Converting Visitors Through Persuasive Design

2.2 Writing Persuasive Copy

Hello, my name is Paul Boag and welcome to this second video of my course on Converting Visitors Through Persuasive Design. But persuasive design is not just about compelling imagery and grabbing attention through your interface, it's also about the copy that we used position our offering. That's what we're gonna be looking at in this video, starting with creating great headlines. Crafting the perfect headline will make an enormous difference to your chances of persuading a user to take action. Whether it's a compelling title for a blog post or a piece of copy associated with the call to action. Communicating a compelling and succinct message becomes crucial. But be careful, it's tempting when you're under pressure to convert to resort to clickbait in order to compel users to interact with you. Clickbait is any headline that makes implied promises that it then fails to deliver. For example, this real headline implies that you're gonna be shocked when you find out what the children are jumping into. In truth they're simply jumping into a swimming pool, hardly shocking. Although clickbait works, it will once again leave users feeling manipulated and that will ultimately damage your business. Although we want our headlines to be compelling, we must always put credibility before hype. That said, there is much that we could do to make our headlines more compelling. For example, we can use a language that actively encourages users to take action. Often, the best way of getting somebody to act is to explicitly ask them to do so. Using words such as act now or buy today will see an increase in conversion. And you will also find that users are naturally drawn to certain types of headlines. Make sure you leverage use of these biases in the copy that you write. For example, if I ask you a question you mentally will answer that question. That means that question-based headlines have a better chance of engaging with users. We also are naturally drawn to lists, this is because they're easy to scan which is the primary way we digest content online. In this example, I not only use the list format, but I also use self-actualization that I mentioned earlier in this course. Notice how the title promises to make you a better gamer. Talking of self-actualization, the final headline type that's particularly effective are how-to lists. This is because how-to guides are promising to make us better at something. Although questions, lists, and how-to guides are attention grabbing, they're not the only tool at our disposal. We can also ensure that we use wording that is both powerful and emotional. Take for example these two headlines, the term mind-blowing is extremely powerful while the delight and challenge engages the reader emotionally. Of course, this is where we need to be careful that we don't fall into the trap of clickbait. Will my VR headset really blow people's minds? That's a bold claim to make. Writing persuasive copy's a tricky balance to strike. Not only is it hard to avoid straying into the territory or clickbait, there are other balances to consider, too. For example, people rarely buy a product till service based upon the features that it offers. It's the benefits that the product can provide people that they find compelling. For example, people don't download Skype because they love the idea of voiceover IP. They download Skype because they wanna speak to friends and family. However, it's important that while we sell the benefits in our calls to action, we at the same time make it clear what they're actually going to get. Take for example this screenshot of the Skype homepage captured back in February. They are focusing on the fact that Skype will bring loved ones together over Valentine's. It's a nice message and communicates something that is a really compelling benefit of the platform. But what if somebody arrived on that homepage without ready knowing what Skype did? Would they know from looking at that page exactly what the product was? Was it, for example, a dating app or maybe a social network? They have emphasized benefits so heavily that it's come at the cost of clarity. Apple on the other hand, have done an excellent job at balancing features and benefits. They have made it very clear that their Macbook Air offers 12 hours battery life and that's a feature. But they then go on to say that that feature enables you to work as long as you need to which is a benefit. Another balancing act that you need to address when writing copy is the relationship between our agenda and that of our customers. For example, I often visit websites that immediately display an intrusive newsletter pop-up when I first arrive, and that's because those companies are keen to capture my email address for future marketing efforts. However, I didn't come to the website to sign up for a newsletter. I have my own agenda and I want to complete that first before doing anything else. When it comes to asking users to act, it's important that we first allow them to complete whatever tasks brought them to the website. Only once they've met their own needs are they gonna be open to us introducing other calls to action? Timing is everything when it comes to conversion. The final balance we need to strike is between conciseness and clarity. User experience professionals tell us that users rarely read copy online and we should therefore make our content concise. They are of course completely right. However, we often see persuasive copy becoming verbose in our desire to convince people. We should seek to make our copy as concise as possible, while at the same time being persuasive. This is best achieved by avoiding repetition and aiding scalability of our copy using things like pull out quotes, headlines, imagery, and lists. Also, wherever possible front load your content. In other words, present your call to action first and then go on to back it up with supporting information afterwards. Once again, that's gonna add aide scannability. Striking the right balance can be tricky, but one of the best things you can do to improve your copy should, at least in principle, be easy. And that is to write like a human being. People warm to human-friendly copy. They find it trustworthy and compelling, yet the majority of copy I see on websites has little in the way of humanity. Instead, it's either corporate or boring or dripping with marketing BS. I would encourage you to try hard to recapture your humanity when you write for the web. Make your copy warm and conversational be real and straightforward, always avoid jargon. It really doesn't need to be that hard, just look at MailChimp's voice and tone guideline for some excellent examples of how to write like a human being. Something as simple as writing in the first person can make an enormous difference, talk about we rather than your company name, equally address your audience personally. For example, on this university website, I found the following piece of copy. Students should consider their future carefully before selecting a course. By simply rewording this so I spoke directly to the user, it instantly became considerably more approachable. So for example, while choosing your university and degree subject, think about the kind of work you would like to eventually do. My rule of thumb is a simple one, try reading your copy out loud to another human being. If it doesn't sound like something you would normally say in conversation then you probably need to rewrite it, it's as simple as that. Well-written, concise, and personable copy is the most important component in persuading users to complete a call to action. But that's no guarantee that users will spot the call to action in the first place and that's where design comes in. And that's gonna be the topic of our final video in this course, but until then, thanks for watching.