When doing digital marketing, knowing the basics of copywriting is essential. Posts on social networks, landing pages and mailings are all opportunities to sharpen your pen.
Here is a guide to the ingredients for a successful cocktail. This copywriting for beginners guide will help if you are new in copywriting.
Copywriting for Beginners – Two bases to choose from: PAS or AIDA
PAS and AIDA are two of the most widely used copywriting frameworks on the web. For those unfamiliar with the term, a framework is simply a model. Today these two models are used by a good part of marketing operations on the web.
1. Understand the PAS model
Some details on the “Shake” part
This stage of the framework is essential and sometimes too little elaborate. You must allow your reader to visualize and experience this problem with which he will identify.
For this, mention the negative aspects impacting his life, give details related to sensations such as colors, feelings, smells, etc.
Correctly done, this step should allow you to demonstrate to your target that:
- You understand their problem better than anyone;
- You are empathetic and you share the same problem. You therefore establish a relationship of trust;
- You put the importance of this issue back in your prospect’s mind. He remembers the reality of the latter.
And above all, if you master the problem so much, then you must have a solution, right?
As you will have understood, PAS allows you to engage your audience by evoking a problem in their life and then presenting your solution as the best option to solve it.
NOT in action
Take the well-known example of the mattress seller:
Problem: When’s the last time you got a real good night’s sleep?
Agitate: A bad night’s sleep makes us all irritable. It is difficult to concentrate when you have the feeling that your brain is numb. No amount of coffee can also get rid of the fog that envelops us.
Solution: If this is the case regularly for you then it is time to check out our mattress. We only make one. But it’s perfect.
Evolution to the PASO model
This model has been improved by adding a step in the reader’s experience: the result. (O means Outcome in English.)
This new step is interesting because a purchase is usually triggered by a desire to see an aspect of one’s life change. Adding the result completes the loop. Your reader can envision this transformation.
All that’s left to do is add social proof and you’re done. You will have a catchy and very convincing text.
In our previous example, the outcome to be presented could be presented in this form:
Outcome: Receive our mattress, delivered to your home within 48 hours. This week you can re-discover what sleeping like a baby really means.
2. Understanding the AIDA model
Aida is one of the oldest and arguably the most widely used marketing models around the world. It is a model that we owe to Elias St Elmo Lewis who invented it in 1898. It is found both in the newspaper and to structure advertisements on television.
On the distinction between Interest and Desire
It often happens that the phases “Interest” and “Desire” are confused because they are treated almost at the same time. However, they are not identical.
The “interest” phase is an informative phase. It must demonstrate that you have a solution, a service or a product that is well related to your catchphrase and the problem of your reader.
The “Desire” part comes to play on the emotions. Now is the time to switch your reader towards the end of the funnel, to slide him towards that action that you are trying to make him perform. In the “desire” phase, you will put forward the actionable result expected thanks to you, ie what the reader will get from it.
AIDA in action
To change a bit, I have selected a linkedin post from Ludovic Huraux, a well-known French startuper who is actively working on the launch of Shapr Founder with a position that has obtained a great commitment and built on this model:
3. Framework + Storytelling = The Explosive Cocktail
Following a framework will allow you to structure a text effectively. But if you are also able to tell a story then you will have the winning combination!
Here are three proven methods you can use for effective storytelling:
I. Transformation
Everyone loves success stories. These are stories made to make the reader feel good and to be convinced that success is also accessible to him. By highlighting the transformation you explain and enhance the result expected by your target.
Here it is therefore a question of illustrating how we go from a complex problematic situation with which your target identifies to a dream situation. Or in any case a key step that can lead to this situation.
II. The unfinished story
Our brain cannot stand the unfinished business. So you can use this cognitive bias by telling a story but not finishing it. This will allow you to trigger an action such as a download or a follow-up of your account on the networks.
It is a methodology particularly used on Linkedin. “If you are interested in knowing more, knowing the rest, etc. Leave me a comment !”
III. Polarization
A method as old as Herod! Some online media have also made it a goodwill. It is a question of proposing divisive subjects which will cause the readers to react. As long as you don’t leave your reader indifferent, you have hired him!
It is an effective method, in particular on social networks where the algorithms consider the comments in their notoriety evaluations but also for the articles of sites or blogs which see their performance improved on the search engines.
Your goal here is simple: to come up with a divisive topic that leads to debate.
Suggested Read: 10 Golden Rules of Copywriting
4. Last ingredients to sprinkle
We have discussed the basics of an engaging text. Here are now some additional elements to introduce in your writing to obtain a catchy and convincing text.
Rarity / Urgency
This psychological lever is well known to marketing professionals. It is based on the fact that a limited supply will increase its attractiveness.
We may find that excessive but the proof is there. These arguments play on scarcity and therefore imply a significant demand but they also create a certain sense of urgency. This lever therefore acts both on the interest and on the act.
When you can, do not deprive yourself of using this leverage to improve the efficiency of your texts.
A last little example of asphalt because hey… they are really strong!
Authority
Presenting a problem and then a solution is the right approach to obtain results. However, what proves to your reader that you know what you are talking about?
If you are not a personality or an influencer, you will need to prove yourself by laying the foundations in an explicit way to demonstrate your knowledge.
So there are two main ways to demonstrate authority:
- Demonstrate that your personal experience makes you an expert on the subject.
- Highlight statistics established by a renowned entity whose seriousness will not be questioned.
Social proof
We all tend, sometimes in spite of ourselves, to base our opinions and actions on others. Man has a gregarious tendency to follow the behavior of the group with which he identifies. Thus, by default, social proof both captivates and convinces.
Highlighting a large number of requests / sales or even the opinion of one of your customers or a recognized expert will always be a decisive element in writing a convincing text.
I could have posted hundreds of landings that use customer reviews but to change the example above is interesting because it starts with a customer quote.
Copywriting also uses social proof to make its point more impactful. And it works!
The must have: The Call to Action
Don’t assume that your reader knows what to expect from them. Instead, use the theorem that shows that the less thinking, the less braking, the more likely you are that your reader will perform the action you expect them to do.
To resume our image of the toboggan, the path followed by your reader must provide the direction and the slope to bring it, smoothly and without doubt with no effort on his part, to the desired conclusion.
If you want an Internet user to take an action, don’t hesitate to tell them and tell them again!
In conclusion
Do not hesitate to follow the influencers on the networks in order to deconstruct their posts that work best.
Do not hesitate to make yourself a checklist starting from the model you want to follow and checking that you have incorporated a minimum of the elements proposed in this article. This requires a little rigor at the start but you will see that in the long term your copywriting will become much more efficient.