Persuasive copywriting: Unlock a superpower in five steps
*Warning: Please only proceed if you’re planning to do some good with your new powers of persuasion. World domination not acceptable.*
Imagine you could persuade anyone to do anything. What might it take? A magic potion? A secret spell? A swinging pendulum?
How about the clickety-clack of a copywriter’s keyboard?
Okay. So, reality check, nobody can persuade someone to do anything. But persuasive copywriting is a pretty great place to start.
Lucky for you, I’ve been having a think about what goes into the powerful, persuasive copy mix and I’ve broken it down into five top tips:
Be clear with what you’re asking people
Suggest a problem – then give a solution
Talk to your audience, not about them.
Appeal to readers’ emotions through storytelling
Avoid the temptation to waffle
Want the details? Pack a map and your nearest compass. We’re going to explore those steps a little more closely.
Five tips to successful persuasive copywriting
1. Be clear with what you’re asking people
This might sound very obvious. You know what you want people to do – that’s the whole point.
But hold up a second. Because, while you might know what you’d like your readers to do – do they?
There has to be a call to action running throughout your copy, reiterated at the very end of your text. And vagueness is not your friend here. The clearer, the better, because it removes a sizable barrier for your audiences: figuring things out.
The less your audience has to work out for themselves, the simpler the whole process is – and that makes it more likely they’ll do what you’re asking.
Let’s say you work for an animal rescue charity and you’re trying to raise money for a new campaign. Rather than your overall call to action being, ‘Support our campaign’, you need to tell your readers how.
So, ‘Support our campaign by taking part in our fundraising walk’.
But we can do better than that.
It’s not just any old campaign. At the heart of what you’re doing is a drive to help animals. That’s what you’re asking of people. So ask them.
‘Join our fundraising walk to save pets displaced by war’. It clearly defines what you’d like people to do.
Here are some more examples.
Instead of saying, ‘Buy my new book’, say ‘Read my new book by ordering from the Waterstones website’.
Instead of saying, ‘Leave a comment in our visitor book’, say ‘Tell us what you loved (and what we could improve) about your stay in our visitor book’.
Instead of saying, ‘Make a reservation’, say ‘Call us on 01234 567890 to reserve a table’.
It could be on a flyer, an email, a socials post… just don’t be wishy washy. Make it as straightforward as possible for readers to understand what steps they need to take next, and they’ll be more likely to take them.
2. Suggest a problem – then give a solution
Figuring out what, exactly, you’re asking readers to do might be the first step, but number two on our list is the most important.
People generally don’t like doing things for no good reason. We’re far likelier to carry out an action if we understand why we’re being asked. So, when you’re trying to persuade someone to do something, you need to explain your reasons – and why they’re good ones.
And here’s the secret.
The best way to do this is to highlight a problem… then show how it can be solved by doing the thing you’re suggesting. Because we all love a happy ending. Extra points if it’s a problem your audience can already relate to.
This is easier, of course, when there’s a clear issue at stake, like with the animal charity example above. But it doesn’t mean it can’t apply to other cases. You just have to get a little creative.
Let’s take the example of trying to persuade people to buy your book. You could point out to your audience that winter’s round the corner and they’re going to need a cosy book to curl up with. Or perhaps your novel explores important themes that don’t get written about a lot – the problem here is that there aren’t enough people reading about those themes.
Whatever problem you go for, show your audience how buying your book provides the solution.
And if you’re not selling books, you’re not off the hook. Time to start thinking outside the box.
3. Talk to your audience, not about them
This tip is all about connecting with the people reading your (very) persuasive writing. It’s the copy equivalent of maintaining eye contact and nodding while someone’s speaking to you.
You’ll need your grammar hats at the ready for this one.
There are three parts to nailing this step. The first is to refer to your audience in the second person, as ‘you’. Have you noticed I’ve been doing this the whole way through this blog post?
It makes it a much more engaging post. You’re not just reading the blog, you’re part of it! And it’s the same with persuasive copywriting. Talking to your audience makes them the main character in your narrative: they’re the ones who can make this decision, they’re the ones you’ve singled out… they’re the ones reading your advert, picking up the phone, and booking tickets to your one-man comedy puppet show.
The next part is to write in the active voice.
The active voice is when the subject of a sentence is doing the action, as opposed to the passive voice, where the subject has the action done to them.
Writing in the active voice makes your copy clearer and more assertive - great qualities in persuasive copywriting.
So, instead of saying ‘Tickets can be booked on our website’, flip it upside-down and say, with oomph, ‘You can book tickets on our website’.
Want to go one step further? Of course you do.
Pop it in the imperative mood. That just means you say it as a command, rather than a statement.
‘You can book tickets on our website’ becomes, simply, ‘Book tickets on our website’. It’s much more rousing, engaging – and persuasive.
It’s worth mentioning that you should treat the imperative like your all-time favourite brownie recipe. It’s a banger, but if you use it non-stop it’ll lose its appeal.
If your copy looks like this: ‘Go to your nearest bookshop to find my book. Buy my book and read it over Christmas. Tag me in your five-star BookTok review’… then we have a problem.
You still want your writing to sound natural, to have flow. So, smatter just a few choice imperatives throughout, and end on one for maximum impact.
4. Appeal to readers’ emotions through storytelling
It’s the classic adage: people won’t remember all the things you’ve said, but they will remember how you made them feel.
And if there’s one, sure-fire way to stir up people’s emotions, it’s through storytelling.
Humans love stories. As a copywriter, stories are your opportunity to hit your readers with a scenario and put them right in the centre.
Imagine you’re writing a video script for an environmental charity, asking your audiences to sign an anti-deforestation petition. The storytelling part of it could be something like this:
‘You’re sitting round the dinner table for a family meal, discussing plans for the weekend. Then you hear it. A heavy rumbling in the distance. Your daughter runs to the window and screams that there’s a bulldozer. It’s ploughing through the whole town, she says. And your house is next. Nobody’s asked you. No-one’s even offered to find you a new home. One minute you have food, shelter, safety – and the next, it’s all gone.’
Here, you’ve forced your readers to put themselves in the position of the animals whose forest home is being destroyed. You’re asking them to empathise. And, if they do, that’s a whole lot more persuasive than simply telling people that chopping down the Amazon is bad news.
But appealing to people’s emotions isn’t always about tugging at their heart strings.
You could advertise driving lessons by crafting a tongue-and-cheek, role-reversal story of a teenager telling his parents he’ll pick them up at midnight from a party. You could be selling tickets to a fantasy ball where you describe how it feels to walk into the main hall and experience the sights, sounds, and excitement of the night. Understanding your target audience really well here will stand you in good stead.
Put simply, we make decisions based on our feelings, and good stories make us feel things.
5. Avoid the temptation to waffle
Some forms of content, such as guide books, blogs, and websites, are consumed by people who are actively searching for answers. But persuasive copy tends to be for marketing purposes.
This means you’re presenting it to audiences who aren’t already invested. You’ve got to hook ‘em and prove that your post, or flyer, or advert is worth stopping for.
And you’ve not got long to do it. We’re talking a matter of seconds before they skip past your content.
That’s why it’s important to keep things to the point. To capture people from the start. It also makes your copy far more memorable.
How many words you’ve got to work with will vary depending on your medium. A video script will likely be longer than an Instagram post. An Instagram post will likely be longer than a poster. If you have images at your disposal, you can use them to help tell your stories and get your points across, meaning your copy can be even more concise.
The trick to keeping things short and impactful is to edit, edit, edit. Feel free to write all your thoughts and ideas down… but then go back and prune, chop, and trim, until what you’re left with is pure gold.
Just remember, we all love a good waffle when it’s covered in chocolate sauce, but when it comes to persuasive copy, every word counts.
So, use them wisely.
And that’s it.
Five steps to effective persuasive copywriting.
If you’re ready to get stuck in and write some top persuasive copy, then away with you and good luck!
Or, if you’re chin-deep in emails and meetings and the cat needs feeding AND you just spent 10 minutes reading a blog you couldn’t look away from… I’d love to help you out.
Ask a professional copywriter to get persuasive on your behalf.
(See what I did there?)
