How to Drive Conversions Using Creative Copywriting (With Examples From Real Brands)
Copy is all about connection earning the attention of your customers. Copy is every advertisement you’ve ever seen for your favorite skincare brand, the story you’re told when you click onto that same brand’s website, and the call-to-action that leads you to purchase a product or learn more about the brand.
Copywriting may seem simple but it can actually be quite a process, with multiple steps, all with the aim of creating a connection between buyer and seller (consumer and brand). Good copy generates conversions by explaining the need for the product, answering common questions, and increasing trust.
You need to learn copywriting. Platforms and markets will come and go, but if you can write good copy and craft a good offer you’ll probably always be in business.
— Ryan Deiss (@ryandeiss) May 20, 2019
Making your customer feel comfortable as they interact with your content, your product offerings, and your checkout process is generally a good copy practice.
Can you connect with customers using creative copywriting?
Being able to write good copy generally relies on the writer (or brand) understanding several pivotal things. Obviously, to be able to clearly write about a brand and its offerings you must be able to understand:
- Who exactly you’re selling to, in terms of audience
- What exactly it is that you are selling/offering
- Where you can direct your client to take action (i.e placing a call to action where it’s effective )
- When you will be running marketing/promotions/offers that will pair well with the copy
- Why the customer you’re directing your marketing towards should care about your products
- How you will guide this potential customer through the entire process in a comfortable way
When it comes to eCommerce brands, there are so many conflicting ideas on how to use copy to accomplish your brand’s goals. In this article, we’re going to focus on conversions and how to get your customer on a path to purchase by utilizing effective copywriting.
Copy Made Comfortable: Convincing Customers Towards Conversion
So, we’ve already established what goes into the research and construction of good conversion-based copywriting, but what about execution?
Brands that are good at connecting with their customers focus on most if not all of the methodologies mentioned above, in a way that feels natural, and is easy to read.
Depending on what you’re selling, personality in the form of brand voice and tone can heavily influence sales.
Let’s talk about a brand that does all of this really well, and is fun too!
Playful Puppy Puns: A Pet Owner’s Paradise Process
Bark Box, which somehow even though (surprising to everyone who knows me) I don’t have a dog myself is one of my favorite brands.
A subscription service for dogs, Bark Box actually has multiple points of conversion throughout its website. The brand uses humor and playfulness all throughout their site to appeal to fun-loving pet owners, and seems to know who they’re playing fetch with.
According to Bark Box’s Co-Founder, Matt Meeker, the brand’s audience tends to be between the age of 25-to-35-year-old professionals with no children, or 45-to 55-year old empty nesters, which gives them a lot of different opportunities to connect with their audience.
Their use of copy throughout their site speaks directly to those puppy parents, who of course want to spoil their precious fur babies.
Notice the brand’s home page, where a call-to-action is front and center, details how the subscription service works clearly and concisely. There’s even an extra offer for items if the customer signs up for multiple months at a time.
Very quickly, you know exactly what the brand is offering. You can see the actual product, and there’s cute pups all throughout the page.
It’s fun, it’s focused on offers, and it even gives you the option to chat with real people from the company. This tends to put the customer at ease and make purchases stress-free, because if something goes wrong there is always someone available to remedy the issue.
Even Bark Box’s checkout process is fun, puppy-pun filled and guaranteed to put a smile on a pet parent’s (or friend’s) face.
Once you’ve decided to purchase, the experience is super personalized. The process to find the perfect puppy party-in-a-box includes the size of your dog, any food restrictions, and length of subscription period.
From bark to finish, the process of making your four-legged friends entire year is simple, seamless, and fun. This is the power of copy – well-crafted with a clear path to purchase.
Even the checkout page has some puppy puns that are just precious.
While this is extensive, and well thought out, there are simpler examples of effective usage of copy to map path-to-purchase journeys.
Candid Copy: Creating Cold-Coffee Curious Customer Connections
Let me give you a simpler personal example, using some local commerce.
This includes some copy I crafted together with the owners of one of my favorite local coffee brands: Candid Coffee.
When we worked on the copy the goal was to ensure that the first glimpse that prospective (and current) customers had of the brand was fun and engaging. It very much fit with both the brand values we had discussed, but also with the personalities of the owners, who are a delightful husband and wife team.
Immediately upon landing on the home page, the user is treated to a fun headline, and a picture that speaks to a pretty delicious pairing for the cold brew of your choice.
The user can enjoy scrolling through the home page, with each new part geared towards them being encouraged to visit the product page.
Potential (or current customers) who are hooked from the first headline, can choose to order without going anywhere else.
The initial H1 tells you exactly what the brand sells, enticing you to be part of an “exclusive” group of people who live for cold coffee. This is what the brand is known for, and it’s present all throughout the website.
That’s why social proof through customer reviews sit close to the top of the page, with photos and links to the product page right underneath. It’s an experience in which you as the potential customer are given examples of other people who have chosen to take the cold coffee challenge and have quickly become super fans.
This brand is geared towards young professionals and parents in their 20’s and 30’s but good coffee is of course quite universal.
Candid Coffee has only two offers: Single bottles of cold brew coffee in multiple flavors, and a 4-pack of cold brew concentrate minis in various flavors.
There’s a subscription option which means that coffee connoisseurs can automate receiving their cold brew concentrate, while receiving a discount.
One of the key aspects with a product page for a food or beverage product is ensuring that customers know what they are getting in terms of ingredients and experience.
In this case, Candid Coffee uses their product page to be both transparent and engaging, because healthy doesn’t have to mean boring. The highlight here is Candid’s products which are unique and simple, unlike a lot of other cold brew and coffee products that are loaded with complicated ingredients.
Everything about the copy is clear, simple, and charming enough for customers to feel comfortable trying the product, especially at the price tag for the 32 oz bottles.
Candid Coffee uses a typical Shopify checkout, with standard payment options and the choice to pick up or receive deliveries locally.
Clear, Concise, and Creative Copy = 💰💰💰
Copy that is compelling, delightful and utilizes an ease of experience method can help to make your customer feel more comfortable about purchasing.
The goal of any copy is ultimately to lead to an uncomplicated path-to-purchase, and overall good experience for the customer.
Copy that is engaging and clear can have significant impact on conversions and sales.
The TDLR:
If you can connect with your customers using knowledgeable copy, you have a much higher chance of winning conversions.
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Lianne Hikind writes about the power of copywriting for eCommerce brands and is the former Marketing Manager for Future Commerce. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
