4 P’s of Insurance Copywriting
In business school, we all learned the four P’s of marketing: product, price, promotion, and place. But what about the four P’s of copywriting? Are they the same? Not at all. The American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) prescribes the following four-P formula for writing persuasively:
- Paint a Picture — Use metaphors, stories and analogies to bring problems and solutions to life.
- Promise Something — Tell the reader what your product will do for him or her. Communicate your unique value proposition (UVP).
- Provide Proof — Give your promise credibility by supporting it with facts, statistics, case studies and testimonials.
- Push for Response — Create a highly desirable offer and make it irresistible.
These four P’s apply to all types of writing, but let’s take a look at how you can specifically use them for insurance copywriting.
1. Paint a Picture
You’ll never persuade anyone to buy from you if your copy is full of fluff, you just talk about how great your insurance products are without giving specific examples and you fail see the situation from the customers’ perspective. Instead, you need to paint a picture with words. This will bring your products alive for your customers and start the process of convincing them that they need the insurance you’re selling.
Sprinkling the occasional metaphor into insurance copywriting can help make your products feel essential. This is a great tactic for simplifying complex concepts and getting points across quickly. However, a word of warning: Avoid overusing metaphors. Overuse can lead to the exact opposite of the desired effect.
Another great way to sell products through insurance copywriting is to tell a story. For example, you could write about common problems, the consequences of either having or not having a policy and how coverage can solve customers’ problems. If the audience you’re targeting is quite specific, go into detail to help readers see themselves in the story.
A final tactic you can use to paint a picture with your writing is to use analogies. This is useful when a story alone may not be compelling enough or if you have a limited number of words to convince your audience. For instance, you could compare lacking the type of insurance you’re selling to forgoing another essential.
2. Promise Something
In the picture you’ve painted, you’ve shown customers why they need a particular type of insurance. Now you need to make it clear why your products are the best choice. You can achieve this by making a promise that relates to your unique value proposition (UVP).
Introduce your UVP in the headline and then make it the main theme running throughout the copy. It’s critical to pick just one promise for each piece of copy. While there are likely many reasons why customers should choose your products, trying to include all of them will only dilute your message, making readers less likely to come away with a clear idea of what you have to offer.
There’s a misconception that a UVP should be about how your company is special. Although it is necessary to highlight what makes you stand out from your competitors, your prospects are most interested in how you’ll meet their needs. This means your customers (not you) should be at the forefront of your messaging. For more on this topic, read Insurance Marketing Mistake #3.
Bearing all this in mind, how should you choose a promise for your copy?
Start by considering what you have to offer. It can help to make a list of all the top features of your product. You can then choose the one that’s the most unique — what you can offer that other competitors cannot. Next, consider how this feature benefits your customers. Write your copy explaining how your product meets customers’ demands and desires because of the feature you’ve identified.
3. Provide Proof
The next step is to ensure prospects believe you. After all, anyone can make a promise — but you need evidence to back it up. It’s particularly important for customers to know that an insurance or insurtech partner is reputable.
The good thing about selling insurance products is there are plenty of ways to prove that what you’re saying is true by using facts and figures about key exposures and about how customers have already been helped by your solution.
You can also turn to storytelling when providing proof by presenting a case study. Describe the customer’s situation, talk about what you offered and explain how insurance ended up solving a problem. Case studies should be specific enough that it’s clear you’re referring to a specific customer but they should also be relatable to your entire target audience.
In addition, it is helpful to provide proof produced from other sources than your own company. In particular, customers love social proof. Yelp conducted a survey and found 75% of the people surveyed said they were reading more reviews than they used to, and 70% were unlikely to use a new business without reading reviews. The survey also found that people want quality reviews with a description of the person's experience.
Rather than relying on prospects to seek out these reviews, include testimonials with your copy. If you’re lacking testimonials, reach out to satisfied customers and ask if they’d be willing to write one for you. It’s even more impactful if they also give you a rating, as seeing five stars makes it immediately obvious to prospects that a review is excellent before they read a single word.
4. Push for Response
Finally, you need to push prospects to take action right now. If they find your offer only reasonably interesting, they may decide to pursue it later or compare your products with those of other companies, which could mean you lose out on a sale. To ensure readers take immediate action, your offer needs to speak to prospects and convince them your offer is the best possible option.
To achieve this, prospects need to know what you want from them when they finish reading: This is contained in the call-to-action (CTA). There are a few things you can do to make your CTA irresistible:
- Know exactly what your audience wants. It’s impossible to craft the perfect CTA if you’re unclear about what your audience is looking for. Run surveys and use other types of market research to find the answer.
- Create a sense of urgency so prospects won’t want to delay.
- Keep it simple. Your CTA should sum up your offer in a few words.
Create Content That Converts
Knowing the four P’s of writing can help you go a long way, but if you want outstanding pieces of content that convert prospects, you need to turn to the professionals. You will receive premier insurance copywriting services from Inbound Insurance Marketing.
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