GET STARTED NOW
Grow Your Business

What is Conversion Copywriting: A Comprehensive Guide

Cast your mind back to the last time you bought something online—say, Amazon. 

Ask yourself: Why did I buy {insert product here} instead of similar products? Was it the way the product was described—did it have everything you needed? Or was there a discount offer that was too good to pass up? Perhaps the stellar reviews made you whip out your credit card—or was it the affordable pricing? 

Whatever your reason, one thing is true: the text (or copy) you read on the product page—from the product description and pricing to the product features and customer reviews—convinced you that that product was the right choice. 

In marketing, the process of crafting that copy is known as conversion copywriting. 

In this guide, you’ll learn: 

What is conversion copywriting? 

Conversion copywriting is a specialized form of writing that aims to persuade readers to take a specific action, such as making a purchase, downloading a guide, signing up for a newsletter, or any other action that moves a person further along in the customer journey. 

The primary goal of conversion copywriting is to turn potential customers (also known as leads) into actual customers. To do that, the writer has to craft messages that resonate deeply with the target audience’s needs, desires, and pain points, using persuasive language and psychological triggers. 

Conversion copywriting is not about saying, “This product is amazing; come buy it”; instead, it’s about convincing people that this product is better for their needs than similar products in the market.  

Why is conversion copywriting important for businesses? 

Every time a business hires a writer to write copy for their website, landing pages, or product pages, what they’re asking for is conversion copy. That’s because this kind of copy is integral to the growth and profitability of the business. Here are several reasons why conversion copywriting is particularly important: 

Understanding the conversion funnel 

The conversion funnel is a framework used to visualize and understand the journey a potential customer goes through, from learning about your product or service to taking a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. The funnel metaphor helps marketers and businesses understand and cater to the different needs of their audience at each stage.

Tconversion funnel has five stages: Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Evaluation, and Purchase. Effective conversion copywriting plays a crucial role at each stage, helping to guide prospects down the funnel toward conversion. Here’s a breakdown of each stage of the conversion funnel and the role that conversion copywriting plays in the process: 

  1. Awareness stage

This is at the very top of the funnel where potential customers first come into contact with your brand. They might discover your business through various channels, such as blog posts, social media, search ads, events, or word of mouth. 

At this stage, your job is to craft compelling copy that raises brand awareness and evokes intrigue to encourage further interaction with your brand. Explain what your business does and how it targets the pain points that your audience struggles with. 

This copy, which appears in your SEO-optimized blog posts, social media content, and paid ads, informs potential customers about what you offer and makes the first critical connection. 

  1. Interest stage 

At this stage, potential customers are aware of your brand and are showing interest in learning more about your products or services by engaging with your content or interacting with your team.

With conversion copywriting, you can educate your audience about how your product (or service) can solve specific problems or improve their situation. The goal is to build on the initial interest and build a relationship with your prospects, leading them deeper into the funnel. 

For example, I’d heard of Cider, the women’s clothing store, before but I’d never thought about buying outfits inspired by music or an album until I saw this Instagram post. 

It might not seem like much, but the short caption, “who else has been listening to nothing but Cowboy Carter all week 🙋‍♀️comment your favorite song 🤠 #shopcider #cowboycarter” is an excellent example of conversion copywriting. 

At this time this post was made, Beyonce’s latest album, Cowboy Carter, had been out only a week and songs from it were topping charts. People were listening to it in droves and Cider’s marketing team rode that wave to promote some cowboy-inspired outfits from their collection. 

It worked for me and 1,000+ other people, one of whom commented, “Now THIS is marketing”. The person’s right—even if someone’s unable to buy these outfits right now, they just might comment their favorite song from the album, which increases the post’s visibility and puts it in the Instagram feeds of others who’ll click through to the website and make a purchase. 

  1. Consideration stage 

Here, potential customers assess your product or service to determine if it meets their needs and is worth purchasing. The copy you create at this stage should address any concerns or objections and highlight your UVP to help you stand out from the competition.

Many businesses tackle the consideration stage by creating even more educational content, such as how-to guides, product demos, FAQs, and webinars, that deepens the prospects’ understanding and appreciation of their offers. 

Beyond educational content, however, showcase success stories and testimonials from other customers. These serve as social proof (we’ll get to this soon), which helps to build trust and credibility, and demonstrate the effectiveness of your product or service.

For example, here’s what Omniscient Digital’s Case Studies page looks like: 

If I were looking for a marketing agency to drive traffic and generate high-quality leads for my business, amazing results like these (and a breakdown of how they were achieved) would do a better job than a how-to guide at convincing me to consider booking a call with Omniscient Digital’s team. 

  1. Evaluation stage 

At the evaluation stage, potential customers make final considerations about whether to proceed with a purchase or not. This stage is particularly crucial because it involves deeper reflection on the part of the customer regarding the suitability, value, and practicality of your offer. 

Here, the customer asks themselves: 

The copy you create at the evaluation stage should dispel any myths, falsehoods, doubts, and concerns about your product—in relation to your competitors. Your copy should be both reassuring and affirming, giving the final nudge towards making a purchase. 

Asana has a dedicated Compare page where it breaks down how Asana compares to competitors like Monday, ClickUp, and Airtable. 

Take the Asana vs. Monday piece, as an example. Right off the bat, Asana makes it clear that, unlike Monday, it is a cross-team powerhouse tool. Then, one by one, Asana explains different ways it can help modern teams collaborate smoothly. 

But it doesn’t stop there. It goes ahead to answer some burning questions that prospects might have, such as: 

With conversion copywriting, Asana manages to reinforce its UVPs, provide answers to some questions, and convince prospects that it is better than its competitors. 

  1. Purchase stage 

The Purchase stage represents the coalescence of all your marketing efforts, where a prospect finalizes their decision and completes a transaction, converting into a paying customer. 

This stage directly impacts the company’s revenue and the customer’s loyalty, so the copy you create should facilitate a smooth, straightforward, and satisfying purchasing experience. Here are some things you should keep in mind as you write copy for this stage: 

How to get started with conversion copywriting

Now that you understand how the conversion funnel works and how conversion copywriting can guide prospects through it, let’s tackle how to get started with conversion copywriting. 

  1. Define your goals

Once you know who your audience is, define your goals and objectives. What do you want the copy to achieve? 

While the default goal is to sell your products and services, conversion-oriented copy can help you achieve other business goals, such as: 

  1. Understand your audience 

Next, thoroughly research your target audience. Find out everything you possibly can about them, including their: 

This information allows you to adjust your tone and approach to suit your prospects. For example, the copy that will work for a Gen Z high schooler might not work for a millennial with a 9-5 job. 

Pro tip: Create detailed buyer personas that represent your typical customers. This gives you a reference point you can turn to as you write your copy. 

  1. Define your Unique Value Proposition 

Since conversion copywriting is all about convincing your target audience that your product is better suited for their needs than your competitors’, define what actually makes your product/service unique and why it’s beneficial to your target audience (your UVP). 

Your UVP should be a compelling statement that captures the primary benefit and distinctiveness of your offering.

For example, if your product is an all-in-one hub, you can highlight the robust features and how it can help your audience kill tool friction and streamline their workflows. Or if your tool is powered by a novel AI system, you can emphasize how it’ll help your audience save time and increase efficiency and productivity.

Here are some amazing UVPs to inspire you: 

  1. Write clear and compelling copy

Once you’ve identified what makes your product or service special, it’s time to start writing copy. Most conversion copies have three parts: 

Jasper AI’s website is a great example of effective conversion copy. We’ve got the first headline that succinctly, but concisely describes that platform’s mission: Marketing revolutionized by AI. 

On its own, this headline is somewhat vague—something you don’t want your copy to be—but the one-liner right underneath salvages it smoothly by defining the product outright: Jasper is an AI copilot for enterprise marketing teams who want better outcomes, not just faster outputs.  

Throughout the homepage, you’ll see eye-catching, yet easy-to-understand headlines that describe each facet of the product: 

Each headline is accompanied by stunning visuals that give prospects a glimpse into the product’s inner workings. What’s even more curious is that the headlines don’t explicitly focus on Jasper AI’s robust features; instead, they focus on what those features can help users achieve. That’s what draws people in. 

Right underneath the headline, Artificial intelligence, genuine results, Jasper AI takes the opportunity to display some of the results the tool has helped customers get, alongside a glowing review from Dave Gerhardt, the founder of Exit-Five. 

The homepage starts and ends with two straight-to-the-point CTAs: Start Free Trial and Get A Demo.

  1. Test and optimize 

Completing your conversion copy is not the end of the road. Once you finish writing, test the headlines, body copy, and CTAs to see which one(s) convert best. 

As you run your experiments, use analytics tools to track user behavior on your website and the performance of different pages. This data will help you understand what works and what needs improvement.

You can also collect and analyze customer feedback through user testing, surveys, and reviews to refine your copy. Conversion copywriting is an ongoing process and you must continually optimize your copy to adapt to changing marketing conditions, customer preferences, and competitive landscapes.  

The psychology of conversion copywriting 

Your product doesn’t necessarily have to be better than your competitors’ products for your target audience to believe it is. People shouldn’t have to test other products against yours to determine that yours is better suited to their needs; your copy itself should convince them of it. 

To achieve this, you must learn how the human brain works, and how to use marketing psychology to your advantage as you craft copy. Below are some key psychological phenomena used in conversion copywriting and how you can apply them to your copy. 

We’ll start with three principles coined by Robert Cialdini in his 1984 book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: Social Proof, Scarcity, and Reciprocity. Then we’ll move on to others. 

  1. Social proof 

Say, you have dry skin and you’re looking for a good face moisturizer. You go online and you see several moisturizers that claim to repair your skin and give it the nutrients it needs to be healthy. You become confused, but then your best friend who used to struggle with dry skin visits you one day and tells you about the moisturizer she used to get rid of the dryness. 

What would you rather do: buy the moisturizer your friend used or pick a random one you found online in hopes that it’ll work? 

I’m willing to bet it’s the latter. 

But why? 

In his book, Cialdini observed that people are more likely to follow the actions of others under the assumption that those actions reflect the correct behavior. This stems from the human need for social conformity and validation, particularly in situations where people are unsure of how to act. He called this psychological phenomenon, social proof

Social proof provides a shortcut for decision-making, as it allows people to function in a complex environment by mimicking the actions of others, which they perceive as correct or beneficial. There are several ways to use social proof in conversion copywriting, including testimonials and customer reviews, user statistics, endorsements from authorities or influencers, media mentions and badges, real-time activity, and case studies.

Case in point: Basecamp

Basecamp’s website is littered with all kinds of social proof — from user statistics and customer reviews… 

… to awards and badges.

In fact, Basecamp has a dedicated page that compiles hundreds of testimonials from their existing customers.

These pieces of social proof increase people’s trust in Basecamp, reduce their purchase anxiety, and spur action. They see these reviews and badges, and think to themselves: Well, if the CEO of Shopify has used this tool for over a decade and is satisfied with it, there’s a good chance, it’ll work for my business, too!”

Now, they don’t have to sign up for free trials at Asana, Trello, or any other Basecamp competitor to run their own experiments. They just become convinced right away that Basecamp is the tool they need.

  1. Scarcity 

Imagine you’re in a town far away from home and you need to lodge in a hotel for a few days. You visit Booking.com and search for hotels near you with the highest ratings. You find one that you like, but it’s a little out of your budget. As you peruse the amenities that come with your room choice, you see a notification that says, “Only one room available. Book now!” 

You don’t want anyone to take the last room of the only hotel you like, so you immediately book a reservation, even though it’s a little expensive. 

The phenomenon at work here is scarcity, another Robert Cialdini principle. 

It is the idea that people place a higher value on resources or products that are rare or limited in availability. This phenomenon taps into the human fear of loss and our natural tendency to strive for what is hard to get, and is rooted in several psychological biases, such as value perception, fear of missing out (FOMO), and loss aversion (which we’ll get to in a bit). 

Scarcity, when done right, can create urgency, prompt quick responses, and increase conversion rates. Here are some ways you can effectively use it:

Amazon uses scarcity all the time, like so: 

Ellie Diop, the founder of The Ellievated Academy (and a Thinkific customer), offers online courses teaching people how to start and grow their businesses. But she’s also created an exclusive community, Mommy to Millionaire Club, that gives members automatic access to the entire Ellievated Academy and other future masterclasses. 

Read: How Ellie Talks Money Uplifts Aspiring Entrepreneurs with Thinkific Plus

  1. Reciprocity 

Here’s a fact: You’re more likely to do something nice for someone if they’ve been good or friendly to you before. This instinct to repay what another person has provided is a strong and pervasive element in human behavior and, you can use it in conversion copywriting in the following ways: 

For example, Pipedrive, a sales CRM, has created loads of free sales and marketing guides that teach customers how to automate lead generation, make effective cold calls, and build a consulting sales process.

These guides allow people to derive value from Pipedrive for free, which not only convinces them to pay for the product, but also positions the brand as an expert in the sales industry. People tend to trust experts, which bodes well for the brand.  

  1. Anchoring bias 

The concept of anchoring bias was first introduced by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the ‘70s as part of their work on heuristics in judgment and decision-making under uncertainty. Their research demonstrated that when people are uncertain, they grasp onto an initial piece of information (the ‘anchor’) to make subsequent judgments, regardless of the relevance of that information.  

As people adjust away from that anchor to make future conclusions, they often exhibit a bias toward interpreting the information around the anchor. 

The most prominent way to use anchoring bias in copy is through price anchoring. This involves showing the highest price you offer (for example, your most expensive membership plan) before showing cheaper alternatives. The initial high price sets an anchor that makes all the cheaper options seem more reasonable, potentially increasing the perceived value of lower-cost alternatives. 

Another way to do this is through comparative anchoring, where you position your product alongside more expensive competitors. Here’s how Basecamp did it: 

In addition to positioning the brand as an all-in-one product, it also establishes that prospects can use Basecamp at about half the price of all those other tools (with unlimited users). The higher price of the competitors serves as an anchor, making Basecamp appear much more affordable.

Other ways you can use anchoring bias are: 

For example, Copy School costs about $3,000/year (or $297/month), which is fairly expensive. But before showing the price of the program, Copy School’s copywriters wrote an extensive page that detailed the benefits people will get when they sign up, tons of reviews from previous (and existing) students, all the courses and tools they’ll get for free (and what they’re worth), and much more.

By the time you get to the bottom of the page, the $3,000/year price tag seems like a steal for all the stuff you’ll learn through the program

  1. Loss aversion 

Also coined by Tversky and Kahneman as part of their seminal work on Prospect Theory, loss aversion suggests that people are more motivated to avoid losses than to achieve equivalent gains. In other words, the pain of losing is psychologically more impactful than the pleasure of gaining something of the same value.

Tversky and Kahneman observed that people make decisions based not on absolute outcomes but on potential gains or losses relative to their current situation. So when people have to choose between a sure gain and a chance for a higher gain with some risk of loss, they’re likely to choose the sure gain. Conversely, when faced with a sure loss vs. a chance to avoid the loss with some risk of even greater loss, people often prefer to take their chances, hoping to avoid the loss altogether.

You can apply loss aversion in conversion copywriting in these ways:

  1. The Decoy effect

The decoy effect, also known as the asymmetrical dominance effect, became popular after Joel Huber, John Payne, and Christopher Puto ran some experiments in the ‘80s demonstrating how adding a decoy option into a set of choices could influence consumer preferences and increase the likelihood of a particular item being chosen (often one that maximizes profit for the seller). 

A good example of this is the ad from The Economist that Dan Ariely talked about in his 2008 TED talk, Are we in charge of our own decisions? In the ad, The Economist listed their latest subscription packages: 

Ariely was baffled that the price for Print Only and Online + Print were the same, so he reached out to folks at The Economist for answers and he got none. So he ran an experiment with 100 MIT students, showing them the pricing packages and asking which one they’d go for. 

When he presented them with all three packages, the students chose the Online + Print option because it seemed like the best one. But when Ariely removed the Print Only option, the students went for the cheapest plan, which is the Online subscription. 

The Print Only package is the decoy option. The Economist knew that no one would go for that option, but its presence served as a reference point so people could see the appeal of the Online + Print package. Without the decoy, The Economist would’ve made less money. 

You can do this with your product and pricing strategy, too, in two ways: 

  1. The Zeigarnik effect 

The Zeigarnik effect is named after Bluma Zeigarnik, a Soviet psychologist who, in the 1920s, observed that waiters had better recollections of still unpaid orders. However, once the bill was paid, they tended to forget the details of the order. 

She ran a few experiments, which were supervised by Kurt Lewin, where she had participants perform several simple tasks like assembling boxes and solving puzzles. Some of these tasks were interrupted, and the results showed that participants were almost twice as likely to remember the details of the interrupted tasks than those they completed. 

Some psychological mechanisms explain this: 

You can use this human tendency to drive conversions and product adoption in these ways: 

Conversion copywriting best practices for selling online

To maximize the effectiveness of your copy, here are several conversion copywriting best practices to follow: 

To increase user experience, use bullet points, headers, and short paragraphs to make the text easy to read and scan.

Write conversion copy like a pro 

That’s a wrap on this guide to conversion copywriting! You’re now equipped with powerful techniques to help you craft compelling copy that not only resonates with your audience but also drives them to action. 

Remember, the key to mastering conversion copywriting lies in continuous learning and testing. Keep refining your skills, stay updated with the latest trends, and always put your audience’s needs at the forefront. 

Happy writing!

FAQ

  1. What is the difference between copywriting and conversion copywriting?

While regular copywriting focuses on creating engaging and relevant content, conversion copywriting specifically prompts the audience to take actions, like signing up for something or buying something, using persuasive language and psychological triggers.

  1. How can I improve my conversion copywriting skills?

To improve your conversion copywriting skills, study your target audience, master persuasive writing techniques, leverage psychological principles like social proof and scarcity, and learn to write compelling CTAs. Also, test different copy versions, analyze performance data, and refine your approach based on what resonates most with your audience.  

  1. What are some effective conversion copywriting techniques?

Effective conversion copywriting techniques include crafting attention-grabbing headlines, using emotional and psychological triggers, highlighting benefits over features, optimizing call-to-action buttons, and writing simply.  

  1. Can conversion copywriting be applied to different marketing channels?

Yes, you can use conversion copywriting principles across different marketing channels, including websites, landing pages, email campaigns, social media, and PPC ads. You just need to tailor your messaging to each channel and audience, while maintaining a consistent brand voice. 

  1. How long does it take to see results from conversion copywriting efforts?

The time it takes to get results from conversion copywriting can vary widely, depending on your target audience, industry, and copywriting techniques. However, regular testing and optimization can quicken results and improve your conversion rates over time. 

  1. Are there any tools or resources to help with conversion copywriting?

Yes, several tools and resources can help you with conversion copywriting, including editing tools, A/B testing platforms, analytics tools for testing and optimization, SEO tools, copywriting templates, and online courses that teach copywriting skills.