Copywriting Techniques to Improve Engagement

>> Read Part 1: Some Simple Tips & Tricks To Improve Your Copywriting <<

>> Read Part 2: How To Structure Your Copywriting <<

Engagement in marketing is where you encourage your customers to interact and share the experiences you create for them for both business and brand. Strong engagement can result in rapid brand growth and loyalty. There are many different methods for engaging with your audiences, whether that be previous customers, potential customers, competitors, suppliers, you might also have a different way to gain engagement from each segment or group.

The below outlines some of our tried and tested techniques for copywriting sure to improve your customer engagement. We will explain why you should keep it short and sweet, why long words won’t do the trick, how to keep it friendly and most importantly how to get to know and understand your audience.

Remove unnecessary words

Make sure you keep it short and to the point. Keep it simple, without it being vacuous. Less waffle and more direct. You must ensure you hold professionalism without coming across patronising. Don’t write for the sake of writing, only include key messages that your audience will be interested and engaged with.

One way to do this is to test it out! Give your text to someone completely unrelated to the business, like a friend or family member, they can tell you if they understand your key points in a short amount of time. That way you will know if it is short and concise.

Avoid lengthy words

Scrap the long, complicated words and replace with shorter, more easily understandable speech. If your audience doesn’t understand, or have to think too much about what you’re saying they will automatically become unengaged with your content and bounce straight off your article to find something more light-hearted and easier to read.

If the sentence still makes sense without it then you don’t need it!

Also after you have written your text, challenge yourself to remove ¼ of it, only including the key messages – but don’t cut the important information! A few examples could be if you wrote “at this point in time” it could easily change to “now” or “a large proportion of” could change to “many”.

Keep it friendly

Try to use a conversational and informal tone of voice that way customers can relate to you. They are only human after all!

Avoid using negative words.

Instead of telling them what they can’t do, tell them what they can!

Know your audience

Tailor your tone of voice and choice of language to match theirs.  Create a persona to ensure you know what your audience is doing, and when. That way you can work out how you can get them to see your message and for it to relate to them. For example if you are a corporate B2B business, you will have to talk more professionally, reaching your audience via LinkedIn during usual working hours when they will be looking to engage with your business. Whereas a more relaxed B2C business would have a more laid back approach, using fun, energetic content and targeting their audience on Twitter and Facebook in their lunch breaks, after work and weekends because that is when they will be able to access your content.

All sounds like common sense doesn’t it? That’s the best way to relate to your audience; keep it simple, keep it relevant and keep it accurate.

As we’ve said multiple times in this series, always put yourself in your audience’s shoes, what information would you want to gain from your writing, how would you like to be spoken to and what are the most important elements that need to be highlighted?

Once you understand your audience, everything else is simple, you’ll have them like putty in the palm of your hand.

If you’d like more advice and support on Content Marketing and how you can engage with your customers better, contact us today, or click to find out more about our Content Marketing Consultation.