Lockdown: a chance to tackle your website?

Apr 21, 2020 | Copywriting, COVID-19, Digital, Small Businesses, UX Copywriting, Web Content, Websites

If, like many small businesses, you’ve had to slow down or close your doors while we navigate our way through the next few months, now could be the perfect time to give your website a little TLC.

It’s not something we get round to very often, but looking at your website from the perspective of a first-time visitor can be surprisingly insightful.

Years of tweaking content and adding sections can interrupt the flow of your messaging, so, why not take some time to find out what’s working well, and what can be improved?

But before I start, I’d like to make a small disclaimer:

 
Stressed mum working from home with toddler.

I know that for many small business owners, being in lockdown is NOT the best time to make grand plans for the future, take up a new hobby or learn new skills.

For most of us, it’s all about survival.

Juggling work commitments alongside childcare, homeschooling, cabin fever, isolation and endless Zoom meetings – while maintaining some semblance of normality – is quite enough to be getting on with, thank you.

BUT, if you do find yourself with time on your hands, here are five ways you could improve the content on your website, while we wait for normal service to resume.

 

First up, why does good content matter?

The most important question to keep in mind when you write content for your website is:

Who are you writing for?

Every reader is a potential customer, a returning customer, someone who’s looking for information or advice.

The best content grabs their attention, uses language that resonates with them, and solves their problems.

It takes them on an effortless journey from first click to taking action (whether that’s booking an appointment or buying your product or service).

A website shouldn’t be a vanity project – somewhere to just show off and brag about your business.

Because, quite frankly (brace yourself):

Your customers don’t really care about you.

They just want to find the information or product that they’re looking for, and be on their merry way.

So give it to them.

Don’t make them work too hard (because they simply won’t bother)

It might seem counter-intuitive, but looking after your customer first, answering their questions and enabling them to find information quickly, is the key to good SEO.

Google recognises useful websites and rewards them with a higher ranking.

If people come back to your site regularly, share your content or make the journey from landing page to checkout quickly and easily, you’ll soon see the pay off in ranking.

A higher ranking means more traffic.

And more traffic means and more sales.

So, look after your customers with good, interesting, useful content, and everyone’s a winner.

 

1. Write a killer headline

If the opening header on your homepage says ‘Welcome to my website’, ‘Hi, thanks for visiting’, or any other generic stream of nothing-words, it needs to change. Now.

This is the most important sentence on your whole site, for two reasons:
 

  1. It tells readers that they’ve come to the right place (and why they should stick around), and
  2. It helps Google (and other search engines) to understand what content is on that page, so it will rank better.
Man browsing the internet on his mobile phone.

 

What do people type into the search bar when they’re looking for your products or services? (Hint: it’s not ‘welcome to my website’).

Have a think about what your business’ USP is.

  • What do most customers come to you for?
  • What problems do you solve?
  • Why are you better than your competitors?

You need to dig down and find out the most compelling thing about your business (from your customers’ perspective) and shout about it.

Within seconds, visitors need to understand:

  1. Who you are
  2. What you do – or more precisely, how you can help solve their problems

If it’s not immediately clear, they’ll simply click away.

You have around 2.5 seconds to seal the deal, so use a strong attention-grabbing headline, followed by a short paragraph summarising what you do. Give people a reason to read on.

 Here are some good examples:

 

Dropbox: Focus on the work that matters.

 

Evernote: Your notes. Organised. Effortless.

 

Monzo: Banking made easy.

 

PayPal: The easy way to pay is right here.

Notice something else they have in common? A prominent call to action (CTA). Tell people who you are, what you can do to help, and a way to take you up on the offer.

 

2. Break up your content

Remember, people have come to your website looking for information, to buy a product or book a service.

They do NOT want to wade through reams of waffle, however well written it may be.

People only read about 20% of the content you write, so make it easy for them to get to the bit they’re interested in.

How? By breaking it up into manageable chunks.

  1. Use short paragraphs (maximum 3-4 lines)
  2. Add headings and sub-heads for easy navigation
  3. If a graph or image can explain your point more clearly, use them
  4. Make use of video – it can increase engagement and conversion
  5. Use bullet points or numbered lists, like this one

Content needs to be scannable, so people can quickly find what they’re looking for.

But don’t worry. Chances are, if you answer their question well and can lead them to other parts of your website for more information, they will stick around and read on.

 

3. Put your customer first

i.e. Don’t waffle on about yourself.

You’d be surprised how many businesses make this mistake – they’re so keen to get their message across and tell everyone how brilliant they are.

But, back up a bit there, eager beaver.

Remember why you’re writing all this content.

Who’s it for again?

Exactly. Someone who is looking for specific information, or a product or service to solve their problem.

– They’re looking for a reliable plumber who’ll come out in an emergency
– They want to know how to get red wine out of a white rug
– They’re wondering whether they should switch car insurance providers
– They thinking about hiring a graphic designer to create some flyers

It’s unlikely they’re looking for a detailed account of your company history (unless, of course you’re Apple).

So, how should you tackle such enquiries?

All the content on your website (not just your homepage) should talk directly to the reader – about their problems, and how you can solve them.

Do a quick tally of how many times you use the words ‘we/us/me’ on your homepage page, and then count how many times you use the word ‘you’.

If the word ‘you’ doesn’t appear three times for every ‘we/us/me’, you need to rephrase a few sentences.

Remember, people don’t really care about you or your business.

They only care what you can do for them.

4. Highlight your best products/services

If most of your customers come to your site looking for a particular product or service, don’t hide it away in a long list of options.

Remember, you’ve got just a few seconds to convince someone they’ve come to the right place.

So, if you know what your best-selling product is, or that most people come book an appointment online, make this the first thing they see when they click on your homepage.

You can worry about up-selling and cross-selling later. For now, you just want to give people what they want, so they don’t go elsewhere.

Having your most popular products/services on your homepage will help customers to make a decision about what to buy, too.

Your website’s job is to help people get from A (their question or problem) to B (your solution) as easily as possible.

If people have to search too hard, they’ll just click elsewhere.

 

Mailchimp: Using clear language and clean design to show their main product offerings.

 

5. Make it easy for people to contact you

Some businesses deliberately hide their contact details, in a bid to stop people complaining, which is a really bad idea.

Not only will disgruntled customers take to social media to vent instead (and damage your brand), but listening to customers’ complaints and dealing with them effectively will actually boost your reputation.

It’ll also give you useful insight into what customers might be struggling with.

But, aside from this, a lot of people just come to your website so they can send you an email or call you to ask about opening times or product details.

It’s so easy to do, too. Just stick your email address or phone number in the navigation bar at the top, and you’re done.

That was easy, wasn’t it! 

Why is everyone panic-buying toilet roll?

Mar 19, 2020 | Behavioural Science, COVID-19, Marketing, Psychology

Well, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

The world seems to have gone completely mad in the last few weeks.

People are fighting in supermarkets. The elderly are confined to their homes.

Stressed parents are home schooling their kids.

Americans are queuing round the block to stock up on guns and ammo.

And everyone else seems obsessed with toilet roll.

 

What is it about loo roll that gets people so anxious to get their hands on some?

 

A few have suggested that they need a good supply to blow their noses, once the dreaded virus hits town.

Others have mused that it’s to do with control: if you feel out of control in a situation, you focus on the small things you can actually manage confidently.

Apparently wiping your bum is high up on the list.

But, having just finished a course in behavioural economics, I find myself recognising some patterns of behaviour that psychologists have been talking about for a long time…

 

So, here’s my take on what’s happening in the brains of people, all over the world:

 

Robert Cialdini is the Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and author of the book ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’.

To many, he’s the Godfather of psychology and human behaviour.

Cialdini’s research into the factors that motivate us to take action – whether it’s to book theatre tickets, buy a new lawnmower or pay twice the price for a particular brand of jeans – led him to create the six ‘Principles of Persuasion’.

 

One of these principles is ‘scarcity’.

 

If something is (or appears to be) rare, people are instantly drawn to it.

Simply telling customers that stock is limited can boost sales. Restrict people to ‘5 items per person’ and they will spend more money in your store than if you didn’t impose a limit at all.

It seems irrational, but it works.

So, with loo roll being in apparent short supply, people are becoming fixated with it.

And fighting over it.

Of course, social and mainstream media are intensifying the situation, showing row upon row of empty shelves. Causing people to grab as much as they can, whenever they see it.

But really, it’s not their fault. It’s human nature.

Luckily, I have my toilet roll delivered by Who Gives A Crap, (who, incidentally, sent me a fantastic email, reassuring me that my next delivery was in good hands, and that in the meantime, I should think about being neighbourly and offer one of my spare rolls to someone in need. Bravo, WGAC!)

Anyway, back to business.

 

The second cognitive bias at play in the loo roll game, is to do with social norms.

 

If you see lots of people (particularly in your peer group) acting in a certain way – whether it’s good or bad behavior – it quickly becomes normalised.

Have you ever seen a group of people running down the road?

If enough people run past you, the chances are that you’ll start running, too.

You have no idea whether you’re running away from danger, or towards something exciting. Nevertheless, your instinct tells you to join the crowd or face the consequences.

Of course, all this happens in our subconscious mind.

We don’t stand there weighing up the pros and cons of our actions, but there is always a tipping point at which we feel compelled to take action.

 

And this is what’s happening in supermarkets all over Europe.

 

People see trolleys piled high with toilet roll, pasta and flour, and they (subconsciously) think “there has to be some important reason why everyone’s doing this, I better get some too, before it runs out.”

In short, us humans are much easier to manipulate than we would ever like to admit.

Obviously, some of the stockpiling is a direct result of fear.

We’re in an unprecedented situation.

Nobody knows what will happen next, so we’re doing the best we can to prepare for an uncertain future.

I just hope that if the worst does happen, we’ll all be there for the most vulnerable people in society, offering a spare toilet roll, a bag of pasta or an elbow bump when it’s needed.

Stay safe out there, people.

5 tips for building a website from scratch

Mar 4, 2020 | Digital, Tech, Websites

Recently, I was involved in creating and launching a brand new platform for one of my clients, alongside an in-house scrum team.

It’s fair to say that we learnt a few important lessons along the way, but it wasn’t until we were reviewing the website at a wash up meeting that it stuck me: 

Businesses don’t often build a new piece of functionality entirely from scratch.

It’s only projects that fall outside of BAU that have to go through rigorous testing, meaning that in-house teams don’t usually get the chance to go through the whole process from beginning to end.

So, if you’re thinking about creating something new, something that falls outside of your usual technical constraints, here are our top five tips:

 

1.Manage Expectations

 

When you first design a new website, it’s hard not to get carried away, planning the best functionality and UX journeys to wow your users as well as your stakeholders.

But when you present your first demo, make sure that everyone in the room is clear about what they’re about to see.

It sounds simple, but you really need to manage expectations, because non-digital stakeholders don’t always understand the digital process. 

If you’re stripping back your website to a minimum viable product (MVP) for a quicker launch – explain to stakeholders why you have removed certain features or design elements, and when they can expect to see them implemented further down the line.

There is nothing worse than going into a demo feeling excited and proud, only to be faced with a grilling because what you’ve built doesn’t meet with their (quite often, unrealistic) expectations.

You have been warned.

“While you’re at it, please could you add a link to our newsletter here, and a paragraph about our new launch, and a handy form so we can capture everyone’s data, and….?”

2. Beware of scope creep

 

New, exciting projects don’t come along every day, so it’s common for people around the business to take an interest in what you’re creating – which is a good thing.

However, it’s important to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of trying to please too many people.

A passing comment from a well-meaning colleague can send you off down a different route entirely, and before you know it, you’re including ‘essential’ elements for other departments that don’t meet your original criteria.

If you’re working on an MVP, stay strong.

You know exactly why you have chosen to build your site a certain way – hopefully with the input of key stakeholders.

Other colleagues can’t see the whole picture like you can, so don’t give them too much power.

By taking on suggestions from every interested party, you risk losing the purpose of your MVP, as it becomes mishmash of different elements.

As someone once said, if everyone adds his or her own splash of colour to a project, the end result will be grey.

 

 

3. Get your documentation in order

 

It’s not the most exciting part of the job, admittedly, but if you need ADA approval, make sure you get all your documents in order way in advance – it will save a lot of arduous form filling and waiting when you’re ready to go live. 

Need a pen test? Plan ahead to work out when this will need to take place so you can get everything in order in plenty of time.

If you’re building a brand new piece of functionality or an entirely new website, make sure you know what’s needed in advance – around the time the first designs are agreed, if possible.

Have all relevant conversations early on to make sure you don’t get any nasty surprises that will compromise your launch date.

“Erm… what happened to the user-friendly form we were going to put in here…?”

4. Never sacrifice design and UX for functionality

 

Although it may not seem like it at the time, prioritising what can be built in the time given, over what the customer wants, needs or will respond to, can be disastrous.

UX and functionality need to complement one another, so it’s worth a lengthy conversation about exactly what’s needed and how it will look – before you get too far down the road.

Stripping everything back to a functional site is tempting to ensure you meet your launch date, but you’ll risk losing the impact and usability of the original designs.

Launching something that ‘works’ is one thing, but at the expense of the website being well received by the end user? Risky.

Remember, if you’re building an app for a human being, it’s nice if they can actually engage with it.

 

5. Do your research

 

Make sure you know what technology you need and work out how you will build your website before you start. 

It might sound obvious, but you should really look into which CMS you’re going to use: what are its limitations, and how does it fit into your long-term plans?

If you’re starting small but aim to build new functionality over the next few years, make sure you choose systems that will support you at every stage.

It’s important that whoever will be using your CMS on a daily basis also feels comfortable finding their way around. A poor choice at the beginning of a project could have huge ramifications further down the line.

 

High-fives all round.

Being part of a brand new launch is exciting, but it can easily become overwhelming.

By keeping your goals in sight and lines of communication open, you can tread the fine line between keeping your stakeholders happy, giving the customers what they want, and making sure your team stays motivated.

 

Photo Credits:

Stressed worker created by creativeart – www.freepik.com
Shocked man with computer in a cafe photo created by drobotdean – www.freepik.com
High-fives business photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com

 

10 ways to lose weight (without going on a diet)

Feb 26, 2020 | Behavioural Science, Health & Fitness, Psychology

I’ll be honest; I’m not really into the whole diet thing. The second I try to stop myself eating something, I become obsessed and eat more of it.

But it seems I’m not alone, as a whopping 95% of all diets fail miserably. So why are we so bad at dieting?

It’s all about psychology.

Our brains and our environment make it almost impossible to lose weight – and keep it off – with any diet that limits our choices.

So it’s really not our fault when we fall (unceremoniously) off the wagon, straight into a bucket of doughnuts. Again.

Recently, I’ve been studying Behavioural Science, and, as part of my course I had to read ‘Mindless Eating – Why we eat more than we think we do’ by Brian Wansink, PH.D.

This book is as fascinating as it is alarming, uncovering the hidden influences behind what makes us eat as much as we do. And why we almost always eat more than we think.

As Wansink says, deprivation diets don’t work for three reasons:

  1. Your body fights against it
  2. Your brain fights against it
  3. Your environment fights against it

Think about it: Our ancestors were hunter-gathers. They foraged for food and adapted over generations to survive severe droughts and famines.

Luckily, evolution means that we don’t have to hunt for our food any more, but if you suddenly start depriving your body of vital calories, it’ll burn fat at a slower rate to help you survive your self-induced ‘famine’.

Which is amazing and annoying in equal measure.

Plus, if we consciously deny ourselves something (and let’s face it, it’s always something we love, right?), our brains will make us crave it more and more. It makes us miserable. And there’s only so long you can keep resisting temptation before you’ll eventually crack.

Willpower can only get you so far.

In fact, willpower works overtime on our behalf, since we make over 200 food-related decisions every day.

Yep, 200.

Every. Single. Day.

So, if you’re sitting right next to an open packet of biscuits, you’ll need to decide whether or not to stick one in your mouth EVERY TIME you look at them. It’s no wonder we cave under the pressure.

 

“No, delicious little biscuit, not today! I’m being good. No, really, I am. Oh, damn you look tasty. Go on then, come here you gorgeous hunk of crunchy goodness.”

 

Most of us put on weight so slowly, we don’t even realise it’s happened until we dust off our party pants and realise we can’t do the zip up.

But, before you sob uncontrollably into your Oreo McFlurry, there is some good news.

 

“The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on”

 

Amen to that! Apparently, the secret to losing weight effectively is what Brian calls the ‘mindless margin’.

Because we gain weight gradually over time, we don’t remember ever ‘eating more’. Which means it’s possible to reverse the process and lose weight gradually, without even feeling like you’re on a diet. Hurrah!

By skimming off just a few calories every day, your body won’t panic and go into starvation mode. You won’t feel like you’re depriving yourself, and those special jeans will soon start to feel more comfortable.

But how…?

Here are my top 10 tips for losing weight ‘mindlessly’:

1. Ditch all your tall, thin drinking glasses

We all over-pour our drinks when given a short, fat tumbler. So, switch to taller, thinner glasses and you’ll drink less fizzy pop without feeling you’ve been short changed.

Brain Wansink and his team at the Food and Brand Lab conducted countless field experiments on this subject and proved that even experienced bar tenders pour overly generous measures when given a short, fat glass.

Which is handy to know.

Also, if you’re really keen, you should add some ice cubes. Our bodies use energy to heat up iced drinks, at the rate of roughly one calorie per fluid ounce. Every little helps!

 

2. Buy smaller dinner plates

Surprisingly, our stomachs don’t tell us when we’re full – our eyes do. And what’s more, they make the decision BEFORE we’ve even started eating.

If your dinner doesn’t look impressive on the plate, you’ll convince yourself that you’re still hungry afterwards, even if it’s the same amount of food you’d usually serve up.

Remember, this isn’t speculation, this is the result of a series of robust, scientific studies – asking subjects whether they’re full, how much they think they’ve eaten, and measuring how much they’ve managed to put away. Over and over again.

Our minds play tricks on us. Invest in some smaller plates, and your portion sizes will adjust accordingly.

Interestingly, plate sizes (in America at least) have increased over the years. When people buy vintage dinnerware, they often use dinner plates as side dishes, and serving platters for their main meals.

 

3. Don’t eat in front of the TV

…Or at your desk, or when you’re reading a magazine, or when you’re driving. Being distracted while you eat makes it harder to know when to stop.

You won’t notice your body signalling that you’ve had enough, and then – just like that – you’ve eaten too much.

How many times have you been sitting at your desk with a chocolate bar, or bag of crisps, absent-mindedly munching away as you work, only to almost fall off your chair in shock when you glance down and realise you’ve finished already?

Did someone swipe your snack off your desk while you weren’t looking?

Surely you didn’t eat it all? You’d have noticed. Wouldn’t you?

In that moment you feel cheated. And, if you’re anything like me, you go straight out and find something else to eat.

We rely on cues to tell us to stop eating – there’s no food left on the table; the packet is empty; everyone else has left the restaurant, etc. Otherwise, we keep eating.

Even if it’s stale popcorn or the leftover Quality Street that nobody likes, we just can’t seem to stop ourselves. So sit at the table and ‘be present’ while you enjoy your meal.

 

4. Decide how much you’ll eat, before you sit down

In the same way that we over-eat when we’re distracted, we also over-eat when we’ve got a table of delicious food laid out for us.

Self serving from a range of bowls is a recipe for disaster (in the over-eating stakes), because we simply can’t resist sampling a ‘little’ of everything, which tends to add up to a lot – particularly when we’re eating, chatting, and spooning more onto our plates as we go.

So, plate up your food before you sit down, and you won’t keep nibbling the naan or finishing off a half empty dish, just because it’s there.

The same goes for eating out of a packet. Pringles certainly know what they’re talking about – once you pop, it’s practically impossible to stop, and you’ll have no idea how many you’ve eaten.

So, don’t mindlessly munch your way to a bigger pair of jeans, decide how many crisps (or sweets, or peanuts) you want to eat, and put them in a bowl. Then hide the packet in the cupboard!

5. Substitute meat for more veg

This one may seem a little harder to sneak past the keeper, but you can seriously cut calories by switching up the meat/veg ratio in your meals.

Eat a slightly smaller steak and have more salad, or bulk up your bolognaise with some sneaky veggies. You honestly won’t notice the difference (especially if you serve it on a smaller plate), but you’ll be well on your way to a healthier diet.

In Wansink’s experiments, he swapped ½ pounder burgers for ¼ pounders, and added more salad to compensate. When people believed they’d eaten the bigger burger, they reported feeling more full.

Similarly (in another experiment), when people thought they’d only eaten half a bowl of soup, they still felt hungry. In fact, due to some cleverly rigged up soup bowls, some of them had actually eaten over two-and-a-half bowls of the stuff, without even realising.

See! Tasty burgers with lots of salad. What’s not to like?
6. Keep treats in the cupboard

Yep, it’s the biscuit trick again. If you can’t ‘see’ the Bourbons, you’re less likely to fall prey to their irresistible charms. So, do yourself a favour and stick them in the cupboard where you’ll forget about them (for a while at least).

When you DO remember they’re there, go ahead, have a biscuit.

Just remember, if they’d been in your line of vision for an entire morning, you’d probably have munched half a packet by now, so you’ve actually done well.

Of course, you could go one step further and leave the biscuits in the shop, so you actually have to get up, put your shoes on and walk there to satisfy your craving, but, you’re only human, and life is too short.

The lesson here is – the more effort you have to put into getting a biscuit (or anything else for that matter), the less often you’ll bother.

 

7. Share deserts with a friend

When you’re eating out, some people like to do the 2/3 trick – either have a starter and a main, or a main and a pudding.

It’s a handy way to get into good habits, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll order a starter and then decide just to have a ‘quick look’ at the desert menu. Because well, it’s rude not to.

It’s also a slippery slope.

Before you know it, you’re halfway through an Eton Mess wondering what happened to self-control and vowing to have a salad for lunch tomorrow.

Instead, get into the habit of either ordering a small desert (sometimes there’s a mini desert option with coffee), or share a desert with your friend.

Apparently, the first three bites are the most important – they’re the ones that satisfy your craving, so anything after that just blurs into insignificance.

8. Double bluff the buffet

If you find yourself at a lot of business events, or weddings with a buffet option, stick to the ‘two items on your plate’ rule. Every time you go to the buffet table, choose just two things and stand a few steps away (or more) to eat.

That way, you’ll have to keep going back to the table for more food.

It sounds simple, but the effort of walking over and choosing two more items will slow down the pace and keep you from over indulging.

You’ll have to wait until there’s a break in the conversation to refill your plate, meaning fewer visits, and you won’t find yourself absent-mindedly working your way through a platter of chicken wings while listening to someone drone on about tax returns.

 

9. Don’t give up comfort food

Life’s just too short to deny yourself a little taste of heaven every now and again.

Just eat the really indulgent treats in smaller portion sizes, or add a healthy snack in there too. So, if you’d normally eat a tub of vanilla ice cream, try eating half a tub with some strawberries on the side.

Food associations have been with us since we were children, so they’ll take time to re-engineer. But, it is possible to upgrade your comfort foods, introduce new habits and re-wire your brain.

Try to make healthier associations with food – celebrate with strawberries and frozen yoghurt or a mango smoothie instead of reaching for the doughnuts. You never know, it could become your new favourite thing.

Someone’s birthday at work?

Why not grab a basket of exotic fruit to throw down next to Colin the Caterpillar? Your colleagues might take a smaller slice with a side portion of mango, without even thinking they’ve been duped.

 

“Exotic fruit? I didn’t order this!” Said nobody, ever.
10. Slow down

When you’re eating with friends or family, pause for a second before you get stuck into your dinner. Make sure you’re the last to start eating, and the last to finish.

Eating slowly means you’ll give your body the chance to register when it’s full, so you’re less likely to over-eat.

If we eat by ourselves, we’ll eat less and for a shorter amount of time than when we eat with a group of people. If you eat with just one other person, you’ll eat 35% more, on average.

If you eat with a group of seven or more people, you’ll end up eating almost double (96% more).

Social norms mean you’ll stay at the table longer, and carry on nibbling long after you’ve actually ‘finished’. Partly because we don’t like to leave people eating by themselves, and partly because it’s hard to walk away while there’s still food on the table.

So, if you’re trying to lose weight, avoid eating in a big group, or try to go out with friends who have smaller appetites.

 

Small changes, big results

According to Brian Wansink, if you make just three 100-calorie changes a day (1/3 of a bag of crisps, or two squares of chocolate), you’ll lose around 30lbs (over 2 stone) by the end of the year.

Even if you only manage to make one or two changes a day, you’ll still feel a lot healthier by the time Christmas rolls back around.

You’ll have created a much more achievable way to reach your target weight, without feeling like you’re punishing yourself and missing out.

It’s got to be worth a try, hasn’t it?

 

Photo credits
Biscuits: Food photo created by freepik
Burgers: Photo by Etienne Pauthenet on Unsplash 
Bowl of exotic fruit: Food photo created by lifeforstock

10 things I learned at CopyCon 2019

Oct 16, 2019 | Copywriting Conference, Marketing, UX Copywriting

The Professional Copywriters Network (ProCopywriters) holds a conference every year for copywriters old and new. It’s always lovely to meet fellow writers, talk about new ideas and – as our host, David McGuire put it – be in a room full of people who don’t think you’re an expert in copyright law. Hurrah!

The day was packed with excellent speakers and breakout sessions. Richard Shotton, author of The Choice Factory, gave us a fascinating talk about behavioural science and how unconscious biases influence our decision-making. The highlight for me was this video, showing how we really can’t resist the force of peer pressure.

 

 

Anyway, here’s my top 10 takeaways from the CopyCon 2019:

1. Use review sites to research your customers

In an ideal world, we’d conduct interviews with customers before writing a single word of copy. We’d find out what their pain points are with our products, or what they love about our services. But in reality, that’s not always possible. Clients have limited budgets, limited time and often limited resources.

So, what do you do when you need feedback about a brand or product? You go online! Head to Amazon and read customer reviews. They’re packed with opinions that people might not tell you to your face, and you’ll quickly start to see common phrases that you can use. It’s genius, and just one of many great tips given to us by Joanna Weibe from Copyhackers.

This copy saw a 49% increase in paid conversions.

2. Get your interviews transcribed

Another great hack from Joanna… Rather than interview your clients while frantically scribbling notes, hold your meeting on Zoom video. Ask them all kinds of things about why they started the business, etc. Then (and this is my takeaway!), rather than spend hours listening to audio, hitting pause and typing everything up, word for word – go somewhere like rev.com and get the whole conversation transcribed.

That way, you’ll end up with a whole document that you can mine for gold. You’re looking for key phrases and ideas that you can use in your writing. And, when people talk freely about the business they’re passionate about, that’s when the magic happens.

 

3. Listen to sales calls

If you’re trying to pull together a customer journey, or a series of marketing messages, it can be tricky to know where to start (and, usually, the flow of information is controlled by what the business wants to sell first).

But, if you listen to calls, you can identify key areas that the customer considers important. Record the topics that people want to talk about, in the order that they come up. Stick everything in an excel spreadsheet, and once you’ve plotted all the calls, you might find that deciding which message to send customers first becomes much clearer. 

Remember, it’s our job to give customers the information they need to buy our products or services. If you’re getting a lot of enquiries about a particular sticking point, it’s probably best to address it head on.

 

4. Turn weaknesses into strengths

OK, so we’ve all heard this one before, usually just before you go for a job interview. But, bear with me. The Pratfall Effect is the idea that imperfections make you (or your brand) more likeable. Believe it or not, if you spill your coffee at the end of an outstanding interview, it’s more likely to boost your chances. Unless you run off swearing, presumably.

There’s been a lot of research conducted into this theory, but how can we use it effectively in our marketing without damaging the brand? Richard Shotton gave us some great examples which, if you’re trying to sell something that people have reservations about, can be really effective.

VW have a long history of turning their weaknesses into strengths.

So, someone thought the slope was too hard, did they? Excellent, that’ll make it a great challenge for the more adventurous among us!

Hans Brinker Budget Hotel have created a whole brand out of bad reviews. It must work, because I looked them up on Trivago and they’re the 6th most popular hostel in Amsterdam.

The golden rule is, don’t hide your flaws (people will soon discover them, anyway). Work out what your core strengths are, and turn weaknesses on their heads to reinforce the strength.

 

5. The importance of ease

We’re all busy. We all have good intentions to reply to an email, sign up for a service or renew a subscription. But life gets in the way sometimes. The easier you make it for customers to buy your products/sign up to your service, the better.

If you can take out sections of your journey to simplify the process, then go ahead. The experiment below by Bergman & Rogers shows just how much more effective a sign up is, when you remove the steps – version 1 is the standard sign up, version 2 asks people to reply to a text message with the word ‘start’ and the last version (with 97% take up) automatically signed customers up. They just had to text ‘stop’ if they didn’t want it.

 

 

The only reservation I have with this idea, is to make sure your audience is fully aware that your service will automatically renew before it happens. Nobody wants a repeat of when U2 sent their new album to everyone on iTunes and we couldn’t delete it!

 

6. Confirmation bias

If we hold a particular opinion, we more readily accept information that backs up what we think. We dismiss, or form counter-arguments, for things that we disagree with. But, what if we’re distracted at the time?

It turns out, we can be manipulated when we’re not paying attention. Listening to a convincing argument while watching a silent movie will make us MORE inclined to believe what’s being said, because our brains are too busy looking at the screen to generate a counter argument.

So, by playing classical music over your ad, or dressing up your message with stunning graphics, you can distract people enough to not question your authority. Which is a bit disconcerting, but useful to know if you’re in the business of changing opinions.

 

7. Keep a beginner’s mind

UX copywriter Laura Parker reminded us not to forget what it’s like to be a new user. All too often, we tend to slip into ‘work speak’. We talk to colleagues about new functionality or adding new products to our range. We talk about them so much that words and phrases feel clear and familiar.

It’s important to remember that our users have a different understanding of our products. They have different expectations of our apps. Try to keep information clear and relevant to them and don’t expect them to make a mental leap to where you are.

Don’t bombard users with all the information at once. Offer help that’s relevant to the part of the journey they’re in at the moment and guide them through the process. Use simple language and avoid jargon.

And, while we’re at it, don’t mess about with user’s expectations, either. We expect menus in the top right-hand corner, we expect calls to action at the bottom, usually in the form of a button. If you defer too far from that, you’ll confuse the user and may lose them.

 

8. Accessibility is key

Many of us suffer from some kind of user anxiety from time to time. We download an app, struggle to understand it and then delete it, sometimes within minutes of opening it.

But living with anxiety, autism or visual impairment can dramatically affect the way you process information. These ads from the Home Office are a handy reminder of a few of the things we should keep in mind when designing.

 

 

We should consider how we speak to users, too. It’s common to say ‘simply download this…’ when, to some people, it might not be so simple. Likewise, saying ‘just £9.99’ isn’t always appropriate. £9.99 may be quite a lot for someone to spend on your product.

The bottom line is, keep your user at the front of your mind, consider the challenges that they may have and help them to get the most from your app.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) are more than happy to check your website’s accessibility for you.

 

 

9. Take a walk on the wild side

Harry Kapur from Velocity Partners told us all about having ‘skin in the game’. If you’re trying to persuade your clients to take risks with their marketing, it’s a lot more effective if you can actually walk the walk.

Successful content marketers should do the same for their own businesses as they recommend to others. Live and breathe products and systems until you know them inside out, and it’ll give you the edge.

Obviously, it’s not always practical to open a hair salon or a publish a magazine just to understand the struggles that your clients are going through, but the more you can immerse yourself in their world, the more powerful your copy will be.

Make it feel real and acknowledge that no product is perfect. Research for opinions and emotions, not just facts. And remember:

 

“The only way to make something interesting
is to be genuinely interested in it.”

 

10. What’s the future for voice search?

Kelvin Newman from Brighton SEO ran a great, practical session on search engine optimisation. There are lots of useful tools out there to help us with keyword research (or ‘search queries’, as they should be called. They’re real people’s questions, after all).

But the thing that really stood out to me was, OK we can optimise our websites to appear higher up in Google results pages, but when it comes to voice activated searches (on our smart speakers at home), there’s only ever one answer. So, if we’re not number one, then where does that leave us…? 

I asked Alexa, but she just said, ‘sorry, I don’t know that one’.

But there we have it, my highlights from a fantastic day at the Barbican. I hope to see many of you again next year! But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with something Harry Kapur said that resonated with me. When someone says ‘customers are just people’, tell them:

“No. They’re angry mums. They’re stressed CEOs. They’re people struggling with anxiety.”

Keep your customers at the forefront of your mind and you can’t go far wrong.