The purpose of a copywriter is to design text that can boost the awareness of a brand and convince an audience to respond. A good piece of copy will attract readers, keep them engaged, and give them something they need, be it a reason to want to learn more, an exclusive opportunity, or simply high-quality, well-written information.
Good copywriting creates online marketing that gets results.
It goes almost without saying then, that copywriters have created a few industry hacks to make each piece of content truly outstanding. Some of these hacks aren’t transferable to SMS marketing, but the good news is, there are plenty of hacks that are.
Here are 7 copywriting hacks that are simple to implement and ideal for upping your marketing game…
Hack One: Get the Attention of Your Readers with Headings Designed to Create an Impact
Statistically, there is more chance that an article is going to be shared based on the heading than the actual content. 59% of shared social media links are never clicked on, giving the headline of an article more power than the actual body of text.
When it comes to text marketing, the same concept is easily transferable. The heading of the text and the first few lines are going to determine whether or not the actual body of the text is going to reach the reader. A memorable heading that captures attention is key to getting your marketing noticed.
Hack Two: Get Your Value in Quickly and Reinforce It
A catchy heading but poor content is never going to keep the reader entertained. To prevent an audience losing interest quickly, you need to make sure that you present a value and then quickly back it up. This could be an offer, an exclusive deal, or important information.
With SMS marketing, you only have a small amount of characters to play with, and that means that it needs to be packed full of value. If an audience doesn’t feel like they have gained something by reading your SMS, then they are going to quickly consider unsubscribing.
Hack Three: Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Good Statistic
Did you know that around 15,220,700 text messages were sent every minute in 2017?
Statistics capture attention and provide easily memorable information. They communicate, in a short amount of space, what it could take paragraphs to describe in detail.
Packing your text full of stats won’t lead to conversions, but well-placed statistics to back up your point and stress important information can do wonders when it comes to a return on investment.
Hack Four: Match Your Language Choices with That of Your Customer
While sending a message in the right language is a no-brainer, it can pay off to tailor your language use to the exact audience that you’re targeting. This means including relevant colloquialisms, toning down or toning up your language use depending on the content of your message, and including dialect specific phrases, dependent on the area that you’re targeting.
Changing the language in your text can help you to better relate to the reader that you’re targeting and build brand awareness around familiarity. There is an extensive list of dialects within the English Language, and if your campaign is location specific, it’s worth becoming familiar with those that are relevant.
Hack Five: Make Things Straightforward and Don’t Confuse Your Audience
With the limited space in a text message, it’s important to get to the point. A successful piece of copy doesn’t beat around the bush, it takes an audience from point A to point B without leaving any room for confusion along the way.
That’s not to say that description is bad, but when too many options are provided or the information doesn’t flow, it doesn’t present your brand message well. If you want the purpose of your SMS campaign to be to get the audience to use a limited time offer or call you, then focus on that, don’t present multiple other options along the way.
Hack Six: Over Selling Leads to No Selling
The reason behind many marketing campaigns is to sell or advertise, but that shouldn’t be the whole focus of the message. If content is 100% sale and 0% information, then you’re going to lose the interest of your target audience very quickly.
Successful texts strike the right balance of sale and information, with information taking the higher percentage. Sale should never be an afterthought, but it shouldn’t constitute 100% of the message either. You have to encourage your audience want to purchase a product or service, or take advantage of an offer, not bombard them with sales.
Hack Seven: Don’t Try to Be Something That You’re Not
Every company strives to be the biggest and the best, a giant amongst their industry. However, advertising as such is as far from unique as you can get. Going into considerable detail about why your business is the best, is only going to lose the interest of your audience, who very likely, have heard it all before.
Pick your selling points and highlight them. Are you innovative? Are you cost-effective? Are you the largest in your area? A text needs to be short and sweet, and like any piece of professional copy, it needs to keep your reader engaged.
SMS marketing is used in a vast range of industries and the last thing you want is for your text to be lost to the crowd because it didn’t stand out as unique. An essential hack is simply to advertise your company as it is and focus on unique, not off-the-shelf.
A successful marketing campaign with bulk SMS can provide an outstanding return on investment, delivering conversions and strengthening your base of interested customers. However, to capitalize on what SMS marketing is offering, you need to make sure that you’re providing high-quality content that is tailored to your audience.
Perhaps the best copywriting hack of all, is to make every single word, sentence, and paragraph count.
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