Copywriting: Spend hours and hours writing about your e-commerce. Always new descriptions for product data sheets if you don’t know how to write product data sheets, promotional and educational emails, and in the little free time that you have left in the evening, instead of watching a movie, you also have to think about what the hell talk in the blog which you know, you must have because it indexes, parked at the edge of the site like a stolen car in a suburb of Scampia.
But are you sure that what you are writing works? Which manages to capture visitors’ attention in the right way and make them slide further and further down your sales funnel?
Browsing through e-commerce here and there on the web, I found five mistakes that you should take care not to commit:
Speak as you eat (and call yourself)
One of the most common mistakes of copywriting is to overcomplicate communication with complex formulas that do nothing but mess with the head of the reader.
Just by reading the first sentence, you can find 2 mistakes you should never make when writing to sell something.
- Don’t address a generic subject, “Anyone.” What are your intentions, sell to “anyone interested” or sell to the specific person who is reading you? Because in the second case, you should address HIM, not just anyone. It doesn’t matter if you sell in B2B or B2C; in any case, there is a physical person in front of you in the flesh.
- Do not use verbs in the conditional or subjunctive mood. No essays or novels are being written here. Writing for sale forms mental images in the reader’s mind and pushes him to continue his buying journey.
Each line of communication must be clear and have the sole purpose of dissolving doubts, not creating new ones! Use verbs in the indicative and avoid long subordinate clauses or references to possible words such as “if one were… he would find”.
As you can see, I did an operation of subtraction, replacing the impersonal “All those who were” with a more personal question, “Are you too…?” and making the continuation of the message less convoluted.
It’s a challenging job! Every time you write a description (whether it’s of a product or service or your company), you should let a 6-year-old read it. If it gets it right on the fly, then it works.
Don’t overdo it with sincerity!
Sincerity is one of the best virtues in life, as in sales. No one wants to buy from dishonest people, so always be transparent with your customers.
But there is a limit even to sincerity!
With unsettling sincerity (and ingenuity), the true purpose of e-commerce is revealed: to find a new sales channel to get out of the crisis and continue one’s furniture business.
Well, this is the kind of confession to make to your wife before falling asleep or to a friend at the Pub after a few beers.
But do you really think you can pity a user who can’t give a damn about your success/failure?
And be careful because we are not talking about non-profits and charities, a sector in which the logic is a bit different. In the free trade of goods, users choose you only if you can give them immediate advantages (real or perceived) superior to the competition’s offer. They are ready to unload you mercilessly as soon as they come across better offers.
Don’t create a babel of languages.
On this point, there needs to be more to discuss. If your site is in Italian, you must write in Italian; if it is in English. If you target users of different nationalities, create multilingual versions of the site. Clear.
So why do you see things like this around?
Although the site is in the Italian version (see top left), the two main references to the Value Proposition, the writing “Outdoor supplies” under the logo and the one in the single slide in large letters, “Modern Outdoor objects you will love,” are in English.
And go well! By now, English is a must; it gives an international cut, and above all, it’s cool. But are you sure of the multilingual skills of your users?
And I’m not talking about being able to translate these short expressions (an effortless operation) but about having such familiarity with English that you create the mental images necessary to capture interest in your mind.
Except for a few truly bilingual people, our minds spend less time processing the word “chair” than “chair,” even though the meaning is the same.
Do not use more than two fonts between the title, subtitle, and body text.
If you need to gain font skills, I recommend using only one font for all your texts.
An even better solution used by many graphic designers is combining different fonts for the title and the text to create a pleasant contrast in reading. The operation is more risky as you must combine fonts that go well with each other and avoid a “jarring” effect.
In any case, never pose more than 2 fonts, as these ones from infabbrica.com did
The impression is that of a finger in the eye. Aesthetically ugly, but above all, impractical. The reader doesn’t want to put effort into it when he reads you, and you should humor him if you want him to buy you anything.
If you invite the user to take action, let him find a call to action!
Small parenthesis: if you want to disturb your visitors’ browsing by yelling at them to subscribe to your newsletter, have the decency to do so after at least 30 seconds that they are on your site, or even better after they have viewed at least three pages, or again after a specific action.
At least in this way, you will be sure to speak to those who know who you are and what you sell. Why should a user who has just landed on your site, who doesn’t know you and doesn’t know if you’re reliable, want more spam sent to his already clogged inbox?
But speaking of copy, the point is that you ask me to subscribe to your newsletter and give me a discount in return. Even if I’m interested in it,
Once the pop-up is closed, the user will spontaneously look for the registration field on your site. Clearly, under the text of the pop-up, there should be a call to action, with a field for entering the email and a big send button. Instead, nothing appears, just an invitation to subscribe.
I do not think so. He will forget what you just told him, and you will have wasted an opportunity to keep in touch with him.
Conclusions
Copywriting is the deadliest sales weapon you have at your disposal. The texts take the visitor along the paths that lead to the sales funnel, and not paying enough attention to their results in a loss of interest in what you offer.
Try to be clear in your writing, and don’t assume things that are clear to you. From within your industry, things may seem simpler than they are for a user who has never seen you and will be willing to give you only a handful of his precious time to convince him that you have what he is looking for.
The presentation you make of yourself and your business is essential and will be able to decide the fate of your sales!
Until next time!
Also Read : How To Take Advantage Of Multichannel Remarketing (Cross Channel)
