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Do you like to feel cared for, listened to and understood? Most of us do! That's why making your customers feel understood encourages them to get to know you and your business.
Acknowledging your audience by being attentive to their needs helps to attract them to you. So, when writing your copy, use words that you know will pique their interest. Seduce them into wanting to know more. Try to be different from your competitors while remembering to keep things simple, easy to read and engage with.
Who are you writing to?
No doubt you know who your target audience is. You would have defined your target market and, from that, figured out your audience demographic. You may even have a few different target audiences; if so, it helps to segment your mailing lists. That’s because different target audiences require tempered messaging – the younger demographic from the older, different genders, locations or income brackets. Knowing which of these you’re writing to helps you adapt your tone of voice – read more about that here.
If you’re not sure about who your target audience is, this Hubspot post, How to Find your Target Audience, will help.
Your buyer persona
Now, let’s create your ideal buyer persona; that helps a lot when you’re writing.
For instance, if you sell hand-made children’s clothes and toys, your ideal customer may be female, aged 25-45, with a discerning taste for unique, bespoke products rather than high street garb. She likes to see her children dressed in cute, well-made clothes, being well-dressed herself. She will be in the higher income bracket to afford premium products. This persona could also capture the older woman (50+), the doting grandmother!
Creating an imaginary character that fits your product or service helps to visualise that person, which in turn helps you to write to them, not at them. As if you’re writing to a friend, not 'just' a customer. They must feel like you understand their needs, not that you’re selling to an anonymous person.
It’s not all about you!
One of the first rules of writing for marketing purposes is: Don’t make it salesy! Try not to wax lyrical about your business. I know you’re rightly proud of it, but your audience wants to know how you can help them, not how wonderful you are. Explain a little about your business, but don’t overdo it.
Instead, put yourself in their shoes to understand what they want.
Using the hand-made children’s clothes example, you could acknowledge that children play and get messy, but your materials are machine washable. Problem solved! Or that you only source sustainable materials to make the clothes. You could create a scenario where your reader’s child suddenly needs an outfit for a special event.
If you’re a plumber, your scenario could be of understanding how frustrating it is when the boiler breaks down on a Saturday night rather than just saying that you do emergency callouts. Or mention the discomforts of having a blocked toilet. Tread carefully here, though!
Acknowledging aspects of your audience’s lives helps them to feel understood. From that, their trust in you and your business will grow the more you engage with them in your marketing. And as we know, trusting customers are loyal customers!
Attentively Acknowledging your Audience
There are many acronyms for different marketing strategies to help you get through to your audience. One of my favourites is AIDA (and it begins with an A!):
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action
Keep in mind the words Attentive and Acknowledge when you’re writing, as well as Awareness from the AIDA acronym:
Be aware of the words you’re using throughout; keep them simple and avoid jargon.
Ask questions.
Acknowledge challenges – use empathetic statements to help readers know that you’ve been in their shoes. Be attentive to them and their situation.
Create scenarios that you suspect your reader is struggling with or going through to maintain their interest.
Hint at how you can help – describe the solution to spark that desire in them.
Share the first two or three main benefits of how you will help, creating more desire.
Next, spill the beans and name the solution! Don’t waste too many words here. Instead, tease them into needing to find out more.
Finally, use a CTA (Call to Action) to get them to visit your website, shop, buy your product or book your coaching session – whatever action you want them to take towards making that purchase from you.
If you have a special offer or a discount for enticing new customers, mention it at the beginning and include relevant subheads and flashes throughout.
Most importantly of all, have fun when you’re writing!
I hope you find the first in my A-Z of Copywriting series helpful. But if all it’s done is raise more questions or make you think there’s no way you want to do any of that, then please get in touch. Email me at jen@jennyhaken.co.uk. I’m here to help!