Web product copy

When you’re writing about an individual product, the ‘formula’ or framework is the same as for catalogue copy or indeed any written piece of sales material.  Start with a key benefit or statement of superiority, describe the benefits and end on a call to action. You all know AIDA -  Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). The main differences between web product copy and catalogue product copy are: Copy for the web can be longer but ensure it’s written and laid out so it can be ‘skimmed’ quickly and easily. Sometimes longer copy can bolster your natural search engine rankings. Be careful! as some individual product pages have a restrictive word count in CMS. Websites often have a specific format including bullet points and paragraphs with headings.  These are known as H1, H2 and so on down to H6 and can be limited in characters.  As well as these, the bullet points…

How Betfair used Persuasion Principles to increase conversions by 7%

The limited-choice days of consumers are long gone. Just a few clicks and you can have retailers lined up at your doorstep to deliver the product or offer the service you want. Such intense competition is probably the reason phrases like, 'persuasion tactics' are reiterated by people all around. But those who know how to put these theoretical 'tactics' into practice the right way are the real winners of the game. Our current case study also talks about one such winner. Betfair claims to be the world’s leading online betting exchange platform. Their business model is to allow bettors to set odds among themselves, which eliminates the need to have a traditional bookie. The site also offers a range of sports betting products, like poker and casino games, and much more. Business need? Attract traffic through various paid channels, like…

New report summarises best and worst only copywriting practices

Value: [rating=4]

Recommended link: State of Digital Copywriting: Sticky Content Survey results 2013

This report makes for interesting reading if you're involved in writing content, in the on or off-line world, and feeling the pressure to optimise your process for copywriting so it gets the delicate balance right between benefits for brand, content marketing, SEO, the UX and social interaction. It's also useful reading if your managing copywriting within an agency or as a client marketer managing an agency.

Sticky Content have realised these increasing demands on copywriting and ran their own survey, to 'poll the market on qualitative issues around digital copywriting, content production' and to find out how attitudes are changing.

Sticky Content collated findings from an on-line survey and onsite exhibitions, comprising of Marketers, Copywriters and Content Editors, to identify best practice and challenges which companies are still facing, including industry insights…

Increase conversion through 5 psychology principles

Pardot have released a useful whitepaper on 'Using Psychology to Increase Conversions', and this associated Infographic to summarise the key findings of their research.

As the marketing landscape is evolving they remind us that the way buyers think remains constant. Consumers interact with our products / services and this is determined by a 'pattern of behaviours which are derived from a set of psychological principles.'  Marketers can embrace within their creative and messaging within their sites and communications.

The report delves into 5 psychological principles, some you may recognise from the key principles of influence of American Pychologist Dr. Robert B. Cialdini. In brief, these are:

1. Social Proof: behaviours of others to influence our decisions.2. Loss Aversion: strong motivator is to 'avoid loss'3. Anchoring: individuals  use the first piece of information to judge choices.4. Foot-in-the-door:  obtaining 'opt-in' to something small then it's hard for consumers to say…

Timeless tips for more engaging blog posts

We have given many recommendations on managing content marketing in posts and guides this year, including how to plan the content, be creative and allocate the resources to manage the content. This infographic explains how to engage through copy. It highlights 3 main approaches to how to improve your blog by building a 'captivated audience': 1. Building your audience 2. Use social media to drive traffic to your blog and 3. Increasing your subscriber account. The infographic is from two of our favourite blogs, Blueglass and Copyblogger. It gives a nice simple refresher. If you don't know these sites, they're worth checking out. …

Interview with Paul Cotton from K2uno on Tealeaf solutions

We recently interviewed Paul Cotton, Managing Director of K2uno who are an advanced Business partner of IBM, specialising in applying Tealeaf CEM solutions to optimise the customer experience. One of their solutions is aimed at improving online customer experiences, by providing companies with real-time video information on customer interaction and user journeys; increasing conversion rates, customer retention and ROI for many of its clients. Find out more from Paul's interview, how this type of approach is helping companies and his tips on improving the customer experiences.

Q. How can a solution such as Tealeaf improve online customer experiences.

Tealeaf improves online experience in a number of ways. Almost anyone who has transacted online can recite stories of frustration, where they weren’t able to do what they set out to do. Page errors, navigation issues, slow responses and payment failure are just a…

Using copy to make a good first impression

Writing copy for your web page is much more than adding in just keywords for SEO and sometimes we forget the obvious – it’s about your customers!. Here are some tips on writing good copy for your pages by Mel Henson.

Your Home page

Quickly it needs to say ”This is what we do – and this is what’s in it for you” within a few moments before your visitors leave.  Include a simple statement or value proposition that tells your visitors at a glance. Of course, this is best from the customer’s point of view, not the company’s. Additional copy should expand on this and incorporate keywords that apply to the whole site. Of course, there are lots of other functions of the home page and navigation is important. the architecture of your site. It draws your customers in, stops them leaving, gets them…

Design, Content or Brand .. is one more important than the other in (re)designing your website?

Website design can be an opinionated business. These opinions are sometimes informed, sometimes not. Occasionally the opinions are not necessarily to do with the design itself, but more to do with the politics within a business. Personally I am all for design of any nature to be stress tested by a client or the market. However, how many of us have made changes to a successful website design, just so we feel like we have been involved?. We also need to recognise that website design is a fluid process. We are dealing with an entity that is constantly evolving. This means that when creating a new website design, the Designer has to take into consideration multiple facets; including: is the website 'on brand' (or does it look…

Research and examples show what gamification needs to succeed

Making its debut onto the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies just a year ago, gamification continued to reach the peak of inflated expectations this year alongside other technologies such as Big Data, crowdsourcing and HTML5.

Applying gaming concepts, such as challenges rewarded by points and badges is thought to influence purchase behaviour, create incentives and help companies receive feedback about the customer‘s experience. In 2011, Gartner Analyst Brian Burke predicted that by 2014, more than 70% of Global 2,000 organisations will have at least one “gamified” application with gamification potentially becoming “as important as Facebook, eBay or Amazon.” This is supported by our love of video games playing. According to research from the IAB, nearly 33m people in the UK of all ages, gender and social groups…

An introduction to persona-based segmentation using an example

The beauty of persona-based segmentation is that it provides a much easier grip on the data than almost any other method of presenting Web analytics. Marketers can really use this type of data - and you can see how it lends itself to testing. We’ve been doing persona-based Segmentation for many years as part of two-tiered segmentation. Indeed, it was the main technique we adapted from days in credit-card marketing to the Web. Persona-based segmentations (typically built using either Cluster Analysis or Neural Nets), are designed to aggregate many separate variables into a multi-dimensional map in which visitors tend to cluster. This sounds very complicated (and mathematically it is - though fortunately other statisticians and programmers have done all the hard work building the tools), but the end result is designed to deliver a much simpler view of digital behavior to marketers. I…