As a business owner, you’ve likely heard about Voice of Customer research and its importance when it comes to writing copy that sells.

Now, more than ever before, your copy is the way you communicate with your audience and sell your offers. 

So it only makes sense to invest significant resources to ensure you write good copy that works – in other words, inspires your reader to take the action you want them to. 

Before I even start to write for clients, I ask them questions about their customers and request survey results, testimonials, comments, and emails to mine for the specific words and phrases their customers are using.

I try to include as much Voice of Customer as I can in every piece of copy I write, and today, I’m going to highlight the three most important places you need to include Voice of Customer to write good copy that works.

What is Voice of Customer?

Voice of Customer is defined as the words and phrases your customer uses to express their needs, expectations, challenges, desires, and feelings.

For example, as a copywriter, I often field questions like, “how do I know what to write in an email?” or “what do I say in a call-to-action to make people click?” 

These questions tell me a lot about what my clients need when learning more about sales copy. Their words also reveal where their frustrations lie and what they want to achieve with their copy. 

When you’re mining for Voice of Customer, you can find it in many places, like: 

• Emails correspondence with clients or potential clients
• Reviews on your site or Amazon
• Comments sections on your social media platforms
• Competitor channels 
• Industry trends

As you do this voice of customer research, take some time to read through their feedback with these questions in mind:

Now that we’ve established what it is and how to collect it, it’s time to put it to work in these three places.

1. Headlines on Landing Pages

You’ve heard it before: you have about 5 seconds to capture the reader’s attention once they land on your sales page or sign up page, but it remains true, especially in this distracted online ecosystem.

The best way to hold their attention is to use words they can see themselves reflected in right away.

Depending on the headline style you choose, you can appeal to their challenges, frustrations, or desires, although the majority appeal to solving a problem or providing a solution. 

Below you’ll see an example from HubSpot that focuses on the problem and solution:

Website Performance Lesson: Improving The Page Speed of Your Website

In this example, I suspect that the feedback HubSpot was getting from their community was that they wanted to learn more about optimizing their website performance and how to improve the page speed.

Another example from HubSpot takes a benefits-first approach:

How to Craft a Winning Facebook Ads Strategy

Here, we can assume that their voice of customer analysis tells them people want to learn how to run ads that work (and stop losing money on ads that don’t -> fail).

Key takeaway: use voice of customer in your headlines on landing pages to capture the reader immediately by crafting a headline that solves a problem or offers a benefit.

Next up: email marketing.

2. Subject Lines and Hooks

Email continues to be a significant driver of sales for every company, with a stat hovering anywhere between $42 – $53 for every dollar spent on email marketing, depending on the industry and source (Source: campaignmonitor.com ).

It also happens to be one of the most critical places to reflect the reader’s needs. 

The subject line is your first point of contact for the message, so it should be good. 

What better way to speak to someone than to use their words conversationally? Add in an element of curiosity or a promise of more information, and you’re well on your way to a converting email.

But you’re not done with the subject line. The hook – the first line of the email – is what will inspire your reader to keep reading. 

This is something many marketers and business owners discount.

If you’re wondering how to craft a compelling hook, here are some helpful and inspiring ideas from Masterclass! 

3. Naming Your Offers

This is where the rubber really meets the road when it comes to sales.

Let’s say you’re putting a new course or product into the world — wouldn’t it make sense to use your voice of customer in the name?

Here’s an example: my clients often ask me how they know a sales page or a sales email will work.

While you’ll never be able to predict an exact number, you’re much more likely to see results when you tailor your copy, including your offers, to your audience’s words.

So, if I was to create a sales page product, I might call it: the Fool-proof Sales Page Formula.

 This is a compelling title because it addresses their fear of their sales copy flopping, and it reassures them that it’s a proven formula. 

In Closing: Key Takeaways

Voice of Customer is simply the words and phrases your customer uses to talk about their challenges, desires, feelings, needs, and goals. 

Make voice of customer research a part of your daily marketing tasks. You’ll find it everywhere your clients spend time and in all of your communication channels – you just need to train your mind to look for them. 

When you have this gold mine of data, use it in your headlines, subject lines, hooks, and to name your offers. 

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