Boost your conversion rate with these powerful ecommerce copywriting strategies.
Your ecommerce copywriting is far more crucial than you may imagine.
Copy, along with design, forms the basis of your brand. Your consumers build an immediate opinion of you and your products based on how you describe yourself. In fact, your website copy can be so influential that it may even trump the quality of your product at times.
Your consumers want to know how your goods work and how they will improve their lives. And, conveying that information all depends on effective ecommerce copywriting.
Unfortunately, far too many ecommerce businesses devote countless hours to improving their website’s appearance and structure but neglect to improve the copy.
The outcome? Low user engagement, which eventually leads to poor conversion rates.
In this post, look at how to write compelling product page copy, describing benefits over features, and a lot more…
So, let’s get right into it.
What is Ecommerce Copywriting?
Websites have been using content to describe their products for years now. However, ecommerce copywriting that converts goes one step further than just listing describing the details.
When consumers visit your site, they subconsciously want to connect to your product. And, this is exactly what you can give them by providing high-quality copy that builds trust and persuades them to buy.
Imagine two products with the exact same features and capabilities. Now, if one of those products has a compelling description about how it will make your life easier or more enjoyable, wouldn’t you prefer that particular product over the other?
The answer is a YES.
Effective ecommerce copywriting is all about understanding your consumer and making them feel and act in a way that gets you sales. However, unfortunately, not all online store owners understand it, let alone work on their copy.
And that directly affects their sales.
According to research, the average conversion rate in the US in Q2 of 2021 for Ecommerce websites is an appalling 2.8%.
Bold statement, but it’s true. Why do so many ecommerce stores fail to convince people to buy? Why are there so many abandoned shopping carts?
Well, the answer is simple: Poor copywriting!
Ecommerce website owners write about topics that they think their target customers want to hear about, but this is rarely the case. When writing ecommerce copy, you have to write for your customer base and give them what they want – not you.
You should put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask yourself these questions:
- What would I like to read to make a purchase?
- What can I buy quickly, without spending a lot of time?
- What benefits am I looking at in the product?
Answering these simple questions in your copy helps you address the customers’ pain points, clear his mind and eventually sell well.
Now that you know what ecommerce copywriting is and how it affects your bottom line, let us go through a few proven and time-tested tips to create a great ecommerce copy.
Tip #1: Create Your Target Personas
Before you start writing, you need to know who your ideal customers are. Because if you don’t target a specific group of people, your copy won’t be as effective.
That’s when a target persona comes into play.
What is a Target Persona?
A target persona, in simplest terms, is a fictional character created to represent your ideal customers. Creating these personas is a first step to any successful marketing campaign, and is proven to generate results.
According to a MarketingSherpa case study on lead nurturing, having target personas allowed the website owners to:
Increased the length of a visit by 900%
Boosted marketing-based revenues by 171%
Grew open rate for emails by 111%
Increased the page views by 100%
Create Your Target Persona
Ecommerce personas are typically based on existing or future customers. In the technique discussed here, we concentrate on developing ecommerce personas using current ecommerce customer information.
While there are a variety of ways to create personas, the easiest way to do is to follow the below steps –
The steps include:
- Step 1 – Determine your target customer segment
To design your ecommerce personality, start by determining your target customer segment. For that, you need to investigate the end consumer of your ecommerce goods or service. Find out who they’re buying for.
Delve deeper.
- Step 2 – Find the key details
Once you’ve identified your major buyer groups, seek further granular data on your ideal consumers to create a full persona profile. This might include information such as location, age, interests, gender, language, relationship status, and product preferences.
Discovering what the personas intentions are, the problems they have, and the type of website they prefer to visit will not only help you create a more fact-based persona but will also possibly assist you in designing an effective user experience (UX) for your ecommerce site.
- Step 3 – Gather persona details
After you’ve identified the important data, you need to get more details on why they purchased from you, what their motivation was, and what they liked on your website.
In short, you need to go beyond the numbers and learn more about each customer’s story. You may even do this by conducting interviews with 6-12 devoted users. Just inquire about their reasons for doing what they’re doing, and do that with a caring demeanor.
You may also conduct a poll on your ecommerce site to gather more detailed information about consumers’ preferences. And, to encourage replies, offer discounts and incentives.
- Step 4 – Create the personas
Collect information that matches the persona profile data you wish to use for decision making, and get a persona profile designed with a face, name on it.
You need to have at least 3 varied personas that fall in your ecommerce segments for the purpose of A/B Testing.
Once the buyer personas are created, the next step is to create customer-centric ecommerce marketing strategies and a reliable ecommerce content plan for all the pages of your website that focus on delivering specific value to them.
Tip #2: Craft a Product Description Page
“The more informative you’re advertising, the more persuasive it will be.” – David Ogilvy said it best.
When it comes to producing copy for a product page, make sure you pay attention to the structure and have as much information as possible.
It must include specific elements that will pique and maintain people’s attention, as well as entice them to click on the “Add to cart” button.
Your copy must ideally include the following:
- A headline that is appealing to the reader’s interests.
- For visual content, you can use a few high-resolution photos or GIFs of your products.
- Visitors trust signals to make them feel secure and show that your company is trustworthy.
→ social proof
→ client testimonials
→ warranties
Your contacts for people who wish to learn more about your business are genuine, and they can email you with any queries they may have on a product.
Your ecommerce product page copy should have the following for it to not suck…
Educate Your Visitors
When it comes to optimizing your product pages with a great copy, start with a mindset of educating your customers thoroughly.
Why?
Because they are on your ecommerce product page to learn about your products, not to be persuaded into buying one. In fact, the number of sales you generate mostly depends on the education about the product you provide for online shoppers.
Do not write in a way that will persuade or show off; educate in an honest and sincere manner. The goal is to simply match the expectations of your visitors when they land on your product page, and not try to trick them into making purchases.
Few companies are really good at not just educating their prospects but also at showcasing confidence in their products.
- Dollar Shave
Dollar Shave is a great example of how a company can offer descriptive, informative content to visitors.
The company not only informs but also educates website visitors about its products. For example, it has the core benefits listed along with a quick “How-to” on connecting the blade with the handle along with a descriptive image. It also has a bunch of usage tips, so that the users could make the most out of it. And it educates the users about how they can have a precise, perfect shave.
- Show Confidence in Your Products
Wayfair does a great job in showcasing confidence in their products on their product pages. It confidently advises users to read the reviews and get all their concerns addressed via a call if required. This confidence in your product/quality is transferred onto visitors and they feel more at ease to buy from you.
Tip #3: Focus on Benefits over Features
“Features Tell, But Benefits Sell.”
This simple principle applies to every sales copy out there.
Features are what tell your users about the technical aspects of your products, for example: “64G memory card,”
Benefits are what the product does for your users – “Never worry about running out of storage for your vacation photos.”
Connecting these benefits to your customer’s wants, such as saving time, lowering expenses, making more money, becoming healthier, happier, more productive, or relaxed more makes a great ecommerce copy.
Let’s go through a few examples how (this can be re-written):
1. Product/Service – Mobile Phone
Feature: Integrated email application.
Benefit: Stay in touch with your consumers even when on the move.
2. Product/Service – Computer
Feature: 32 GB RAM.
Benefit: Improve your work productivity and efficiency with a fast RAM that enables you to run multiple applications at the same time while reducing computer startup time.
3. Lunya breaks down benefits feature-wise
They’re not only addressing how women would look and feel in these pant sets but also providing specific benefits of all the features in the simplest of terms.
4. Let them imagine how it feels to use your product:
The best ecommerce copywriting focuses on your prospect’s most secret longings; it goes a bit beyond showing the benefits.
Describe how it would make them feel when they use it.
Luxury brands excel at creating a vision because they have to. When you’re selling a pricey luxury product, you’re not really selling the thing itself. Your marketing status, exclusivity, and indulgence.
Tip #4: Make the Most of Your Abandoned Cart
Abandoned cart rate on an average is nearly 70%. Ouch.
That’s a significant amount of money you’re losing out on. However, you can get them back with the help of effective abandonment cart emails.
It’s an automated process, and you can set up a series that goes out on its own and reclaims money that would otherwise have been lost. The numbers do not lie – read this report on Moosend.
Here’s how the numbers look for such abandoned cart emails:
Once you’ve mastered some of the proven shopping-cart abandonment solutions/strategies, you can expect to recover up to 63% of lost sales.
The messaging in abandoned cart emails is straightforward and consists of a few “must have.” They are:
- A snappy subject line
- Introduction
- Products in the cart
- Discount offer
- Call to Action button
- Social proof or reviews (if any)
- Final text
The abandonment cart workflow should typically have up to 3 emails:
1. First notification/email almost instantly after the cart abandonment
2. Second automated email sent after 24 hours of first notification
3. Third email sent 48-72 hours later
Below are a some great abandoned cart emails and why they work:
1. ThredUp
There are many things that this simple yet effective abandoned cart email has got right:
- The product is visible straightaway: there’s no confusion as to what item was abandoned.
- The abandoned cart message above the CTA, which kind of sends an emotional message, is an excellent copy.
2. Pacsun
The above email from Pacsun checks some of the most important email copywriting boxes:
- The tone of the copy is urgent, encouraging the customer to reconsider their purchase.
- The image of the product serves to solidify the consumer’s choice.
- It also offers a space where users can provide feedback or contact the support and promote trust by sharing phone and email contact information.
3. Dyson
Dyson also does extremely well in this short yet powerful email to recover that lost sale. Few things to note here are:
- They use easy-to-read, clear text. For instance, “All is not lost” and “We saved the contents” helps the buyer learn that Dyson is caring and wants to help.
- They show an image of the product and a message informing them that they still have it in their cart.
- It adds a feeling of urgency. The message, “Your basket for this promotion was saved, but the offer is only for a limited time” offers a feeling of significance to the transaction.
- It has two Call to Action buttons. The CTA button may be displayed at the bottom even as customers scroll down. These buttons make it simple to complete their purchase at any point in the journey.
Conclusion
Effective copywriting can increase your website’s traffic and ultimately boost conversions.
Find out for yourself by using one, a few, or several of the tips mentioned in this article. But don’t try them all out at once; introduce a few at a time and gather data so you can learn what works best.
Ecommerce copywriting isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it business—you’ll need to keep testing and adjusting so that you can identify what works best.