Effective technology copywriting requires an understanding of the products or services being marketed, the goals of the client business and the needs and wants of their customers. Content that attracts the attention and interest of the target audience can help a business to stand out from their competitors. Relevant market research and customer research data will assist the copywriting process, as can applying an understanding of digital marketing and storytelling. Copywriting that is engaging and persuasive, can help a business to generate more leads and sales.
What Is a Technology Copywriter
Unlike technical authors, who write content such as user manuals, intended to provide information and instructions, technology copywriters write content designed to promote and sell products and services. A technology business will already have personnel with technical expertise, but a technology copywriter can combine their understanding of technology with effective writing skills and their knowledge of sales and marketing. For example, understanding that when making buying decisions, B2B (business to business) clients tend to seek content looking at practical business issues, while B2C (business to consumer) clients might be more influenced by personal lifestyle choices.
Writing a Good Story
Most people enjoy a good story, featuring relatable characters and an engaging narrative. Stories can influence the way we perceive ourselves, each other and the world around us. Within them people can describe and attempt to understand the past or present and express their hopes and fears for the future. Through stories we can explore imagined worlds, such as those found within books and movies. When stories resonate with us, we are more likely to remember them and share them with other people.
Each of us has the thread of a story running though our life, which reflects our past, present and potential future. That story is shaped by how our personality traits cause us to perceive ourselves, relate to other people and behave. For an author, one of the greatest challenges when writing a story is to create fictional characters, who through their words and actions demonstrate qualities readers will find both realistic and relatable. Characters, whether based upon real people or pure fiction, can attract or repel an audience and human beings can respond in a similar manner to an organisation, business, product or service.
Around the world and across generations, stories have been the most effective method of remembering and sharing information. Ideas woven within a good story can establish an emotional connection with an audience. Some people respond to content marketing that uses data delivered in the form of dry facts and figures. However, for most the use of relatable characters and an engaging narrative will leave them with a strong impression of a product or service they read about. This can lead to a growing sense of brand identification. If a brand reflects how a person thinks and feels about themselves and how they live, or aspire to live, it can motivate them to want to purchase a product or service.
The stories people tell each other about an individual or business can shape how they are perceived. A business selling a product or service could create better stories by learning more about their customers wants and needs and developing more realistic marketing personas. This could help a business to communicate with them more effectively. Marketing strategies could involve using surveys in order to gather audience data that informs sales and marketing strategies and development of mission and vision statements. Storytelling techniques could be employed within strategies involving AIDA, an acronym used in marketing to refer to attention, interest, desire and action. This could translate into awareness of and interest in a piece of technology, followed by the desire to own it and the act of making a purchase.
A story should take an audience on a journey, which is entertaining, informative and possibly even transformative. An author achieving this might attract a loyal readership, while a business could increase sales of its products or services and strengthen brand loyalty. A central character in a narrative is often portrayed as undergoing a heroes journey, in which they will overcome challenges and win some prize of great value. For example, a business could identify a problem and offer a solution that a potential customer will value. They could tell a story that features relatable characters and an entertaining narrative, in which a customer imagines themselves achieving their goal using a product or service the business sells, which could motivate them to make a purchase.
When seeking real world examples in which personas and stories were used to sell products or services, try to recall some memorable advertising campaigns. For example, a company selling productivity software might feature within their marketing content a business owner struggling to cope with a heavy workload, that they are then able to manage using the software the company sells. A travel agency could feature people escaping the stress of work and enjoying a holiday overseas, or adventure and the freedom of the open road. An electric car company could highlight comfort, reliability and range, by combining technical data with a narrative featuring people enjoying a fast paced city lifestyle and a weekend at the beach. A business selling leisure products might show people gathered together and enjoying the company of family and friends. A business selling food could highlight taste, nutritional value and the social benefits of sharing a meal.
Telling Stories That Sell
Business owners are justifiably proud of what they build and there are situations in which highlighting their achievements is appropriate, such as the About page on a website. However, potential customers will want to know how a product or service can help them. Rather than ‘our’ success or ‘we’ as a company, content that focuses on customer wants and needs, using words such as ‘you’ and ‘your’, is more likely to generate leads and sales. However, such terms should not be overused, but instead form a natural part of the flow of the content, which can also be more effective when written in the second person.
People are more likely to remember and share a good story and your customers could be taken on an entertaining journey, employing a storytelling approach. It could begin with the hero character, representing the customer, confronted with some challenge. They encounter your business, which understands their needs, motivations and how they can be helped. The customer then uses the product or service that your company sells to resolve their problem, or achieve their business goals. The story ends with a happy customer, who can now look forward to greater success within their own business.
The Five Factor Model
The Big Five Personality Traits Test provides a psychological framework, awareness of which can lead to a deeper understanding of human behaviour and preferences. Within a digital marketing strategy, the Five Factor Model (FFM) can improve the effectiveness of content types such as; website landing pages, articles and blog posts, eBooks, email newsletters, email sales funnels, case studies and white papers. When applied to technology copywriting, the FFM enables the creation of content that resonates more deeply with traits of the target audience, which can increase engagement and generate more sales.
The use of characters, personas and narrative within the content used to promote products or services that a business sells can increase its effectiveness. The use of storytelling techniques in content creation can make it more likely to appeal to an audience. An understanding of The Five Factor Model and the influence on human behaviour of the traits of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism can assist in this process.
Writing For a General Audience
Using FFM to guide copywriting strategies for specific traits requires data that could be collected using surveys of the target audience. However, when there is insufficient data to build customer personas for a specific trait, content should appeal to a general audience, by balancing the five traits. Content can be written in a manner that will appeal to emotion, innovation and adventure, and make use of logic, tradition and reliable data. It could include suitable calls to action (CTAs), such as invitations to complete a survey or quiz, enabling the building of FFM profiles, to use in subsequent communications.
Technology copywriting that blends emotion and logic, could use an engaging story that appeals to people high in extraversion or agreeableness, in addition to data-driven insights that resonate with individuals high in conscientious. For example: ‘Using AI, IoT and cloud services our sustainable platform has helped businesses to reduce their energy costs by 25% (data), while helping communities to build a greener future (emotion)’. Individuals high in extraversion might respond to invitations to join a live chat, while those low in extraversion prefer to read a blog post, or download an eBook or white paper. Until a personality profile has been determined for a customer, the content used should include elements that appeal to each trait.
The more that a technology copywriter knows about their intended audience, the better they are able to personalise content so that it will resonate with them. Having empathy for customer values and concerns will also assist in the writing of engaging text. By mixing data with storytelling, content can be written that appeals to a variety of personality types. A/B testing can be used to compare the performance of different content, informing subsequent messaging, user journey mapping and calls to action, such as read a white paper, subscribe to receive a newsletter or sign up for a demo.
Customer Personas and Digital Marketing
The quality of content that potential customers encounter when they interact with a business online can impact their buying decisions. Copywriting that reflects an understanding of customer needs and effectively communicates relevant details can instil confidence in a product or service. A technology copywriter can use their technical knowledge to explain complex subject matter in clear, easy to understand terms, while highlighting key benefits and calls to action. They could also place testimonials from satisfied clients alongside relevant content, in the form of snippets with links to the full testimonials. The fresh perspective a copywriter provides could boost the effectiveness of both existing and new content.
Applying an awareness of psychology to the sales process, enable a copywriter to craft content that is more likely to appeal to particular customer preferences. For example, The Five Factor Model can be used to build customer personas. An understanding of digital marketing can deliver content that is more likely to attract a target audience, promote a brand and generate leads and sales. When applied to landing pages, articles, blog posts, email sales funnels, email newsletters, case studies, white papers, eCommerce product descriptions and eBooks, this strategy can help a business to stand out from their competitors.
Creating Marketing Personas
Realistic characters with back stories make more effective marketing personas than superficial characters lacking depth. However, creating relatable marketing personas for use within content marketing requires sufficient data. This could be collected using customer surveys, or if that is not available by applying The Five Factor Model to create fictional characters. For example, you could answer The Big Five Personality Traits Test questions as they might be answered by fictional, famous or historic characters, who possess qualities similar to those of the target audience. This could assist in the process of creating marketing personas. The results could be combined with market and demographic data, to create stories about a product or service that are more likely to resonate with customers.
Well written characters will exhibit qualities that cause an audience to relate to them and care about what happens to them. For an author they form the centre around which their story will be built. For a business relatable characters can humanise what might otherwise be an uninspiring brand. Through what they say and do, characters can appeal to a particular target audience and reflect themes, values and ideas that a business wants to associate with itself and the products or services that it sells. An organisation can tell stories featuring characters that embody the message they are attempting to promote.
Show rather than tell is encouraged within storytelling. For example, characters can reveal hidden traits indirectly through their behaviour, rather than stating them. Developing marketing personas with strengths and weaknesses that will appear within content fully formed and with depth is difficult. Using The Five Factor Model dominant traits could be established for each character in a story, so that they exhibit behaviour reflecting their preferences, sense of self and perception of other people and the world. Within the narrative used to promote a product or service, realistic marketing personas could resonate deeply with an audience and might even attract a following.
Collecting Persona Data
A personality test, quiz or survey should feature questions that gauge where an individual falls on a scale from high to low for each trait. Rather than ask people directly, this can be done using questions that allow them to choose from a range of options how they would behave in particular situations. For example, this Personality Test based on the FFM consists of sixty questions, twelve for each of the five personality traits. Incentives, such as access to exclusive downloadable content, could be used to encourage people to complete a test, quiz or survey. Data collected could be used to build customer profiles or personas, with each customer placed into one of five marketing persona groups:
High Openness: Innovators are excited by innovative products and services, that enable them to experience something new.
High Conscientiousness: Data-driven planners respond to detailed reports and case studies, which provide them with verified facts.
High Agreeableness: Community builders respect ethical community values and look for products and services that benefit society.
High Extraversion: Engaged socialisers enjoy live online or real world events, engagement and interaction with a business.
High Neuroticism: Cautious decision-makers look for support, reassurance and low risk solutions to their problems.
Although individuals are a complex mix of the five personality traits, they typically have dominant traits. Different versions of content marketing messaging could be written, each of which is more likely to appeal to people who have specific dominant traits. For example, while customers high in conscientiousness are sent email newsletters containing research backed data, people high in agreeability could receive newsletters that highlight human interest stories and those who are high in openness would receive stories that feature innovative technology.
Building Customer Relationships
When a business gives a person something free, which has perceived value, that person is more likely to form a positive impression of that business. For example, people will be more inclined to read content that is informative, useful or entertaining, rather than an overly forceful direct sales pitch. Sending engaging newsletters to email list subscribers and publishing regular blog posts, featuring content that resonates with the target audience, are proven methods for establishing and building long term customer relationships. Including clear benefits and calls to action can over time generate more leads and sales.
Blog posts should appeal to a broad audience, as they could attract a technical and non-technical readership. Providing useful and inspiring content could attract a loyal following and enable a business to build their reputation and strengthen their brand. However, it takes time to establish a following online and requires regular delivery of good quality content that people want to read. Email newsletters can complement blog posts and when people feel motivated to read and share the content that a business posts online this can also attract backlinks, boost search engine ranking and increase the organic traffic a website receives.
Website Content
Important copywriting skills include having an understanding of style and tone, so that content written for a website will appeal to the target audience. In addition to understanding SEO (search engine optimisation) and keyword research, knowledge of web design, development, usability and analytics can enable a copywriter to deliver more effective results. Suitable visual elements, including photographs, infographics and animation can make content more engaging and boost the performance of a sales funnel, but well written text will still be needed. For example, an eCommerce website that teams good visuals with well written product descriptions could attract more customer attention, interest and sales.
Concise copywriting clearly communicates essential information using the fewest words possible and might make use of suitable anecdotes, with relatable characters and narratives. Language should flow naturally and not use unnecessary complexity or jargon, but remain technically accurate. The aim is to capture an audience in a manner that will motivate them to continue along a sales funnel, learn more about and then purchase a product or service. Taking an holistic approach across all forms of content marketing that is used to promote a business can help to strengthen their brand identity, increase customer awareness and generate more leads and sales.