Though business comes and goes in cycles, the power of marketing can’t be understated. Digital marketing opens up new avenues for Australian businesses to reach more people and sell their brand not only here, but overseas as well. As part of any digital marketing strategy, a copywriter should be part of your arsenal of persuasion. So why should an Australian business invest in professional copywriting services? What are the advantages of having an Australian copywriter on call or on retainer?
Why Invest in Professional Copywriting Services?
What you say is how you sell. Investing in professional copywriting services is an investment in your overall marketing and communications strategy. Copywriting services can help your business craft a strategy around digital marketing – every piece of content you post will need some kind of copy to help promote your business or sell your product or service.
Greater reach inevitably leads to higher sales volumes or inquiries. These profits can be re-invested into marketing and copywriting to spur on even more growth down the line.
Crafting SEO-Optimised Copy for Better Organic Visibility
Did all those words sound like they meant something? If you aren’t a copywriter or work in digital marketing, they can feel a bit confusing. In simple terms, SEO refers to Search Engine Optimisation. This is the art and science of writing copy or text on websites so search engines (Google for the most part) will rank your page higher than other competing pages with similar or identical information. Google displays pages on their Search Engine Results Page (SERP) in order of relevance. The higher your webpage ranks on the SERP for a chosen keyword, the more likely it will be clicked on.
According to a study of 80 million keywords and billions of searches by Search Engine Journal in 2020, 28.5% of clicks go to the organic (non-paid) result in the 1st position. It’s diminishing returns after that: 2nd gets 15.7%, while 3rd gets 11%. 10th spot gets about 2.5% of the clicks on average.
SEO is an investment in increasing this organic visibility by helping your site and pages climb up SERPs for chosen keywords. This is a long-term strategy for growth, as it decreases reliance on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and builds your authority as an authoritative and trustworthy source for information on that keyword – and in sales, this is worth its weight in gold.
Leveraging Persuasive Writing Techniques to Drive Conversions
If you’ve ever read SEO copy, it often sounds like text written by robots for other robots. Sometimes keywords will be “stuffed” into places that make even the most grammatically nonchalant wince. From that perspective, it’s done its job: you clicked on the top link, after all. But here’s where it falls apart in terms of conversions. The copy just doesn’t convince anyone to put their faith in your brand. Something drives them away.
SEO leads the horse to water; but persuasive writing on the page gets it to drink.
Copywriting is about balancing on-page SEO as well as using persuasive techniques to get people to perform an action (I write about calls to action in my blog about email marketing here.) It may be to buy a product, sign up for a service, or simply hand over an email address for a mailing list. These techniques may be straight-forward calls to action (Buy Now, While Stocks Last!) or thematic (appeals to reason, appeals to the hip-pocket, etc.)
Australian businesses need copywriters to help them leverage persuasion as part of their communications in order to drive sales and inquiries. This should be the prime motivator in your marketing – the art of the sale. However, without tailoring it to local audiences, it can quickly go awry.
Tailoring Your Copy to Australian Business Needs
If you have ever taken a trip abroad – or perhaps lived abroad – you will quickly notice how culture affects a business’ sales approach. When I lived in Atlanta, Georgia it was not uncommon for salespeople, even in shoe stores, to push products on me when I hadn’t asked for them. Once, when I was at the mall having a browse at one such shoe shop, an enterprising young sales associate noticed I was wearing Converse Chuck Taylors.
A pair of my beloved red Chuck Taylors.
I’d barely crossed the threshold of the entrance and he immediately rushed toward me. He knelt down and started buffing my white toe tips with a special polishing product. Before I could tell him to stop, he was rattling off all these benefits, ending the encounter by telling me his name (presumably so he could get a commission.)
This behaviour would be unthinkable in Australian shops.
Australian business needs are different from overseas needs, which means overseas copywriters that aren’t immersed in our culture will find it difficult to replicate or cater to our approach. The “hard sell” is often seen as sketchy or “suss” (we had purchase over that word before Among Us, thank you!)
Copywriting services in Australia require a flexibility and versatility of prose to tailor certain tones of voice and style to their audiences. Corporate businesses will use highly abstract and academic style language, while small businesses may use more persuasive or colloquial language – good Aussie copywriters can deftly sprinkle in some Aussie vernacular as well.
If your copy reads as if it was written by a foreigner, it will come across as inauthentic – which can lead to high bounce rates and poor conversions, even if your SEO is on point. (I mean, ridgy-didge.)
Choosing the Right Copywriting Service Provider
Not all copywriters are created equal – some are more creative while others are more technical (read my post about the differences between them here.) You should choose a copywriter that can understand your business and effectively sell the idea and the tangible result to as many potential customers as possible. They need to connect you to your audience and help clarify your message. Your business may want to choose a copywriter with a particular niche; though hiring generalists (such as myself) may open the door for new and creative opportunities for marketing that your competitors may not have thought of before, differentiating yourself from the pack.
Ultimately, they need to be a part of your team and need to gel with your overall business methods and processes. Unfortunately, not every copywriter will be a good fit; nor will every copywriter want to work with your company for any number of reasons. Make sure to research different copywriters and get to know them as if they were a potential employee; you could build a fruitful partnership that lasts decades!
A copywriter who knows their SEO stuff, is persuasive to a fault, and works well with your company can unleash a wave of powerful marketing on your potential customers!
Leverage the power of an award-winning Australian SEO copywriter at I Sell Words! Contact me below and let’s get started!