People underestimate the importance of website copy yet it is some of the most important content your audience will view. Sharing stories that stir emotions is a great feature for website copy. Your website should simultaneously engage, inform, and encourage action from your reader.
Many businesses mistakenly avoid sharing emotions when drafting their copy even though the content is such a crucial feature of their website. Why? Many have been incorrectly informed that sharing emotions will negatively affect their brand and result in a customer losing confidence in them. In fact, quite the opposite is true, because emotive copy is the most powerful way to build trust in your brand.
Now, you’re probably thinking that you need to be super creative and an expert in writing novels. Absolutely not! You simply need to connect with your reader through relatable emotions and that doesn’t mean going over the top with unnecessary oversharing.
Stuck on where to start? Well, let’s go through five steps you can take to start writing copy that connects.
- Know your audience – Before you get started with your very first sentence, know who you are writing for or know your target audience. Different audiences will respond to different emotions. Make sure that you know exactly who your ideal customers are, and the things that would appeal to them. Ask yourself what they would identify with. Are your customers into cooking? Love taking masterclasses on preparing perfect pastries? Or do they love nothing more than making simple dinners and enjoying less time out in restaurants?
- Use stories – Telling a story of a customer using your product or service is one of the easiest ways to write with emotion because you’re already creating something that will resonate with your reader. Stories are easy to identify with, especially when they’re catered to a specific audience. When you include relatable emotions within that story, you’re creating a stronger connection with your audience.
- Present a problem and a solution – Telling a story that evolves from failure to success that would appeal to your customers is a fantastic way to use the power of emotive writing. For example, your story could detail a customer struggling to find the right decor for a dinner they are hosting with their friends and your customer doesn’t want their friends judging their presentation and set up. There’s urgency felt by that customer to impress their guests (stress and mild social anxiety), however, your company does custom event staging that allows them to find the perfect decor, so the day is saved! (relief, confidence, and excitement)
- Combine positive and negative – Think of the pinch of salt that you place in the cake recipe along with the sugar. Just a dash is all you need to make the perfect cake. Another way to create a story that your audience will identify with is to present both positive and negative emotions throughout. Take them on a journey through these emotions with just a hint of salt. Your brand can be associated with positive emotions, while the negative ones are connected with parts of the journey where the customer hasn’t discovered your brand yet, or has tried others and still found no solution to their problem. Remember, too much salt ruins the cake and too much negativity could overshadow the positivity of helping the customer.
- Use relatable subjects – When you know your audience, you know what they like. For example, maybe you sell eco-friendly camping gear. Your customer base tends to be environmentally aware, and respect nature. If your story includes elements from nature, they’re far more likely to find it more engaging.
If you need more help in writing copy, our team is full of great copywriters who know how to use both keywords and emotive copy to help attract visitors to your website. Schedule a quick meeting with us today to learn how enhancing your website could lead to more website visitors and calls.