If you’ve ever had a case of Blinking Cursor Syndrome when attempting to write marketing or sales copy, especially for your digital product, you’re not alone. 

Copywriting is a tough piece of the process to nail when it comes to building out your funnel, but hopefully after listening to this episode, you’ll find it a lot simpler. 

See, copywriting is both an art and a science, but the most important thing to understand is not the intricate mechanics of copywriting, but the intricacies of your ideal client.

If you have a solid understanding of them, the four key components of high-converting copy for your sales page will come together seamlessly and inevitably lead to more sales. 

In this episode, you’ll learn: 

• The four key components that are crucial to crafting copy for your sales funnel to lead to conversions
• The importance of deeply understanding your ideal client or customer and how to dig into the real issue that’s driving them to seek change and/or a solution
• How to utilize pain points in a way that’s ethical while also demonstrating to your reader that you understand where they are at in their journey 
• The key differences between benefits and features, and why you need to present both

Read the Transcript for Season 1, Episode 6 –  The Keys to Unlocking Funnel Copy That Converts

Good evening from my podcast closet. I know it may not be evening while you’re listening, but maybe it is. Maybe you’re like doing your dishes or something after dinner or cleaning up around the house. That’s typically when I watch. Watch, listen to podcasts morning commute. 

After dropping off my son at school and after he’s in bed and I’m cleaning up, those are my favorite times to listen to podcasts. Let me know when your favorite time is. I’d just be interested to know. I love just knowing how people consume their information.

Also going for walks when I can fit in a walk, I try to do that as much as I can. We’re currently in our rainy season, so I live in on an island in the middle of the Pacific, and we have a period at the beginning of every year where it is 40 days of rain and it’s a lot and occasionally the sun breaks through. And when the sun does break through, I go for a walk and I throw on a podcast. I would just be very interested to know when you listen. All right, enough of me meandering, let’s dive into today’s topic.

Today I am going to talk about funnel copy. And honestly, the things I’m sharing here in this episode apply to things you just kind of need to know about your ideal client. Anyhow, because these are things that will help you with your copy anywhere. That’s one thing that I feel like is a skill that every CEO business owner really does need to grasp. Pretty decently is the ability to write tight and strong copy.

And that’s because copy is everywhere. If you aren’t familiar with what copy is, anytime you see written words somewhere, that’s copy. And the act of writing that copy is copywriting. So sometimes you’ll hear people like I’ll tell people, oh, I’m a copywriter, and they think legal copywriting. It’s not that like literally writing the words that you read.

When you’re reading a sales page or an email or a social media post, all those things are copy. But when it comes to your sales pages specifically, these are some of the key things that you really want to dial in on first that will help you with creating all the copy around your digital product launch, specifically your sales page, but also your emails, anything associated with your launch. 

These key pieces will be important. Now, one thing I want to preface this episode with is that copy. While I do feel it like it’s a skill every business owner should work on, not everyone feels like they’re the best writer, and I totally get it.

I’m someone who writing has always come very naturally to me, hence why this is my career and I do writing for a living. Writing has always been something I’ve been strong at, and I recognize that a lot of other people suffer from chronic writers block where it feels like you are just having to pull teeth to get words out onto a page. 

Okay, so the keys that I’m sharing with you here are not necessarily copywriting mechanics as much as they are the things you really need to understand in order to write decent copy. Because I think if you can really tap into your speaking voice when you’re writing copy and the way that you naturally would talk to somebody, you can write pretty decent copy if you know the things that you need to write about.

A little kind of asterisks on that. If you find yourself having a really difficult time nailing down your voice, what might actually be easier for you is talking your copy out, like almost pretend. Or you could even get like, a team member or a partner or just a friend to sit across from you and say, hey, sit across from me, I’m going to give you the spiel of my entire product, and I’m going to walk you through, like, what it is. I’m essentially just going to sell you on it. 

And you can then take an audio transcription, like, just record yourself having this conversation with a voice memo or a voice note on your phone and then transcribe it. You can use a tool like scribe or Rev.com, and you would be surprised how that may be the key that unlocks it for you, which is if you kind of speak to think that could be a really good way of getting your copy, or at least the bulk of your initial copy done. 

And then you can go in and kind of edit it to make it flow a little bit better for the written page. See, I’m the other way around, where for me, I actually do better when I sit down and write and then I talk it all out. So pretty much all these podcast episodes you listen to, I’ve got the majority of what I’m saying already written out, not word for word, because I do like it to still sound natural and not like I’m reading from a script. But I’m definitely not just pulling all of this off the cuff.

I have a very clear outline of what I’m touching on in each episode. So speaking of which, let’s dive into these four keys. Okay? I just wanted to bring that up as a kind of precursor to these four points so that you don’t feel like if you are someone who does suffer from more chronic writers block. Nothing is wrong with you.

And some people are stronger writers, some people are stronger, like, speak to right type of people. So you just have to find a flow that works for you or nail down these things that I’m going to cover in this episode and then hire someone to write your copy for you. 

That’s why copywriters exist, and it’s because for us, we’re not so close to your product or your idea as you are. So sometimes people a common thing that my clients will say to me is they’re like, oh, you said exactly what I was thinking. And I’m like, I know because I have no emotional attachment to your offer.

The only emotional attachment I have is to seeing you succeed. But I’m not actually like, your product is not my baby. Right. So I’m not emotionally attached to it when I’m writing about it. And that can be a big thing that trips you up, too.

So you almost have to deattach yourself from the thing and write as if you’re writing a letter to your potential client, which is really the best approach to go. Okay, so let’s get into these four pieces here. So the first thing that you want to get really clear on to write high converting copy. And this is what you need to start with in order to let the other three things I’m going to cover flow. And that is the big transformation.

So you need to understand what is the big thing that someone wants to achieve through your product. And keep in mind, when I say the big transformation, the transformation itself doesn’t actually have to be a humongous transformation. It can be a small transformation in the course of a much longer journey. But you need to understand what the main transformation is. Maybe main is a better word there.

The main transformation is for your client at this stage in the journey in which your product is helping. So let me put this into context here.

We have a lot of people out in the digital wellness space now who are fertility experts, pregnancy experts, child birthing experts, lactation experts. Right. So all in the arena of essentially mother and baby care or mother and baby wellness. But notice how I just mentioned five key distinct parts of that entire journey. So from the time where someone is trying to conceive to the time that they’re actually, like, breastfeeding their newborn child, you have a lot of different milestones that happen in between those points.

Right? So if you are someone who is, let’s say, a mother and baby wellness expert, you likely aren’t going to have an offer that’s tackling the full spectrum of someone’s journey as they are working to try to get pregnant, navigate the first trimester, second, so on and so forth, all the things that they have to get through to get to the big transformation of having a baby. Right. But let’s say you’re focusing solely on the fertility aspect. The big transformation there is getting pregnant, not having the baby.

And notice the key distinction there is that just because the one thing like getting pregnant, obviously then is the precursor to eventually having a baby in the context of a fertility focused product, you want to focus on the big transformation as getting pregnant or whatever stipulations around that pregnancy that you’re trying to cater to. 

Like, maybe you’re speaking specifically to women who have had very prolonged fertility issues or maybe women who are trying to get pregnant after loss or something like that. There’s so many different facets to who you might be speaking to. This is why it’s really important to know what is the big transformation for them, because that’s another piece that layers into it. What are the things that are unique to your ideal client?

Get super specific, be very clear, and don’t try to tackle necessarily the largest transformation, but focus on the main transformation for your person. Ok. The next thing that you want to understand is the symptoms. The symptoms kind of refers to. Think of any time you’re sick.

You typically aren’t just going to the doctor on a monthly basis just to be like, hey, just checking in to make sure you can tell me I’m still healthy, right? We don’t do that. That’s just not normal. You don’t seek out medical help generally, unless you’re experiencing a symptom, just like you don’t go down to Walgreens to grab yourself some Tylenol or some coughing cold medicine, unless you’re experiencing a sore throat, a stuffy nose, fevering, whatever. So you want to look at in the context of your ideal client and the big transformation they are trying to make, what are the symptoms that are occurring for them?

The other word that you will typically hear use to describe this is what are the pain points? Here’s what I want to say about the word pain points, because symptoms could be generally they have a negative air to them, right? Like they’re things we don’t particularly like. They are things that we find bothersome. And depending on who it is you’re talking to and what ultimate big transformation you’re trying to solve, sometimes these symptoms can be really big deals to people, like very, very agitating things that they need to get rid of in their life, or they could be mildly agitating things.

It kind of depends on the scope of seriousness of what you’re dealing with in terms of your topic. But all that to say, a classic copywriting technique. And I just want to warn you about this because if you’re doing research on copywriting mechanics, which I’m not really teaching copywriting mechanics because I don’t think that’s necessarily helpful for someone who’s not trying to become a professional copywriter per se.

Do not press down on people’s pain points to the point where you are inflicting further pain. That is something that is kind of becoming an old school technique. Thankfully, it’s becoming more old school. People still do it for sure. But it’s really not ethical to press down on someone’s pain points so hard that you are really driving them.

Like you’re just kind of agitating to the point where you don’t need to. It’s important to show your ideal client that you understand what they’re struggling with. But it’s not an integrity to push so much that it’s kind of like saying, I know how bad this is, for you. And unless you get my product, you’re not going to solve these symptoms on your own. Kind of relating back to the cold example.

The reality is and I’m not about to get into virality because Lord knows we’ve talked enough about viruses over the last two years. We don’t need to bring that up. But a common cold truly has no cure, like a rhino virus is typically what a common cold is. And when you go to the store to get NyQuil or Tylenol, you’re not actually solving the virus. You’re just masking the symptoms.

It’s kind of like a bandaid. And in that Band Aid, what you’re doing is you’re helping your body to feel better so that it can effectively fight off a cold a little bit easier because you’re helping to give your body more rest by alleviating your symptoms, but you’re not actually curing the virus. So in terms of translating that to copywriting and ethical marketing, don’t press into the pain points so hard that it then comes off. Like someone won’t be able to get over these problems unless they have your cure all solution. Right.

That’s just not really how that works. So when you’re talking about symptoms, really get specific on what it is they’re experiencing. So actually, I’ll kind of put this into the context of a product that I’m thinking of buying more for, like, workplace ergonomics. But it’s typically used for people who are trying to improve their balance, for stand up paddleboarding and surfing. There’s a what is it called?

It’s called like a blue wave rider balance board. And essentially it’s like this hover board looking thing that you have a kind of ball on the bottom of it. And the whole goal is to help you increase your balance and your core stability. And the whole pitch around this product is that it will help you be a better surfer, be a better stand up border. So some of the symptoms that someone might be experiencing are, hey, you’re really trying to get into this hobby, but you’re finding it really frustrating because you are finding that your core strength, specifically related to balance, isn’t very strong.

So that’s a symptom that you’re experiencing is that you’re not fully enjoying the hobby that you want to enjoy because you don’t have a strong enough balance center or whatever it is they call it. But essentially, you’re showcasing here’s a symptom of this problem that you’re having. You’re not enjoying your hobby or you’re finding that you can’t stay up on the board for more than a few seconds at a time. How can we improve that? Well, we can improve it with our product.

So get clear on what are the things that are really annoying your ideal client, what are the things that you would call their symptoms that you can then call out in your copy? All right, moving on. We have the third element, which is the benefits typically, and I’ll just kind of give it away here because this is the next one. But you will oftentimes, when learning about copywriting, hear about benefits versus features. And benefits need to be given a slight edge over the features because benefits are what ties to the emotional heartstrings that get someone to really purchase.

Features still need to be there because those are important for someone actually understanding specifically what it is they’re getting with their purchase. But people don’t well, I don’t want to generalize because purchasers do fall into different categories. But the majority of purchasing decisions are made from an emotional standpoint, where people are looking at the ultimate benefit of the product. Right. So, for instance, I’ll just take this balance board, for example.

And even though this is a physical product, this applies to literally anything you buy, even a Coca Cola. You can do this for, like, you could break this down for any product in your house and it will work. You can do this exercise with this balance board. The benefits of it are it’s a good workout for your core, helps you improve your balance, which then helps you with other sports. It’s honestly kind of fun.

It also can really help with keeping your core activated while you’re working. Like, if you’re someone who is trying to do a stand up desk, you can stand on this balance board. And that helps engage your core while you’re at a standup desk so that it ensures that you’re not slumping. Right. Because this is actually what I’m looking to use it for.

A lot of times when you’re using a stand up desk, you end up hunching over and putting your elbows down on the desk to rest. And then it kind of defeats the entire purpose of having the standup desk because instead of sitting, you’re hunching your back. So it really doesn’t help. The board can help you counterbalance, because if you’re having to balance on the board, you’re keeping your core and your whole body aligned. So that’s a benefit.

Another benefit is it is fun for kids. Like, it’ll keep your kids entertained. I’m trying to think of all the benefits that I saw when I was reading through their information online. But other benefits would be it’s a good, like, indoor physical activity. Right.

Versus you don’t have to be outdoors to get some movement. And it’s a good addition to your home gym for core workouts. Okay. And actually, yes, because you can do workouts on this board that just reminded me you can do push ups, you can do AB exercises. They have a whole bunch of, like, things you can do.

So those would be a bunch of benefits associated with this product. Right. Those don’t actually cover any of the features. The features are things like this board is made out of. I want to say it was made out of some sort of Oak, like some fancy Oak.

I don’t really remember because to me, it doesn’t matter. So this is actually a great example because I could not tell you what it was made out of, but they definitely made a point of talking about how it’s made out of really nice premium quality wood. So that would be a feature. It’s got non slip grippy material on the top so that if you’re using it for a workout, your hands aren’t going to slip off, you’re not going to hurt yourself, your feet are going to stay in place. It has three different levels of complexity with balancing.

So you can insert this thing in the bottom that makes it a low level balance, a medium level balance, and then a complex level balance. So these things are the features. This is what someone who, like me, is looking at this product and going, okay, I want to stop hunching while I’m well, actually, let me just walk through this whole thing as a solid, rounded, all out example. 

And if you were like, this sounds like the most boring product of all time, then you’re not the ideal client. This just goes to show you how when you understand these key pieces, it will help you weed out who your ideal client is and who is not, because you are painting a very clear picture of what your product is, what it is, who it’s for, what it does, and why someone would want it.

And if it does not align with someone who they’re not your ideal clients, that’s great. You want to do as much repelling with your marketing and your sales copy as you do attracting, because when you attract the right people, you attract raving fans. Okay, so let me go back through the four keys, because that rounds it all out. The big transformation, the symptoms, the benefits and the features. And I’ll run through with this example of this balance board.

So the big transformation for me personally, my big transformation is I want core activation.

I want to have a stronger core, not so much for the sports element. And this is where I’m going to go off on a little side tangent here. If you have a product, typically this will not apply to a digital product, but it may you never know I have a different type of ideal client because I’m the at home worker looking for an ergonomic office solution that’s going to just help me in my lifestyle as an at home remote worker versus an outdoor adventurous. I’m not looking for it for surfing or stand up paddle boarding, even though I’m sure it could help me there too, because it’s been many years since I have surfed and I’m sure I’m not very good at it anymore. My dad would be very disappointed.

My dad’s been a lifelong surfer and I did not get those genes, unfortunately. But the big transformation for me is being strong in my core due to my work. If this company wanted to really get niche in their various ideal client avatars. They would create two funnels for the same product, one geared towards the outdoor adventurer and one geared towards the indoor remote worker. So blue wave boards, if you’re listening, I would love to do that funnel for you because that would be a really great way to amplify your sales.

Anyhow, that’s the big transformation. Core strength for an at home remote worker. And the symptoms that are telling me that I need this. I am finding that I am bending over to support myself at a stand up desk or on a countertop when I’m standing up and working. So that would be a symptom because I’m finding that now instead of having, like, the things I was having when I was sitting all the time, now I’m getting some, like, shoulder and neck pain from hunching all the time.

So that’s an actual physical symptom. Another symptom could be. I feel like I get distracted when I’m standing when I’m working because I can just walk away from my desk. I’m not settled in. I’m not cozy sitting at a chair on the couch.

I’m just standing at my desk. So I could just effectively wrap something up and just kind of walk away. When you’re on a balance board, you would be much more inclined to not just hop on and hop off this balance board because to be honest, it’s not the easiest thing to hop on and hop off of. So that could be another kind of symptom where it’s like, do you feel like you’re unfocused at work? Do you feel like you’re suffering from shoulder and neck pain even though you’re at a standing desk?

Those would be the symptoms. The benefits are increase your core strength, increase your focus. So essentially the benefits just become the antidote to whatever the symptom is and really paint a clear picture of not only the big transformation of you are creating a more healthy at home workplace environment. Right? That’s the big transformation.

But the benefits are you’re increasing your core strength. You’re minimizing your shoulder and neck pain. You’re increasing your work focus. Trying to think of what another benefit would be.

Those are kind of the main thing I can think of off the top of my head. But those are the benefits. The features are all of the things I just mentioned, non slip things so that you don’t have to worry about your feet slipping off as you balance three different levels of complexity so that you can work yourself up from beginner to complex, sturdy wood board that looks good in your home office. If aesthetics are really important to you. So you can see there where those are the features that are more of those bullet item.

Here’s what you’re getting when you buy this product. And by the time you have gotten all of those four core pieces together, you’ve really got the majority of what you need for sales copy. And then from there you just need to add in stories testimonials. Maybe you want to include a video that showcases how people use the product or just kind of reiterates the copy that’s on the page. Because that’s the other thing about today’s purchaser is some people are going to read every word that’s on a sales page because they are decision  heavy purchasers.

They need to look at every detail before they make a decision. Other people are more impulse or emotional purchasers. They can simply look at some headlines that tug at their heartstrings and they’re like, Yep, this is what I’m looking for. And that’s all they need. Or they can just look at some headlines and go, okay, this sounds cool.

They watch a two minute explainer video that really sells them on it and then that’s all they need. So you have kind of got to cater to a variety of different type of buyers in your sales page. And that’s why when you understand these four key elements, you’re able to expand upon them. You can layer in some more personality, you can get into some more explainer type of paragraphs or other forms of media. 

And from there, that’s what flushes out your full sales page and the rest of your marketing copy, like your emails or your social posts are kind of just taking small chunks from your sales page, like small digestible chunks and putting them out on the internet in front of your audience in various ways to then drive traffic back to the main sales page.

So you can see there where if you can nail that larger chunk of copy, like your sales page, using these four keys to unlocking high converting copy, it really unlocks the rest of the copywriting process for you and it becomes a whole lot easier. Alright, that is it for today. In the next episode, I’m going to be diving into what is probably the more exciting thing that people actually enjoy, which is the design and the look and the feel. The thing, that the pretty stuff. The copy I know definitely doesn’t feel as fun, especially if you’re not someone who considers yourself like good at writing.

I’m using air quotes there, or some people will say, oh, I’m not a writer. The reality is that if you write anything, you’re a writer. If you write emails in your job on a regular basis, you’re a writer. You just have to get into that mindset of writing. Like you are talking to your ideal client as if they’re sitting directly in front of you and you’re just pitching them on a product.

And if you don’t like the idea of being salesy or pitchy, think of it like someone asked for your opinion on the product and it’s not your product. I think everyone can put themselves in the shoes of, let’s just say you bought like a Roomba. God, I want a Roomba so bad. I just don’t have one. But if I was looking for one of those Roomba type of products which of course there’s a million of them out there now it’s not just rumba there’s like the shark and all those other ones.

I might sit down and ask my best friend who’s constantly raving about her Roomba. I might be like, hey, can you tell me about this thing? Why do you prefer this brand over the other one or what is it about this one that makes it so special and then just go if you can put yourself in the shoes of pretend like someone just asked you why your product is best versus someone else’s or why should someone purchase your product and just go into it? Because that’s when you get really fired up and you’re like, I’ll tell you why you need this. Because it’s awesome and here’s why.

It’s going to help you do X-Y-Z it’s going to get rid of XYZ symptoms. Here’s all the amazing things about it. Oh and it comes with XYZ too. And there you go. You’ve got your four things that you just covered and you just need to get excited about it.

Alright if you have any other questions about copy please come send a DM to me on Instagram. I’m @StudioClary. You can also pop into my email if you’d really like. You can go through my contact form at studioclairy.com contact and I will see you in the next episode.

Bye.