How I Use Amazon Reviews to Write Great Sales Copy in 2023
Writing for different audiences requires different approaches. Here, we get into how I used Amazon reviews in a recent writing job to mimic the tone of the prospective reader and capture their voice for simple, sales-oriented copy.
Writing always felt quite natural to me as a freelance writer, but sometimes when we do something naturally, we forget to be self-critical and review the quality of our own work.
I like thinking and talking about ideas, but when it comes to writing techniques, the audience you’re writing for is the only thing that matters.
When you’re writing for different audiences, you need different approaches.
In this article, I will break down:
Why mimicking your audience’s tone is essential to form a connection
Why making a connection leads to increased sales
How to use Amazon reviews to write great copy as a freelance SEO writer
Whether these writing techniques are problematic
If you’ve read my previous blog posts, you’ll know I’ve talked about using Reddit for meme-oriented sales copy, and using Amazon reviews is another great approach to creating SEO-oriented, sales-driven copy.
Writing techniques to connect with your audience
A client approached for freelance copywriting service – they wanted a blog piece reviewing best-selling books on sales and real estate.
In truth, this was likely to be time-consuming because I hadn’t read most of the books. They had already written the first few reviews, and they were fairly generic.
I started to research and write based on Google summaries of the books, but the copy was a little dry and lacked personality.
As I went along, I started to read Amazon reviews to get a real sense of the book. I realised that subconsciously, I was reading these reviews to find out:
Whether the book was actually any good, and
What was unique and interesting about the book
The blurbs on Amazon only gave me the publisher’s view of the book, which, spoiler alert, said it was great.
What I wanted was a real account of whether the book was helpful to normal people, but more importantly, why it was helpful.
The Amazon reviews I was reading all shared a similar tone because they were all written by people wanting to improve themselves, make changes in their lives, and take forward steps. This tone was exactly what I needed in my article.
Why? Because the reviews were written by my audience, so of course it would resonate with them. Reading these reviews would be as if the audience were talking to people they knew in the industry, and they would feel an instant connection.
It’s like getting a recommendation from someone you know personally - you’re more likely to take it seriously and buy the product.
With this realisation, I got down to writing.
How to use Amazon reviews to improve your freelance copywriting services
I began by writing an initial summary of the book with factual information from the blurb, before bringing in copy that was similar to the Amazon reviews to add personality and flair.
Here’s an example of what I mean – this is an Amazon review of a sales-oriented book about real estate:
The tone was perfect. It was positive, high energy, and perfect for salespeople. Here’s the way I adapted it for my writing:
I changed the wording so it wasn’t the same, but I tried to keep the same energy as the review, and the same type of language.
I was incorporating the positive feelings about the book into my review.
In the final edit, I also brought in the use of the royal ‘we’ to infer a publishing or editorial team in the project to add some authority to the piece. I did this throughout this article to move away from the idea that the post was just a one-man operation.
Anyway, I loved the finished copy. It was perfect for the blog and I felt this instantly.
I continued to use this writing technique to finish the other reviews, sometimes splicing together similar vocabulary from several reviews, and sometimes just mimicking the tone of the review, and bringing that into my writing.
After reading a few reviews I realised I had unintentionally absorbed the personality of the composite real-estate salesperson, and I could now just read a summary of the book and write my own review in the same voice, knowing that it would read the same way.
Is this writing technique an ethical way to write sales copy?
We should talk briefly about the ethics of using Amazon reviews in this way. You could interpret a review, even a simple one, as ‘original content’ that is copyright protected. In theory, you need written permission from the user to republish the review on your own site – for example, if you were promoting a product.
In this case, it’s a little different. Although my writing was inspired by some of the reviews, I never explicitly used entire words and phrases written by others, it’s more about recreating the tone and energy of the writing. As a copywriter on Fiverr, I’ve found that being able to quickly switch tone and voice is hugely beneficial as a writing technique.
Where I did use specific words and phrases, they weren’t original, but rather just recognisable idioms that you’d associate with the sales genre.
I used phrases like reassessing your priorities and changing your mindset. These aren’t original or exciting, but sometimes it’s important to use cliched language that maintains a connection to the genre, which in self-improvement can be full of cliches. These genre conventions are really important, as they give us a connection with the familiar. It’s so important for a freelance SEO writer to be able to connect with their audience in this way.
So, that was a quick run-through of the writing techniques I used to write copy using Amazon reviews, which allowed me to mimic the tone of the audience and drive sales for the client via affiliate links.
Did you find this helpful? Tell me why! If you liked this type of article, check out some others in my blog – I’ve written about template IDs on Squarespace, and how to boost your profile as a copywriter on Fiverr. If you’re looking to hire a freelance copywriter, get in touch today, and let’s talk about your project.
