5 Psychology Tips to Improve Your Copywriting
Does it feel like your web copy is not hitting its mark and is mostly falling on deaf ears? Do you feel like your site should have a higher conversion rate?
You might need to spruce up your messaging and make it more compelling for your audience. Your web copy shouldn’t just be professional and grammatically correct, it should also hit the right notes and pull on the right heartstrings for potential leads to make a leap of faith.
Writing compelling copy requires talent, skill and experience, so don’t be disheartened if you’ve only been doing this for a while. You might need to rethink your entire content strategy from scratch or it could just need a slight change in tone.
The single most important aspect of good copywriting is its ability to tap into the emotions of the reader. You need to bring in a bit of psychology and think about how your audience will react to your brand’s messaging. You have to convince them to take action using the words on the page.
Does it sound difficult?
It’s really not. You just have to shift your mindset and put yourself in your customers’ shoes.
Here are a few psychology ideas you can incorporate into your web copywriting to make it more compelling and effective.
Use Positive Language
Positive words and positive reinforcement go a long way in making your readers notice your copy and keep coming back for more. You want people to feel comfortable and make them think that you’re offering them something good.
People are more likely to engage and do business with you if you keep them in a positive frame of mind. When you’re nice to your audience, they’ll be more receptive and act nicely towards your brand in return. Being positive in your messaging also helps readers associate positive feelings about your brand.
Give People Reason to Take Action
When you ask people to do something, you always have to include a reason why they should do it. Your reason doesn’t even have to be a very compelling one—it just has to be valid and logical.
In psychology and persuasive copywriting, this concept is called ‘justification’.
If you don’t justify your request, people will have to rationalize and decide for themselves before taking any action. When you provide a reason, you’re doing the thinking for them. This makes the decision-making process easier— whether you’re asking them to buy a product or sign up for something.
Freedom to Choose
People generally don’t like being told what to do. If your readers feel like you’re forcing them too much to buy into something, they’ll develop negative feelings about you taking over control. When this happens, there’s a good chance that they’ll just flat out refuse so that they can feel like they’re in control of the situation.
No matter how great your offer is, you should always emphasize the reader’s freedom to make the decision for themselves in your copy. You’re not forcing them to complete the desired action, but you’re indirectly asking them to take it into consideration.
You want people to feel good about their final decision. Let them know that they are free to accept or refuse the offer any time they wish.
Add a Sense of Urgency
If you can make people believe that they’ll never have the same opportunity again if they don’t take action now, they’ll feel compelled to make a decision much sooner.
When people only have a limited time to process information, they’ll make more emotional decisions that they would normally consider as irrational. The idea of a time-limited opportunity triggers your audience’s fear of missing out or FOMO. In many cases, it also suggests that there’s a scarcity in supply which feeds into their fears even more.
Serial Position Effect
With so much information and media that people consume every day on the Internet, your words have to fight their way into your customers’ minds.
Many visitors who’ll come across your site will only spend a couple of seconds scrolling through it and just pay attention to the first and last parts of the page. This behavior is known as the Serial Position Effect.
Even if you present readers with a list to make comprehension easier, they’ll often take note of the first and last items on the list and completely ignore everything in between.
This requires you to carefully think about what information you should be putting in the first and last sections. Ideally, it should contain the most compelling, attention-grabbing, and important messages you have in your copy. When readers skim through your content, their eyes will naturally gravitate to these sections and whatever they contain will likely be the only things the reader will remember.
Final Words
This list is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creating persuasive copy. If you’re new to sales, marketing and copywriting, you’ll probably have to test out different ideas and strategies before you begin seeing any significant results. Once you master it though, you’ll have no problems bringing in new customers and clients.