Why does it matter to use a copywriting formula?

Selling something requires more than just putting your ideas out there and hoping for the best. You have to take action and persuade customers. This is where much of what we learn about marketing, sales, and copywriting comes into play.

Moreover, in today’s marketing world, copywriting has become one of the essential elements in creating a successful marketing campaign. There is a certain amount of magic that lies in the right combination of words and phrases that can convince someone to take action on your product/service/idea.

However, if your copy lacks compelling content, you won’t be able to capture a buyer and keep them engaged. An excellent copywriting formula helps you create persuasive content in a short amount of time.

Therefore, we have taken the time to identify five popular and time-tested copywriting formulas to help you win more prospects and boost your sales.

AIDA Copywriting

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, and this formula describes the stages of persuading a lead through the marketing funnel from awareness to decision-making.

The AIDA copywriting formula aims to:

• Grab the reader’s attention
• Gain the reader’s interest in the product
• Trigger the reader’s desire for the product, and finally,
• Prompt the reader to take action (call-to-action).

See the following copy example of a fictitious company, AIDA Software Development Agency:

Attention: Our enterprise-level application development company will help you build the next big hit.
Interest: We create robust solutions for mobile, web, and desktop platforms. We focus on intelligent and time-tested development standards.
Desire: Our team comprises seasoned developers and designers who thrive on challenging projects and have shipped successful products for everyone from large corporations to small startups.
Action: Contact AIDA for your next software project.

PAS Copywriting Formula

PAS copywriting stands for Problem (Pain), Agitate, and Solution. Perfecting this copywriting formula requires prior audience research and keyword research. The idea is that by learning your audience’s problems and pain points, you can sell them an effective solution.

For instance, if you want to sell coffee using this strategy, you should begin by collecting all the reasons why people drink coffee. Then craft a sales copy that explains how your shop addresses these needs.

See the example below:

Pain: The world of wine can be strange and confusing.
Agitate: With so many wine terms that seem foreign to someone without experience, how does one make sense of the overwhelming amount of available options?
Solution: PAS Wine Store has a variety of wine guides based on popular themes to help you navigate this exotic market. Give us a try today.

BAB Copywriting Formula

BAB is short for Before-After-Bridge. The idea behind this formula is to show the audience that you understand their current situation (before), that you know what they want (after), and that you can help them get there (bridge).

This formula is different from PAS in that it does not only focus on problems and solutions but focuses more on the emotions that drive them.

See the following example for a payment platform:

Before: Managing payments is not an easy task, especially for startups, freelancers and small business owners.
After: Imagine a payments platform that is simple to use, affordable and quick.
Bridge: Born from the idea to make transactions easier for SMEs, BABPay is launching a new platform built on top of the mobile money infrastructure. Contact us now to get on board.

QUEST Copywriting Formula

This stands for Qualify, Understand, Educate, Stimulate, Transition. QUEST copywriting means:

• Specify your target (qualify)
• Show empathy and identify with your reader (understand)
• Present the solution (educate)
• Trigger their interest (stimulate)
• Call-to-action (transition)

Therefore, the acronym QUEST is fitting because this formula strives to take your prospects on an adventure, such as climbing a mountain to its peak.

Example below:

Qualify: Are you frustrated with your current fitness level?
Understand: Feeling out of shape can leave you feeling weak and tired.
Educate: Our gym has the best fitness equipment to help you reach your goals.
Stimulate: Start with a free trial pass at any one of our gyms.
Transition: QUEST Gym and Fitness Company. Your best body is only a phone call away.

FAB Copywriting

Another way to write an excellent sales copy is to structure it around what your product/company can do. However, you shouldn’t stop there.

FAB is an acronym that represents Feature, Advantage, and Benefit. It shows that it’s not just about what your product can do but also why it is helpful to the reader.

People only care about a product’s features as long as it helps them solve a problem or meet a need. So, you must market this idea.

See an example of this formula in action below:

Features: Categorized themed lessons and exercises
Advantages: Each language lesson is more intuitive and easier to learn
Benefits: Easy to learn new languages without past knowledge of grammar or memorisation

Conclusion

The creative process of sales copywriting is precisely what it sounds like. It’s the process of coming up with a great idea, figuring out how to make it happen, and then marketing the said idea to people.

These copywriting formulas will help you transform sales for your business.

Thus, once you understand the elements behind a persuasive sales copy, applying those principles can make the difference between converting someone into your customer or pushing them away.

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