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Microcopy: How Small Words Increase Your Content ROI

Find out how microcopy can improve your reach, engagement, and your content marketing ROI. Get inside tips on boosting conversions by leveraging it well.

What’s the trick to creating great content that converts? The well-known mantra is to write in-depth, long articles and include keywords. But long-form content isn’t all that matters. We are talking about “microcopy,” the tiny pieces of content that make a big difference to your marketing ROI.

Microcopy is an important part of the planning and strategy of your website to get maximum conversation from your content resources.

Before getting to the “how,” let’s first make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to defining microcopy.

What is Microcopy?

Placeholders, button text, error messages, set-up guides, notifications— get the drift? The “tiny tidbits” of content you find in these are microcopy. These microcopies provide context and tell the user what they should do. You can find them in many places:

  • CTA buttons
  • Button labels
  • Email newsletters
  • Confirmation messages
  • Forms
  • Account registration
  • Check out instructions
  • Search bar

As a smart marketing tool, microcopy guides educate, engage users, and create pleasurable experiences.

It’s the little, caring voice aiding and leading users in their buying journey.

Microcopy and Marketing ROI: What’s the Link?

Now for the burning question: how does microcopy boost conversions and your content ROI?

Here’s how.

Allays Concerns and Builds Trust

Users have a right to know what they are signing up for.

For example, if you are going to create a landing page for your team page then you need to choose words that enable everyone to feel included

Their concerns range from data privacy and getting spammed to making irreversible commitments.

These act as barriers, preventing them from taking the action you want them to take. Microcopy buying’s guide steps in to allay these fears and remove the barriers so they can complete the signing up/buying process.

For example, you can design a landing page to boost your employee engagement. You can write moral boosting quotes and mention employees’ best acts for your organization with encouraging words.

For instance, one of the reasons consumers abandon the cart, according to research, is the anxiety about providing credit card details. Nearly 18% of people surveyed said that this was their reason for abandoning carts.

Microcopy does a great job of reassuring your users. See how Ganttic uses microcopy to reassure its prospects and promote its business.

Image via Ganttic

Another barrier to conversion is commitment phobia. Users typically look for a “no strings attached” deal where they don’t have to make a decision right away. Carbonmade makes it easy to take the next step without worrying about committing.

Image via Carbonmade

Other than addressing user concerns, a good microcopy removes confusion and builds trust by providing key information in the right places.

A case in point is PayPal’s sign up form that uses microcopy to guide users through the process:

Image via PayPal

A case in point is PayPal’s sign-up form that uses microcopy to guide users through the process. Shopify uses microcopy to make things very clear on its Terms of Service page:

Image via Shopify

Improves User Experience and Engagement

Microcopy is all about building a strong connection with users. According to the 2021 Global Consumer Trends report, consumers will buy from you (and not your competitor) if they feel connected.

What can be a better way to build a rapport than to make them laugh and feel good about themselves? If you deal in digital currency then you can create a guide on crypto hacks for your customers to understand the latest checks about digital currencies.

Sprinkling some fun and infusing emotions into your microcopy helps build a better connection with your users. This is exactly what this cookie policy from Starbucks accomplishes:

Image via Starbucks

Guides users to take action

One of the most critical elements when it comes to generating leads and conversions is the CTA buttons.

Whether it is a blog post on sports or a web copy asking users to buy or click through, the CTA has a direct impact on your users’ actions.

Apart from this, you can create an effective advertisement plan and create effective CTAs.

By knowing what your users want and speaking their language, you can craft a microcopy that motivates users to take the next, vital step.

Consider this: Veeam changed its microcopy from “Request a quote” to “Request pricing” (because users wanted to know the price) and the click-through rate went up by 161.66 percent.

Now that you know how effective microcopy is, it’s time to use it to wow your audience and get the ROI you want.

Smart ways to use microcopy to boost ROI

The ultimate goal of microcopy is to lead your targets to the next step while avoiding anything that makes them click on the “back” button.

The use of microcopy is also very for each strategy and you have to write for your microcopy as per your account base marketing plan to get desired results.

Here are the various methods to leverage microcopy to improve your ROI.

1. Know Your Users

The key to crafting a microcopy that converts is to understand your audience well, the language they speak, and the words they use.

Additionally, it’s important to ensure that your content is backed by research. One way to know if your microcopy resonates with your audience is to do a usability test.

Have them read the content while a moderator is present. Ask the right follow-up questions to get insights into what they think about your copy. You can create a form with the help of available online form builders and put it in the copy to get feedback in a systematic format.

2. Keep it Clear and Concise

It’s called microcopy for a reason. Keep the fluff out and keep it direct, simple, and actionable. This ensures that visitors won’t leave your page. Which, in turn, can improve your SEO. That’s why it’s recommended to get an SEO expert to do microcopy writing for you.

You can track the performance in the SERP by using a SERP API like Zutrix SERP API. It will provide you with real-time performance of your microcopy.

Digital users want a helpful answer, offer, or reward and they want it quick.

Netflix blends clarity and brevity beautifully as you can see below. At a glance, you can make out all the benefits of the subscription:

Image via Netflix

This app idea become most successful in online mobile TV apps. They used highly connecting microcopy to attract new and maintain existing subscribers.

3. Test and Adjust

A/B testing your microcopy is the best way to know how your users respond to the created content.

These data-driven insights help you understand what kind of microcopy will work best with your prospects.

For, example, you can use short captions for your Instagram posting and track the performance from your Instagram analytics. It will help you understand, how to post effectively for better engagement.

Remember that A/B testing is an ongoing process because your users and their preferences will keep changing.

4. Keep the Positive Vibes Going, Even When the Message is Negative

Even when the topic is negative, the right microcopy can do wonders to convey a positive vibe. The animated icon can make your microcopy more effective if you use the right icons as microcopy for your landing pages. You can create an infographic with creative icons and a reflecting button and can paste it to your landing page with clickable links and get amazing results.

Error messages, for instance, can be annoying. Mailchimp infuses humor in its microcopy to remove any negativity:

Image via Mailchimp

5. Leverage Branding Moments

At every touchpoint, you can leverage opportunities to inject your brand voice, tone, and story through your microcopy.

Look at how Home Depot uses the search bar as a branding moment while keeping the tone personal and helpful:

Image via Home Depot

That’s not all. You can even use the loading time to insert a friendly and caring message. This is how Slack does it:

Image via Slack

Yet, there can’t be too much of a good thing. Your branding should not distract users who are trying to take the action you want.

Avoid over-branding here:

  • Navigation
  • Instructional text
  • Dropdown lists
  • Forms
  • Field labels

Pro Tip: Microcopy also help in your lead generation campaign, You need to choose and add user-friendly button and colors with catchy words. It generates good qualified leads for your organization.

Conclusion

Microcopy can play a major role in helping you boost your content ROI.

Of course, there’s no single magic formula to writing a good microcopy. You need to create, test, and adjust as you go. Make sure you leverage A/B testing to refine your microcopy for better results.

When done right, microcopy removes barriers for your users in the buying journey, delights them, and brings them to the finish line.

Have any questions about microcopy and how to use it? Ask them in the comments.

Written By

Sienna Sofia is a Freelance blogger. She is a current contributor to publications on tech, marketing, business. She is passionate to write and share on the latest trends in business and technology.

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