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What is Direct Response Copywriting?

You might be familiar with traditional print or broadcast advertising, where you’d pay a company to place an ad in a local newspaper or on late-night television. While these are still popular choices for many businesses, there is now a more affordable and effective alternative: direct response copywriting.

Put simply, direct response copywriting is a type of advertising that encourages consumers to take action. Instead of passively looking at an ad, a direct responder expects the reader to click on a link, call a phone number, or perform another specific action. When done well, the results can be incredibly effective and can drive revenue.

Key Differences Between Print and Digital Ads

Although the form and function of direct-response copywriting is the same in print and digital ads, there are a number of key differences that determine how you should approach this type of advertising. First, you need to consider the goal of your campaign. Do you want to generate more leads? Do you want to increase engagement or just attract new customers?

Second, you need to consider your target audience. Who is most likely to be interested in your product or service? You can use PPC (Pay-Per-Click) platforms like Google Adwords to discover the demographics and psychographics most likely to respond to your offer. Third, you need to consider the medium. If you’re using print, radio, or television to reach your audience, you need to determine how important each is in comparison to the other. Finally, you need to establish a content schedule. Just because you have a limited budget doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to only a few ads. Instead, you can spread out your ad spend over a series of articles or podcasts to build up a steady stream of leads.

The Basics Of Direct Response Copywriting

Before you begin creating your direct-response ad, there are a few key pieces of information you need to know. First, you need to pick a call-to-action (CTA). Second, you need to choose an offer. Third, you need to establish a price. Finally, you need to create a landing page (or page) to act as the end of your ad. Once you have all these in place, you can begin to write your ad copy.

Let’s take a look at each part in more detail.

Pick A Call-to-Action

The first step in the copywriting process is to pick a call-to-action (CTA). This is the action your ad will encourage your audience to take. In the example below, we will use “Call today for a free no-obligation quote” as our CTA. We want potential customers to visit our website, fill out a form, or call our phone number so that we can give them a free quote. Once they’ve completed this, they’ll be presented with additional options to consider (such as the color or style of their car).

Choosing a call-to-action is less about matching the product or service to a specific action and more about considering the desired outcome of that action. So while you could use “Visit our website” as your CTA for a product that improves website loading speed, you would choose “Get a free website analysis” if you want to generate leads or signups for a web design firm.

Pick An Offer

The next step in the writing process is to choose an offer. Your offer is what you are trying to sell your audience. For example, let’s say you are writing an ad for a car audio shop. You can offer them a free consultation on anything car-related (ignoring warranties and insurance for the moment). They will not be presented with any other option besides your offer – they either choose your offer or they don’t get served at all. The goal is to make the decision as easy and as painless as possible.

An offer, in general, should be easy to understand, compelling, and unique. It should accurately represent your company and not be too good to be true. Ideally, you’ll want to have several offers; however, keep in mind that too many options can confuse your audience – you don’t want to overwhelm your potential customers with too many choices. Instead, choose general offers that can be applied to a number of different products or services.

Set A Price

The last step in the writing process is to set a price. This is the cost that you are willing to pay for each action your ad will encourage your audience to take. For our example ad above, we will set a price of $25 for each call-to-action – this means that for every 1,000 people who click on our ad, we will pay Google $25. We’ll set a minimum price of $15 for the form submission and landing page – this means that we will only pay Google if someone submits their information and then lands on the landing page.

The important thing to remember about setting prices is that it doesn’t have to be accurate. You are under no obligation to set a price that reflects what you actually cost. This is especially important if you are doing business in multiple countries or states where price differences between regions can be significant. For example, if you are located in California and your offer is only available in Florida, you don’t want to set a price that is significantly higher in order to cover the additional costs of shipping. If you are a local business, you can simply choose to absorb these costs – however, if you are doing business internationally, you’ll need to find a way to compensate for this.

Creating A Landing Page

Once you’ve established the call-to-action (CTA) and offer, it’s time to create a landing page. Your landing page is where your ad will lead readers after they’ve clicked on it – it should be a simple, straightforward page with the necessary information your reader will need to know to make a purchase. Keep these points in mind as you build out your landing page:

1. Keep it short and sweet. If you’ve ever shopped at an e-commerce store, you’ll know that adding more content doesn’t necessarily mean that your users will stay on the page any longer. By keeping your content succinct and to the point, you’ll be able to keep your users engaged and engaged enough to turn into paying customers.

2. Make sure that the information your reader needs is easily accessible. You can use the navigation menu at the top of your page to guide readers to the different areas they need in order to make a purchase. If your potential customers can’t find what they’re looking for easily, they may go elsewhere (your competitors’) where the information is more accessible.

3. Make sure that the layout and design of your landing page doesn’t interfere with your reader’s interaction with it. You want to create a clean and uncluttered viewing experience for your users so that they can focus on what you have to offer without being distracted by a bunch of clutter around the page.

Where Do I Start?

If you’re just getting started, the first step is to choose a call-to-action. This might not seem like a difficult decision, but there are a variety of different ways to encourage potential customers to do business with you that you need to consider. Some examples include:

  • Contact us for more information
  • Call us today for a free no obligation quote
  • Visit our website
  • Leave a voice message
  • SMS us now

Once you’ve picked a call-to-action, the next step is to choose an offer. From here, you can either choose to continue writing your ad or you can download a free sample from HubSpot to jumpstart your creative process. The choice is completely up to you.