There are two major pitfalls in copywriting that 91% of marketers cannot avoid. Are you one of them?

Marketing can be frustrating sometimes.

You have heard many truths, you have heard them N times, and when you heard them, you thought to yourself: Hmm! Of course! That's how it is!

But when you do it yourself, you forget it and make obvious mistakes.

First, please read two sentences

The customer doesn't buy a drill, he buys a hole in the wall.

The second sentence -

When writing copy , you should write words that users can understand.

I want to tell you that the entire article that follows will revolve around these two sentences.

I know what you want to say...

"Lao Guan, I want to strangle you!" Aren't these two sentences obvious? Aren’t they all old cliches? Well, I have run out of ideas. I will close the article and leave...

etc! I want to tell you that looking at the copywriters on the market, no more than 10% can achieve the above two points. Do you believe it?

I'm about to show you the evidence and give you fresh examples to stimulate your inspiration, but before you see the good stuff, I want to show you two pictures quickly.

This is us.

That’s what we do when we write copy. We sit in front of the computer, typing on Word, looking up information, copying and pasting, and making revisions.

There is a pit here.

We write and review our own copy on the computer. If we are not careful, we may feel that our customers are doing the same thing, as if they are also using the computer to read it, quietly and slowly in the room.

This is the customer.

On mainstream e-commerce platforms and WeChat , more than 80% of traffic comes from mobile devices. In simple terms, most people see your copy on their mobile phones.

People use their mobile phones in various situations, when taking the subway, waiting for a special car, waiting for a red light, waiting for someone at the entrance of a cinema ... They read your copy at these moments.

You are indoors, quietly writing copy, while they are often outdoors, having a lot of fun. There are all kinds of people who might call him, walk around him, and disrupt his concentration.

He has only a little patience. If your copywriting cannot quickly grab his attention, he will click the "Back" button in the upper left corner of the screen and leave your page, and your performance and bonus will go away...

Here comes the question - when the customer's hand quickly slides across the screen, how can your copy catch his attention within 3 seconds? Next, I will introduce you to two important methods:

1. Don’t give your customer a drill, give him a hole

Do you remember an article from two years ago called "Going to Japan to Buy a Toilet Seat"? It sparked a heated discussion for a while. This originally marginal industry suddenly became popular.

I still remember when I traveled to Japan, I saw many uncles and aunts rushing into department stores, carrying large toilet lids home with satisfied smiles on their faces.

On e-commerce platforms, the search index for toilet lids has also increased. Business opportunities have come, and manufacturers have been polishing their product detail pages, hoping to retain customers with strong copywriting, "Buy me! Buy me!"

I just searched for "smart toilet lid" and the page showed a function -

Looking at the page of a Japanese Fortune 500 brand, it is described like this:

Do you understand the functions they describe? Just to give you a rough idea - toilet seats can be heated, right?

What is "intelligent temperature heating" and "three-speed control" to meet "different temperature requirements"? It looks very powerful, but what use is it to me? I couldn't tell.

And this is how many marketers write copy. Compare with peers, find out the differentiated advantages of your own products, write advanced professional terms such as "intelligent temperature heating", "German imported chips", "Austenitic 304 stainless steel", and then put them in the title to attract customers.

Did you impress the customers? No.

He slid across the screen quickly without stopping.

Recently, when I was communicating with e-commerce marketing expert Sanmao, he mentioned this point of view: In the era of mobile Internet, the title should not be about technology, but about benefits - the benefits that can be brought to customers.

Since the customer is very impatient, we should not beat around the bush and get straight to the point.

The toilet seat page he made——

Big title: It’s warm when you sit on it.

Hey, the customers get it right away. No need to heat it up in advance, just squat whenever you want, how cool! It is much better than "smart chips" and "microcomputer technology". These technologies can be explained in the text, but the first thing to write about is the benefits to customers.

This is what we often say, don't give the customer a drill, give him a hole.

It's easy to say, but hard to write down, I forget it if I'm not careful, don't you think?

For example, health-preserving kettles have been very popular in the past two years. It is very convenient for female white-collar workers to make scented tea or stew bird’s nests, and they feel that their life has added a lot of little happiness. After hearing about this, many female white-collar workers went to search on e-commerce platforms, and they saw a page like this:

The general meaning is, I am not a stupid teapot, I am smart! I can set the program, various temperatures, various formulas, and various postures to satisfy you!

Many health-preserving kettle manufacturers have released the above picture, indicating that they can cook various soups, such as barley and red bean soup, sour plum soup, etc.

OK, the thing above costs 798 yuan, would you buy it?

Many people don’t buy it because they don’t understand what use it will have on them! Besides, will customers have the patience to read all the densely packed text on their mobile phones?

Let’s look at another company in Shenzhen. The copywriting is much more sophisticated.

2 pictures, 2 paragraphs, and the customer understood.

Writing dozens of stewing procedures is like drilling a hole into the customers’ heads, and talking about how the bird’s nest should not be undercooked is like drilling a hole into the customers’ heads. The motivation for fighting is naturally different.

On the next screen, they use an even better technique that will give you even more inspiration.

Please note that when talking about stewing medicinal food, the marketer did not write something like "the health pot stews automatically, no need to wait", but instead wrote a few bubble boxes.

The health pot is automatically cooking, so you can watch TV series.

Casserole "Sweat... I don't want to stay in the kitchen all the time"

This is very clever. Please think about it: when a female office worker is looking at a page, what is her mental state?

Read silently.

Yes, read silently. And the voice that read silently in her heart was exactly herself.

The copywriting here directly controls the customer's silent reading and makes her feel it directly, oops! You can’t use a casserole, it’s too troublesome!

You can also use this trick on your products!

Post photos of competing products and various complaints from users.

"Ah! What a trouble!" "What's going on? It's broken again!" "Why doesn't it work?"

Put up your photo.

"Hey! So convenient!" "It's so fast!" "It was done in no time, so cool!"

Isn’t it obvious which one to buy?

Even if the user is casually looking at his phone, he can be quickly impressed by you because you control his silent reading and thus his feelings.

This is an advanced technique. Don’t thank me yet. I will give you a more cunning technique. Please read on.

2. Speak words that customers can understand

Give him a big brand keyword

I believe that your product must have many selling points, such as firmness, convenience, durability, and good performance... However, you will definitely encounter a problem -

How to make customers trust you?

"Hmph, Wang Po selling melons, bragging about her own products..." Customers always look at businesses with this attitude.

Let’s look at a case.

Mr. Zhang is the agent of an Italian brand of dental implant materials. He sells the materials to various dental hospitals, but the doctors tell him that this type of dental implant is not easy to sell.

A typical scenario is this:

Doctor: Haha, this is one of our new dental implants. The quality is pretty good.

Customer: Is it imported?

Doctor: Yes, from Italy.

Customer: Oh, Italy also makes dental implants? I haven’t heard of it before…

The conversation then reached a deadlock. So embarrassing.

Mr. Zhang painstakingly compiled a set of sales pitches and taught them to doctors, such as "can be on par with Nobel and other top implants", "professors from the University of Milan, Italy participated in the research and development", "non-invasive neck, high stability". Half a month later, the doctors' feedback came back, "we said all we said, but the customers didn't feel it", "the customers didn't seem to understand after listening, and didn't really want to buy it, it felt it was expensive".

Mr. Zhang wanted to cry.

Indeed, there are many brands of dental implants. The Swedish brand is the inventor and the forefather, recognized as the world's leader. Germany is famous for its precision industry, and their dental implants are also recognized. Needless to say, the United States, everyone trusts its high-tech products.

As for Italy... as an outsider, I haven't heard about how developed its industry is. I only heard that its public security is poor and you have to be careful of thieves when traveling in Europe. It is also one of the "Five Piggy Banks" and owes a lot of debts. Oh, by the way! It seems that he is quite lazy and held back the German army during World War II...

This is the public’s perception of Italy. How are dental implants sold? If you were asked to write a selling point, how would you write it?

It’s hard to imagine, right? In the end, Mr. Zhang found an important breakthrough.

Providing precision parts for Ferrari

After the doctor said this, the customer understood. Ferrari is an Italian luxury car brand, which everyone knows. This brand is a partner of Ferrari, it doesn’t look simple! The doctor would add, "Because their family has the world's top machining technology," which sounds believable. Considering that Ferrari cars cost millions, this dental implant at 8,800 per implant doesn’t seem expensive.

Perhaps some marketing people will come out and criticize: "Tsk! The core component of a car is the engine. How dare this manufacturer bring up such small accessories?" I'm afraid many technical personnel will also echo the opposition.

They don't understand.

They don't understand the essence of marketing. They write copy based on customers' known concepts. It doesn't matter what the truth is.

Customers are familiar with Ferrari and recognize its high-end nature, so we have to write Ferrari, even if it’s just accessories. What’s the use of those “non-traumatic neck design” and “hexagonal frosted thread” that the technicians think are awesome if customers can’t understand them?

What the customer understands is the most important thing, not what the truth is.

Write copy that customers can understand.

This sentence is very crucial. Please look at a practical case with Lao Guan.

A flower brand that is developing rapidly. They send a bouquet of flowers to the girl every week, 4 bouquets a month, for 99 yuan. Girls receive flowers every week, and they feel like someone is loving them, and they have a sense of surprise and happiness.

That’s right, there are quite a few brands that offer flowers every week. When brands compete, the appearance of flowers is a key point of competition. Flowers are beautiful and exquisite, so only girls will buy them!

The question is, how do you prove that your flowers are beautiful? In addition to posting photos as evidence, each company also has to compete with their florists. Brand A released a certificate, saying that its florist won the National Youth Floral Design Competition. Brand B was not to be outdone, saying that its florist participated in an international competition and won the Japan NFD Floral Design Competition...Okay, perhaps people in the industry know that these awards are very valuable, but what about ordinary customers? Never heard of it. I didn’t feel much after watching it!

There is a brand that is seeing strong sales growth. Their page is very appealing. When it comes to florists, they write:

OK, now please quickly recall, what is the word that has left the deepest impression in your mind?

I guess, it won’t be “Robbie” or “disciple”, but “Dior” or “Hermes”, right?

Did you find it? When you quickly browse the page on your mobile phone, what you remember are the big brands you are most familiar with! As for the other words, it seemed as if I had lost my memory and was forgotten after a while.

That’s right, the florist of this brand is just a disciple of Dior’s florist. In the eyes of industry insiders, isn’t he just a disciple? It’s not me, so what’s the big deal? However, we must know that customers scroll through the pages hurriedly. Due to their impetuousness, they tend to remember the big brands and ignore the "disciples". What is the final result? He thinks you are pretty awesome because you hired a big-name designer!

After reading the above two cases, you must have discovered a big secret - in the era of mobile Internet, to prove the high quality of a product, the most important thing is to grab a big-name keyword and make readers think that you have big-name quality.

Even if you are just a supporting role of a big star, just an accessory, just a disciple, it doesn’t matter.

Why?

Because in the process of quickly scrolling the screen, what customers remember most are the authoritative words they are familiar with - finding big-brand keywords is the shortcut to sneak into the customer's brain.

The following nouns can give you inspiration

Five-star hotel furniture supplier

Hollywood Celebrity Wedding Props

Japanese luxury cosmetics formula raw materials

Food supplier for a Michelin restaurant

…

You have discovered that there are actually benefits for customers to browse your page impetuously!

We can take advantage of his carelessness and let him quickly feel that we are playing with international brands! Even if we are a supporting role, it doesn’t matter, because most customers won’t think seriously, they won’t pursue details, what you need to do is to use big brand keywords to quietly improve their evaluation of your products, make them feel that you are valuable, and then place an order...

Summarize

• When most customers read your copy on their mobile phones, we must understand that they always scroll quickly and read it quickly, so you must impress them within 3 seconds.
• In the sub-titles of detail pages and tweets, don’t talk about the technology, but talk directly about the benefits.
• Write the copy as silent reading, control the customer's silent reading, and thus influence his purchasing decision.
• It doesn’t matter what the truth is; what matters most is what the customer understands.
• The shortcut to prove product performance is to find big-name keywords