Arguably the biggest threat to the any business’s ROI is customer churn. Brand loyalists account for twenty percent of your client base but generate eighty percent of your revenue (according to Gartner). If they move over to the competition for whatever reason, it punches holes in company profitability that may never repair. Here are some startling observations:

• Turning prospects into new customers costs marketers five times more than holding on to loyal customers.
• The cost of escalating a fresh customer-recruit to the loyalty zone is 16 times higher than nurturing one that’s been there for a while.

It’s deflating and defeating to see customers disappear. Especially before you have a chance to consolidate enough buying action to cover the investment of getting them into a customer experience (CX) in the first place. Customer retention (i.e., the opposite of churn) is all about appreciating that customer journeys consist of a string of touchpoints. The journey can stop in its tracks or veer severely off-course if even a single touchpoint goes wrong. In the digital era of eCommerce and online communications, there’s a convergence of touchpoints on website navigation and social media connection.

Another way of looking at this is to detect and isolate the missteps that blemish CX. One of the endemic culprits is subpar copywriting. It results in confusing visual and audio messaging on Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Linked In – and your website. Let’s focus on the latter to demonstrate my argument:

• Your website, which started as your calling card, has, in most cases, become a spearhead into the marketplace.
• Prospects navigate your site to know more about your brand. Customers expect an end-to-end result without leaving your platform until checking out on the buying cart.
• Amateurish content that confuses the audience by creating distrust, annoyance, frustration, and head-scratching is precisely what customer churn thrives on.

The rest of this article will demonstrate that investing in a competent word-guru is the best thing you can do this year.

So what should you expect from your expert copywriter?

Engaging content guides site visitors compellingly from touchpoint to touchpoint until a sale is registered. Many SME stakeholders believe they can tell their story better than a freelance copywriter or even an in-house copywriting expert. Why? Because they live with it every day. After all, who can say it better than the brainchild behind the brand? Unfortunately, while this sounds logical, it defies optimized copywriting that retains, builds, and energizes the client base. Here are some thought-provoking realities you should consider before adding another word to your site content:

1.   Expert copywriting is the difference that makes all the difference.

Although you may think your company has reinvented the wheel, it’s seldom the case. Service and product similarity in online and offline marketplaces is a fact of life. Competition on that level is intense with a Capital I! Therefore, the meaningful difference frequently rests in how you describe your brand – your story, how you say things. Assuming that physical product/service benefit differentials are not compelling buyer-motivators, your messaging may indeed establish the compelling advantage you’re looking for.

2.   Think like a professional freelance copywriter – Control audience site navigation

Most websites rely on navigating the audience from one section on a landing page to the next logical one (and from one landing page to others) to enrich knowledge and engagement. Understanding the vital function of navigation flow and action buttons that encourage visitors to “LEARN MORE” or “CONTACT US” are the hallmarks of an excellent wordsmith.

3.   The copywriting devil is in the details.

Headlines, taglines, and short construct phrases as cluster messages are essential attention-grabbers. A few bold lines thoughtfully topping the page and closing it off may speak louder than a thousand words. Here’s a good example that worked wonders for a home cash buyer in Atlanta:

And a Footer Closing like this:

4.   DIY copywriting is at the root of CX collapse

Nothing throws a prospect off-course more than jumbled thoughts. CEOs or managers slapping copy together (versus relying on a copywriter expert) make a standout fatal error, namely:

They rush in, naming benefits without first clarifying the pain points they aim at resolving. That, or they jumble them up.

• Telling an audience that your brand is the next best thing to sliced bread before saying why puts the cart before the horse.
• Assuming that prospects know the things that create discomfort is a cardinal error.
• Poor grammar, no matter how valuable the information, aligns with flawed branding (rightly or wrongly.)
• When you hire a reputable freelance copywriter, the first sign of competence is their sharp focus on the pain that drives prospects to buy.
• All too often, the motivations are unconscious or emotional, and therefore non-transparent. Simply telling a captured audience, “This is your problem,” can trigger an “Aha!” moment that takes them from mild interest to conviction.

5.   Looking under the tip of the copywriting iceberg.

1. Most websites contain multiple pages – the Homepage, About, Solutions, Services, FAQs, Blogs, and sub-pages under each category. Sometimes there are thousands of content landings in the mix, and there’s no telling where your visitors will enter the site. Therefore, every page must hold visitor attention and guide movement forward to a sale. Internal links and a strong sense of navigation (as mentioned above) are vital tools and talent, respectively. Headlines, taglines, and footer-statements for each page are fundamental considerations – and everything in-between.
2. The best-designed websites splutter and falter if the copy fails to drive traffic to your site through the search engines. Every copywriter expert knows that keywords and SEO-centric content are front and center of creative writing. It’s the “open sesame” to the search engines ranking your URLs high up on the volume searches.

Conclusion

If you want to address customer churn and raise your ROI, employ a professional freelance copywriter (possibly through Upwork – a GIG site making waves going into 2021). Alternatively, if there’s enough content to warrant it, hire an in-house copywriting expert. Either way, they deliver specialized work pillared in unique skills, impeccable grammar, and creative talents. Rely on them to keep your customer journey moving forward without disruption, pushing competition to the sidelines.