The best copywriting techniques will hook the reader in the first sentence and exit only after making the desired action (e.g., enter an email, sign-up, make a purchase).
Write as if your reader has an upcoming bathroom break to get to.
As odd as it sounds, this is probably a decent way to think about how to approach copywriting.
You only have so much time, and your goal is to get them hooked and keep them that way until you get the desired action.
And these are some tactics to accomplish this:
Table of Contents
Hook
This is what grabs their attention. The easiest way to generate hooks is the format “How to Y without X”.
“How to scale your Facebook Ads without launching a single campaign”
Seeds of curiosity
This is easy to execute but extremely powerful. We’ll get to it in a minute but first…
This is a seed of curiosity.
Others are:
– But there’s more…
– It got worse…
– Here’s why…
Open loops
These are quite famous. An open loop is a complete sentence but that gives an incomplete thought.
“They laughed when I sat at the piano… but when I started to play”
Transitions
These make sure that the passage from one thought to another is smooth and doesn’t interrupt the flow of the reader.
You can have a highly interesting piece of copy, but without transitions, you’re losing readers at every paragraph.
Other transition words are:
- so
- and
- plus
- accordingly/moreover/furthermore (if appropriate)
The “I” to “you” formula
Talk about yourself in a negative way first. Then, when the story turns positive, shift from speaking about yourself to using “you.”
“We struggled with Gmail spam filters for years, until we implemented a simple trick that you can use to double the open rate of your email campaigns.”
A word to the wise
These tips are quite useful. However, they won’t work if your basic principles are not in place. We are talking about doing sound market research and having a solid product.
