3 key points to capture "effective" traffic! ! A must-read for copywriters!

Most employers have a misunderstanding about new media copywriting : chasing traffic but never thinking about the quality of the traffic.

Traditional sales work does require chasing traffic. It is like a certain country gentleman who, in order to benefit the local community, renovated a temple for the goddess, for nearby young girls and wives to pray to the gods. As a result, traffic came around the temple, forming a distribution platform. On the first and fifteenth days of each month, merchants could gather around it to set up stalls and sell their goods. The more people there are, the easier it is to sell things.

Traditional platforms cannot accurately divide traffic, so they can only win by quantity.

Merchants have been doing this for thousands of years, buying at low prices and selling at high prices, and they can make sales by finding a traffic platform. So the merchants forgot that we are not in the traditional environment where traffic in front of the Niangniang Temple stage is bound to be huge and sales are bound to be good. In the Internet environment , traffic is everywhere, but all platforms have their own unique attributes. If you cannot find the traffic that suits you, then no matter how large the platform traffic is, it has nothing to do with you .

How to capture “effective” traffic?

I have met many advertisers who came to consult me. They always raised various questions anxiously, such as:

• Which platforms do you advertise on?
• Which platform works best?
• Which channel can be used for franchising?

or:

• Why is my creative not getting a high click-through rate ?
• Why is the click-through rate high but the conversion rate low?
• Why do customers who fill out forms stop following up after just a few words?

Or:

• Is my product suitable for information flow ?
• My product has no selling point! How to promote it?
• The entire bank has the same products and the same selling points!

…

In my opinion, these are all questions about traffic quality .

It is not difficult to find that most advertisers still hold on to past sales experience, intentionally or unintentionally severing the connection between effective elements of advertising , excessively pursuing the amount of traffic but ignoring the effectiveness of the traffic .

So, today we will talk comprehensively about the three key points of whether the traffic is effective: media, audience and product.

If there are problems with the click-through rate and conversion rate of your copy, the root cause is that there are problems in these three aspects.

I call it the "MAP principle" of copywriting, you can also understand it as a map for writing good copy.

Key Points: M-Medium

We have made it clear earlier that the purpose of advertising is to obtain effective traffic, so the media is equivalent to the channel for obtaining traffic . Different media have different corresponding traffic and are used to achieve different advertising purposes.

For example, some media are suitable for brand exposure, some are more suitable for selling goods, and some are only suitable for interaction. Correspondingly, media that are only suitable for exposure should be matched with copywriting for the purpose of exposure, and media that are suitable for conversion should write copywriting that is conducive to conversion. In this way, the copywriting can attract traffic more accurately.

Let’s take a look at a case study:

This is the advertisement of Momo APP placed in the subway passage. Let’s imagine that we are walking on the subway, and then at some point we look up and our eyes catch the advertisement above.

Then we switch states. When you look down at your phone, you see the following ad in an app. It’s also from Momo:

Let’s compare the contents of the two advertisements. Do you think the content has changed a lot? It is no exaggeration to say that there is a huge difference.

Why is this happening?

Because the media used are different.

In a certain sense, media can be interpreted as the scenario in which users see advertisements. In other words, the medium represents the scene . The status of users in different scenarios is different, and the status of receiving information is different. We need to write corresponding content based on the user’s current status.

Think about what kind of advertisements you usually see in subway passages?

What we see in the subway are mostly brand advertisements, mainly promoting brand image: this is actually related to the psychological image that subway advertisements give to the public. Advertising here means that the brand is strong, so the corresponding advertising costs are also relatively high. Therefore, subway advertising is more about establishing a brand image.

Therefore, the advertisements posted by Momo in subway passages serve the purpose of spreading the word and introducing itself as a social tool . The overall design style looks friendly and youthful, which is consistent with Momo's brand image.

The purpose of Momo's information flow ads is to hope that people who are looking at their phones can directly click in to learn more or download the APP after seeing a girl with the style they are interested in. In other words, the purpose of this ad is to find accurate customers. Compared with the ads in the subway, the content on the information flow platform needs to go a step further. While explaining that I am a social tool, I must also explain that I am a social platform with girls of all styles for you to flirt with.

Different media, different traffic status, matching different advertising content, and achieving different advertising purposes : this is the insight that copywriters must make when designing copy.

In real work, when most copywriters receive copywriting tasks, the media direction has already been determined. In other words, the person responsible for writing the copy does not have the right to choose which media to place it. In this case, if you want to complete the assessment and capture effective traffic, you need to create customized copywriting based on the characteristics of each traffic channel .

For example, the copywriting on the information flow advertising platform is usually disguised as a piece of information release. This is because when users browse the information flow, they are subconsciously checking the information, so they will resist advertising. Disguising it as information can eliminate users' resistance to advertising, and the click-through rate will be higher.

So does this mean that the strategy of disguising as information is applicable to all platforms? The answer is of course no. Whether to disguise and how to disguise depends on the characteristics of different media.

For example, the same wedding dress advertisement: on Zhihu, it can be disguised as a question and answer, and it is better to have some topicality, otherwise it will be difficult to spread. But in the headlines, it is suitable to disguise as a notification, for example, the Republic of China style wedding dress is online today, limited to 99 pairs to try out.

What about you ? Which media are you currently advertising on? Does your copy match the characteristics of these channels? How efficient is the traffic you capture?

Key Point A- Audience

Making it clear who the copy is written for is another key point in capturing effective traffic. There are two obvious benefits of targeted copywriting :

1. Find and attract qualified people (get more bang for your advertising buck).

2. Drive away those who don’t meet the requirements (reduce advertising waste).

A common mistake many copywriters make is wasting time on audiences who won’t buy or don’t have the ability to buy. In order to make fewer or even no such mistakes, we need to first define our audience. That is, to see the audience you are targeting, you must meet the following conditions:

1. He has a reason to be interested in your product/service;

2. He can afford your product/service;

3. He is the decision maker who buys your product/service (the one who decides to pay the money);

4. He recognizes your product/service.

Let me explain these four points in detail:

First of all, the person you are targeting must have a reason to be interested in your product/service .

For example, if you are selling a car for commuting, then you basically don’t need to consider people who are interested in off-roading, and you don’t need to place advertisements to users who have this kind of off-road temperament.

Suppose you are running an advertisement for life insurance, then you don’t need to consider users outside the age range, unless you have data or research to prove that these people outside the product age range can influence the decision-making of your target users . In this case, you need to target them.

The second point is people who can afford it.

Maybe you will say that as long as you want to buy it, money is not a problem. Look at Apple phones, many people who can’t afford them are still finding ways to buy them.

What he said is true, but there are two prerequisites for this matter, that is, the user is willing to try every possible way to buy this product, and there is no strong opposition pulling him back; if we lock in people with purchasing power from the beginning, then they can handle it themselves, and we don’t have to spend time using copywriting to deal with objections that may affect users’ purchasing decisions.

Third, it is best if the user has the decision-making power to purchase your product/service.

If you don't have decision-making power, you will easily be rejected by those around you who have decision-making power. For example, one of the target audiences of expensive game consoles is teenagers, and the decision makers are often parents. At this time, your copy needs to impress the wishes of the child deep in the hearts of adult young people with purchasing power. If you target children too much, parents' objections may be something you need to spend a lot of energy to deal with.

In an information flow environment, every extra second a user thinks about a product increases the likelihood that they will not buy. Unless your copy provides him with enough and appropriate persuasive reasons to persuade him to persuade someone who has more decision-making power than him, it is best to honestly find the person with the most decision-making power and get it done in one step.

The last condition is that the audience of this copy should be people who are more recognizable to your product.

Claude Hopkins mentioned in "The Copywriting Bible" that changing people's habits is costly, so it is best not to change users, or to change them to the minimum extent . In contrast, people who have experienced similar products/services to yours and have a good impression of them will be the first choice for copywriters to persuade.

For example, if you have always been a user of NetEase Cloud Classroom and are very confident in the copywriting courses they produce, then the next time NetEase Cloud promotes copywriting courses, you will easily be interested in it and willing to learn about it.

If it is a platform that you have never paid attention to and you have no trust in it, then no matter how good its courses are, you may not be interested in it. Even if advertisers spend a lot of advertising fees on you, it will hardly be effective.

So , is your copy speaking to the correct target audience?

Key Points: P-Product

A product is anything that can be supplied to the market, used and consumed by people, and can meet people's needs. Simply put: the product is the reason why the audience buys .

Therefore, what the copywriter needs to do is to describe the reason for the product through words and attract traffic that needs it.

When I was still working in print media, I often had to compete with reporters from other print media in the same region. So I need to think about it frequently: If I am writing a promotional article for a real estate project, how can I attract more high-quality customers?

Most writers probably just read the property brochure and listen to the salesperson’s introduction. But this information is far from enough for high-quality customers. Customers want to know much more than this.

What he may need to know more is: Who are the people living here with me? What will the future living environment be like here? When will the living facilities around here be available? What facilities are there and how far are they from me? How can this apartment be decorated? What are the hours of sunlight for this house? And so on and so forth.

Copywriters need to think of these needs earlier than users and persuade users to buy through corresponding copywriting.

Many copywriters and even advertisers will say: Nowadays, products are too homogeneous. I can’t find any points of differentiation. Everyone is the same, just copying each other.

Is that really true?

Let’s take highly homogenized drinking water as an example: from Evian , to Robust, to Evergrande Ice Spring, they are all homogenized products. But Robust proposed that "pure water must go through 27 purification steps." Are these 27 purification steps exclusive to Robust? Not really.

Purified water has to go through multiple purification steps, some of which even have more steps than Robust. However, only Robust brought up this point and promoted it as its differentiated selling point, thus occupying the minds of users first. If another brand uses this as a selling point later, it will lose its first-mover advantage and users will think it is "learning from Le Bai Shi".

So, as a qualified copywriter , you need to temporarily become an expert in this product/service .

Copywriters do not need to have in-depth professional knowledge, but you must be able to understand which point of the product or service can truly impress users in their minds.

This requires not only familiarity with information about the product/service you want to sell (including your own and your competitors'), but also the ability to quickly find the point that can convince users to buy when faced with users with different needs (this point can be about product features or product value, which can be divided into functional value and emotional value).

I always cite the example of promoting running shoes. This pair of shoes is made of a very special material (this is the product feature), and is very light to wear when running (this is the functional value). Buyers can run easily after wearing them, get better results in marathons, and improve personal satisfaction (this is the emotional value).

According to common practice, the copywriter will certainly spend a lot of energy to introduce the material that makes the shoes special, because the advertiser believes that this special material is an industry innovation, very cool, very amazing, and no one has done it before him, but is this really what customers care about? I believe that most ordinary users don’t understand it very well, because the material is too professional. Unless they are professional shoe buyers, such as athletes, coaches, etc., it is difficult for ordinary users to feel what is awesome.

Most ordinary users pay attention to marathons and fitness, and their hidden desire is to have a pair of "magic" shoes that are more comfortable to wear, allow for smoother running, and achieve faster results. If you notice this point and write copy based on this emotion, it will be easier to hit this user and make him sigh: "Yes, I really need a pair of shoes that can help me refresh my running record!"

But if the target audience of this shoe is set from the beginning not to do business with ordinary people, but only coaches or athletes, how should the copy be designed? At this time, perhaps you should give up describing the "benefits" that users can get, and instead focus on highlighting the "features" of this pair of shoes.

You may ask: Shouldn’t we write about the benefits? Why did it become about writing features again?

This involves the fact that different consumers have different decision-making paths .

Philip Kotler's " Marketing Management" mentioned that consumers' decision paths are divided into central decision paths and marginal decision paths, among which:

The central path states that the formation or change of consumer attitudes comes from a lot of careful and rational thinking about the most important product information.

For example, when buying a car, car enthusiasts care about the engine, compression ratio, output torque and other attribute parameters. If your copy tells them the specific configuration of your car, it will be easy to convince enthusiasts to pay for it.

The marginal approach states that the formation or change of consumer attitudes is not based on sufficient thinking, but on brand associations formed based on positive or negative marginal cues.

Such as celebrity endorsements, reliable sources of information, or anything that evokes positive feelings. When it comes to selling cars, you cannot impress enthusiasts by repeatedly emphasizing that the car is endorsed by XXX, or that the car’s sales are so good, or that many celebrities are driving the car. They don’t care about such marginal factors; they care more about the attributes of the car itself.

Similarly, athletes and ordinary running enthusiasts have different cognitions . Athletes may tend to prefer the central decision-making path, so the product selling points that can attract them will also be different. When the target audience of the advertisement is determined to be professional-level users, it is necessary to stimulate the user's desire to buy by highlighting the description of the product's special materials; if it is an ordinary-level user, highlighting the actual benefits that the product can bring to him can better convince him to buy.

In summary, the quality of traffic capture depends on whether the copy effectively links the media, products and audiences.

When a company uses the same set of copy on all platforms, it indirectly shows that the person in charge has no basic understanding of the platform attributes, does not pay enough attention to the audience's feelings, and the effect of the delivery depends on "luck". "Luck" has also become an assessment indicator for evaluating copywriting work - at this point, you may also think that this way of working is ridiculous.

If you want to put an end to this ridiculous advertising method as soon as possible, then you must understand the creative key of copywriting from three levels: M (media), A (audience), and P (product). Paying less attention to one of them may cause you to lose your hard work and credit.

The author of this article @信息流广告精准 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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