With the meteoric rise in data and analytics driven marketing efforts, it is easy to forget that copywriting is still a major component of effective marketing. Done right, copywriting can drive engagement, traffic and be the fuel that your marketing engine needs. Done wrong, however, and you could be losing customers and opportunities.
Data and testing will certainly allow you to fine tune your efforts and make the necessary tweaks to your copywriting but it is important to remember that analytics cannot be the only factor. Even A/B testing, in all its analytical glory, only tells you which of your two headlines is better, or which one is less bad, the problem is that you’ll never fully know which. It will tell you which of the two options is more effective but when it comes to headlines, CTA’s or whatever else you are testing, everyone knows there are more than two options. There are hundred, if not thousands, of options.
Getting better at copywriting takes research, practice, tracking and more practice! You can study what has worked for other people and other businesses, track what has worked for you in the past and experiment going forward. All of these tidbits of information will put together your copywriting puzzle and allow you to be effective. Obviously, as with all marketing, you’re never done. You will always be testing and tweaking and getting better, but it is important to let more than analytics shape the tone and voice of your writing.
After writing for your business you will start to get to know your customers better and that will shape the tone and voice of your copywriting, which is a great companion to the information you gather from testing and analytics.
Good marketing will allow data and testing to inform their decisions, but recognizes that good writing is equally as vital. You must keep one foot firmly in each world, analytical and creative because it is easy to rely solely on data and analytics. Data is objective. Math is finite.
