Effective eCommerce Copy

As an eCommerce business, you’re always looking for ways to increase your conversions. You examine your website layout, speed, reviews, and more, but you may be missing out on one of the simplest ways to boost conversions: your copy. 

eCommerce managers and owners often wear a lot of hats, having to take responsibility for many different roles. For small businesses and startups, resources may be even more limited. But eCommerce copy is a simple, inexpensive way to connect with your ideal customer and ultimately increase your conversions. 

Writing an effective eCommerce copy is a lot easier than you think! YOU know your ideal customer and can leverage this information to create engaging, high-converting copy. Here are some tips for crafting an effective eCommerce copy:

Think Like Your Audience

The base for all copy should be your consumers. Think about it. Some brands may sell very similar products, but craft their copy in a completely different way based on their target demographic. In reality, turning yourself into your customer is crucial for all forms of marketing and advertising. The purpose of your copy is to draw in your audience, and motivate them to buy, but to do this you’ll need to become your customer. 

To do it, you should create a customer persona. Choose an ideal customer, and figure out who they are. How old are they? What are their goals, aspirations, interests, hobbies, pain points? Ask yourself deep questions about the challenges that your customer faces each day. Use this persona to think like your customer. 

Talk Like Your Audience 

Effective salespeople adopt their customer’s tone, humor, and dialect. Use your copy to build a connection with your customers by mirroring their way of speaking. When done correctly, talking like your audience comes across as conversational and authentic. 

To talk like your audience, you should imagine how they would speak to a friend. Think about the phrases they would use, keywords, and the sense of humor that would be present. Incorporate some of these phrases and tones that you see as most relevant to your audience. 

Use Action Words

Remember the goal of your copy: to ignite the action of buying. Instead of using generic phrases and adjectives, incorporate powerful action verbs. The action-oriented copy will produce far more clicks. 

Keep your customer in mind as you search for powerful verbs. Don’t select any old action word, use the ones that will excite your customer. “Buy now” is not usually very interesting for customers. Fortunately, you can test which verbs work best for your customers through trial and error. You can choose a verb and measure the clicks, change the verb, and repeat, to find the most compelling ones for your customers. 

Account for Time

Most customers only need 10-20 seconds to choose if they will stay on the page or hit exit. When customers browse on eCommerce stores, they are looking for information to quickly identify your value proposition. Make it crystal clear what you’re offering with an easy-to-read copy. 

It’s not just about the words you use, it’s also about how the copy looks. Just think about this blog post. Would it be as appealing had we just written one long blurb without subheadings? It would probably look overwhelming! The same goes for your copy. Break up the copy with spacing, formatting, bullet points, etc. Include your value proposition in the headline. 

Imagination 

The products you sell are more than a list of features, they are items that create memories. Give your customers insight into how the product would make them feel. Use your words to allow them to hold it. 

Start with your product’s features. Features are the qualities it has like size, material, etc. Then go a step further and turn those features into benefits. When describing the benefits, give your customers a taste of how the product will benefit them. 

Transparency

Adding reviews to a product page increased conversions by more than 35% according to a study by KISS Metrics. Reviews help establish trust by demonstrating transparency and honesty. When shopping online, people cannot hold or see a product in person, but they trust what other customers have to say. 

Include reviews on your product page, but also be honest in your copy. Your copy should not exaggerate or mislead customers, because that’s how you plummet customer satisfaction. Instead, you should only make claims you can back up and add the customer review section. 

Eliminate Barriers for Purchase 

Sometimes you’ll have a customer right on the hook, ready to reel them in and close the deal, but they panic and exit. Oftentimes, the reason has to do with shipping or returns and exchanges, but it could be something else entirely. 

Be a detective and find the barriers to buying. Review your product page and think like a customer again. What questions may they have. Add links to the places that may answer some big questions, like your terms and conditions, FAQ page, return policies, etc. 

Write Powerful Copy for All eCommerce Channels 

Effective copy is the key to selling more, and it doesn’t suck up a ton of resources. By taking a customer-centric approach, you can create compelling copy that leads to more sales, and there’s no better time to perfect your copy. 

For multichannel sellers, the task may seem daunting, but with Listing Mirror’s #1 multichannel software, it’s a breeze. Automate the process of listing management so you can update your copy on all of your eCommerce channels. To learn more about how Listing Mirror can help your eCommerce business, give us a try for yourself! Start your risk-free 14-day trial by clicking the button below.

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