5 questions that’ll make your copy more effective

Here’s a simple and smart way to make your web copy more effective at convincing your customers you’re the one for them. All you need is half a day and a direct line to one or two of your favourite customers. In exchange for tea and biscuits, I’m sure they’ll be more than open to a quick chat. Then, you’re going to ask them the following six questions to better understand them and their motivations, and what makes your business so special.

And why stop at one or two? The more of these chats you can have, the better.

And because it’s all well and good having these answers, but pointless if you don’t know what to do with them, I’ll also give you some ideas as to where to use the information you uncover.

 

1. What problem did you have before you encountered my product/service? Did something happen that caused you to seek it out?

 Hopefully, your customer will describe the struggle they had before your product or service saved them. You should get to the heart of the problem your service or product solves. There might have even been a pivotal moment when they said, “Enough is enough!” This is all absolute gold for your business strategy and messaging.

It’s also great material for the opening paragraph of your landing page. By using their words, you’ll show future customers that you really get their struggle. You could turn the most emotional or dramatic nuggets into your page headline. And don’t forget to plaster it all over your social media bios and meta descriptions.

In their Search Engine Results Page heading, decluttering business Clutter Fairy reference the ‘chaos’ their clients face when they enlist their services and contrast it directly with the ‘calm’ they promise. You almost feel calmer just reading it.

Search engine listing for Clutter Fairy

2. What almost stopped you from buying my product/service?

With this question, you’re going to learn about your buyer’s objections. It’s really handy because something that almost stopped one client might actually succeed in stopping plenty of others.

This is a nice one for the bottom of your sales page. Right before they click ‘Buy’, that little voice in their head goes “Wait a second”. Now’s your chance to soothe their worries and nudge them towards the ‘Buy’ button.

In this example, Notion overcomes objection from clients not wanting to pay to try the service by offering a free trial.

Landing page copy for Notion

3. What’s your favourite thing about my product/service?

 Now you’re getting into your brand positioning. From their answer, you should begin to understand what makes your offer special, what makes it different from the others.

This is stuff you can shout about on your web copy and social bios. It might just be a word, it might be the way you work or a particular aspect of your service. Use it to stand apart from the crowd and make it the thing you’re known for. The thing people come to you for.

This copy from Pact makes a big deal about how flexible their subscription is. We might guess that their customer research told them that that flexibility was very appealing to their customers, something that made them choose Pact over any other coffee subscription service. This copy works doubly hard though as it’s also meeting a potential objection: that you’ll get tied into a subscription with no way out.

Web copy for Pact

4. What’s changed now that you have my product/service in your life?

We’re talking results. This is an essential part of any sales or landing page and should also grace your homepage and longer social bios. Even better if you can quantify those results with stats or figures.

Pet food brand, Pure, does this perfectly on their website’s homepage. Not only are they telling you the difference their pet food will make to your pet’s life, they’re throwing in some social proof for good measure.

Web copy from pet food brand, Pure

5. What words would you use to describe my product/service?

Here, you’re building a bank of words you can use to describe your stuff. Words you can own and build a name for.

Stick that adjective in front of your service description and you’ve got a tagline for social media, a subheading for your homepage banner and something to say every time someone asks what you do at a networking event. So it might be ‘Sparkly copywriting services’ or ‘Joyful brand photography’.

Wedding planner Natalie Hewitt goes for three on her website homepage banner and we instantly learn a lot about who she is, what she’s about and how she’s different from the rest.

Wedding planner Natalie Hewitt’s website homepage banner

If you’d like to chat more about how to gather this information or what to do with it once you have, I’d love to hear from you.