2.3 Copywriting Trigger Tips

Next up, lets look at excellent copywriting tips, these tips are taken from a book called “influence – the psychology of persuasion” by one of the top human persuasion experts, Dr Robert Cialdini.

Let’s start with Reciprocity which I am so happy I have just said correctly in one take. Reciprocity is all about giving back the value that we get from others, reciprocating an act of kindness. We want our audience to take an action, whether it’s engaging with us, or clicking a link from our social media to our landing pages and we can incentivize this by giving them something of value first. You can see this in offers such as email opt ins on landing pages that promise all sorts of fantastic knowledge and articles, you just have to enter your email address first. Just make sure the offer inside is authentic, and awesome otherwise this won’t work!

Personalization is next up, and I don’t mean using individual audience members names. Your content should be personalised to a specific group of people called a buyer persona, or target audience. You can group people based on demographics such as gender, age, location or psychographics such as certain interests or behaviours. You company brand voice takes shape here, as how you portray your company, and how your company speaks to it’s audience helps personalise your content. Think of it this way, you wouldn’t talk to your 80 year old grandma the same way you would talk to your 18 year old sister – they are at two very different stages of life and expect to be talked to in different ways, your content is no different and should be created accordingly. If your company had a voice, what would it sound like?

The next tip is Why? Why should the audience buy this product or service? It’s all good to tell your audience that your product exists, but why do they need to use this? What problem are you solving for the consumer? Why are you having a sale? Why is this product discounted? Answer these questions to give your audience a reason to purchase. An example – 20% off sale this is fine, but if you say “It’s winter, it’s cold, and that’s why all our winter apparel is now 20% off” – we’ve given the audience the offer, PLUS the reason why, which has built an image in their mind.

Let’s look at a common enemy. What do you stand for – what does your company stand for. What morals and values does your company have, if these are important to you and your business, then you can create content that aligns your company with these morals and values which will then resonate with your target audience. Just stay away from politics, it’s just too polarizing. Look at a fitness regime like Crossfit, they created a brand on the back of building a tribe of people around the world who come together for a certain type of fitness, who then go and talk to their friends and family about crossfit because they BELIEVE in it.

Next up is Authority – this is where influencers come in. If you can get “people in power” who have a perceived level of authority to either comment or advise on your post, or influencers who can promote your products. If choosing an influencer, it’s important to choose an influencer who is in the same vein as your product or service, as choosing a large influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers will cost a lot of money, and the audience won’t be defined enough to give you good results.

Specificity is all about being specific, use accurate numbers for example, saying 87.5% is better than saying 87%, or 88% as it gives the appearance of accurate research or data collection. This also flows into your target audience, be specific about who you are trying to talk to, and use their values, language and motivations.