How to Write Captions that Drive Sales

Writing is a big part of marketing. 

Whether you’re writing an Instagram caption, the product descriptions on your website, or the text in your Google ads…

…what you say will either have an impact (or not) on the customer looking at it.

Some would argue that writing alone could make or break your sales! 

So today, we’re going to show you how to write captions that drive sales. 

No matter what you need captions for, be it Instagram captions, copywriting on your website, product descriptions, Google ad text, or Facebook ad text…

…the tips we’re sharing in this post are going to help you write captions that generate sales.

But speaking of product descriptions, if you need some tips on how to write product descriptions specifically, read this post next.

But for now, let’s jump right into our first tip on how to write captions that generate sales!

5 Tips On How To Write Captions That Drive Sales

Tip #1: Make your captions customer-oriented
Tip #2: Make your captions concise
Tip #3: Practice good writing
Tip #4: Clarity of message
Tip #5: Follow a successful format

Tip #1: Make your captions customer-oriented

This is an area that we see most business owners struggle with starting out. 

Most start by making captions about them, about their company and all the perks, or why they’re great.

That’s not going to catch a customer’s attention. 

What will catch their attention is something that speaks directly to a goal they’re trying to achieve or a pain point they have.

That’s why if you’ve read our blog for a while, you know that we’re always telling business owners to make a list of their customer’s pain points and goals. 

The reason is because that list will tell you exactly what you need to address in your captions.

For example, if you own a car wash, then you know most people’s goal in using your service is to get their car cleaned. 

Maybe some additional goals would be to get their car cleaned quickly or within budget. 

So your marketing captions should reflect that like, “5-minute car wash that REALLY cleans!” or “5-minute, $5 car washes!” 

These may sound like the obvious route to take.

But you’d be surprised at how many people would start focusing on the fact…

…that they have the latest model cleaning equipment or that their soap has a better scent. 

While those features are nice, they don’t need to be in your marketing captions unless that’s what your audience cares about. 

Let’s look at another example.

Let’s say you open a restaurant and your captions mainly focus on how cheap the food is and how affordable you are. 

While a lot of people do care about budget, maybe that’s not what your specific target market cares about the most. 

Maybe they place a higher value on the food being fresh, organic, or farm-to-table. 

This again highlights the importance of making a pain points and goals list.

Because budget could very well be a pain point for a lot of restaurant customers, and so budget-oriented captions may work for a lot of restaurants.

But if it’s not what YOUR audience cares about, then it’s just as useless as talking about the new kitchen equipment your restaurant has. 

So don’t skip out on that step, make sure you’re making a thorough pain point and goals list that’s applicable to your specific audience.

And if you need help with that, check out our target marketing example post next to help get you started. 

Or you can always hire us to manage your digital marketing campaigns for you from top to bottom, Contact us today to get your free proposal.

Tip #2: Make your captions concise

Depending on the medium you’re writing captions for, we know some things need to be longer or shorter. 

For instance, with Google ads, you have a character limit whereas in your product descriptions on your website, you want to be more thorough. 

So when we talk about making your captions concise, we’re talking less about the length of them and more about including only what’s necessary. 

Once you’ve got your caption written with your customer in mind, go back through and cut out the wordiness. 

Ask yourself, “What can I take out and the message still make sense?”

Let’s look back at our car wash example for instance. “5-minute, $5 car washes!” is about as concise as you can get! 

And people still understand exactly what that means without having to say, “You can get car washes that are 5 minutes top and only cost $5!”

See the difference?

People these days have less time and less of an attention span- not more. 

So make your captions concise wherever possible.

Now if you want to find out more about Google ads and writing your ad copy, here’s our Google ads for beginners guide that you should read next.

Tip #3: Practice good writing

At the bare minimum, your captions need to make sense. 

When we onboard new clients, we assess what kind of marketing they’ve done to date, including the captions they’ve used in their marketing so far.

Too often, we see business owners using run-on sentences and bad grammar in their captions. 

Now we’re not saying they have to be PERFECT, or meet college essay standards.

In fact, we actually advise the opposite of meeting essay standards but we’ll talk more on that in a second, 

But what we’re saying is that they need to make sense, and a lot of times big long paragraphs for captions prevent them from making sense.

Cutting out the wordiness should help a lot with this up front, but it’s good to back through one more time with an editing eye. 

One free resource that can really help with this is the Hemingway app.

It’s a website where you can copy and paste your captions and it’ll tell you how to edit your writing to make it bold and clear.

One of the things you’ll see in the upper right corner is a Readability grade. 

This goes back to the point we started to make about NOT meeting college essay standards.

Most businesses want to aim for a lower reading level because it makes their captions easier to understand by a wider audience. 

The Literacy Project found that the average American reads at the 7th- to 8th-grade level. 

So the Hemingway app helps you break up run-on or compound sentences into simple sentences among other things to ensure your copy is easy to read.

Now we know this doesn’t apply to ALL businesses-

We had a client once whose target audience included doctors and scientists for example, so in that instance, we were not aiming for a 7th-grade reading level. 

We trust that you know your business and audience well enough to know if this will apply to you or not.

But again, the 7th-8th grade is the average reading level.

So we do find that most small businesses can adjust their marketing strategy to meet that level without issues.

The other point we want to reiterate before we move on is that your captions don’t need to be absolutely perfect and proper all the time. 

“5-minute, $5 car washes” is technically a fragment; it’s not a complete sentence with a subject and a verb.

But it makes sense and it gets the point across quickly.

If your brand voice usually uses emojis, don’t stop replacing words with emojis in your Instagram captions…

…for the sake of “perfect grammar” if it doesn’t align with your brand. 

We don’t want you to hear the tip “practice good writing”…

…and change your captions to sound robotic or like they’re going to be graded by a college professor. 

We just want your captions to make sense.

And if you find that your captions tend to be on the lengthier side, the Hemingway app is a good tool to shorten them back up.

Tip #4: Clarity of message

We just talked about writing clear sentences, but in this tip on how to write captions that drive sales, it more so talking about the message overall. 

You want your message to be very clear to your audience.

We see business owners slip up a lot with this on their website and in their advertisements because they go for “cutesy” over clarity. 

If you went to a website, and the first thing you see in big letters across the top said “Achieve your dreams!” or “Today is the day”…

…does that tell you anything about what kind of business it is?

What do they offer or who do they help? No, it doesn’t!

Don’t compromise the clarity of message for cutesy or clever phrases. 

Now some might argue, “But look at Nike! All they have to put on screen is “Just do it,” and we know exactly what brand it is.”

Yeah… but that’s Nike. 

Small businesses can’t afford that same luxury yet because most people don’t know who you are! 

So make sure your offer is as clear and relevant to your target customer as possible.

Tip #5: Follow a successful format

When it comes to writing captions, there is a recipe for sales that any business can follow. 

And it goes like this: hook, value, CTA.

Your intro needs to hook people’s attention because if it doesn’t, the rest of your caption won’t matter anyway. You can hook people by:

• sharing shocking information that’s relevant to them,
• asking a question that directly speaks to one of their goals or pain points, or
• by showing their ultimate goal on screen right out of the gates (like a before and after for example). 

Once you’ve got their attention, then you want to follow through with value. 

Give them what you promised them in the intro, and then end the caption with a CTA or call to action. 

Tell them what you want them to do next. Do you want them to follow you on Instagram? Fill out a contact form? Shop on your website? 

Wrap up your caption with the action you want them to take. 

No matter what business or what industry, this basic formula can be followed to drive more sales with your captions. 

Hopefully, these tips will help you how to write captions that drive sales!

If you need more assistance with your content, check out our content marketing services today.