Why Copywriting is Vital to your E-Commerce Business

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It can be easy to overlook the important role that website copy plays in an eCommerce business. You would think of course that the first thing that your customer sees are your product images, making them far more vital. It is true that your product photos and online store design play a central role, but eventually, your customers are going to want to have more information and details. This is when they will turn their focus to your website’s copy.

Copywriting in eCommerce includes all the written text that you use to inform, promote, and entice. Your copy goes onto your website, your email correspondences with your customers, on your packaging, and onto whatever medium you use to promote your online store.

We’ll just say it plainly and tell you that your website copy is important—maybe even more important than you think it is at this very moment while you are reading this article.

The quality of your online business's copy is a major determiner on how your prospective customer sees your business, it can even influence the way that they feel about your brand. More importantly, copywriting can have an impact on whether a prospective customer will want to make a purchase from your online shop or walk away from you in the direction of the competition with the better copy.

We created this article to let you in on the key role that copywriting plays in the success of your online business. The role it plays is massive, especially when it comes to branding, so do not take its importance for granted. Keep reading and find out the four most prominent reasons why achieving the heights you want your business to reach depends on stellar copywriting.

1. Gives Your Brand a Voice

Let’s first talk about how copywriting can define your brand. Now we mentioned before in one of our earlier articles on the importance of branding that brands are like people. Just like people, a brand has a name, personality, and voice. Good copywriting helps you create a brand voice that defines you and sets you apart from all other brands. It also works to humanize your business, which helps your consumers relate and connect with your store at a much deeper level.

The written word is a powerful thing, and your brand’s copy is the way that it communicates and speaks to its audience. The more your brand’s voice is tailored to appeal to your target audience, the more persuasive they will find you. To find your brand’s voice and tone, you must first have a clear picture in mind of who your buyers are. Who is your target demographic? Are they artists? Parents? Survivalist? Ask yourself what kind of person will typically want to visit your store.

Your brand’s copy must touch upon the desires of your customers. For instance, a dropshipping store selling shapewear should have a vastly different tone of voice to an online store selling fishing accessories. Those two examples are completely different spheres, comprising of two demographics with very separate interests.

You can see examples in the difference in tone between products designed for men and women as well. If you take a look at men’s shampoo and women’s shampoo, even from the same brand, you might notice that the rhetoric used between the same products appeal to the somewhat dissimilar sensibilities of men and women. The copy used to target men and women is simply not the same in sales and advertising, so you should carefully consider the type of demographic you are after before you start tailoring copy that is specially designed to persuade your target.

2. Serves to Inform

When your customers are looking through your website’s copy, they are looking for information, whether they want to know more about your product, your company’s history, or go through your FAQs.

Giving your customers sufficient information through your website copy is key to the success of your ecommerce business. Today’s shoppers are more informed than ever before, and your customers want accurate and complete information that allows them to conveniently help themselves when they are shopping in your online store.

According to a Forrester research, 55% of your customers want to be able to find relevant information immediately. If they cannot find a quick answer to their question they tend to lose interest and abandon their online purchase altogether.

Ideally, when your customer views your product through your product page and reads your product description, they should not be left confused and hesitant to make a purchase because of the lack of clarifying information. The same goes for your FAQs and About Page.

One other reason why it’s important to create website copy that accurately informs your customers is that information helps your customers build the trust they need to confidently buy something from your shop. To build this trust and provide value to your customers, you must create website copy that they will consider an authoritative source of information about the products that you sell.

Being able to provide accurate and valuable information to your customers can give you a great advantage against your competitors, as customers are more likely to trust an eCommerce website that provides them with all the accurate and necessary information about their purchases.

3. Boosts Sales

Words can convert. Done right, your website's copy can become a powerhouse of persuasion. Ask yourself, what actions do you want your customers to take when they visit your online store? Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter, buy your products, and recommend your store? Well, good copywriting can get your customers excited about your store and what it has to offer.

The first basic element in great copywriting is knowing your audience first. You have to identify the people that you are trying to reach out to with your message and understand the problem or the challenge that they have that you are trying to solve. Without a good understanding of what your target audience needs, you won’t be able to tap into their desires and cause excitement with your marketing message. In other words, your website copy will fall right off the mark.

To create persuasive copy, you need to understand:

1. The challenges and frustrations your customers face.
2. The fears that keep them from buying your products.
3. Your customer’s desired outcome and the benefits that are most important to them.

When you understand what drives your consumers, this is where you can start leveraging copy that converts and boosts sales. When you understand the underlying feelings behind people’s purchases, you’ll be able to appeal to their emotional states, their needs, and desires, as well as the aspirations of your target audience through great copywriting.

4. Helps You Connect

Copywriting done well comes from a profound understanding of your customers’ needs and desires, and all the wildly successful businesses out there know this fact well.

Many businesses use brand messages that are powerful enough to have mustered up a loyal customer base who relate to a brand’s message and are willing to buy into the lifestyle that the brand prescribes. Take a look at Apple for instance, in their “Anything you can do, you can do better” campaign on their website. This is a very strong and firm message that appeals to their target audience. Another famous example is Nike’s “Just do it”. Both examples speak to the determined go-getter that lives inside us all. It is also relatable in the sense that the majority of people desire to do better and to be better, and these brands are telling people that through them, they can improve their life and performance. This is something that we all want— we all want to improve our lives.

Yes, these are big name brands, but you can and should learn by example from brands that use copywriting that was designed with an underlying understanding of people’s drive and deepest desires. Take note of the roles that brands and their copy play in our lives and in the fact that when people love a brand and the idea behind it, they tend to incorporate them into their lifestyles.

Copywriting is a tool. It is a bridge and a medium that helps you touch on that sensitive nerve that comprises of our needs and desires as people. Through well-composed copywriting, you can let your audience know that your brand understands those needs, and your products and services are here to fulfill them.

Back to You

There you have it. Copywriting is important to your eCommerce business because it gives your company a voice to speak to your audience. It is the voice you use to inform and to connect on a deep level that tells your customers that you understand their needs and that you have got what it takes to give them what they are looking for. Copywriting is the finest of tools that help you boost your sales, gain your customers’ trust, and helps you get a chance at earning long term loyalty to your brand.

You don’t have to be Earnest Hemingway or Harper Lee to create good copy. Just remember that the key is to understand your customers first, and then writing to and for them should become a piece of cake.

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