The opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Many business owners and marketers expect their copy to click and convert, but only a few know how to get past the click part.
When you’re selling something, you can’t fall into the trap of writing about your offer without thinking about why people don’t buy and not knowing how to present your offers.
After reading this article, you should be able to go back to your copy, make sure it has the strategies you’ll examine below, and restructure how you write your future sales copy.
Related: 6 Reasons Your Marketing Copy Isn’t Converting—and How to Fix Each One
1. Know why people don’t buy and work around it
If you budget or “categorize” your expenses each month or quarter, you won’t be shocked if I tell you that your prospects do the same.
And, thanks to the low dollar effect, they probably aren’t planning on spending what’s left on your offer. The low dollar effect is our tendency to be less likely to buy products or services that would deplete our remaining budget. And even if we do buy it, we are less likely to be satisfied with our purchases.
Let’s say you want to invest in an online program that you know can help you grow your business, but you’re so close to closing your education bucket that you wonder if the investment is worth it. You buy anyway. So you ask yourself, “Was this the best use of my money?”
An effective way to help alleviate the low dollar effect is to offer your leads a deal so they feel like the product is worth it. This offer can be a discount, free add-on, payment plan or 2 for 1. Add it to your copy!
You can also alleviate anxiety by adding a guarantee. But, of course, that depends on the space you’re in and who you serve.
Related: How to use digital consumer psychology to stand out from the competition
2. Abandon sophistication
If you want to make a real connection with your prospects, consider going easy on your sophistication and coming across as casual and sincere.
An 18-year study showed that brands that display emotion, competence, and sincerity have a more positive effect on customers than sophistication and robustness. In fact, the influence of sophistication and robustness has waned over these 18 years.
Why am I telling you this? Because I know a lot of entrepreneurs who have changed their entire brand voice and how they appear online. I’ve seen this over and over and unfollowed many brands I once admired simply because the spark that made me feel a connection with them is gone.
So if you want to sell more, relax your fingers, drop your shoulders and be more casual.
3. Use your humor
I’m not asking you to become a comedian unless that’s your business model. But throwing in a little humor shows off your incredible personality and hits the two hallmarks of persuasive communication: clarity and conciseness. Because the humor is often strong – and honest.
By making people smile or laugh a little, you are connecting with them on a deeper level and they will be inclined to trust you and buy your product – mostly because you made them feel something other than a reason to buy.
With humor, you humanize your brand, your product and yourself. While written humor may seem forced, adding it to your video sales letters and presentations will make a huge difference in helping your prospects make a purchasing decision.
Related: You have 8 seconds to get a customer’s attention. Here’s what to do.
4. Minimize your calls to action
If you give customers too many options to choose from, they are more likely to hesitate. But if you give them fewer options, they’ll make up their minds more quickly and buy.
Simply put, when customers have too many options to choose from, they buy less. But unfortunately, it also leads to more dissatisfaction because their expectations of your product are higher.
So let’s assume you have a sales page with three payment options, one being “full payment” and the other being payment options. They know they don’t want to pay in full because they just don’t want to or can’t. So how are they going to decide which of the payment options to choose?
During this thought process, they will be burning extra brain calories while raising their expectations. So even if they choose to buy from you with a payment plan, they won’t be too thrilled.
My rule of thumb when working with clients is simple: a call to action is beautiful. Two are fine. Three is unacceptable unless absolutely necessary.
Related: 3 Critical Principles of Effective Calls to Action
5. Leave essays to universities
If you need 1,000 words to say something, make sure each word serves a purpose. This is crucial when it comes to conversion copywriting.
Everything you write should be as long as necessary and as short as possible.
People’s attention span declines annually thanks to overstimulation and small content. This means you need to work smarter with the content and copy you publish.
Your emails? Make them shorter unless they require all the details you’re including. The same goes for your sales page. Make it as long as absolutely necessary so it tells your readers everything they need to know to buy. Remove the fluff.
If you’re reading this, you’ve reached the end. Congratulations! Now you have a job to do. Go optimize your sales copy.