One of the most common questions I get from website owners who are looking to drive sales online is how to create website content that actually gets potential customers to convert. In this article, I’ll try to highlight a few ways you can use your content to sell your brand online as well as demystify a few myths about modern content marketing today.
Understand your Product/Service
You can’t write about what you don’t know. This is the foundation of every content blog. The first thing you need to work on before you start creating website content is your understanding of whatever you are selling. You want to be “that guy” in your niche.
To do this, start by noting down two things: 1. A few characteristics of the product/services you intend to sell, 2. Benefits of these products/services and 3. Traits that set you apart from competitors. This is crucial in creating a unique value proposition to your prospects using your content.
A characteristic is a property of the product or service (usually technical). A benefit is the positive change that occurs when using the product or service in favor of the user or consumer (in terms of their needs and wants) and. Finally, a unique trait is what is achieved through the use of the product/service, which cannot be obtained from the competitor.
When developing the characteristics, benefits, or advantages of the product /service, text and images must be well-oriented to differentiate these three aspects.
Highlight these 3 traits as much as you can in your website content and use images whenever possible. Then again, don’t be too salesy. The goal here is to pass the information, not oversell these features.
Work on your Landing Pages
In Direct Marketing, there is a somewhat traditionally accepted language that is widely used in Landing Pages on websites and is a good example of writing methods to sell. This formula is based on what is known as a sales letter.
The first thing you want to do when you want to create website content is to write the title of what you want to sell. This title should be chosen based on the main benefit of our products and services, according to the list made, ordering them from the perspective of your potential customers and not from our own point of view.
This benefit should be emphasized when drafting the title and should be placed in a large-enough font size at the beginning of the website landing page. In turn, this content title needs to present itself as a promise to be fulfilled when purchasing the product or service.
The title and general content of the website should also appeal to emotions. The AIDA sales technique (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) comes in quite handy here. In particular, the title should capture the attention of the prospect (visitor).
- Know of the existence of the product or service. (Attention)
- Be interested enough to pay attention to the product’s features, specifications, and benefits. (Interest)
- Have a desire to get the benefits that the product offers. (Wish)
- Buy the product. (Action)
Refining your Content Title
In the elaboration of your content title, it might be useful to use catchy words and phrases such as “Free” or “How to make/receive” (as the benefit shows immediately). An example could be: “How to increase profits by 50% on online sales.”
In this case, although it has not explained the method or means by which this benefit will be achieved, the entry is known to be able to achieve this benefit if you buy the product or service. Another example is ” Win a free e-book with 10 keys to personal success.”
After the title, try adding a brief summary of what your product/service is. Summarize the key benefits, indicating measurable results to be obtained with the purchase of the product or service, and highlighting the advantages to achieve, using words that create emotion. People buy what they want, justifying what they need, that is, they buy with emotions, justifying for reasons. When you create website content, you want to keep this in mind.
Capturing the Value Proposition
Your website content must present your unique value proposition, highlighting the differentiating elements of the market, based on the benefits and advantages raised and indicating the concrete results achieved by the client.
A brief example would be: “Thanks to our products/services, you can learn the 10 most frequent causes of sales failure and you can start applying the 3 most influential techniques that will drive your sales to success.”
Once you have captured the attention of prospects, your job now becomes maintaining their interest, so we must then put the characteristics of the products and services, described with the benefits for the customer.
Highlight Key Points that Make your Offer Special
Next, we need to present the specific offer we are proposing. This is where we emphasize the fact that we are suppliers of goods and services, highlighting the advantages that the customer will obtain from buying or contracting us.
Whenever you create website content, you want to explain aspects such as best price, best delivery time, greatest savings, best promotions, among others. Talk about the guarantees that the customer will get (e.g moneyback policies “).
People need to feel safe with their money before deciding to buy from you. As “cliche” as they sound, these guarantees and vanilla phrases go a long way in solidifying customer trust. For even greater confidence, you can use influencers to spread the word too.
Actionable Call to Actions
Finally, we need to make a strong call to action. As a rule of thumb, your content call to action needs to be clear and simple. Then again, CTAs like “Buy Now” or “Contact us”, while common, might not always drive sales (depending on your niche, of course).
To spice them up, you can opt for call to action statements that offer some kind of value or guarantee e.g “Start your Free Trial”, “Claim your Discount” etc.
