Copywriting, according to the Lexico dictionary, is the activity or occupation of writing the text of advertisements or publicity material. Think of the last advertisement or billboard you have seen, or, better yet, think of any advertisement or billboard you have ever seen. Any time when you have read words on those billboards, you have been a consumer of copywriting. Copywriting is not just limited to billboards, however. Blogs, videos, websites, pamphlets or even eBooks all implement forms of copywriting.

Why is Copywriting Important?

Copywriting, simply put, is the language that you communicate to your potential and existing customers. Just as it’s important to have a cohesive brand image to ensure your branding speaks on your behalf, good copywriting also ensures that your audience forms the right thought process when your business comes to mind.

In this day and age, customers are spoilt for choice when it comes to most products and services. In such a hyper-competitive world, you need to stand out from the rest, and just having a high-quality product is oftentimes not enough. Branding, copywriting and marketing are key components of having your brand name stand out in a sea of competitors.

Even on the flipped perspective, a business would also want to focus their sales efforts to a particular niche in consumers. Having good copywriting would ensure that you reach the right target market for your business. For example, this Rolls-Royce ad ran in 1958 in the New Yorker, by the legend David Ogilvy, addresses a particular “problem” that only would be problematic for a particular group of people : people who want quiet cars, and are rich enough to afford them. Most people at the time would not even consider a quiet car to be a problem.

This ad is also a genius one in another way : details. The way the copywriter selected the words for the ad is not so direct as “Rolls-Royce makes quiet cars.” yet it still gets the point across by making the readers think a little. It conjures up images in their minds. The best copywriting does this effortlessly, which brings us to the gist of our article : how you can make use of psychology in your copywriting.

Let’s start with a few tricks and tips you can use to spice up your copywriting, with the magic of psychology!

Drive The Point Home

Dale Carnegie once said, “Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.”. Repetition, especially when done well and tastefully, is a valuable skill in copyrighting. Repeating a particular phrase ingrains in your audience’s minds that it is probably important information, and worth remembering.

Some of the most successful brands in the world have the most recognisable marketing material. Just think of Nike’s swoosh and the iconic “Just Do It” or McDonald’s Golden Arches. These oft-repeated symbols and brand images drive it home in consumers’ minds that these brands can be trusted. As they say, familiarity breeds trust.

The “Florida Effect”

The “Florida Effect” is something interesting highlighted in the book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman.

In an experiment, Psychologist John Barge asked students of NYU, aged 18-23 years to assemble four word sentences from a sentence of 5 words. Eg: Listens He Music Liked To.

For one group, the sentences involved words like Florida, Forgetful, Bald, Grey, Wrinkle (i.e. words connected to old age). After assembling the sentence, the students were sent out to partake in another experiment in another room a short walk away. Little did they know, the walk to the other room was the focus of the whole experiment.

The researchers timed the walk and found that the students who assembled sentences along an elderly theme walked significantly slower i.e. the set of words related to old age (though ‘old’ itself is never mentioned) than the control group who were never exposed to words related to aging.

This interesting effect has since come to be known as the Florida effect, and is one of the most potent examples of “priming”, that is, the influencing of behavior and psychological state by exposure to background factors.

You can use the “Florida Effect” in your marketing material too, in order to attract your target audience or make your potential consumers more likely to buy something. For example, posters set up in your bakery which read “Hungry? Grab a bun or two.” or “Warm Bread, just nice for a Cold Day” can evoke certain thought patterns in patrons, making them more likely to make purchases in general or even to favor certain products.

The “But You Are Free” Effect

Simply put, the “But You Are Free” effect is, as the name suggests, offering your audience a choice when giving them an ask. Based on an interesting study by Christopher J. Carpenter on 22,000 participants, the technique of offering freedom of choice is a truly effective means of increasing compliance rates in most contexts.

Let’s do our own comparison. “Click on this link NOW!” is a lot less appealing than “Follow the link to learn more, but you are free to pass on this exciting offer.”. Which of these asks do you find the most appealing? This technique might also be efficiently used for choices of “which” option to pick, rather than whether to pick an option or not. For example, “You can get our Large Bundle for an introductory price of $155 today! However, if you are not ready for that level of commitment, get started with our Practice Run set at just $55!”

Final Thoughts

There are many other psychological tips and tricks to perform excellent copywriting for your brand. Learn a few of these, get practicing, and before you know it, you’ll be a copywriting wizard! If you’d like to chat further on your copywriting needs, book a quick slot with Imej just to chat, or if you’d prefer, drop us an email instead!