10 copywriting statistics that you need to know
74% of web users pay attention to the quality of the spelling and grammar on company websites
59% would actually avoid buying from a company who made obvious spelling or grammar mistakes
I’m an absolute stickler for this (as you’d expect from a copywriter), but I was interested in whether non word-geeks feel the same way (i.e., want to lie down in a dark room) when they see companies using typos. Perhaps, unsurprisingly I’m not alone. It goes without saying that spelling and grammar go a long way towards creating the right impression for your brand and business, so make sure you proofread your copy and ideally get some extra eyes on it before you press the publish button.
8 out of 10 people will only read the headline
Imagine you’ve invested all of your blood, sweat, and tears into writing a fantastic piece of content, and then only 80% of your readers get past the headline!
Chances are you’re not spending as much time and effort on this as you need to. Think about the kind of headlines that make you actually stop and read something, and apply this when you’re coming up with your own. Time is so precious these days, so you need to make it worthwhile for the reader.
As the great David Ogilvy once said “you’ve spent 80 cents of your dollar once you’ve written a headline.”
The ideal length for a headline is 6 words
Work on making it as punchy, clear and enticing as possible to encourage your customers to read on. But, once you achieve this, there’s still another hurdle to overcome...
Readers only consume 20% of the content on a page
You’ve got them past the headline, but chances are they still don’t go on to read all of that wonderfully juicy copy that you’ve spent hours poring over. We’re all guilty of it, and it’s not surprising when we’re overwhelmingly busy and inundated with content all day, every day. We have a tendency to skim-read or seek out bite-sized content to give us the information that we need.
So, the key is to make your most important messages (and the most compelling information to the reader) stand out and catch the eye. According to Eyequant people tend to read a page in an F shape - with most of our attention being drawn to the left of the page, so this is definitely one to bear in mind when you’re laying out your content.
Also, when it comes to blog writing, the length of your blog can have a big impact on the results. The best information I’ve seen about this is from The Write Practice - How Long Should Your Blog Post Be (thewritepractice.com). It basically confirms that there’s no simple answer (sorry folks), as it’s so dependent on the topic as well as what you're trying to achieve. But if you want a rough idea (without reading yet another article), my take-out is that 1000 words or more is ‘usually’ better for social shares and SEO, whereas shorter than this is ‘usually’ better for getting more comments. Hope that helps!
Email copy
Email can be a brilliant way to engage your customers, especially on the basis that they are usually already warm to hearing from you by this point. But (big but), you can write the best email in the world, and no-one will ever read it if you don’t get the subject line right.
The optimal length of an email subject line is around 28-39 characters
(Buffer)
This is more likely to lead to a higher opening rate, so try and keep within this range if you can.
Adding two extra words to an email subject line can increase the opening rate by 23.8%
This came from a great example whereby adding the words ‘hell yeah’ to the start of a subject line increased the opening rate massively (the idea being that expressive terms like this are more attention-grabbing in a cluttered mailbox).
Also, a little tip from Mailchimp is to use a maximum of three punctuation marks in your subject line to reduce the chances of your email being perceived as spam.
46% of emails are opened on mobile
(Hubspot)
Make sure your content is optimised for this, otherwise you can instantly turn off almost half of your audience.
Landing page copy
Arguably landing pages can be one of the toughest pages to get right, as they are at a critical point in the customer journey; the point at which they buy or fly. But perhaps these insights will help to get you on the right track:
Having social proof on a page can increase subscriptions by 20%
(unbounce)
You know the drill - no longer do customers simply believe what brands tell them. In order to gain real trust and credibility, it’s essential to use testimonials, customer stats and real feedback on your page. It’s the most effective and powerful tool to converting customers in a non-invasive way.
And the final statistic (an old classic but still a personal favourite which proves effective time and time again)
Including the word “because” (or providing a reason) has been found to increase action from 60% to 94%.
It sounds so obvious that being given a reason to act is much more compelling than just being told what to do, but it’s amazing how often this is overlooked by businesses when they are writing their sales copy. Try building it in to every product message and see the impact it can have.
One last point to note, is to always ensure the language and style match the media platform that the customer came in from. There’s nothing worse than clicking through a great ad that’s piqued your interest, only to end up on a page which looks and sounds completely different or doesn’t reference the ad you’ve seen in any way shape or form. Consistency is crucial.
The round up
The next time you sit down to write a piece of engaging, highly-converting copy, be mindful of length, structure, layout, spelling, grammar, and spend some extra time on nailing your headline. Easy!
Oh, and whatever you do, don’t forget to clearly communicate the benefits that your business or product has to offer in a way that completely fits with your brand tone of voice.
(more on this in my other blog).
If you'd like help with any of the above, please get in touch at lisa@canihaveaword.co.uk