes their life easier compared to alternatives. We are sharing two examples by Huel: the first one tells you what a portion has in it while the second one - why a protein shake is better than a regular meal you take on a daily basis.

Can You Be Even More Specific?

“Our marketing agency has a decade of experience working with IT companies.” or “Our marketing agency has 10 years of experience working with IT companies”. Which one is more convincing for you?

Precise statements increase trust by users and tell that your message is backed by something real. An experiment with 199 people proved that an advertising message for a deodorant that lasts 47% more is more effective than an advertisement of the same product mentioning 50% in the message (just because we are all so used to hearing “50% more” that it already sounds too abstract).

Good examples for brands leveraging this technique are KFC with their “11 secret spices for chicken” and Heinz with a list of 57 ingredients that are part of their products.

Tip 2: Highlight Your Input in Bringing the Product or Service to Life

We often forget to tell clients how much we invest in research, training, development, or manufacturing of goods and services. But all these do impact the perception of quality!

Two professors from The US proved this statement in 2003 when they gave two presentations to two different groups of students. The first one was presented as an output after 8 hours of research and analysis, while the second one - as a 30-minutes task. The result: students were more engaged with the “more complex and time-consuming” presentation, even though this was a different one in each case.

In a nutshell: Never estimate or mislead clients about what you have invested in creating the product, but make sure they understand how much time, effort, and resources it has taken to produce.

Tip 3: Use Present Tense when You Claim and Promise

In 2023 Jonah Berger examined over 500,000 product reviews and compared the ones written in present tense with those in past tense (e.g., “the product WAS great”). It turned out that the first ones were 26% more useful for users and 12% more effective in leading to purchase of the reviewed product or service.

Another good example are all claims and promises that a product “could” or “would” make your life better in a certain way. In 2021 our team was involved in a copywriting and content creation project for a global IT company which was highly evaluated by Gartner, mainly because the business’ value proposition was stated in present simple with maximum level of persuasiveness (the company gives, solves, improves, saves, etc.).

Tip 4: Alliterate when Possible

Repeating consonants in the beginning of words (alliteration) from your message makes it much more memorable for consumers. The statement has been proven in The Illusion of Choice: 22% more readers or listeners have recalled different statements when they contain alliteration in their structure. You may have not realized how many companies leverage this approach today, and you can’t ignore the impact they make. Think of “Good food, Good life” or “Have a break. Have a KitKat”, for example?

As DGTalents has Bulgarian founders, we can’t ignore the contribution of Dr. Hristo Katrandzhiev and his colleagues in the field of rhetoric in advertising, that would give you a different view on alliteration and many other contemporary approaches enforced by advertisers in their campaigns.

Tip 5: “You” Speaks More than “We”

What we do as a company means little until you understand what you gain as a client. This principle applies for any business but is often neglected as we try to emphasize on how much we give, know, and do. A research among thousands of posts by brands on social media outlines that writing in second person pronouns is more impactful in selling ideas, products, and solutions. Make sure you leverage it as well in your value proposition (e.g. “build your new website with our help” instead of “we will build your new website for you”.)

If this article has been useful for your, make sure you also read a more comprehensive resource on the topic: Mastering the Art of Persuasion in which we share more about impactful messages based on theoretical models that tell you how to master your copywriting. {: .info }

Source: HubSpot