CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content.
Copywriting can happen anywhere โ from blogs to cereal boxes. It includes the whole world of marketing words. Conversion copywriting helps businesses build their business. Conversion copywriting is about getting people to say โYesโ and generating more leads and buyers. It measures results to see if something converted or not.
Today, weโre talking to Joanna Wiebe, a conversion copywriter, creator of Copyhackers, and co-founder of Airstory. She is an absolute authority on copywriting and conversions.
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Some of the highlights of the show include:
- What makes people say, โYes.โ Whether it is clicking or trying something. There are different formulas you can use for this goal.
- Ask customers, โWhat was going on in your life that brought you toโฆโ Then, you can identify their motivation.
- If you put a button on a Web page, people will click it because it is there. Lots of things will move people to click, but rarely lead to conversions.
- Stages of Awareness: Unaware, Pain Aware, Solution Aware, Product Aware, and Most Aware.
- Persuasion techniques are typically triggers used at the late stages in hope that you will make people buy.
- โDonโt put pressure on poor, little button.โ Itโs going to get clicked, but donโt put too many fancy marketing tricks within it.
- Where does it go? What will it say? Push the best people to the most highly optimized button.
- Thereโs buttons for Calls to Value or Calls to Action. A Call to Action button is to tell the user exactly what you want them to do. For example, Download Ebook or Complete Purchase.
- A Calls to Value button regards why a customer is performing an action and completes the phrase, โI want toโฆโ
- Change your button approach depending on the type of medium you are using. It depends on the context for an action or engagement.
- Map out actions based on context and location โ email, Website, blog, etc.
- Map Calls to Action to move customers to the next stage of awareness.
Links:
- 10X-Marketing Formula by Garrett Moon
- Copyhackers
- Airstory
- Google Analytics
- Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz
- Intuit
- Aaron Orendorff
- Marketing Experiments
- Robert Cialdiniโs Persuasion Techniques
- CoSchedule
If you liked todayโs show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.
Quotes by Joanna Wiebe:
- โIt wasnโt the digital atmosphere we have today in marketing where everything, everything gets measured.โ
- โThe real thing is we want to convert. We want more leads and we want more buyers. Thatโs what conversion copywriting is about.โ
- โWe canโt do a lot of motivating with copy, but you can take someoneโs motivation and turn it into something.โ
- โPeople want to click things. Mostly because they just want to move through life and get their problems solved.โ
How To Use Conversion Psychology To Get Better Results With Joanna Wiebe From @copyhackers
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Transcript:
Garrett: Welcome to the show, Joanna.
Joanna: Thanks for having me here Garrett. Itโs awesome.
Garrett: Yeah, so maybe just kind of give us a โฆ Maybe two part question is, kind of give me a little bit of background on kind of how you got in to conversion copywriting and then maybe also, what is conversion copywriting?
Joanna: Sure. Yeah. Initially I was a creative writer, that was my title, at an agency. And the idea there was, โYeah, youโre going to be very creative,โ which sounded really fun. Problem is, that when it came down to measuring things โฆ So this was about 15 years ago. And Google Elements was around and there were lots of little tools cropping up here and there, but it wasnโt the digital atmosphere that we have today, in marketing today, where everything, everything gets measured, or as much as you can possibly imagine measuring, you try to measure. At least you donโt go through life not measuring things. But this was 15 years ago, and it was kind of just a little easy to get away with not measuring that much. Youโd measure a few certain pieces at the agency, but not everything. So a lot of the writing that was done, that I did, was allowed to be creative, without really thinking about how to get people to say yes. It was mostly like, โLetโs just come up with creative ideas and then weโll execute on them in a creative way.โ Which is nice and fine and thereโs definitely a place for that. But we were there to help businesses build their businesses.
And analytics was starting to become a thing. People were talking about Google analytics and conversion rate optimization was still really, really new, but it was at least a discussion that you were starting to have with your clients. Ad it became really clear to me really quickly, that this creative copywriting I was doing, where things were โฆ I know what was happening there. I would sit at my desk and dream up something, and I had fiction books next to my desk, to inspire me. Like open one up and feel something and then go write something. And again, thereโs still a place for that, but it wasnโt โฆ I know, because I was doing it, that it wasnโt there to get people to say yes. So I started to do a lot more looking in to, not writing but copywriting, and it led me down this path of more direct response copywriting and reading stuff like Breakthrough Advertising by Gene Schwartz and these other, older books. Started kind of diving in to them and then applying what I was learning around the same time that we were starting to do more paying attention to the metrics. And things looked more interesting. Clients got more excited.
So it was around that time that I went over to Intuit, a huge tech company where there was a big push for measuring everything of course, day to day data, and thatโs where I started to work with conversion teams, and people who were, their whole job was to optimize funnels and things like that. And thatโs where, for me conversion copywriting was born. Where it combines the user experience of whatโs happening online and on mobile, with the psychology of decision making, but really going back to the foundational stuff. Still peppering in newer stuff as you learn it, because although humans donโt necessarily โchangeโ, there are still different behaviors that are happening as the world changes around us. So taking all of this stuff and using it to get people to say yes, using only your words. And then of course, measuring to see if it actually worked or not. Thatโs really how I became a conversion copywriter, how we made it up by pulling all of these pieces together. And it is kind of [inaudible 00:04:26] in general, yeah.
Garrett: No, I love that. I mean, I have experience in one of those, in tradition advertising when I got my start in my career as well, and it was, creative was really important. And then measurement kind of, once you start to be able to measure things, you have to look at things differently, because results really become king, because theyโre actually easy to measure nowadays.
Joanna: Yeah, exactly.
Garrett: So what would you say is the difference between conversion copywriting and then copywriting in general? If you kind of had to boil it down in to a quick one versus the other.
Joanna: So, conversion copywriting is copywriting that is going for the yes. And I say that, I think thatโs โฆ Iโve been saying that for a little while. Aaron [Orendorg 00:05:09] said something like that a little while back now. I said, โYeah, that sounds about right.โ And now, it feels like itโs still a little soft. Itโs still trying to be palatable for people. The real thing is, we want to convert, we want more leads and we want more buyers. Thatโs what conversion copywriting is about. It doesnโt mean that it doesnโt belong in different parts in your funnel, but it is, โOkay, you want to convert some people today? Letโs use your words. Like letโs see down and do exactly that.โ Versus copywriting which can happen all over the place.
People who are involved in blogging of course, as you know, are still often referring to themselves as copywriting. Copy as a thing is like the copy on a cereal box, which is meant to inform you rather than get you to say, โYes.โ Like there might be copy on the front thatโs trying to get you to buy it, but the stuff on the back is still called copy. So really the whole world of marketing words that weโre living in, and words that journalists use, thatโs copy too. Copywriting is so broad and kind of vague, it applies to everything. For me, itโs less about conversion copywriting versus copywriting, and conversion copywriting is like underneath the bigger umbrella of copywriting. You have this world of people who just really want to push their words hard, to get prospects to turn in to customers, and thatโs what conversion copywriting is about.
Garrett: So what motivates people to go for the yes? Joanna: To actually go ahead and say yes. I mean, the problem- Garrett: Whether it be to click, to try something, to buy something. Whatever that goal is.
Joanna: Yeah, yeah. I mean, thereโs lots of formulas that have come up along the way. I know Marketing Experiments has their conversion formula, which can be very useful. A big part of that is motivation, which tragically, we canโt do a lot of motivating with copy, but you can take someoneโs motivation and turn it in to something. So itโs like, well what motivates people to click, try and buy. Of course, the biggest part is gonna come from inside of them, and the best we can do then, is make sure we understand whatโs going on inside of them, what brought them there today, at that moment, which one of my favorite questions asked in a survey, a long answer question, is, โWhat was going on in your life that brought you to โฆโ And then it might be either that brought you here today, or that brought you to look for a solution like ours today, etc., etc. but itโs really what was going on in your life.
And then, when you get answers to that, you can get in to what motivates them to at least show up on the page and then once they, once you know why theyโre coming to the page, boom. You can make that your headline and then you can pull them down from that place, to a place where okay, youโre inside their head now. Youโre working through what theyโre feeling, and then and only then can you get them possibly near a point of actually saying, โYes, Iโm going to click this button, and yes, Iโm going to do it.โ Now people will click buttons just because theyโre there. We did this whole summer of buttons test. Actually, Co-Schedule of course was a part of it. We did this big test one summer on a whole bunch of different websites, testing button, button, button, button. And of course, if you put a button up at the top of the page, people will click it. And if you donโt put the button up at the top of the page, there is nothing to click and theyโll keep reading. You can make a button bigger and more attractive and theyโre going to click it.
So thereโs lots of โฆ People want to click things. Mostly because they just want to move through life and get their problems solved and sometimes theyโre just staring blankly ahead, not really paying that much attention. So lots of things. We can see that lots of things will move people to click, but those are rarely going to turn in to qualified clicks. You just really moved all of your work on to the other side of the button. So if we keep all the work before that first conversion, not all the work, but the work that has happened โฆ And we talk about of course, the stages of awareness, which I donโt know how much youโve talked about already, but for us, when weโre looking at how to get people to say yes, to click, to try to buy, we want to think about first their starting point, thatโs where that question comes in, that survey question I just mentioned. As well as the five stages of awareness. So if you can identify which stage of awareness theyโre in, then you can identify how far away they are from the point of buying. How much it should be all about just clicking first, then trying the product and then buying the product, unless thereโs no trial available, etc., etc.
ย
But yeah, we have to always back up with that question and ask more about whatโs goingย n in their head, how much they know about their pain, about solutions to their pain, about our product as a solution to their pain and then our product as the solution to their pain. So people like to, and I definitely jumped in to taking [inaudible 00:10:01] persuasion, techniques that he talks about, and trying to apply those on any page youโve got. And they might need a little bit of a lift, all right? You can put social proof almost anywhere and get a very minor lift in conversion. Okay fine, but you got a little one and thatโs good and letโs do incremental, blah, blah, blah. But a lot of the persuasion techniques that we see are these triggers that you hope are the things that are gonna make people buy. Those really happen at the point of purchase, like when weโre at the far end of the awareness spectrum, when theyโre really at the point where itโs like, โOkay, Iโm aware of my pain, I know solutions exist, I know yours is the solution for me. Now tip me over. Now get me off this fence and on to your side.โ And thatโs where persuasion techniques like [inaudible 00:10:49] do really well.
But further back in the funnel, those techniques we find are not as effective as just understanding the stage of awareness that theyโre at, understanding the actual problem or pain that brought them to that place, where they went seeking out a solution today, and then moving them through how theyโre feeling, using kind of old school, copywriting frameworks.
Garrett: So youโre saying โฆ I guess, how do you think about that? When you approach that and youโre at the beginning of the funnel, letโs say, versus somebody at the end of the funnel. So youโre saying that you wouldnโt use those five stages of awareness at that place, or youโre just going to recognize where theyโre at? Can you unpack that a little more?
Joanna: Yeah, they map out well to the funnel, right? So the five stages, way on top of the funnel, yeah. Youโve got your unaware person, or your newly problem aware person. Then you want to move them through all the stages, down. All Iโm saying is, once you get to the bottom of the funnel, great. Thatโs where [inaudible 00:11:45] stuff works really well. Thatโs actually where a lot of conversion tests play best, because thereโs all of โฆ The motivation stuff is taken care of, right? People are motivated by that point, and all you have to do is move them from them mentally saying yes, to them actually saying yes. Which is such a small river to have to cross. Like itโs so minor, itโs not a big, big thing.
But it really does come down to โฆ And I say this because when I work with people who want to optimize their funnel, or optimize their copy along the funnel, I repeatedly come in to conversations at the boardroom table review, where itโs like, โWell, I donโt get it. We have an incentive here for them to try our product. Why arenโt you talking about that? Like why is the call to action up here, for this landing page, for people who are problem aware, why isnโt it to download our free trial?โ And the answer is purely because theyโre not ready for that yet, because theyโre problem aware, we have to get them solution aware. That doesnโt have anything yet to do with you giving them a trial. Weโd have to start writing a long form sales page for that and thatโs a different strategy.
So the reason I mention this now is because, the marketing world loves persuasion techniques, like adores them, right? Like, โOh, letโs throw that little bit of glitter on the page.โ And when it comes down to it, they only work sometimes, and bigger, stronger, smarter, really old school stuff continues to do most of the heavy lifting, from what Iโve seen. And we have to think more about that.
Garrett: So I think this is really interesting. Iโm gonna actually โฆ You kind of referenced the button test and how Co-Schedule was a part of that. And I remember one thing that you said to me at that time, I think what we were talking about was trial to paid conversion, so talking way down the end of our funnel, when somebodyโs actually putting their credit card in to buy. And we were primarily testing buttons at the way front end of it and I think you said something like, and I was asking about that and you said, โWell, letโs not put so much pressure on poor little button.โ And that always stood out to me and Iโve actually used that phrase a few times with our team. Is that kind of the dynamic that youโre talking about, where youโre trying to conclude too much at the beginning, rather than just referencing and understanding where the customer is at right now?
Joanna: Yeah, definitely. I mean, that button. I do agree still, the poor little button. I mean, itโs gonna get clicked, and all the marketers are gonna look at it like, โOkay little button, what did you do?โ And itโs just there, itโs just there doing its job, being colorful and trying to get noticed. But the reality is that so much else has to happen on the page around it, so much has to happen before you even get there, right? Does the button โฆ the buttonโs going to do its job. It will get people to click. Unless you make it gray and small, chances are very good youโre going to make it, itโs going to get clicked. Where do we put it? What do we say on it? I mean, these are the questions that I should be answering right now, but itโs like no, first we have to first ask the question, where does it go? What is it gonna say? Is it gonna be a call to action, to download a product or start a free trial, or is it, when do you need to have it be something more like download the ebook on this.
And people already believe they have these strategies in place, and thatโs perfectly fine, but itโs just like, when youโre doing โฆ If youโre doing a lead gen page and you have a button on there that says, โDownload the ebook,โ or whatever that is. And hopefully thatโs not actually your button copy, we can talk about that. But if the goal is to get them to download the ebook, then Iโm saying this is not a place where you need to throw a whole bunch of the fancy marketing tricks. What we need to do is identify what their problem is, put that on the page using a framework like problem match station solution, or attention, interest, desire, action. And only once weโve moved them through the first part of that, like problem and agitation and in to solution, then we throw a button on the page. Not the top of the page. Not right away, unless that is a super short page. And samesies for attention, interest, desire, action. Clearly action only happens once youโve got through attention, interest, desire and then down to action.
So itโs really like, if weโre going to put this pressure on our button, and our button can bear the weight of that, but we do want to make sure that weโre pushing the best people toward that highly optimized button. Thatโs my whole flag [inaudible 00:16:13].
Garrett: So why is download the ebook not a good text for button. Isnโt that telling the user, the visitor, exactly what you want them to do? Isnโt that good?
Joanna: I love that. I love [crosstalk 00:16:26].
Garrett: Do this, come on.
Joanna: [inaudible 00:16:32]. Yes. Okay, so we like to break buttons in to calls to value versus calls to action. So a call to action is something like that, like download the ebook. Which thereโs a time and a place for that. And really, the time and the place for a call to action, is when you need to make sure that your prospect has no question about whatโs going to happen, and that usually is like in cart. In cart, we have to have really clean, pure language on our button that is a pure call to action. So here is the act youโre going to take. You are going to add to cart. Okay, great. Youโre going to complete purchase. Okay, perfect. Okay, this is the final step then, complete purchase? That kind of stuff needs to be a call to action.
When weโre further away from the point of purchase, thatโs where we talk about calls to value. So download an ebook, thereโs not a lot riding on it, itโs not like, the prospect isnโt sitting there going, โOh my gosh, is this the moment where it downloads? Oh my gosh.โ Thatโs happening with the credit card stuff, because oftentimes you donโt know if youโre at the end of the cart or not. Or the checkout. But for calls to value, something that would come further away from where the credit card happens, those calls to value are where youโre thinking about whatโs your prospect really going to get out of this action? So we donโt want to think about just taking the action, but the reason theyโre doing it. So we of course test it on Crazy Eggs home page. They had show me my heat map, versus something โฆ Start my trial I think it was. And show me my heat map way outperformed that. We had over on [inaudible 00:18:17], we did a test where itโs a headline and a button test at the same time, so that itโs not purely a button test in this case. But that was another call to value, where the button was show me outfits Iโll love, instead of start now. That was the control, I believe. And it dramatically outperformed the control.
And thatโs because itโs a call to value. What weโre really doing with a call to value is completing the phrase I want to โฆ So thatโs in the first person. I encourage everybody to test their buttons and their headlines in the first person. Itโs always like, โWhat? That worked? How did that work? It feels like such a little trick.โ But youโre getting inside their head and they really do, it does feel โฆ Anyway, give it a test. So a call to value, when you complete the phrase I want to, is instead of the I want to download an ebook, or download the ebook. Well not really. I donโt really want to really. Who wants to? So what do I really want to do? Whatโs the ebook promising me? Has it promised me that I will learn how to create a content strategy in 10 minutes, like a back of a napkin content strategy or something? Then the button becomes I want to create a content strategy in 10 minutes. And then the button copy is, create a content strategy in 10 minutes.
And you would test that, you want to make sure it does match whatโs going to happen of course, but you test that as your call to value versus that call to action for download the ebook.
Garrett: Perfect. So do you change those calls to value or calls to action at all, by medium? If youโre looking at a blog post versus an email, social. Does any of that change your approach to those?
Joanna: Yes. So I donโt think that there are any hard and fast rules. I think that there are good, better practices. So if weโve got this okay general better practice of having a call to value further up the funnel and a call to action further down, okay fine. Letโs take that, letโs suspend that in the air, letโs know that that is likely to be true. While weโre thinking of that and weโre about to put a button together, weโre always going to think about context too, right? This is part of user experience design, which is part of what conversion copywriters have to think about. And if youโre like, โOkay, whatโs the context for this action, whatโs the context for this engagement, then that is where youโd wat to modify, right? So if someone is on their phone, reading an email, your call to action might need to be something that is far different from me sitting at my computer reading that email. Doesnโt mean it will have to be. It means letโs think about that and if it has to be, then we have to solve it. And I do generally think that what it will break down in to, is this going to be a call to value or is it going to be a call to action?
Garrett: So just kind of a question on that ebook, letโs go back to that example again. Weโre sending an email about that ebook, and then thereโs also a landing page. Do you do the direct call to action in the email, is the call to action going to the page. Kind of break that down, how you would think through that. I know itโs a very specific example, but I think it would help make that point more.
Joanna: Yeah, totally. So because there are these two parts and I would start to of course think through what weโre doing with the stages of awareness here. This is where I would first go, and Iโm drawing it out right now. I just took out a piece of paper, because thereโs no way for me to break this habit. So you have an email that drives to a landing page. The email is about downloading the ebook, to get the interested in downloading the ebook. So download ebook there, then they land on a page where, you would imagine, somewhere on the top you would have something similar around to match that. Theyโre going to be downloading the ebook. Now which one actually gets the download ebook button. If it either of them, according to the better practice, the landing page would get the download ebook button. But the question really is, on the spectrum of stages of awareness, if we know what those stages are, we know where this person is, thank God for segmentation emails. If we know that they are solution aware, and our job is to get them to product aware, and the product basically, in this case letโs say is around the ebook. Now thatโs gonna usually be true. The product is usually the product.
Then we want to move them. Can we, I would start to question why we even land them on a page, why doesnโt it just download immediately, and I guess the answer would be, โWell we want to โฆโ But why, because theyโre already in email. So it sounds like the email is trying to get them โฆ This is like a puzzle.
Garrett: Itโs a great question right there, right? Why not just give the ebook right from the email?
Joanna: Unless thereโs so much to tell them about, but it would have to be like, โOkay, well โฆโ Maybe theyโre just really unaware. So maybe the problem โฆ And in which case the email doesnโt talk about the ebook at all. It talks about moving them from problem, like agitating their problem, and then telling them that theyโll find their solution on this landing page, right? So hereโs your problem. Youโve felt this way before. You canโt do X. Agitate, agitate, agitate. Make them feel it, feel it, feel it. And then say, โOh, well we went through the same thing too. We came up with a solution and we tested it and it works really well. Go here to see what that was.โ Thatโs where they land on the landing page, thatโs all about downloading the ebook that is the solution, I would imagine.
Now this is not talking about the buttons at all, because what we just said, right? This whole question of, โWell, do we even need a second page to land them on?โ You would need a second page if they were further up in the awareness spectrum. If they are not that aware. If theyโre further down, like theyโre very engaged and this is a topic youโve covered before for your list, then they probably would not need to โฆ They probably wouldnโt even need the ebook, depending. I guess it depends. Definitely depends, obviously depends.
But yeah, itโs tough. These are not easy calls to make, even though it feels like they should be, right? Like they just want to download the ebook? Okay, just give them an email that tells them to download the ebook, or that drives them to the landing page. But the question is, okay how do we get them to care in the first one, enough in the email, enough that theyโre going to click through and land on the next page and give a damn, so that they actually do download the ebook and read it, because it matters to them. Downloading it is probably not going to be enough. We have a [inaudible 00:24:49] business goal for that. So I know thatโs a long, convoluted non answer to it, but I think whatโs most interesting is that itโs not easy to answer that, even though itโs button copy and you would think that would be the easiest throw away copy you can come up with. And it just speaks to the need to really think through all of this stuff.
Garrett: So would you say that, and Iโll wrap things up here but I just kind of want to clarify this, when youโre starting to write call to actions and getting started, is that kind of the first thing youโd say to be aware of, is where is this person, based on whatever youโre publishing, if itโs a blog post, ebook, sign up page or whatever, in those five stages of awareness. Before you begin to go about those call to actions. Is that right?
Joanna: Absolutely, because the call to action is going to be the thing that moves them to the next stage of awareness. And so, that means that in certain cases, like again further up in the funnel, theyโre not ready yet for a buy now option, to buy or to try. Theyโre not ready yet for it. So even if you want โฆ If you were like, โOh I want this landing page. This landing page has to get people ready to buy. They have to finish this page going, โOkay yes, Iโm going to buy. Iโm at least going to start a free trial or Iโm going to bank on the 30 day money back guarantee.’โ. If that is the strategy, if that is the mission that weโre on, then that means we need a long form sales page in most cases. Because you have to move people from, letโs say, if we can identify where theyโre starting, letโs say theyโre starting in solution awareness. A lot of them are solution aware, we need to get them all the way from solution to product to most aware, and then we tack on this extra long [inaudible 00:26:30] with high intent. We have to move them all the way through that, and you canโt do that in a short page. This is where youโd have to start the page โฆ Itโs a long form sales page.
So we have to think about the call to action before we can think about really โฆ First call to action, like where the business needs them to be. Second, where theyโre actually starting from. And then map those against your stages of awareness spectrum. Turn it on its side, because a spectrum is usually horizontal. If we flip it on its side and its vertical, now weโre looking at the length of the page that we actually need to have.
Garrett: Nice. Well, I think we all have some buttons that say download this ebook, that would need fixing. So I think weโll end it there. I know I do.
Joanna: All right. Excellent.
Garrett: Well, thanks for your advice Joanna. That was outstanding. I think we could go on for hours and thereโs a lot to learn and I think you have lots of resources and stuff to do that. So maybe share with our listeners where they can learn more about conversion copywriting.
Joanna: Sure. Thanks Garrett. Yeah, absolutely. Over at copyhackers.com, we have a pretty active blog with lots of studies on there and such, so head on over to copyhackers.com and you can always โฆ We do tutorial Tuesdays as well, every Tuesday. It is live training on something just like, โOkay, you want to write a button? Youโre thinking about it? Hereโs how we do it.โ So check those out as well, but itโs all over on copyhackers.com.
Garrett: Awesome. Thanks Joanna.
Joanna: Thanks Garrett.
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