YOUR SALES COPYWRITING PITFALLS:
When writing from a Relator’s point of view, you need to remember to cater to other people’s selling style and buying motivators. Here are your most common copywriting pitfalls:
1) Hyper-focusing on the emotional impacts and benefits of your services and offerings.
It’s important to remember that the emotional benefits carry less weight to some readers. Lead with ‘The What’ not ‘the Why’:
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What do you offer?
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What are the features and benefits? (Written as concisely as possible.)
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What are the facts of the problem?
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What solution are you proposing?
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How will your offer put your readers ahead of the competition or help them accomplish their goals?
2) Long storytelling sections or meandering monologues.
Your storytelling ability is a superpower, but two out of four of the buyer types are less likely to consume long form text. Break up your copy to cater to the skim-reader. Don’t be afraid to use headlines to summarize the section that follows. Use the all-mighty marketing receipt and qualitative testimonials or data-driven facts to appeal to the more analytical readers in the room. You can still tell a powerful story using bullet-points.
3) Not enough qualitative data or social proof.
Strengthen your claims by providing data, facts, or quantitative testimonials where possible. (Example: “I increased my coaching membership’s sign up rate by 4X as a result of the learnings I took away from this course!) Many of your readers are attracted to messaging points that prove expertise — utilize logo banners to show outlets that have featured you or your work.
4) Not organizing your copy logically.
Your copy needs to connect the dots — from ‘The What’ to ‘The Why’ to the ‘So What?’ to ‘The Proof’ and the ‘Fork-in-the-Road CTA’. Some of your readers are reading from top-to-bottom, and returning to various sections multiple times. A linear narrative that helps them navigate where they are and shortens their decision-making lead time.
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Utilize headers to sum up something your reader is pining for and use it to draw them into your body copy where you can explain yourself and build that trust factor.
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Avoid leading with cutesy or poetic slogans unless they can be understood without any explainers or further context.
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Make sure your testimonials match the sales copy closest to it — when you’re learning about the emotional benefits of a product or service you want to see an emotional testimonial. When you’re weighing up ROI, you need to see a qualitative testimonial.
