How to reach customers where they live emotionally
Don’t you love the web? Don’t you just love sitting by a warm fire with the web? Wouldn’t you like to have babies with him? Sometimes I want to divorce the web.
In fact, I want to divorce a lot of the web copywriters. Take the example below … please.
Let’s hear it out of self-interest!
COPY EXAMPLE: “We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce exceptionally powerful results for …“
I know that the person who wrote the sample copy does not hate the web or intend to harm it. They expected it to be a brilliant copy. It is not.
You and I, as seekers of information and shiny objects, do not care what a company “understands” about the world. What do we care? [All together]
OUR OWN INTERESTS!
That’s not as bad as ALL CAPS would imply. Humans are largely selfish creatures. It’s okay; we are still good mammals.
Give them what they come here for
When you speak to a web audience, you need to think and write about what customers are looking for. They came looking for something to improve their life (information, products, entertainment, etc.).
So, let’s not start the sales copy by telling potential customers what we know or understand. Let’s show them talking directly about their wants and needs.
Slang is for people who hate their mothers.
“We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce exceptionally powerful results for …“
Potential customers may or may not know what “user interface” really means. You might think so. Even if they do, how sexy it is what terminology? Does it take your breath away with the desire to click on their contact link?
Why use jargon? It doesn’t really sound any smarter. It is not clear and concise. Why do you hate your customers?
A mutual or reciprocal action
“We understand how content, services, and user interface interact to produce exceptionally powerful results for …“
The use of the word “interact” in this context does not make sense. How does it help you to have someone you don’t know understand the interplay between things you’re not even sure you need?
And really … I think Superman and Wonder Woman are the only ones capable of only powerful results. If you hired this company, they are lucky that you probably wouldn’t later recall that you were supposed to get exceptionally powerful results. Even if he remembered and they weren’t up to this hyperbole, he would be especially unhappy.
Flaccid optimization
I will only briefly mention that this copy is from a landing page and there is nothing in the above quoted sentence that optimizes the page for search engines. And believe it or not, this is the copy on your HOME page that is supposed to draw readers to your front-line services.
Well, would you?
If the above example was the description below the business link on a search results page, would you click the link? What could we do to improve this little sentence (to improve the likelihood that customers will click)?
This company promotes its use of data-driven design. If this was the most attractive feature to your customer base (which I hope you have researched), let’s rewrite the copy to read like this:
“Is your website doing all it can for you? It will when we’re done with it. Call us for a FREE consultation on how data-driven design drives traffic to your site.”
If this text appeared below the business link on Google, that is a link you would click. It has text that I understand and something (data driven design) that makes me curious.
Most importantly, it puts benefits before features.