7 steps for writing a sales text

You can write a sales text based on your experience, but what if you don’t have it yet? If there are still no bumps and no deep understanding of marketing and consumer behavior? In this case, the best option is to follow the template and break the process into stages.

Stages of writing a selling text

The work on the sales text can be divided into the following 7 stages:

If the writing of the text will be done not by the business owner, but by a hired specialist, that is, a professional copywriter, the business owner or his marketer should fill out a brief. This is a special list of questions, which prescribe the main parameters of the future project, data about the product and service, the company’s advantages, information about competitors. Why is this needed? Firstly, to see how much the business owner knows about his own product or service, how he “understands” it, and also to get the initial pool of information necessary to create a selling text.

If the brief cannot be completed for some reason, it is necessary to conduct a marketing research. It usually takes 1-3 days. In some cases, such in-depth research is carried out anyway, regardless of the provision of a brief. Then its price is initially included in the cost of the selling text.

Another option for obtaining information for a brief can be a dialogue with the business owner in the course of a personal conversation or through instant messengers, Skype, or a phone. This will take longer, but may be more informative as there is an opportunity to ask clarifying questions during the process.

If you are a copywriter and not a professional marketer, conducting market research can be quite a complex and time-consuming process. Therefore, at the initial stage of the project discussion, it is desirable to discuss this issue with the client, to discuss additional payment for working hours. Why is this needed? So that your client understands the cost part for himself, that is, what exactly he pays for. In this case, it is also desirable to transfer to the client not only the written selling text itself, but also the results of marketing analysis. It can help in the further development of the business, as it reflects a fresh objective view from the outside.

Learn more about the stages of creating a sales text

Let’s return to the stages of creating a selling text:

1. Look at the texts of competitors about the service or product. To search for relevant articles, it makes sense to use the search engines Google or Yandex. Carefully study the found materials. It also does not hurt to read the latest articles on topics of interest presented in the media. In addition, you may already have your own text developments on this or similar topics that may be useful. Then be sure to check them out. As a rule, every professional copywriter has a printed or electronic file with ready-made examples of work and variants of selling texts of famous copywriting masters that can inspire future work.
2. Gather facts and analyze existing company texts. Surely some information has already been written and posted on the company’s website. In this case, you should review all the information available there in more detail and try to determine its effectiveness. In this case, the following parameters should be taken into account: the conversion of each of the pages of the site, the marketability of any product or service in relation to the general list of goods and services. Then you can move on to studying the data received from the business owner or marketer, that is, to the completed brief.

Characteristics, sales reports, testimonials, comments and success stories can be found on the Internet, inquired from the business owner, communicated with company employees who are involved in sales. In medium and large firms, the collection of such information is a mandatory item of work. The main thing is to ensure that you, as an outsider, are given access to it. If the business owner considers this a trade secret, still try to negotiate. In this case, there are two options: signing a non-disclosure agreement for the information received or providing information without specific numbers.

If the author takes on a topic in which he is poorly versed, he will have to spend more time studying the theoretical part. But there is another option: to offer the business owner to state the main theses and thoughts on the topic, that is, practically write a draft of the text yourself. The task of the copywriter in this case will be editing, optimizing, adapting and editing the text with an emphasis on sales.

As practice shows, the second approach (editing textual material) is much more efficient than the first one, when the copywriter has to write text from scratch. This is explained quite simply – the business owner knows his product or service better and understands the advantages and weaknesses of his own company much better.

As an example, let’s take a fairly simple business – applying inscriptions or stickers on custom-made baseball caps. If the selling text is written by the owner of the company himself, then, most likely, he will use only the term “baseball cap” everywhere, since it is he who is generally accepted. But a professional copywriter understands that potential clients will have other queries in their search – with the word “cap”. That is, it must also be present in the text. You can check queries very simply in the free Wordstat service from Yandex. It helps to collect useful information about issues of interest to users, which can be useful when writing a high-quality selling text.

3. Work on key points. By this stage, we mean that the writing of the text should begin with the initial designation of the mandatory key points about the product or service, that is, with the presentation of the main part and the main unique selling proposition. Only after that you should proceed to work on the title of the article, subheadings, introductory part, i.e. to writing text material in accordance with a simple plan.
4. Write the first draft. All written parts of the text must be connected, add headings, subheadings, an offer, that is, the main commercial offer, and calls to action, which should be placed not only at the end, but also in the middle of the material, especially if it is longer than one A4 page. Thus, you will be sure that the reader, even with a cursory glance, without reading the entire text, will meet at least one call before his eyes.
5. Edit the text. Editing of the text is started after the “main backbone” is ready. It also has its own peculiarities, small nuances and “chips” that should be taken into account when writing a “working” selling text. For example, you should use less adjectives, but more verbs. Action words should be closer to the beginning of the sentence, and so on. In general, the text should not contain too “fuzzy” phrases, long and complex sentences, hackneyed constructions, etc.
6. “Trick with a hat” or PTEZ. This stage is passed after the initial editing. The method was invented and widely used in the 60s. of the last century, but has not lost its relevance at the present time, especially among novice copywriters. What is it and what is its essence? The finished, edited text should be read by an absolutely stranger. For example, on the street, approach a man or woman who is most likely one of the target audience and ask them to read the finished version of the text. After reading, ask to express your opinion: was everything clear?, what alerted you? and so on. This method can be adapted to modern conditions: instead of “search for a stranger on the street,” offer to read your work to a stranger in any of the groups on a social network or a familiar child of 9-10 years old. Alternatively, you can simply read the written text aloud after a couple of days or more. Usually in this case, those points that require changes are quickly identified.

In general, this method makes it possible to free the text from “hackneyed” phrases, shorten sentences, make it as accessible, understandable and useful as possible for the target audience.

7. Perform analysis and test. At this stage, you should carefully analyze the effectiveness of the text that is already posted on the site. To check, you can modify the headings, calls to action, the location of the blocks. Then you need to compare the number of applications received after potential customers viewed the first and second options (this can be done using Yandex.Metrica or Google Analytics). If the text is used offline, two small batches of flyers or booklets are printed. To track their effectiveness, they add that, for example, to receive a discount, you must provide a flyer. At the end of the action, a count is made and a “winner” is chosen, that is, the option that can be used next time and on a larger scale. For both offline and online advertising, call tracking systems to track performance can also be suitable.