Body Copy

There aren’t a lot of secrets for writing body copy. However, there are things you definitely need to do as you write. People make decisions based on emotion, not logic, so your copy needs to touch on the emotions you uncovered while doing your research. In addition, people need rational reasons to change their behavior or buy a product, so you’ll need to include rational thinking in your copy as well.

Your copy needs to explain the thing you are writing about. If you’re writing a blog post or article, you need to communicate those ideas clearly and succinctly. And you’ll need to make the next step clear. If you’re writing sales copy, you need to explain your product and how it works (the mechanism). You’ll need to talk about the results. You’ll need to write about both the features and the benefits. You’ll need to anticipate objections and address them. You’ll need to add proof where appropriate. And you’ll need to remove the risk for your buyer. And you’ll need a call to action. We’ll talk more about each of these in the next few segments.

How much of each of these things you do in what you write will depend on a lot of factors. For example, you won’t need to do all of these in an email that directs a reader to a sales page. In that case, you only need to write enough to get your reader to click the link. But the sales page to end up on will need to do all of these.

If you’re writing a case study, you’ll need to talk about the product features and benefits as well as share proof of how the product or service works. But you may not need to add any copy for hard selling, or risk removal at this point. You will need to make it clear what you want the reader to do next.

In the next several segments, we’ll cover some specific topics you’ll need to include as you write your body copy. They include features and benefits, adding proof to your copy, building authority, overcoming objections, removing the risk and adding calls to action.

Let’s get to it…