Dating apps offer undeniable convenience coupled with a shroud of anonymity for many users. If you’ve ever dabbled in them before, do you remember spotting that one profile that just outshined the rest? Not just a profile with an impossibly hot picture, but one that stood out because it made you laugh or conveyed a sense of personality…
Copywriters – did you know you can apply similar tactics to your ads, web copy and content to leave an unforgettable impression on consumers’ minds? Read on to find out more…
Air Asia’s headline uses humour to attract attention (and prospective vacationers)
Rule 1: Be attractive. Rule 2: Don’t be unattractive.
In a 2016 study, 91% of females and 72% of males on the dating app Tinder agreed that they’ll only “like” a profile if they find the user’s photo attractive. Profiles with non-attractive pictures are briskly swiped away.
The thing with most people today (us included) is that we have extremely short attention spans. If we aren’t hooked in the first 15 seconds – just enough time to skim through the headline and a sentence or two – 55 percent of readers have already lost interest. So how do you come up with a punch-packing headline equivalent to an ogle-worthy profile picture?
Content marketing gurus Joseph Putnam and Neil Patel reveal four key points (conveniently titled as the 4U’s) that every headline should try to attain some combination of. A headline first and foremost needs to be ultra-specific so that readers will know exactly what this article is about. Once you’ve established a particular topic, your headline needs to be unique to differentiate you from competitors and wannabes. The last two points, urgency and usefulness, go together hand in hand. By instilling the feeling that the reader has something to gain or lose – right now – they will have more motivation to continue reading.
A customer journey with a gentle incline leads to lower resistance from prospective consumers
Trite doesn’t make right
Once you have someone’s undivided attention, it’s time to get into the meat and potatoes of the marketing journey: sales.
Telling without showing is a major reason for why many dating profiles and articles have trouble attracting matches. Lisa Hoehn, the founder of Profile Polish – a paid service to spruce up your dating profile, tells Business Insider “If you say something like ‘I’m really funny,’ the person reading your profile really has no reason to believe you unless you crack a few jokes [in your profile] somewhere.” The same can be said of any copy that neglects to back up claims with proof. Without legitimate facts, statistics or user-generated content and testimonials, readers can’t help but feel skeptical.
Another bad habit that overly giddy copywriters and dating app users share is being too verbose. It may be tempting to cram in as much information as possible, but just because you can doesn’t mean that you should. “You have just this one page to make an impression,” says Hoehn, and that’s assuming readers have the patience to bother reading to the end. Walls of text are never sexy – whether in dating profiles or in marketing copy.
Being concise also means avoiding difficult words or phrases just to seem sophisticated. If you can get your point across simply, readers can absorb the details without unnecessary difficulty – creating a seamless customer experience that allows them understand your proposition. By making it easy for customers to weigh their options, you have a better shot at retaining their loyalty.
After ensuring your copy is concise and clear, use grammar and spelling checks – mixing up “your” and “you’re” does little to inspire attraction.
Patel sorts the different tiers of key words according to ease of gaining customer conversion – the further from the centre, the more difficult it is
Capturing clicks with kicking keywords
Whether on a dating app or in marketing copy, certain keywords trigger stronger responses. In a study of profiles from OkCupid (a dating app), WIRED found that bios expressing interest in sports and the ocean receive the most frequent matches. How do copywriters identify keywords that resonate with your target audiences? We usually start with a little research…
Some experts suggest categorising keywords to match different segments of consumer interest and intent. Most important are brand terms – keywords that existing customers associate with your brand. Product terms are keywords used by potential customers who are unaware of your brand, but are looking for services or functionality that you offer. It’s also useful to do an analysis of competitor keywords to identify your business’ comparative strengths and weaknesses.
The key to keywords is using them sparingly. Nowadays, search robots are trained to spot keyword stuffing (excessive use of certain keywords) and lower search rankings accordingly. Today, the best way method is to integrate keywords into your content naturally – once every 100 words or so seems to be the magic number.
Writing effective marketing copy is essentially a balancing act of facts and wit, where carefully crafted words are the difference between readers rolling their eyes or thinking, “Woah, I want one!” Much like a hot dating profile, people naturally gravitate towards someone who showcases their interests with charm – so if your copy arouses curiosity, you’re already ahead of the competition.