What You Need to Know About Sales Optimization & Copywriting

When you sit down to learn sales optimization and copywriting, you need to be prepared to be part writer, part salesperson and part psychologist. The salesperson needs to know the features and benefits of the product or service being sold, the psychologist needs to know how the target market operates and the writer needs to put the whole thing together using just the right words and using as few of those words as possible. Instead of wearing three hats, you’re just going to wear the one as you learn how to become a sales optimization and copywriting expert. Here are a few sales optimization and copywriting basics to get you started.

The Features & Benefits of the Product or Service

The first step in mastering the sales optimization and copywriting basics is to fully examine your product or service inside and out. You should start with the product or service features. When writing about features, sales optimization and copywriting basics call for you to think of the customer coming into contact with the product or service in question. For example, a customer purchasing something will see what color it is, how much the product weighs and the many uses that it can be utilized for.

Benefits are a bit different, but they are infinitely more important than features when it comes to sales optimization and copywriting. The best way to describe benefits is to examine how the customer’s life will change after coming into contact with the product or service in question. Maybe the customer’s zits will disappear, fat will melt away, lost hair will grow back and exercise won’t be as difficult anymore. The benefits are what are going to sell your product or service; so focus on them heavily when focusing on sales optimization and copywriting basics.

Identifying the Motives of the Target Audience

A sales optimization and copywriting expert will next identify the primary target audience, as well as the average person’s motivations. The copywriter will identify the average person’s demographics, whether they’re male or female, the average age, income level and other markers that can help the writer truly speak to the audience on a personal level.

When the sales optimization and copywriting expert speaks of motivations, this means to identify the average person’s reasons for needing the product or service in their lives. What problems is the target audience facing that your product or service might help solve? These problems are called pain points, and they – along with the product benefits – should be used heavily in the sales optimization and copywriting piece that you are writing.

Putting it All Together

Once you have studied the product and the target audience, your next job is to choose just the right words to convey your thoughts, while using as few words as possible. Just stick to the sales optimization and copywriting basics and start with the customers’ pain points so that the average person reading the copy can identify with it personally.

This gets the reader invested on a deep and intimate level that translates into more trust and interest in the product or service in question. Speak directly to the reader and let the person know that you understand their pain. Describe a typical situation where the product or service might be able to save the day, and spell it out for your reader in crystal clear terms.

When the reader is confident that you are on their level and that you understand what keeps them up at night Googling for solutions to their most pressing problems, that’s when the sales optimization and copywriting expert might say, but wait, you don’t have to go through pain anymore; and the product or service benefits would make their debut.

Introducing the Product Benefits

The goal is to use pain points in such a way as to have the customer relive the pain they have been going through. Then, when you reveal the product or service and all its amazing benefits – as in, you hail how much the customer’s life will change after the purchase is made – the customer will feel delighted and eager to buy whatever you’re selling.

When writing about the benefits, the sales optimization and copywriting expert would again want the reader to identify with the copy. This means that the writer will help the customer envision the product or service in their lives. Describe the change that the customer will experience by interacting with the product or service, and really put yourself in their shoes to bring it home.

Once you have all of the elements you need to write an effective sales letter, landing page or other sales optimization and copywriting piece; start pinpointing the words you can use to get your audience excited for what you are selling. Until you get more experience, try writing each paragraph several times, describing the same ideas differently to see which versions you like better.

Now you are ready to get started. To recap, study your product and audience; go for the right words and use as few of those words as possible if you want to master the sales optimization and copywriting basics.

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