What’s the Purpose of Online Content?
Companies don’t create online content — for their website, blog, newsletter or social media — because they like doing it. No business owner likes to write content for the sake of publishing it. Businesses write to sell their products or services.
Even social media posts are ultimately trying to deliver leads, potential customers, to increase the company’s return on investment for creating the post in the first place. Businesses don’t do anything that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. In other words, every business decision has to make money. Otherwise, why do it?
What’s the Formula for Writing to Sell?
There is a way to entice readers enough to encourage them to buy from you. As you can imagine, the formula is flexible enough to work for multiple industries, various products and a number of approaches. It’s therefore easy to learn, yet difficult to master. To write to sell, use the acronym AIDA:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
Attention is what you first need from your readers. Interest is what you have to generate through your written words. Desire is what you generate by accomplishing the first two things. Finally, action is how you inspire your readers to take the steps necessary to buy from you.
How Do I Get Readers’ Attention?
In this day and age, it’s more difficult than ever to get anybody’s attention. There are distractions and alternatives in every direction, and your competition is always one click away. So when you write to sell, you have to put a lot of thought into the headline of your article, blog post, email or social media post. Your headline or title line has to:
- Stand out from the background noise of everyday marketing efforts
- State a fact, pose a question or articulate a problem your readers want to learn about
- Be succinct enough to do it in less than 15 words
To craft an effective headline, subject line or title, you have to know what your readers are looking for. Your company’s products or services have to solve at least one of their problems. Once you know that, you can write to sell. Examples include:
- Why Your Business Needs a Newsletter
- Is Your Business Name Top-of-Mind in Your Industry?
- How Your Business Can Reach New Customers Consistently
How Do I Generate My Readers’ Interest?
Just as knowing your readers’ problems helps you create a captivating headline or opening, this information is a necessary ingredient to capture their interest. When you understand the issues your readers are grappling with, you can offer solutions … assuming your company has something they can use. Remember to:
- Clearly state the problem as you believe your readers experience it.
- Deliver the solution your business offers.
- Don’t focus on features. Instead promote the advantages and benefits of your solution.
It’s a compelling formula. It’s a successful strategy. And when you can make it personal or emotional, your readers won’t be able to resist your pitch.
How Can I Get Readers to Desire My Solution?
If your readers have stayed with your content through the headline and are interested enough to keep going, you’ve learned to write to sell. Now you have to generate a desire for your solution, be it your product or your service. Desire is interest personified and amplified. Desire is a reason to take action. You can create desire by:
- Announcing a limited-time sale
- Providing a free sample
- Guaranteeing satisfaction with a money-back offer
You create desire by giving your readers a reason to buy now. Another effective way to generate desire is to show that others bought your solution and it worked for them. These testimonials are called social proof, and when you use real customers with real photos of them, it creates another compelling reason to buy from you.
How Do I Get Readers to Act?
When you write to sell, you ultimately have to get your readers to do what it takes to buy from you. That last step, buying your products or services, is the purpose of creating your content. To encourage your readers to take this final step, you have to present a call-to-action that’s simple. You can try:
- A single, large button that says, “Buy Now.”
- A simple form for them to enter their name and email address.
When you keep your call-to-action simple, it doesn’t get in the way between them and a sale. Write to sell, and this last step converts those readers into customers, feeding your company’s bottom line. And that’s the real purpose of creating content for your company.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.