Creative writing or copywriting, in simple terms, is the art of creating any form of written content for the purpose of expressing one’s feelings, thoughts or emotions through a unique, original way – and in the case of copy writing, for the additional purpose of spreading information or persuading a person or a group of people to take a particular action.

Every business, no matter which industry or particular category it belongs to, relies on the power of words to communicate to its audience, whether it is to spread awareness and provide more information about what they are offering, or to encourage them towards a transaction. Effective copywriting is effective marketing, which makes it extremely important to a business. In today’s digital age and with an increasingly reactionary audience, marketing assets have expanded towards a business’ website and social media channels, and creating and writing effective content for these channels has never been more important.

As these business’ channels are 100% in their own control, having great and well-articulated content could spell the difference between achieving a business objective or not, and whether the message reaches the target market or audience in the way they want it to.

How does website content play a major role in marketing?

There certainly is enough proof and basis that content really is king, and it can be what distinguishes a brand from its competitors. Quality content helps to improve conversions because it allows a business to connect and engage with its consumer base and potential customers, and provide them the necessary information about your brand and who you are, and encourage them to make informed decisions based on this information.

Majority of people today are online, and it is extremely important for a business to keep up. Having a well-maintained, user-friendly website, with engaging and quality content is one of the necessary steps a business should take in keeping up with today’s online world. How many times have we heard from people we know about not pushing through a transaction with a brand or a business because they don’t know who they are, or there’s not enough info out there online about them?

More than 70% of marketers describe content as the most effective way to get traffic to a website, with content marketing generating three times the number of potential customers compared to external marketing at 62% of the cost. Small business sites with blogs have a 126% growth rate than companies without them. This just shows how vital it is for a business to care about the content that they put out on their digital channels, especially the channels where most of their target audience are.

Now that you know how important copywriting and creating content is for your business, let’s take a look at these 7 helpful tips to help you improve the content you put out on your digital channels.

Know Your Audience

It seems crazy to think that a lot of brands and businesses don’t know who their audience is, and believe it or not, it tends to happen fairly often. And this leads to a lot of disconnect and confusion in terms of the type of content or the message that brands convey to their audience.

An effective way of making sure you know who your audience is to create a buyer persona, or simply-put, a detailed representation of your ideal customer, based on your market research and existing data of who your buyers are and their profiles. Having this as your guide will enable you to create the appropriate content and convey the message that you want in the right tone, the right language, and in the right context that will relate to the person you want your business to speak to the most.

Create Simple and Eye-Catching Content

It is quite a noticeable trend in today’s society that consumers have a very short attention span, and it’s evident in the way people consume news, partake in the latest trends and even in how businesses approach marketing. That’s why it’s important for your content to be simple and eye-catching enough for users to engage with it and take a second look. Consider the following points when creating content:

  • Think of an eye-catching title or headline – the title of your content is the first thing users will see, and it should be able to pique their interest and catch their attention, so think of a title that strongly gets the message across without being clickbait.
  • Write crisp sentences and get to the point – as mentioned, consumers generally have short attention span, so it’s important that you get your message across quickly, so that your content is easy to read and easy to understand for your consumers.
  • Add visually appealing images – your content doesn’t have to be all words all the time, in fact, it is easier for consumers to get lost or turned off by long pieces of texts. Having visually appealing and relevant images, gifs or videos complementing your text content is as vital, if not more.
  • Care about how your content looks like – it might not sound as important, but choosing the right font, leaving the right amount of space, making sure your content is formatted correctly, and looking for spelling and grammar mistakes goes a long way towards making sure people consume your content. You might have created great content, but it might be all for nothing if a user gets turned off because it’s not visually appealing.

Choose the Right Tone for your Articles

Choosing the right tone for your writing sets the stage for your content. In choosing the tone, it’s important to know what kind of message you’re trying to say and knowing who you are as a business, guided by the tips on knowing your audience, and apply that in the tone of your content.

It is important to establish the image that you want to be seen as a brand or a company, and it should set you apart from the others. Having a distinct and correct tone of voice for your content enables you to connect with your consumers and target audience and make them feel like you are personally connecting with them.

Use Keywords

It’s also important to consider the use of certain keywords (words and phrases that describes what your content is about) in your content, as it is vital in improving your SEO, or your website’s visibility on search engines.

Search engines rewards the use of relevant keywords, but only to an extent, that’s why it’s equally important to not overstuff your content with keywords as it might backfire on your search rankings. It is also important to conduct keyword research, in order for you to determine the right keywords to use in your content, and come up with the right content strategy for your content marketing.

Create a Call to Action

At the end of the day, your business revolves around your consumers making decisions and transactions that are beneficial for you, so it is important to nudge them in the direction you want them to go.

Call to actions are a critical component of your content as it gives your consumers an easy way to take the next step, no matter which part of the marketing funnel you are on. It might be also worth it to think about focusing on one single call to action in your content, of course depending on what you want to achieve and where you are in your marketing funnel.

Proofread Before You Publish

We’ve mentioned this before, but it cannot be overstated how valuable it is to check and double-check the content before you publish them on your website or on your social media channels. The last thing you want is for your content to be full of spelling and grammatical errors, as this might reflect poorly on your brand and how consumers think about you.

If possible, have someone else check or edit the content you’ve written as a second set of eyes could be helpful in spotting mistakes that you didn’t see before. Think of it as a way to not only protect, but even boost your brand credibility.

Hire a Professional Copywriter

There are a lot of factors to consider when creating content for your digital channels as you can see from all the tips mentioned thus far, so it’s definitely not a bad choice to consider hiring a professional copywriter to do the job of creating quality content. Having a great, professional copywriter can potentially do wonders for your brand as they know what to do and are experts in talking and communicating to your target audience in the way that you want them to. They can also offer a fresh perspective on your content and how to sell your message to your audience, in ways you might not have thought about before.

These tips are only the tip of the iceberg, as there are a lot more you can do to enhance the quality of content that you put out there for your consumers. Creating quality, engaging content for the right audience is challenging, but that shouldn’t stop your businesses from trying. As marketers always say, content is king.