There are plenty of copywriting tricks, but here we’ll focus on the ones that bring your customers closer to your business.
In other words, on building the trust you need, honestly and through your emails, so they decide to choose you over others.
Because yes, email is the most direct channel you have to communicate with your customers, so it would be a shame to waste it by sending messages just because it’s time to, without a clear purpose and without any care.
So, with your goals in hand, the first thing I strongly recommend is that you include copywriting in your email marketing strategy to build trust with your emails and, as a result, sell.
The second is to get going and apply these copywriting tricks I’ve brought you.
Trick #1: forget about yourself and focus on the customer
Let’s start with the most important copywriting trick: stop talking about yourself.
If you really want to build trust with your customers, you need to let go of the me-me-me attitude that sometimes gets hold of us and focus on the one who really matters in all this: your customer.
So stop stroking your ego in your emails and talk to them about what really matters to them: their problem and the solution you offer.
Because, in the end, a customer who buys your service or product does so because they’re looking for a change for the better in their life, whether big or small.
Now comes the question: how am I going to build trust with the customer if I don’t tell them anything about myself?
By talking to them about how you’re going to help them get what they need; about how the achievements of your career or your company’s milestones translate into benefits for them.
Making your subscribers/buyer personas feel that they matter to you, that helping them is at the heart of your concerns and that you’re willing to do it whenever they want is essential for them to take the step of reaching out to you.
Trick #2: talk in terms of benefits
Thanks to copywriting, you’ve already managed to show your customer that they’re the star and that your goal in life is to help them achieve the change they’re looking for. In short, that you hold the keys (or at least one of them) to making them happier.
But however good your intentions and the way you get your message across, you need a product or service behind it to act as the lever that triggers that change.
We’ll assume you have one, so let’s move on.
It’s time to bring in two elements of copywriting that are a must in any good strategy, both for email marketing and if you want to write copy for websites.
In other words, they work for just about anything.
We’re talking about your customer’s pain points and the benefits of your service.
Don’t know what they are? I’ll explain them below in no time:
Pain points
They’re the smaller problems or pains that your customer’s main problem can be broken down into.
Let’s look at an example: imagine you’re an SEO and SEM specialist and you want to sell your services to potential customers.
You know that your potential customer’s number 1 concern in this area is that their company, brand or product doesn’t rank in search engines.
Now think: what does this mean for your customer?
Here come the pain points:
- If they can’t be found on the Internet, they don’t exist for customers.
- All the money they’ve invested in their website isn’t doing much for them.
- Their subscriber list is gathering cobwebs and will stay that way until they do something new.
Get it?
Now let’s move on to the benefits.
The benefits of your service or product
If you take a look at your competitors’ websites, you’ll notice that they all say the same thing or present themselves in a very similar way.
They’ll probably also list a longer or shorter set of features of their products or services, hoping to show their customers how good and wonderful they are.
Do you think it works for them? Not at all.
Since you probably don’t want to be just another one of the crowd, here’s another of the copywriting tricks that will work best for you: talk about your services in terms of benefits.
In other words, rework that long list of features so that you put in front of the customer the value, result or effect they get by buying from you.
Rest assured (absolutely assured!) that this way you not only get a specific message across with the specific value of what you sell, but your customer will also soon realize that you know exactly what you’re talking about, and that, of course, builds trust in your brand.
That’s why…
- If you want to send an email introducing your products or services: talk about the benefits.
- If you want to talk about your company: talk about the benefits.
- If you want to send a sales email: talk about the pain points and the benefits you offer to solve them.
Tip: make a note of this copywriting trick so you don’t forget it, because if you follow it consistently, it will really make a difference.
🔗 You may also be interested in: How to write an irresistible sales email (without feeling uncomfortable)
Trick #3: add testimonials whenever you can
This is basic.
And if you’re not quite convinced, use yourself as an example: what’s the first thing you do when you’re about to buy something online or in a physical store?
That’s right: look for reviews of the product or service in question to make sure the purchase you’re about to make won’t end up causing you grief.
That’s why it’s so, so, so important that, at least from time to time, you add a positive review from a customer who speaks highly of you to your emails.
It’s not just a matter of reputation: testimonials are the best way you have to empathize with your customers, make them feel represented and capture their attention.
Once you have that, you “only” need to show them that the solution you offer to their small or big problem is the one that will really help them.
This has a lot to do with what’s known as social proof, a concept that copywriting works with a lot and that is usually illustrated with an example similar to this one:
Imagine you’re in a new city looking for a restaurant to have dinner. There are two: one packed with diners and another with absolutely no one in it.
Which one do you choose for your evening?
There you have it. That’s how we humans are: we don’t trust hiring the services of a company that apparently nobody trusts.
That’s what makes you happily wait an hour and a half for dinner instead of sitting down in a place you have a (preconceived) idea will be a disaster.
Well, now that it’s clear, let’s move on to part two: how do you get testimonials?
In case you’re a bit lost on this subject or have just started your business venture, here are some tips for collecting testimonials from your customers:
Ask customers who have already bought from you for testimonials
If you’ve already made your first sales, contact those customers by email (using copywriting, of course) to ask them what they thought of the product or service, whether they’re happy, whether it met their expectations…
You can ask them to leave you a short review with all the positives and suggestions for improvement.
You can collect the information in two ways: (1) asking them to simply leave you a written review or (2) having them answer a short survey where you ask them about very specific points.
Offer a free trial
Everyone likes free stuff, and your service or product is no exception.
If you’re targeting your buyer persona correctly, it shouldn’t be hard to find potential customers willing to try what you’re offering.
It works just as you’re thinking: you offer them a free trial of your product or service, give them a reasonable amount of time to test it and, at the end… there’s your testimonial!
Trick #4: be honest in the subject line
When it comes to the subject line, the first thing you need to be very clear about is that your email’s title is almost the only thing you have to get the customer to open it.
In other words, you have to make it irresistible.
To achieve this without breaking a sweat, there are a few tips you can follow:
- Make it spark curiosity and catch your buyer persona’s attention.
- Make it show a benefit for the person receiving the email.
- Talk to them as an equal; this is basic to using copywriting in general.
- Use an icon now and then, but don’t overdo it.
Is that all?
No, because the ingredient we’ve been talking about is still missing: sincerity. And let’s add honesty too.
Because this fine pair is the basic principle of your relationships with your customers. Without them, there’s simply no business.
False promises and deception are heavily penalized in email marketing, and all they’ll get you is utter failure.
Besides ruining your business, you won’t gain much if you decide to go over to the dark side. You can sell to a customer a thousand times, but deceive them… only once.
And that’s how they’ll feel as soon as they sense that what you promised in the subject line doesn’t match what they found in the email.
So, if you don’t want your subscribers to unsubscribe from your list en masse or mark you as spam in droves, you know you must always lead with the truth.
Trick #5: CTAs that keep their promises
We’ll keep truth as our calling card.
Because, as we said, sincerity is the foundation of any solid relationship. And if you want to win customers who trust you and stay with you forever, you’ll have to be crystal clear.
Yes, it’s quite similar to a romantic relationship.
So with CTAs (you know, call-to-action buttons) you also have to put in the effort to get that coveted click and make sure what comes next matches the small or big promise you make.
At this point, it’s important that you’re aware of how much a well-chosen CTA can matter to the success of your email marketing campaign.
To get the click, here’s a foolproof copywriting trick: write personalized CTA text; that is, appeal directly to the action they need to take and use the right language for each buyer persona.
And if you can add a word that conveys urgency, like now or right away, even better.
Let’s look at some examples:
- For an email selling an online course, you can use a CTA like sign me up now or I want to join the course right away.
- If you want them to buy a pair of sneakers, a good CTA is I want new sneakers!
See where we’re going with this?
Once you’ve caught their attention and have the click in the bag, remember the most important thing: the customer must get what you promised them.
If it’s more information about a product or service, take them straight to the product page or to a landing page about that product or service.
If you’ve offered them a discount to download, take them straight to the download.
In short, this is where you apply the “no tricks, no gimmicks” rule.
Copywriting tricks to build trust and sales: measure, test and measure again
Now that you know these copywriting tricks to build trust and sales with your emails, it’s time to get down to work. But that’s not all.
Remember to run different tests and measure the results to see how these copywriting tips are working and fine-tune them little by little. The goal? To make every campaign a success!
If you want to dig deeper into the fundamentals, here’s what copywriting is, and in email templates based on the most effective copywriting techniques you’ll find ready-to-use examples.
