There is one aspect of affiliate marketing that’s often overlooked. We’re talking about words here – a significant part of marketing that can have a tremendous impact on conversions.
Getting your copy right can be a quick win that leads to long-term affiliate marketing success. In this article, we’re going to share our best tips for writing highly-converting affiliate marketing copy. Even if you’re not a professional writer, you can start putting these tips to use and begin seeing improvements in conversion in no time.
Ready to find out more? Let’s dive in:
Focus on the reader
Writing without considering your audience is one of the most common mistakes you can make. As authors, we tend to focus on our experiences and assume that everyone comes from a similar background. However, quite the opposite is true.
In psychology, there is a phenomenon known as the curse of knowledge. When we’re specialized in a field, we tend to use a lot of jargon that can be hard to understand for others. This should be avoided because if a potential customer can’t understand what you’re saying, they won’t move further down the sales funnel.
Focusing on your experiences too much is a conversion killer as well. Instead of relying on your own assumptions and being anecdotal, you can turn to research. Learning about your target audience is a powerful tactic for marketers and copywriters alike.
Here are two examples of quick and affordable research methods that you can use to improve your affiliate marketing writing:
Get acquainted with SEO
Affiliate marketing and SEO go hand in hand. Even if you’re not an SEO professional, you can always use research tools to find the right focus keywords for your articles. Think about it this way: using the exact phrases that potential customers use to search for products online makes your product more likely to show up in their search. If you’re lucky enough to be working with an SEO team, you can ask them for a list of keywords and common questions that are Googled.
Talk to your sales and customer support teams
This source of information is often overlooked, even though it’s easily accessible. Talk to your sales and customer service agents and listen closely. They might be able to share some interesting phrases that are used by (potential) customers. If you’re short on time, you can also ask for access to live chat conversation transcripts and read them yourself.
Create customer personas
Take some time to define the typical profiles of your potential customers. Write down their needs, main pain points, limitations, and motivations. Using this persona as a point of reference when you’re writing will help you get your point across more clearly, and make your writing more relatable.
Don’t forget about social proof
This doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t be talking about your experiences at all. If done right, social proof can skyrocket your conversion rates. Here are some ideas for using social proof in your affiliate marketing writing:
- Share reviews – Ask your clients to share their thoughts about your product. A few favorable sentences can work wonders here! For instance, DataFeedWatch displays a short review from a real client during the signup process:
- Write about real use cases – Users are more likely to believe unique case studies rather than empty statements. Showcase how your product can be used to show potential customers the value they can get from it. Remember, when you create a landing page for affiliate marketing, it’s always better to show how the product works (instead of just talking about it.)
- Use statistics – You can always find an interesting statistic about the subject and include it in the copy. This will sustain the reader’s attention and make you appear more reliable because research suggests that social proof can increase conversions by 20 percent. See what we did there?
Keep it short and sweet
You’ve probably already heard that people don’t read on the Internet. In many ways, this statement is true. People on the web don’t tend to read properly – instead, they scan sentences, so it’s good to keep this in mind when you’re writing. Here are some tips from our side:
The first and the last
Did you know that people tend to read the first and last three words of a headline only?
Although this seems like a small thing, rearranging the words in your headline to include the most crucial information at the beginning and at the end can lead to a significant conversion boosts.
Let’s say you’re writing about call center software. In this case, Top 10 Picks – Call Center Software will make a better headline than The Best Call Center Software Providers on the Market. See the difference?
When it comes to the length of the marketing copy, there are several numbers to keep in mind as a reference. In her book, Strategic Writing for UX, Torrey Podmajersky states that short pieces of copy (e.g. headlines) should be around 40 characters long. This translates to roughly three to six words. When it comes to paragraphs, they shouldn’t be longer than three lines (otherwise people start referring to them as a wall of text.)
It is also important to note that more than half of affiliate traffic comes from mobile devices, and this number is constantly growing. Because of this, your copy should be even more concise with shorter sentences, since mobile screens make it harder to read long ones.
Sounds like a lot of things to consider, huh? Don’t worry, it’s actually really easy to simplify your writing – and we’re listing dedicated tools that can help you with that at the end of this article!
Numbers are your friends
You’ve probably seen some BuzzFeed headlines before. Here’s what they typically look like:
Most of them have one thing in common – they start with a number. This clever technique helped BuzzFeed achieve impressive click-through rates and become a leader in their field.
Why not copy this little trick to improve your own writing? Here’s why numbers can lead to better conversion rates:
- They’re easy to scan, especially if you use Arabic numerals (2, 4, 15) instead of words (two, four, fifteen).
- They stand out from other words and catch the user’s attention.
- Numbers are more precise and make your statements appear more reliable.
Verbs are your friends too
Did you know that Tweets starting with a verb tend to get the most shares on Twitter? Starting your sentences with a verb will instantly make your writing more actionable. Whether you’re writing an article or creating a CTA button on your website, be sure to include strong verbs. Not only are they more likely to draw the reader’s attention, but they also make the copy easier to scan.
Don’t be afraid to A/B test
Just like in conversion rate optimization, A/B testing is one of the most powerful methods you can use to improve your writing. We highly encourage that you test out different copywriting strategies on your website to see what works best.
If you’re not sure what kinds of copy can be tested, here are some ideas to inspire you:
- Headers and subheaders
- Button CTAs (e.g. Sign up vs Get started)
Microcopy (e.g. adding No credit card needed below the registration form)
- Adding adjectives to your copy
- Changing Your to My, or vice versa
Sometimes a version that doesn’t seem better initially can lead to a conversion boost. Have a look at this example from Google:
In the search interface on Google Hotels, Book a room was changed to Check availability, which is less binding. This small tweak has resulted in a 17% increase in engagement.
As you can see, these kinds of tests are cheap, easy to implement, and can lead to significant improvements in conversion. Why not try them yourself?
Bonus: affiliate marketing writing toolbox
Last but not least, here’s a list of tools that can help you become a better affiliate marketing writer in no time:
- Grammarly to catch any errors (we recommend trying the Premium version, it’s really worth it!)
- Ahrefs, AnswerThePublic, and UberSuggest for SEO research
- SurferSEO Content Editor to optimize your landing page content
- Hemingway to simplify your writing, the easy way
- FirstSiteGuide to understand the online world
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