Persuasive copywriting

Aug 30, 2006

I was going through Darren’s post on Persuasive blogging where he talks about the following factors that help you create persuasive blog posts:

Get attention
Stimulate interest
Show conviction
Create desire
Seek commitment

I think these points can be applied to general copywriting too and in broad terms it is called the AIDA model in advertising and perhaps in copywriting too. The alphabets individually stand for:

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

Let’s go through the points briefly:

Persuasive copywriting attracts attention

Attracting attention is very important in order to make your copywriting persuasive. No matter how much useful and genuine information your copy packs, if it cannot get the attention of the readers, nobody is going to read it. Now, you don’t have to indulge in needless rhetoric to gain attention; that’s why, you should feel enthusiastic about your subject. An excellent way of attracting attention is to write hard-hitting headlines.

Persuasive copywriting should generate interest

After getting the attention you should generate interest in order to come up with a persuasive copy. We all love interesting things, and interest makes us perform unbelievable feats sometimes. Drop hints as if you are going to declare something overwhelming in a while. You must have observed this thing while reading books: they end a up chapter with such an interesting line that you immediately want to read the next chapter.

Persuasive copywriting should create desire

There has to be a desire to do something. Through your persuasive copy you should create enough desire to buy, or read further, or subscribe to your subscription system. We’re all, big or small, driven by desire, and whenever we’re made to do something beyond the peripheries of our day-to-day chores, it needs keen desire to make us do that. Your copywriting should be persuasive enough to achieve that.

Persuasive copywriting triggers action

All the 3 points mentioned above work together to orchestrate an action from the reader who could be totally disinterested, slightly interested, or sufficiently interested in enacting a business transaction. OK, that was an off-the-cuff sentence, but you get my point.

So as long your copy follows all the AIDA rules (OK, I don’t believe in such expressions) there is a great chance your copy will achieve what it is meant to achieve.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Persuasive copywriting”

Matt Ambrose
September 4th, 2006 at 5:25 am
The principles of applying copywriting techniques to blogging seems to be growing in awareness all the time - particularly now blogging jobs boards have started appearing looking for enagaging and persuasive writers.
Amrit
September 4th, 2006 at 10:17 am
I totally agree Matt.