Archive for the ‘copywriting’ Category

There’s an important step to creating high conversion copy that many marketers miss. When this step is skipped, it doesn’t seem to matter how nicely written the sales copy or how many visitors to the site, the copy will under perform.

The first step in creating sales copy that hits the mark takes place before tapping the first key on your keyboard.

To create effective copy, it’s important to understand your market’s demographics – from values and interests to buying behavior.

Many small businesses and solo Internet marketers overlook this important step, as often do inexperienced copywriters.

If you hire a copywriter, expect to answer questions about your market (usually in the form of a questionnaire) or to pay the copywriter to research it.

A good starting point is to consider what things motivate most of your prospects? This could be recognition from others, money, security, time freedom, children, fun, health issues, etc. Also consider values (family, career, social responsibility, etc.) and interests (travel, entertainment, spiritual pursuits, etc.).

It’s also good to know how your prospects like to shop online. Do they prefer making fast decisions, reading as much as possible about a product or service, feeling a social connection with the business owner? Is a “special offer” or proven quality a deal closer with your market?

If your target market is made up mostly of a specific age group, check on trends for that group. Sales copy is targeted very differently to Generation Xers than to Baby Boomers.

As you may be gathering, the reason so many small business marketers skip the market research is it can take a lot of time.

Look at it this way – just as you wouldn’t expect to snag a bunch of great job interviews from sending the exact same cover letter and resume to potential employers, you can’t expect to pull great conversion rates with generic sales copy. (A good conversion rate is whatever you want it to be; on the average websites convert a 1 to 3 percent, but you can always increase that).

If you’ve done some market research, then you’ve no doubt run across reports that sell for hundreds, often thousands, of dollars. Here are a few ways to gather this information on a small budget:

- Read about trends on industry sites. For example, if you have a travel niche, you’ll find data on the tourism authority sites, such as tourist spending habits, age groups, if they are interested in luxury or eco travel, etc.

- Create a survey and offer a reward for completing it (such as a coupon for a discount on a product, good  for 30 days, or valuable eBook). Send the survey link to your email list and make the page readily available to website traffic. Make the survey quick and easy to complete by using formats such as statements followed by “Agree, Sometimes Agree, Disagree, Sometimes Disagree.”

- Look at magazines that serve your niche. Pay attention to the ads. They usually will be targeted well to the readership. Better yet, many magazines make data about their readership available for potential advertisers on their sites or via mail upon request. So if the magazine serves your niche, you can learn a lot about your market this way.

Perhaps you have a cross section of demographics in your market. Unlike large companies, we can’t always find the time or money to create a separate campaign for each demographic. So if this is the case, consider sales copy that primarily targets the largest segment of your market while including elements that will appeal to smaller segments without sending them running back to search. You can’t please everyone, but your goal is to please as many as possible.

Whether you are writing your own copy or outsourcing, be sure you follow the first command of sales copywriting: Know Thy Market!

Anyone can master the art of copywriting if they work hard enough at learning the skills and techniques necessary to write for an audience.You have the perfect opportunity with an online market to test out your words to see what works, and what doesn’t when it comes to the style of your copy. Here’s what not to do:

Don’t leave out your Call to Action!

Some online entrepreneurs are so busy touting the awesome benefits and bonus packages of their offer that they forget to ask for the sale! With an Internet audience, especially, you have to be bold enough to go that extra step and tell them what action to take to improve their lives.

Don’t stop at just asking them to buy your product, show them how to do it! Most ads you see today are just a summary of the product.

Skin Firming Lotion, for instance, tells all about howm youthful the product will make you appear to be, it shows the bottle in a colorful close-up shot, and perhaps a woman’s face that looks to be wrinkle-free.

But where is the Call to Action? Sometimes, there’s not one. And that makes the audience flip to the next page in a magazine, with a “that’s nice” attitude. You have to give your audience more.

Don’t let them walk off your site with a “that’s nice” attitude! Give them the incentive they need to take action now, not when they might need it more in the future. Magazine ads sometimes use coupons as their CTA.

That coupon is an incentive in itself – it has an expiration date, a discount, and it automatically lets people know that your objective is to get them to buy it and try it.

For an Internet business, you might throw in a limited-time bonus offer – if they order NOW, they get 5 extra items. Order LATER, and lose them!

You don’t want to create a page that has actionless ad copy. Your sales will suffer, and the customers will move on to someone who understands how to craft a CTA.

Don’t give them all the time in the world.

You want your profits, and you want them now! Don’t give your market a chance to come back later – they almost never will! Instead, implement a sense of urgency in your copy that makes them realize the advantages of ordering the first time they visit your site.

You have to put some gentle pressure on your visitors and eliminate any reservations they have with your copy so that they’ll take out their credit
card and place an order immediately.

Think like your customer and figure out what elements of your offer,  if any, would cause them to have reservations. Look at pricing, the ordering process, delivery methods, benefits (are they strong enough?), drawbacks (if any).

If you see any blatant aspects of your copy that would turn off the reader, change them! You have the freedom and ease to alter your text any time you want on the ‘net.

If your payment process is confusing, or doesn’t allow for the main credit card types of purchases, then you may need to go the extra mile in implementing a shopping cart on your site.

If you see that one part of your offer is not fleshed out enough, then detail it even further so that your customer knows that all he or she needs to know in order to make an informed decision to buy.

Don’t deliver the right words to the wrong audience.

If you’re not targeting the mass market, then your copy will have to be created to speak to one particular target market. If that’s the case, then you want your words to speak their language.

Longer copy sometimes gives you the chance to include a variety of audiences in one area, but a smaller ad has to be very specific in engaging the right kind of people to drive profitable traffic to your site.

One option is to develop a series of ads for your online copy. Your home page could be your main sales presentation, but the ads you place on and off the ‘net to drive traffic to your site could be individualized to each specific market.

Blue collar workers, for instance, could be driven to your site with very
different copy than it would take to get a corporate executive to visit it.

Don’t waste time on words that yawn.

The moment your copy is viewed as boring is the moment which you’ll lose a visitor – and a sale! Make sure your content speaks about the most amazing
benefits, and the strongest points of your product.

If you’ve explained each plus in detail, then move on – don’t overdo your
explanation, if it’s apparent the reader will have all of the information he or she needs to decide to buy.

Likewise, you need to avoid rushing through your text. If you state a benefit and then don’t show the customer how it would work for him, then he may not take as much interest in it.

Remember that your copy is all about your customer – NOT your product!

Once you draft your first copy, print it out and mark it up with red ink. Take out every sentence, word, or phrase that doesn’t offer a powerful value to your text.

Don’t have one long piece of copy.

Because you’ll be working with web-based copy, you have the luxury of crafting it at any length you see fit. What’s usually 1-page in a print direct mail piece can be 5, 10, 15 or more pages when printed out from the Internet!

To accomplish this in an effective manner, you need to break your copy up into chunks of information that are easy to digest for your customers.Craft each section so that one idea flows smoothly into the next.

Use plenty of subheads and bulleted lists that help make the information easy to consume. That way, they can move forward without spotting one lengthy menacing chunk of text that makes them want to skip ahead.

In fact, it’s important that you use subheads to draw attention to your
product’s most promising features. Some consumers go to a site and scan the headings to see if there’s anything worth reading about.

Make a powerful point in your headings and readers will be more inclined to continue reading each section, and ultimately, to buy into your offer. Make sure that the first sentence under each subhead continues on from the main idea.

Subheads give the visitors a quick understanding of the overall benefits and uses of your product. It keeps him interested while you persuade him with the remaining bulk of the content.

You can even use a question in your subheads that make the viewer wonder about the answer – so they have to continue reading. This is where it’s very important to relate to your audience on a personal level.

You can also make a statement, but once you do, there’s nothing to create an interactive atmosphere on your site.

Don’t pass up the opportunity to capture contact information.

You never want to pass up the opportunity to build your future sales. Not only do you want to upsell your clients by trying to get them to buy an even bigger package during their very first purchase, but you want them to buy from you again and again!

Even if you only have one product at first, you’ll still want to capture their name and email address so that when you do find other products or services to sell, you’ll have a list of contacts to approach who you know are interested parties.

You want them to give their information voluntarily for future communications – don’t trick them into giving it when they might not want to be contacted.

How do you do it? Pop-up windows with enticing copy are a good way to court your clients. Offer them a freebie – like a subscription to your weekly or monthly newsletter, or a short e-book on a topic related to the product or service you’re selling.

All they’ll have to do is type in their name and email, you capture it, and you drive them back again and again using well-crafted autoresponders!

An email autoresponder is an automated system that will let you send out tidbits of useful information, product announcements, or other content in an effort to build your profits! You don’t have to drive them back to the same site they purchased from.

Send them to your other sites, or your affiliate sites to sell them something else! Always make sure that each recipient has a way to end the autoresponder series if they wish to do so. If you continue sending them, you may find yourself in violation of your ISP’s rules and regulations.

Use your autoresponder series to give a guarantee, offer a freebie, tout the benefits of a new offer, and develop a relationship with the reader.

For more information on email autoresponders click here.
To make a pop-up window click here.

Don’t let your copy out of the gate without testing it first.

If you’re new online, then you might find out what works by trial and error. But you can eliminate excess time by enlisting the help of friends, family, and associates to give their honest opinion of your text.

Let them know that this is business, and no feelings will be hurt if they offer constructive criticism. And then, don’t let your feelings get hurt! Learn from what others are telling you, and then revise your copy accordingly.

If you’re paying for ads online in various pay-per-click search engines, track the results of the copy that works and that which doesn’t.

Almost every business has a mirror storefront on the ‘net. Everywhere you look – in magazines, on TV, and even the sides of public transportation vehicles, you see a URL for various companies.

All of them are doing the same thing you’re about to do – test your copy to see what attracts the largest piece of the Internet Consumer Pie.

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If you’re marketing online and have your own website, then you should constantly be testing and tweaking your sales copy. Even if it’s converting at a whopping 17%, there’s always the possibility that it could convert at 20%, and split testing (testing more than one version of the headline or advertisement) certain elements is the only way you’ll find out.

The headlines are the most important parts of any sales copy. Yes, the reader also wants bullet points of benefits, testimonials, and a rock-solid guarantee, but they often skim the content to read the headlines and see if your offer is worth the investment of their time to read in full.

You should take ample time to craft your headlines – especially the very first one a visitor will see on your website. If they don’t get a great first impression, they’ll click out and never return to your website.

As you scour the ‘net on a regular basis, start adding to your swipe file (a file you should be collecting of effective ads and copywriting you’ve come across that provide you inspiration when writing your own ads) to keep track of headlinesm you really liked. You won’t want to copy them word for word, but you can emulate that success and possibly use the same approach for your own target audience.

Headlines are all about gut reaction. How will the words you use affect your consumer? Will it make them panic for a solution? Nod their head in agreement with you? Get angry and want to read more?

Since the consumer is seeking a solution to a problem, you want to show them that you understand their problem and know exactly how they can solve it. Some headlines are over-the-top hype, and in many instances – it works!

But you don’t have to use excessive hype to sell a product or service. Let’s look at seven ways you can compel your audience to buy whatever you’re selling:

1. Zap your reader with a shocking fact or possibility!

If you’re a business owner, then you want to protect your share of the market that you already have. You’re always on the lookout for ways to improve your profitability. If you clicked on an ad for an autoresponder tool and saw this headline, how would you react?

“While You Were Sleeping, Your Competitor Stole $7,348 ,Worth of Sales from Your Site!”

That would probably irk you. It would make you feel as if they stole something right out of your pocket! Now you’d want to learn how it happened and how you can prevent it from happening again.

2. Be rude – but only to get them riled up and reading more!

Sometimes a marketer will use a rude headline, insulting the visitor – so that they’ll continue reading more. The Rich Jerk is famous for using this tactic, and in some cases it works. You have to realize that not all visitors will think it’s funny – many will click out, truly insulted.

3. Use the words of another person!

A quote can go a long way in making an impression because it’s a firsthand account. You can use a famous quote, but it’s better if it’s coming from someone the reader can relate to. For instance, if your product is about improving your golf game, then you might use a quote from a golfer that says…

 “It Took Me 3 Days and 2 Bags of Balls to Break 80!”

The headline is incredulous – who could break 80 in a weekend? But what you’ll explain is that they were on the verge of breaking 80, but couldn’t do it until they spent a weekend at the driving range using what they learned in your “How to Break 80 eBook.”

4. Make bold promises!

If you offer a strong guarantee, then you may want to make a bold promise that provides the reader with exactly what they’re wanting. You could use a headline like this:

“In 10 Days, Your List is Going to Grow to Over 10,000 People -Guaranteed!”

If your product provides a way they can reasonably do this, then a bold promise can hook the reader and virtually convert the sale on that very first line of text. Just don’t make promises ,you can’t keep because then you’ll be facing a hefty refund rate.

5. Get personal with your audience!

Sometimes reaching out to your audience on a personal level really draws them into your message because they feel you can relate.A sample, personalized headline might read,

“When My Boss Dropped the Pink Slip on My Desk, Humiliating Me in Front of  Everyone, I Vowed That I Would Never Work for Someone Else Again!”

6. Use news to make your point!

Start reading the newspaper and/or industry magazines to soak up (and use) any current events stories that will help boost your sales.  If you’re promoting a product on flipping real estate, and the homeowner’s market is desperate like right now, use a headline from the news and make it your own, like this:

“Pre-Owned Home Sales Worst in History – But Turning Into a Boon for Investors!”

Then you could go on to explain how cheap it is to buy the homes and how you can turn a profit from them.

Every target audience is different. What works for one may not work for another. A level-headed parent looking for a solution to a problem may not respond to a rude headline, but a ‘net savvy entrepreneur could be intrigued. This is why testing and tweaking is so vital to your online success. You might  find out that a teaser headline results in an increase in conversions, while a personal approach drops sales significantly.

Start browsing other sites to see what headlines have a positive impact on you and then try to mimic that style with your own site’s sales copy. Make sure you keep records of what works and what doesn’t, so that you don’t return to a way of marketing that wasn’t making you money.

This isn’t going to be the first article you’ve seen about urgency, but the message is an important one, maybe even more important now with the economy as shaky as it is.

Have you noticed a recent decline in sales? Are customers still buying in this economy? Maybe you haven’t noticed any negative changes, and if that’s the case – great! But there’s a good possibility that you have, or that you will. And no matter what, even in a great economy, you need to instill in your customers a sense of urgency.

So why is getting your customers to feel the urgent need to buy now so important? After all, people don’t like to be pressured – too much pressure will scare them off, right? And some people need to think things over, to take their time in making any decision. If you’re pushing them, it could backfire on you.

That’s all true, but creating a sense of urgency really isn’t about pressuring and pushing. It’s about recognizing and/or creating a real need in your customer and handing them a way to fulfill that need. It’s about saying, “This is going to make you feel better right now, and I’m going to make it very, very easy for you to agree with me and say yes – I need this right now!”

Here’s why you need to create urgency and your sales page needs to deliver a strong sense of urgency: Your prospect/client/customer already knows he or she has a need, but they’re going to hold out unless you make it impossible for them to wait.

Why do customers balk at buying? In this poor economy, it might be because they’re afraid to spend the money. In a great economy, it might be because they figure they can get a better deal from your competition. Of course, these reasons can cross over each other in a good, bad or middling economy.

Even if the customer knows or suspects they need and want what you have, they’re programmed to wait until the need is so strong that they can’t wait any longer. Your job is to point out that they’ve already waited long enough and that if they wait longer, their situation is only going to get more uncomfortable.

Your sales page may be a great sales page. It might be eye-catching enough, but not obnoxious. It might be full of compelling information about your product. It might use all the right words and catch phrases, and make it very easy for a customer to buy. But if it doesn’t create a sense of urgency, it doesn’t matter.

The sense of urgency is what will ultimately bring your customer to the point of getting out his or her wallet. They have to believe that they will somehow be cheating themselves or worsening their condition if they don’t make that purchase RIGHT NOW.

How can you create a sales page that delivers urgency? There’s no one way to do it. In fact, you should strive to create urgency in a variety of ways because not all customers will respond the exact same way to your tactics.If you deliver a sense of urgency on your sales page in several different ways, you will be increasing your chances of finding one that works for each person who lands there.

Pair the sense of urgency with an easy way to buy and you’ll have a winning combination, regardless of the state of the economy. Let’s take a look at some great ways to deliver a sense of urgency in your sales letter:

· Make sure they feel the pain. If you’re offering a great line of anti-aging skin products or an info product on natural skin care, make absolutely certain that your customer feels the pain of wrinkles, skin that is losing elasticity, age spots, sagging eyelids and dull skin tone.

Remind them that they don’t have to live with any of those problems one second longer. They can start to reverse these effects of aging from the second they click on the Buy Now button.

· Create a need out of their vanity. Everyone likes to stand out in a crowd. Everyone wants to be thought of as cool, or innovative or ahead of the pack. You can use this to create a sense of urgency. Don’t your customers want to get a jump on the competition or have something very few others do?

· Speak to their wallet. If your product is selling for $10 today, but the price is set to increase to $12 tomorrow, your customer might feel that they should just buy now and save themselves a couple bucks.

Make sure that you follow through with your timed increases or you’ll look untrustworthy if the customer returns the next day to find the same $10 price and the same notice that the price will go up tomorrow.

· Give your customer lots of incentive to buy. Pile on some excellent bonuses, and give a really good guarantee on your product.

· Use scarcity as a way to create urgency. If there are only 10 of your product left, the customer will feel more compelled to snatch it up! You can make it so that there is only a limited number of your product available or a limited time that you will be offering it.

Some have used countdown clocks or similar tools on their sales page to serve as a vivid reminder that your customer needs to act this minute or risk missing out. Remember, you have to follow through with what you’re telling your customers. If you’re counting down products or time, that countdown has to actually go down!

· Make it very, very easy to buy. Make sure that your sales page gives complete and easy-to-understand instructions for the purchase process. Be sure to have that Buy Now button very noticeable in a few different spots on your page. And give your customers a sense of safety by giving them a good product guarantee.

The results of creating a sales page that delivers a sense of urgency will be quite evident very quickly. You’ll notice that even in a poor economy your sales will remain steady and most likely will climb. You won’t suffer from the customer’s natural leaning toward holding out for a better deal or waiting until they just can’t take it anymore.

The sense of urgency you create will prompt your customers to take action when you want them to take action – now. There’s nothing wrong or unethical about creating this urgency. It just means you’re getting the sale first – before your competition.