Words carry a lot of weight. Especially when it comes to marketing your trade business. Say the right thing in your marketing and you’ll see increased leads (the results you want from your marketing.) Say the wrong thing and your marketing will be a flop.
A copywriter can easily craft a marketing a persuasive message. You’re a tradie, not a copywriter.
Check out 5 ways words can destroy your marketing – and simple ways you can fix them:
1. Destroyer: too many words
Research has found people have an attention span of just eight seconds – not much time to get your message across, is it?
Bottom line, every word that isn’t necessary needs to be deleted from your copy. You run the risk of investing a lot of time and money into a marketing piece that people will ignore. Keep your copy succinct, and it will almost always be more powerful.
The fix:
Remove empty words from your copy to keep it simple. For example, words like “really,” “that” and “very” should be deleted.
Don’t let your audience get bored or distracted as you weave a story. If it doesn’t support the goal of the marketing, get rid of it. Remember, you only have eight seconds, don’t waste them!
Once you’ve written your messages, get out your red pen and delete at least 30 per cent of it. The objective is to delete a significant amount of copy. It’s likely what you delete doesn’t include your strongest messages. You’ll be left with something that actually drives the results you need.
2. You used jargon
Big words and trade related jargon are rarely appropriate in ads and marketing materials. Even if you’re in a highly technical industry, your audience will probably prefer you leave the jargon out. It just looks like you’re trying too hard and will often result in the audience becoming confused. The last thing you want is for your audience to cringe when they read or hear your messages – it’s a guaranteed way to lose sales.
The Fix:
Review your copy and find the jargon or excessively big words. Do those words enhance the message and make it more meaningful to the audience or do those words interrupt the reader or listener? Unless jargon and big words have special places in your audience’s hearts, replace them with simpler words.
3. You used the wrong pronouns
Great marketing messages speak about the audience (and the benefits the audience will receive), not just about the company behind the products or the services being offered. Therefore, your copy should use second person pronouns (you, your, yours) far more often than first person pronouns (I, me, mine, we, us, our, ours).
The truth is no one cares about you. They care about how your products or services can help them or make their lives easier
The Fix:
Focus on the benefits, not just the features. Review your copy looking for every instance where you use first person pronouns and talk about your company rather than about consumers’ wants and needs. Now, think about how you can turn messages that focus on you around and show how that information about your company actually benefits consumers.
4. You used passive verbs
Do you want people to take action or just think about taking that action?
When you invest in an ad or marketing piece, you typically want it to drive some kind of action from an audience. Including a call to action that should motivate people to actually take that action.
However, making a simple mistake like using passive voice rather than active voice in your sentence structure could negatively affect the results. To elicit an active response from the audience, use the active voice in your copy.
The Fix:
Fixing this problem takes some sentence restructuring. Read through your messages and replace passive voice sentences with active voice sentences whenever possible.
For example, instead of a passive voice such as “Our number is X to call us”
Use an active voice such as “Call us today on X”.
Keep in mind, adding a sense of urgency to your calls to action can boost results even higher. Don’t suggest an action, demand it – now!
5. You didn’t use emotional words
Does your copy tap into the audience’s emotional triggers? If not, your results will be lower than they could be if you rewrote your messages to make people feel something.
Copy that evokes emotional responses in consumers is almost always more effective than copy that does not. Why? Because most purchase decisions are ruled at least in part by emotions. Emotional triggers include fear, guilt, comfort, competition, trust and more.
The Fix:
You can fix this problem in your messages by thinking about the benefits your product or service delivers to the target audience. Determine which benefits appeal to consumers’ emotional triggers and ensure messages related to those benefits and emotions are included in your copy.
Even though you’re not a trained copywriter, there’s nothing to say that a good old tradie can’t write some great copy with the right tools. Keep the tools above in mind as you write, and you’ll be on your way to seeing bigger and better results from your marketing copy in no time.
Not sure where to start with your marketing?
What’s next?
- Join our Kick-Ass Tradies Facebook Group, for access to trade business specific conversations, tips and resources, plus a like-minded community of tradies.
- Book a 15-minute Game Plan Call with Andy, owner of Dr. DRiP plumbing and co-founder of Lifestyle Tradie, to clarify your priorities and get clear action steps.
