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How to adapt your writing to reach the right audience on different communication platforms

Catarina Alves de Sousa
Social Media Manager & Content Writer

If in a post, we found on social media, the image corresponded to a human face, the copy would correspond to its voice. Each copy – just like each human voice – is unique and art made up of 50% storytelling, and 50% sales ability. And as they say, “every monkey in its tree”, for each platform, a different strategy. Let’s look at how to adapt copy to each marketing channel.

Catarina Alves de Sousa
Social Media Manager & Content Writer

If in a post, we found on social media, the image corresponded to a human face, the copy would correspond to its voice. Each copy – just like each human voice – is unique and art made up of 50% storytelling, and 50% sales ability. And as they say, “every monkey in its tree”, for each platform, a different strategy. Let’s look at how to adapt copy to each marketing channel.

Romantically, we can describe copywriting as the art of masterfully weaving words into engaging and persuasive messages that capture the audience’s attention by evoking emotions, arousing desires, and leading readers to a specific action. The copywriter is a craftsman of letters, skillfully shaping sentences to tell stories, sell ideas, and create lasting connections between brands and their consumers.

More objectively, copywriting is the ability to create persuasive text that aims to convince the reader to take a specific action, such as buying a product, signing up for a mailing list, or downloading an app. It is a form of writing geared toward selling, but ideally without being too obvious.

“Copywriting is the art and science of writing words that sell.” – Joseph Sugarman

One of the keys to successful copywriting is adapting the tone and style of the speech for different mediums. What works well in an email marketing campaign may not be as effective in a Facebook ad, for example. Let’s explore some copywriting techniques for different platforms next.

Social Media Copywriting

Social media is one of the main communication channels used by brands to create a connection with their customers and potential consumers. This is why copywriting techniques are so important in this medium. Here are some tips for creating persuasive and engaging content for social media:

  • Know your target audience: before you start creating content for social media, it’s important to know who your target audience is. Research and understand your followers’ interests, habits, and needs to create content that resonates with them.
  • Respect brand tone of voice: a brand’s tone of voice is an essential component of its identity and personality, as it reinforces the brand’s personality, helping to communicate its values, mission, and purpose more effectively. Some brands will have a more fun and casual tone of voice, while others will have a more formal and distant tone. Understanding the tone of voice of the brand you are creating the copy for is essential to write it successfully.
  • Use clear, straightforward language: on social media (like almost everything these days, really), people have little time and many distractions, so it’s important to use clear, straightforward language that gets right to the point and captures the reader’s attention. Concise, non-extensive copy works best, especially on social media.
  • Storytelling: people love stories, so use the power of storytelling to engage your followers and establish an emotional connection between them and your brand. Tell stories that illustrate how the product or service in question can help solve your target audience’s problems.
  • Be creative: creative copywriting allows the brand to show its personality, which helps humanize it and establish emotional connections with the target audience. Moreover, extremely creative copy favors engagement and shares of the publications.

Romantically, we can describe copywriting as the art of masterfully weaving words into engaging and persuasive messages that capture the audience’s attention by evoking emotions, arousing desires, and leading readers to a specific action. The copywriter is a craftsman of letters, skillfully shaping sentences to tell stories, sell ideas, and create lasting connections between brands and their consumers.

More objectively, copywriting is the ability to create persuasive text that aims to convince the reader to take a specific action, such as buying a product, signing up for a mailing list, or downloading an app. It is a form of writing geared toward selling, but ideally without being too obvious.

“Coywriting is the art and science of writing words that sell.” – Joseph Sugarman

One of the keys to successful copywriting is adapting the tone and style of the speech for different mediums. What works well in an email marketing campaign may not be as effective in a Facebook ad, for example. Let’s explore some copywriting techniques for different platforms next.

Social Media Copywriting

Social media is one of the main communication channels used by brands to create a connection with their customers and potential consumers. This is why copywriting techniques are so important in this medium. Here are some tips for creating persuasive and engaging content for social media:

  • Know your target audience: before you start creating content for social media, it’s important to know who your target audience is. Research and understand your followers’ interests, habits, and needs to create content that resonates with them.
  • Respect brand tone of voice: a brand’s tone of voice is an essential component of its identity and personality, as it reinforces the brand’s personality, helping to communicate its values, mission, and purpose more effectively. Some brands will have a more fun and casual tone of voice, while others will have a more formal and distant tone. Understanding the tone of voice of the brand you are creating the copy for is essential to write it successfully.
  • Use clear, straightforward language: on social media (like almost everything these days, really), people have little time and many distractions, so it’s important to use clear, straightforward language that gets right to the point and captures the reader’s attention. Concise, non-extensive copy works best, especially on social media.
  • Storytelling: people love stories, so use the power of storytelling to engage your followers and establish an emotional connection between them and your brand. Tell stories that illustrate how the product or service in question can help solve your target audience’s problems.
  • Be creative: creative copywriting allows the brand to show its personality, which helps humanize it and establish emotional connections with the target audience. Moreover, extremely creative copy favors engagement and shares of the publications.

Source: Instagram Control Portugal, Instagram Super Bock

 

The images above are two good examples of the importance of copywriting in social media posts. In this case, both brands have a very young, relaxed, and humorous tone of voice, so they often use jokes and puns. In these two cases, without the copy, they would just be two banal images. With copy… the story is different, but the happy ending involved thousands of interactions.

Social media is a fertile ground for copywriting. The key is to understand the audience of each account or brand and adapt the discourse accordingly. 

And speaking of understanding the audience, we cannot forget that each social network has a different audience and identity.

On LinkedIn, for example, the audience is more professional and expects more serious and informative content. Instagram users, on the other hand, are more visually oriented and expect more creative and engaging content.

Some differences between copywriting for Instagram and for LinkedIn:

  • Audience: the Instagram audience is younger and more visually oriented than the LinkedIn audience, which is more professional and business oriented.
  • Language: copywriting for LinkedIn should be more formal and professional than copywriting for Instagram, which can be more informal and personal.
  • Content: content for LinkedIn should be informative and educational, while content for Instagram can be more inspirational and emotional. On Linkedin, it is also more usual for brands and companies to make posts that do not talk about their products and services but are more oriented toward company and team content.
  • Format: Instagram is a visual platform, which means that copywriting for Instagram should be tailored to accompany images and videos while copywriting for LinkedIn can be more text-focused.
  • Call to Action: CTAs for LinkedIn should be more business-oriented (“apply for our job opening,” “learn about our open positions,” while calls to action for Instagram can be more informal and personal.
  • Hashtags: hashtags are important for both Instagram and LinkedIn, but hashtags for LinkedIn should be more business-oriented, while hashtags for Instagram can be broader and more general.
  • Objectives: The goal of copywriting for LinkedIn is generally to generate leads, while the goal of copywriting for Instagram may be to build the brand and engage followers.

To summarize, copywriting in social media is all about understanding who we want to reach and impact, “speaking” simply and objectively, unleashing creativity, telling interesting stories, and always testing and adjusting our approach to the target audience and the predominant audience in that social network.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools. Here too, the key is to grab the reader’s attention right away. This can be done with a compelling subject and a catchy first paragraph. From there, the content should be concise and to the point, with a clear CTA for action at the end.

Here we list some copywriting techniques you can put into practice to create effective email marketing campaigns:

  • Create an interesting subject: the trick to increasing the open rate of an email message is to write a subject that arouses the desire to click. 

Keep a few factors in mind when selecting the subject of an email campaign:

  1. Length: Research indicates that short subject lines have the best open rate. This is probably because most people read emails on their mobile devices. If the subject line of your email is long, it may look great on a computer, but mobile device users won’t see the whole story – and most likely won’t click on it.
  2. Word choice: Use action verbs in your subject line. This will help subscribers understand what they should do even before they open the email.
  3. Keep it personal: By using real people’s names in the “to” and “from” fields, you will get higher open rates. Email is a personal medium, so treat it that way. It’s nicer for readers to see an email in their inbox with their name, and there are automatic ways to include your subscribers’ names in every email or campaign.
  • Don’t forget the text preview: when it comes to writing emails, the text preview is very similar to a tweet before Twitter increased the character limit. It had only a few characters to pique users’ interest and make them read beyond the subject line.
Source: Campaign Monitor

 

  • Make copy a conversation with the user: email writing needs to be personal if you want it to convert. That’s the bottom line. Instead of writing to hundreds, thousands, or millions of people, imagine you are writing the email to a single person. Pretend you are talking directly to a friend or a customer. Tell him or her about the exciting things you want to tell him or her and explain what you want him or her to do. Hold a conversation.
Source: Mint

 

  • Know your target audience: before creating an ad, it is important to know your target audience. Understand their desires, their “pains”, needs, and problems to create a message that resonates with them.
  • Use words that evoke action: use action words in your ad to encourage the audience to take action. However, try to focus on CTAs that reflect more of the users’ needs and fewer actions that are too direct in a commercial sense.
  • Make sure the content is relevant:  in the same “meetings that could be emails” saga, there are also emails that could be social media posts or blog articles. Whenever you consider setting up an email marketing campaign, make sure that the subject matter is relevant to those who will receive it, always keeping in mind that email is a mailbox, albeit a digital one, and no one likes to receive advertising in their inbox without some clear benefit coming with it.

“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” – Shirley Polykoff

Copywriting for Ads

Advertisements are another area where copywriting can make a big difference. The key is to make the speech relevant to the target audience. This can be done with personalized messages that connect with the consumer’s wants and needs. Using storytelling techniques can also be effective in grabbing the user’s attention and making them want to know more.

  • Know your target audience: before creating an ad, it is important to know your target audience. Understand their desires, their “pains”, needs, and problems to create a message that resonates with them.
  • Create a clear and direct message: online ads have little time to capture the audience’s attention, so it is important to create a clear and direct message that gets to the point and shows the benefits of your product or service.
  • Use words that evoke action: use action words in your ad to encourage the audience to take action. However, try to focus on CTAs that reflect more of the users’ needs and fewer actions that are too direct in a commercial sense.
  • Offer a benefit: Consumers want to know what’s good for them, so it’s important to highlight the benefits of your product or service. Use words that highlight the value you are offering.

The example below is an ad from Doutor Finanças in which they chose to ask a common question to several Portuguese with the premise of an answer after the click. The goal of this ad is to capture leads by filling out a form that is inside the article to which this ad directs. In that article, they answer the question asked in the ad, creating a win-win moment, both for the user and for the company itself, in the case of a captured lead.

Source: Doutor Finanças

 

  • Use testimonials or testimonials: testimonials from satisfied customers can be a powerful tool to persuade other consumers to do business with a brand or to unlock a purchase pending doubts. Use quotes from satisfied customers or testimonials to reinforce brand credibility.

    The importance of not underestimating the power of the written word

    In conclusion, it is crucial to understand that images do not work alone, especially when it comes to copywriting for marketing channels. The written word has an undeniable power of persuasion and impact, capable of creating emotional connections with the target audience. By working in conjunction with images, a copy can help create a clearer and more consistent message, reinforcing brand identity and increasing the likelihood of conversion.

    Thus, it is essential to devote time and effort to creating copy that conveys the right message for each target audience, taking into consideration the marketing channel in which it will be aired. In addition, it is important to remember that the written word has immense power and can be the key to the success of an effective marketing campaign. Investing in well-designed copywriting can be an important difference to stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

    If you have reached the end of this article and are committed to learning more about how effective Copywriting can help elevate your brand or business, be sure to also read our article “How to create an audience through copy”.

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KPIs that measure the success of brands

Pauliny Zito
Planner, copywriter and copydesk

Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are a very common way of measuring how a company is growing as a whole. 

KPIs are intrinsically linked to business goals and aspects of the business, usually defined and reviewed every quarter. They help track the health of the business, which is why they are also called health metrics.

Relevant KPIs that measure the success of brands are result indicators, not simply activity meters.

As Noelia Fernandez, Google’s Director of Large Customer Sales for Northern Europe rightly said: “Ultimately, success is proven when behaviors have changed.

Pauliny Zito
Planner, copywriter and copydesk

Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are a very common way of measuring how a company is growing as a whole. 

KPIs are intrinsically linked to business goals and aspects of the business, usually defined and reviewed every quarter. They help track the health of the business, which is why they are also called health metrics.

Relevant KPIs that measure the success of brands are result indicators, not simply activity meters.

As Noelia Fernandez, Google’s Director of Large Customer Sales for Northern Europe rightly said: “Ultimately, success is proven when behaviors have changed.

Source: Fauxels

How to define KPIs 

When starting the process of defining KPIs, the professional should ask himself:

  • What information do I wish to obtain? 
  • What is the desired outcome and why is it important?
  • Who is responsible for the result?
  • How will I achieve the result?
  • How often will the goal and progress be re-evaluated?
  • How will I measure success?
  • It is critical to align the indicators according to the business objectives.

A good KPI has certain basic characteristics: it is available to be measured; it is important and relevant to the basis of the business; it helps in making smart choices, and it has periodicity, i.e., it needs to be tracked and measured constantly.

In short, a good KPI shows how your goal is bringing more business or business opportunities to your company.

KPIs for brands

During the process of analyzing your brand, you should consider buying behavior and information, advertising and touchpoints, brand promises and associations, brand digitality, and their individual questions.

For a brand to succeed, it is crucial to know the needs and wants of consumers, and your target audience, have a broad view of the market and competition and understand how your brand can become more relevant and attractive over time.

Source: Brand Tracking @ Statista Q.

The main types of KPIs are sales, marketing, and productivity, and their main categories are:

  • Productivity indicators

They measure the number of resources the company uses to generate a given product and/or service.

  • Quality indicators

Help analyze the quality of the product and/or service throughout the production process.

  • Capacity indicators 

Analyze the response capacity of a process through the relationship between outputs produced per unit of time.

  • Strategic Indicators

They provide a comparison of the company’s current scenario concerning previously defined goals.

Source: Mikael Blomkvist

KPIs can also be classified into three basic categories:

1. Primary KPIs

These are the primary ones for your objective, namely: leads (potential customers), traffic, acquisition cost per lead, conversion rate, total revenue, and revenue per purchase, among others.

2. Secondary KPIs

They show that the testing and management of the strategy are going well. Secondary KPIs should justify the primary ones, showing how those results are being achieved. Some examples: cost per lead at each stage of the funnel, newsletter subscribers, blog subscribers, recurring blog visits, cost per visitor, traffic origin (organic, paid, social media, direct, email, and others), and average price per transaction.

3. Practical KPIs 

Page views and visits, bounce rate, best landing pages, page rank, most searched keywords (according to your business), most read/visited content, traffic, visitors (new vs. recurring), and social interactions.

The Marketing manager should periodically evaluate all the chosen KPIs, however, the most interesting KPIs for the management are the ones that bring financial gains to the company.

KPIs versus metrics

KPIs and metrics are not the same things. While KPIs are indicators of company performance, a metric is just something to be quantified or measured, which generates reports and insights. 

However, a metric can become a KPI when it helps with internal company decisions and/or guides the company in its purposes since to be a KPI, it has to be valuable to the business and help managers make smart decisions.

Always keep in mind that the KPI must be relevant to the purpose. Vanity indicators, that is, indicators that do not show any results, are not good KPIs, such as, for example, the number of followers and amount of likes on Instagram.

KPIs that measure the success of brands

There are thousands of KPIs, which can be numbers or percentages, and the challenge is to figure out which ones are most important for your business while also taking into account your company’s industry or sector.

Source: Vlada Karpovich

Quantity of Leads

Lead is a business opportunity, that is, a person interested in the product or service, or a potential customer. To attract visitors and convince them to leave the contact, you need a strategic and focused Inbound Marketing campaign. This indicator is relevant for both the Sales team and the Marketing team, just identify the total number of leads generated in the business in a given period.

Quantity of Prospects

Prospect is a lead in a more advanced stage, almost ready to purchase the product. When a lead evolves into a prospect, the Sales team will understand the best moment to approach it, how to do it, and which offers are more interesting for this future consumer.

Cost per Lead (CPL)

The CPL is the cost to generate a lead. It is necessary to measure each channel and acquisition method to understand which one generates more leads and its respective cost, and thus optimize investments and increase lead generation. Formula to calculate the CPL: total cost of marketing actions ÷ number of leads generated in a given period.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The CAC is related to both Marketing and Finance. It is the company’s average expenditure for the acquisition of a customer. It can be calculated using the formula: total sales and marketing expenses ÷ total customers acquired.

Cost per Click (CPC)

The CPC is the cost determined by online advertising platforms for each click on a sponsored ad. It is the actual amount the advertiser will pay for the click on your ad. Calculation: total campaign cost ÷ number of clicks the ad received.

Churns Rate

The churn rate is the total amount of cancellations, i.e. how much revenue or customers the company lost. Calculation: the number of customers lost ÷ total active customers at the start of the analysis period × 100.

Lead Conversion Rate

It is the percentage of leads that became customers, in other words, generated leads versus converted leads, very useful for analyzing the performance of the Digital Marketing strategy, calculated using the formula: total leads ÷ total visitors × 100.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

The CTR is one of the most important indicators to be monitored in a Digital Marketing strategy. It is the click-through rate of an email or ad, which indicates the percentage of people who clicked on the link after viewing it. It is calculated using the following formula: number of clicks the ad received ÷ total times the ad was displayed × 100.

Customer Retention Rate 

The customer retention rate is the number of customers who remain loyal to the company after conversion or purchase. The longer you keep a customer, the greater their lifetime value. 

Monthly Qualified Leads

Some factors can show when the leads are ready, that is, qualified for the Sales team to act: the need the lead demonstrates for the solution; the match between the product and the lead (geographical factors, availability, etc.); the budget of the lead’s organization (purchasing power); the authority of the contract (decision-making power); the timing of the sale and the interest.

Average ticket

The average ticket is the average of how much each customer spends with the company, a great metric to evaluate sales performance. The calculation of the average ticket is the sales volume in the period divided by the number of sales in the same period.

Revenue 

Revenue represents the capital inflows that result from a company’s activity when selling products or services: quantity of products or services sold × price.

ROI (Return on Investment)

ROI (return on investment) is the amount billed subtracted from the costs, divided by those costs.

Traffic 

Several visits to the website, can be measured and tracked daily or monthly: DAU (Daily Active Users) and MAU (Monthly Active Users). The traffic shows whether email, SEO, and social media efforts are generating good results, and indicates the best performing channels (traffic origin) and keywords in the campaign.

Returning Visitors/Total Visitors

Of the total website visitors, how many returned?

Average time on page

Average session length of visitors to the website or blog.

Website Conversion Rate

Of the total visitors, how many of them convert an action, namely: download an e-book, make a purchase, fill out a form? It is the conversion of website visitors into leads, whether qualified for Marketing or Sales.

The conversion rate of a CTA

Of the visitors to a page, how many of them click on a button (CTA: Call to Action)?

Click through rate on pages 

Of the visitors to a page, what percentage of them click on some link?

Pages per visit

How many pages are viewed per visit to the website or blog?

Amount of backlinks 

How many links on other (relevant) websites direct to your website?

Page Authority

Page authority is the measure of content quality and page relevance provided by analytical tools.

Google Pagerank

Page ranking on Google, calculated by Google from the use of various algorithms to determine the importance of pages.

Keywords in the TOP 10 SERP

Several keywords on the website cause it to be displayed among Google’s top 10 results.

Conversion Rate by Keyword 

Percentage of visitors attracted by the keyword that converted actions on the website.

Bounce Rate

Of the visitors to the website, how many of them access a page and after a few seconds left?

Traffic generated from social networks

Visitors to the website came from links on social networks.

Cost per Thousand (CPM)

CPM in digital marketing is an acronym for the performance metric “Cost per Thousand Impressions”, that is, what amount is being charged when ads are printed (displayed) a thousand times.

Click to Open (CTO)

The CTO is the number of clicks divided by the number of emails opened.

Social Engagement

Involvement of people with the brand through shares, comments, and mentions on social networks.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The NPS measures customer satisfaction. It asks “from 0 to 10, how much would you refer our company to friends?” The formula for calculating NPS is the percentage of promoting customers (scores of 9 and 10) minus the percentage of detracting customers (scores of 0 to 6).

Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

CLTV is the prediction of the total amount of money a customer will spend during their relationship with the brand, i.e. the value a customer generates for a company over their lifecycle.

Sales Cycle Time

The time it takes to complete a sale.

Average Sales Conversion Time

The time, on average, that the Sales team takes to convert a sale

Customer Growth Rate

The percentage of customer growth from one month to the next, each quarter, semester, or year.

Brand Equity

Brand Equity is the set of associations and behaviors on the part of customers, channel members, and the brand’s parent company that allows the brand to earn greater volume or higher margins than it could without the brand name, and that gives it a strong, sustainable, and differentiated advantage over its competitors. (Source: Marketing Science Institute)

Brand value is the strength of a brand from the financial assets involved in it. An intangible differentiating effect, which, if positive, gives it a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Brand value can be determined from the financial results of a product about its prices; the brand value when introducing new products; and the brand value based on the thoughts, sensations, and habits of customers about the business.

In this context, the following variables also contribute to the success of a brand, making it valuable: Brand Knowledge, Brand Remembrance, Brand Image, Brand Recognition, and Brand Coherence, in addition to Brand Satisfaction.

Brand Knowledge is the level of familiarity of consumers with the product or service and the key to Brand Equity as it generates a differentiated response, and can be characterized into two components: Brand Remembrance and Brand Image.

Brand Remembrance is the ability of consumers to remember the brand unaided. Brand Image is how consumers see the brand, how they perceive what it represents, the associations they make with the brand and their feelings after interactions with the brand.

Brands with high Recognition are seen as trendy, popular, and prominent.

Consumer Satisfaction with a particular brand is a consequence of the feelings and thoughts regarding their experience with the brand and is directly linked to Brand Consistency, that is, the difference between the promises of the brand and the actual perception of it.

A satisfied customer can become an advocate for the brand, referring it to others.

Data-driven Marketing and Sales

Data-driven is a strategy of collecting, storing, and processing data, to generate insights, trends, and information about the business itself and the market. The management of this data helps transform knowledge into smarter actions and decisions

The company’s Marketing and Sales departments must analyze the data intelligently and make the best decisions. To do so, they must do some initial planning to identify all the conversion points.

The most important KPIs for those analyzing the data are:

  • Click Through Rate (CTR) = click-through rate of an ad/email;
  • Connect Rate = connectivity rate, which indicates how many clicks became sessions;
  • Conversion Rates in the Marketing funnel: Visitors → Leads → Opportunities → Customers;
  • Cost Per Lead (CPL);
  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
Source: olia danilevich

Teams should also check whether the audience is accessing the website by mobile or laptop; what the conversion performance is by each browser type; and whether there is one channel that brings in more than 50% of the results.

Other relevant indicators are:

  • Average Session Time on the website and Rejection Rate;
  • Connection time with a server;
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization): evaluate traffic and integration with Google Search Console to compare results by period and identify specific keywords used to reach each content.

Regarding the Sales team, the five main KPIs to be looked at are:

  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV); 
  • Conversion Rates: from what enters the funnel to what leaves it;
  • Percentage of the team that is reaching the target;
  • Number of sales per salesperson;
  • Sales pipeline movement.

Strengthen your brand through KPIs

KPIs make it possible to track and better manage the level of performance and success of the company’s strategies because they monitor the company’s health, measure progress, analyze patterns over time, and help the manager to make adjustments and stay on track, solve problems, and seize opportunities.

Thus, KPIs provide a diagnosis of the company, so that it can act on the problem and better position itself in the market.

Advantages of a strong brand: 

✔ Better perception of product or service performance;
✔ Greater loyalty;
✔ Less vulnerability to competitor marketing actions;
✔ Less vulnerability to crises;
✔ Higher margins;
✔ More inelastic consumer response to price increases;
✔ More elastic consumer response to price reductions;
✔ Greater cooperation of intermediaries;
✔ Greater effectiveness of communication and marketing programs;
✔ Licensing opportunities;
✔ Brand extension opportunities.

Strengthening brand value will only be possible by first understanding the audience’s behavior well, then measuring relevant KPIs and making recommendations for actions derived from them.