Copywriting is an important part of nearly every aspect of marketing offline or online. What you say and how you say it, is often the first impression a customer has about your business.
Getting this initial impact right is crucial and shouldn’t be ruined by small common mistakes that are avoidable.
Not writing for your target audience
Not tailoring your writing to suit your target audience is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when writing copy. At the end of the day, you are writing for your customers, not for yourself.
In order to write for your audience, you need to know who your audience is. The best way to do this is by creating customer personas so you can know what information they need and the language and tone they would like to be communicated with.
Having the wrong tone in your copy can throw off your audience completely. Your tone should resonate with your audience and be consistent throughout your whole brand.
Using jargon
Another mistake that is often made when writing copy is using too much jargon. Using too many technical terms in a piece is one of the easiest ways to make your reader click out of your work and into someone else’s.
These industry words and phrases may seem like common knowledge to you, but they are not for everyone else.
The use of jargon largely depends on your audience. If your audience are industry experts, then the use of jargon may be necessary to show your expertise in the field. However, if your audience has little to no knowledge about the industry then you need to replace jargon with everyday words that will make sense to them.
If you still want to use jargon, we advise giving a clear explanation after each term.
Avoid spelling and grammar mistakes
Avoiding grammar and spelling mistakes may seem like an obvious thing to avoid when writing copy but you would be surprised how often this happens. Having these mistakes in your copy can completely ruin the creditability and professionalism of your work.
Simple ways to avoid these mistakes are by proofreading your work at least twice. Sometimes it is easy to not see common mistakes when you have been looking at the same piece of work for a while. Try to leave your writing, do sometime else and then come back with a fresh set of eyes. You could also read your work backwards; this is another excellent way to catch mistakes that you might have missed before.
Using unnecessary words
One thing that often gets crops up in copywriting is the use of unnecessary words. Try to keep clear of overusing filler words such as really, like, absolutely, suddenly, completely, etc. Knowing what filler words to not use can be tricky but a simple rule to follow is if the sentence works fine without it then it should go.
Not using effective headlines
Copywriting often involves writing a lot of different headings. Not optimizing your headline to its full potential is one mistake that we see time and time again.
An excellent heading is one that is clear, concise and gives a good understanding of what the piece is while at the same time grabbing the reader’s attention. This may seem like a hard task, but it is easier than you think.
There are many different ways you can write your headlines, but the main goal should always be to entice your reader.
Try writing headlines that can connect to people’s emotions, have statistics or intriguing adjectives. These are always excellent ways to write a catchy headline.
Conclusion
Making the effort to avoid these common mistakes will help you build creditability and professionalism in your writing.
Next time you are writing copy make sure to target your audience, avoid the overuse of jargon, spelling and grammar mistakes and the use of unnecessary words and when you go to write your headline make sure it’s catchy.