Persuasive writing is about influencing your reader. If you convince them of your point of view, it can generate a lead and ultimately sell your product. To win your audience, you must place your product in their mind. This is why you need persuasive writing techniques.
Why is Persuasive Writing Required?
The buying and selling of a product is ultimately a psychological fact. There must be a reason why a person will choose your product over any of your competitors.
Not only must the quality of your products be great, they must also be perceived to be great. Persuasive writing is needed to influence the hearts and minds of the readers about the value they will get by buying your products.
10 Techniques for Persuasive Writing
Here are some things to keep in mind to write persuasively:
1. Know Your Audience
You must be clear about who your target audience is. You must ask questions like: What is their age? What is their income? What is their social status? What are their interests?
You can persuade your audience only if you know them. A thorough analysis of the demographics and mindsets of the audience will improve your content management. How you persuade a millennial will differ from how you persuade people from an older generation.
2. Be Specific, Use Numbers
Avoid generalised claims as much as possible. Instead, use facts and figures to illustrate how a product will help your customers.
For example, if you are selling a premium fridge and want to use its size as a USP, refer to exactly how much bigger it is than a conventional fridge. It is much more convincing than a general statement about the fridge being bigger than conventional variants.
3. Be Relatable
You will find it easy to persuade people if they find you relatable. It can make your content more engaging and help you get more clients.
It does not matter whether you run a small shop or represent a big corporation, you have to figure out how customers can relate to you. For example, you can show your humane side by stating how much of your revenue you donate to charity.
4. Point Out Scarcity
Scarcity has the power to create urgency in the mind of the reader. E-commerce companies use this technique often. When you shop for a particular product, a website can say “Only 3 items left in stock”.
Such a message is meant to persuade you about the scarcity of the product. The greater the scarcity, the more persuasive the message will be. When something is scarce, people perceive it to be more valuable.
5. Add Social Proof
Human beings have biases and insecurities. To make the “correct” decision, humans heavily rely on their peer group. For example, if you are running a copywriting agency, you can include testimonials from those who have already benefited from your services.
To build the case for your product, you can include:
- Testimonials
- Reviews
- Endorsements by influencers and experts
If your readers regard them as authentic, they will likely buy your product.
6. Leverage Paradox of Choice
Psychologist Barry Schwartz wrote a book, “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less”, which changed the notion of choice.
To convert a lead into a sale, you can limit the number of choices on offer. Too many choices can lead to confusion. On the other hand, when only 2 choices are presented, the customer is much more likely to make a decisive decision.
A real-life example of this is the choice between “Add to cart” and “Add to wishlist.” Even if the customer does not buy the product immediately, he could add it to the wishlist. It may result in a future sale.
7. Features Tell, Benefits Sell
Features represent the technical side of any product. But it is a product’s benefit which captivates a person’s imagination. Benefits represent a picture of how a product will make a person’s life better.
For example, people buy a bed to experience good sleep. The features of the bed only enhance its benefits. Similarly, if you are running a food delivery business, your writing must reflect its benefits compared to other food delivery companies.
8. Evoke Curiosity
Building up curiosity is one of the best ways to catch the audience’s attention. There has to be a gap between what they know and do not know. If you evoke the reader’s curiosity, there will be a greater incentive for them to click on a link or know more about a product.
9. Get an Outsider’s Opinion on Your Writing
As a writer, it is easy to get engrossed with your writing. In the process, you may overlook the drawbacks and lacunae in your writing.
But if you take the opinion of a colleague or friend on your writing, they could point out defects and errors that are not obvious to you. Eliminating these problems can make your writing more persuasive for the reader.
10. Familiarity
You must put yourself in the audience’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. Understanding their problems and using familiar language to solve their problems will make you more relatable.
Persuasive writing techniques are a key to success in digital marketing. Convincing other people with your writing is an essential skill. If you can win people’s trust and solve their problems, you can create a win-win situation for the customer and yourself.
