Entries Tagged 'Copywriting' ↓

Oftentimes, when I talk to people about internet marketing, if they’re listening, they quickly come to a sudden realization.  “It seems like you’re giving away a lot of stuff for free.”

It’s true.  The internet has created a culture of free.  On the web, craftsmen demonstrate how to perform tasks that they would normally charge for.  Accountants and lawyers dole out advice that once upon a time they billed for.  Software makers give away their products.  Writers publish their writing publicly, without even the modest advances that they would get in print.  Artists post their work for all to see, free of charge.

“If you’re giving everything away for free, how do you make any money?”  That’s a question that a lot of people have struggled with on the web.

There seems to be two main approaches to dealing with “free.”  The first is to reject the notion of free altogether.  If you create something of value, you should be compensated for it.  While I agree with that argument, notionally, in the long run, it’s doomed to failure.  The internet has created this culture of free, and like it or not, it’s going to continue.  There will always be a group that’s doing exactly what you’re doing, but for free. That group will get bigger, and if you’re the only guy in the field who’s charging, how good do you think your chances of surviving in the long run are?

The alternative is to embrace “free” and find ways to still make money while doing so.

The Freemium Model

The Freemium model – popularized by Chris Anderson, the founder and editor of Wired magazine – is possibly the most popular business model among web start-ups.  The idea is simple.  You offer a product or service for free, but you also offer a premium version of that same product or service for a fee. On the web, you find feature charts on any website where you can download an application.  The feature chart outlines what features come with the free package, and then shows you the additional features you get when you purchase the basic package.  Then more features you get by buying the Plus package.  Finally, even more features you get purchasing Gold package.

The freenium model has been shown to work when the right balance is struck between what to offer for free, and what to charge for.  If you lock too much up behind a pay wall, then you’ll never get the traffic necessary to start rolling.  If you give too much away, all your resources will be devoted to creating free products, and you’ll be bleeding money.

The Other Kind of Free

The alternative is to offer a substantial amount of content for free, but then to offer a different, but related product for sale.  Content sites will often do this by selling merchandise.  This can also be viewed as the “expert” model, because it often involves creating a reputation for yourself as an expert by giving away advice, and then creating products that you can sell based on the strength of your reputation as an expert.

In order for this free model to work, there are a few key points to recall.

First, recall that “free” is a numbers game.  Never will 100% of your website’s visitors (who mainly come for the free stuff) buy your products.  Instead, the idea is you reach a wide audience with your free content, and a certain percentage of those will be interned in purchasing from you. The goal is to convert as many visitors into paying customers as possible.

Second, remember that even those that aren’t buying from you, are still valuable.  The people who don’t buy, may still lead others to your enterprise. These secondary connections can be more valuable than if the visitor had just purchased from you and gone on his merry way.

Third, despite talking about doing stuff for “free,” recall that what you’re doing is still marketing. You’ll need tight copy that reminds your readers/fans/followers/tribespeople what the benefit is to them of purchasing your product.

Finally, if you’re going to follow this tactic, be sure to make it clear from the outset that you’re going to be selling something.  The most important thing you have is the trust relationship between you and your visitors. Part of trust is transparency and honesty. If you have visitors that are used to getting free stuff and you suddenly hit them with heavy-handed sales pitches out of left field, they’ll annoyed, frustrated, and abandon you.

The “Thank You” economy

As far as I know, Gary Vee is the one who coined the term the “Thank You” economy.  Gary for years has created and hosted a web TV show, 5 days a week, reviewing wines.  He also answers every e-mail he receives, and spends hours every day actively interacting with his hundreds of thousands of twitter followers.  He does all this for no charge.

Gary coined the “Thank You Economy” to explain what he gets out of it.  Gary accepts that what he’s doing is free, and that the vast majority of the people who watch his show, or read his blog, or take advantage of his wine recommendations will never give him any money.  However, there is that portion of his followers, his fans, his tribe, that will thank him for all he’s done, and when he does a paid product, they will thank him by purchasing it.

Gary proved the effectiveness of this method when his first book came out late last year and became a best-seller (Amazon affiliate link) as soon as it went on the market.

Thank you.

In my last blog post, I talked about why it’s so easy to overlook copy on the web.  Now that you know why you shouldn’t overlook copywriting, here are 17 steps you can follow to create effective copywriting that will sell your products.

1. Use a call to action. The most common sign of an inexperienced salesperson is that he delivers an entire sales pitch, has a prospect at the edge of her seat and then never asks her to buy his product.  Using a strong call to action is the single most powerful way to improve your copywriting.  There is no point delivering a long pitch if you never ask (tell) your reader to perform the action you want her to do, whether it be signing up for a newsletter, adding an item to a cart, or requesting a quote.

2. Focus on what the customer wants to hear. This goes back to avoiding ego-marketing.  Forget about what you think you should be writing about. Think about what your customers want to read, and write about it. You might think the story of how you created your product is great, but potential customers don’t care. Instead, find out what led your current customers to buy your product and incorporate that. If you don’t have any current customers, conduct informal focus groups asking people what would make them buy your product.

3. Forget the big words. Writers, as a general rule, are word nerds. They use big words that make people reach for their dictionaries. In literary circles, there is debate about whether or not this is a good thing. In the world of copywriting, there is no debate. Use easily understandable language. You’re not trying to recreate Joyce. You’re trying to convey a message. Messages are most easily conveyed with simple words. If a sixth grader can’t understand your copy, it’s too complex.

4. Sometimes grammar is not that important. I’m one of the above-mentioned word nerds, so this rule hurts me. A lot. But it’s important. When writing good copy, the focus is on the impact, and the message. Not on the grammar. If your grammar is so bad it’s distracting, that’s not good. But if you have to massacre grammar in favor of adding impact… do it. Fragments. Run-ons. Poor use of punctuation. Inappropriate Capitalization. These can all work in copywriting.

5. Use short sentences. Short sentences are punchy. They keep the flow moving. They make the reader continue reading. The average length of a sentence in thrillers and suspense novels is shorter than in other novels. It keeps the reader interested. The same should go for your copy. Keep the sentences short, and keep the pace quick. The last thing you want is your reader to get bored.

6. Cut out the fluff. If you read a sentence in your copy and you’re uncertain if it helps you convert, cut it. Fluff just slows down the pace of the writing and distracts the reader. Keep him focused on the end goal of converting. Don’t get him thinking along tangents with extraneous material.

7. Don’t sound like an infomercial. “Call now and receive, not one… not two… not three… but 17,467 widgets. But wait! That’s not all…” Believe it or not, this kind of marketing is effective in the right circumstance. However, chances are your copy is not the right circumstance. The above methods are used in infomercials that play on television late at night, when nothing else is on. They have a captive audience. They have a bored audience. And there’s something strangely hypnotic about the television ads. Unless you’re selling a Slap Chop, chances are your customers are too smart, and have too many other things to do with their time to be attracted by this sort of writing.

8. Offer a guarantee. Consumers don’t like parting with their money. They are afraid that they will give it up and not receive something of equal value in return. The best thing your copy can do is relieve that fear. Offering a guarantee is the easiest way to do that. If you have a good product, you don’t need to worry about it costing you too much. The amount of sales it will lock down will outweigh any losses.

9. Remove barriers to entry. Your copy should not be a long explanation of how the reader can obtain your product. Your copy should be a sales pitch that talks about the benefits of the product. How the user obtains the product should be as simple as possible. Amazon has become the most successful online retailer in the world because users can place an order with a single click. They make it easy.

10. Be specific. Don’t talk about your product in vague generalities, use as many specifics as you can. If your product saves your customers money, don’t tell them it’s going to save them money. Don’t tell them it’s going to save them thousands of dollars. Tell them exactly how much it’s going to save them. Generalities smell like BS, and consumers are weary of BS.

11. Test your copy. No matter how much you edit your copy, you won’t know how good it is until you see how it converts, and you won’t know how to make it better until you test it. There are a number of tools available to test web copy and design. I’ve used Google’s Website Optimizer in the past. In The Four Hour Work Week (amazon link), Tim Ferriss talks about how he used a PPC campaign to test different titles for his book. The ad that got the best click-through-rate was chosen as the title for his book.

12. Use formatting intelligently. In the last post, I talked about how copy and design need to work together. Part of that is knowing how to use formatting intelligently. DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. Don’t bold random words for no apparent reason. Don’t write in hard to read colours. However, using formatting intelligently and in the right places can help your copy. Straight text with no formatting is boring to the average reader. Spice it up, but don’t go overboard.

13. Use testimonials. I stumbled upon Gwen Bell’s website a few weeks ago, and one of the things I loved about it was how she has peppered in testimonials. The testimonials are in italics, so they stand out, but they’re also unobtrusive and don’t get in the way of her message or the navigation. Testimonials are social currency. They build trust with your reader, and if you have your reader’s trust, it’s much easier to convince her that she’s buying a quality product.

14. Follow a logical flow. It’s important that your writing flow and follow in a logical pattern. Have you ever read copy that jumps all over the place? It’s like being pitched by a chimp with ADD. You need to carry the reader through the copy and deliver him to the end where he will convert. If you jump around, there’s a good chance he’ll jump right off your page.

15. Tell a story. The easiest way to create a flow in your copy is to tell a story. Stories create their own flow because they are a series of events that lead to a natural conclusion. If you can craft your copy into a story, then the reader will follow along into the natural conclusion of converting.

16. Don’t give options. Make sure your copy has single-minded focus. If it’s to convert to a sale, the copy should point to a “buy now” button. If it’s to lead to a newsletter sign up, then it should lead to a sign up form.  If it’s to request a quote, it should lead to a quote request form. Don’t write copy that tries to do many things at once, even if those things seem similar. For instance, don’t try to sell two different products with the same copy. The dual purpose of the copy takes away from its effectiveness, and you lose the reader in the flow. The other thing that happens is that consumers are typically paralyzed by choice. People think they want more choices, but really, what they want is for you to make their life easy and choose for them.

17. Use a call to action. “Didn’t you start with that?” I hear you saying. Yes, I did. And I’m closing with it. The same way your copy should open and close with a call to action. One call to action is good. Two is better. How many is too many? That depends on the copy, but all copy can use at least two calls to action.

There you have it.  Some of you with copywriting experience may notice a few traditional tips that are lacking here such as “Turn features into benefits.”  My goal here was to give some practical tips straight from the head of someone who gets paid to do this stuff and not sound like a textbook. A lot of the more traditional tips will take care of themselves if you follow the above.

That being said, there are also a lot more tips that aren’t here. Perhaps you can fill them in.

What do you think? What are some copywriting tips that I missed? What do you think of the above? Do any of these not make sense to you? Were they helpful? Let me know in the comments.

A few weeks ago, I was reading a post over at Men With Pens.  In it, James shared a letter from a reader that spoke of his frustration with his team at work because they were privileging design over copy.  This led to the question, which is more important, design or copy?

My purpose in this post is not to determine which is more important, design or copy, but rather to highlight the importance of not neglecting one or the other.  Specifically, I have found that in working with a lot of businesses, the emphasis is often put on design while copy is neglected.

That’s a mistake.

Why Design Gets More Attention

I see it all the time, especially on the web.  Businesses decide they need an online presence, so they hire a web designer.  They might even hire a graphic designer.  If they hire good ones, the end result is they get a website that looks beautiful.  The business owner is happy because now he’s got a shiny new site.  What does the site say?  He’s not sure because his web guy asked him to provide some copy, so he banged something out in fifteen minutes and the web guy stuck it in there.

Then the business realizes they need to get traffic to the site. So they start advertising, or SEO’ing, or doing whatever it is they do to get people going to the site.  Something’s wrong though.  People are showing up at the pretty site and nothing’s happening.  All these leads are not converting.

That’s because the copy sucks.

So, how did the copy get missed in all of the above?  Most entrepreneurs can’t design a website, so they have to hire someone to do it for them.  Most aren’t great graphic artists, so they need to hire someone to make a logo for them.  Most will look for help in advertising their site.  However, all of them know how to write.  Copy is nothing more than words on a page, right?  That means that everyone who can write can produce copy, right? That means that it doesn’t matter who writes your copy, right? Wrong.

Entrepreneurs overlook copy because they assume that anyone can produce copy.  And if anyone can produce it, then it can’t be as important as something that you need a specialized skill set to produce.

It’s true that anyone who can write can produce copy.  The issue is that most people don’t know how to produce good copy.  Copywriting is a profession with a low barrier to entry.  Anyone with a word processor can label himself a copywriter.  Compare that to a graphic artist who needs to have skill with certain software, as well as an artistic eye before he can produce something that clients won’t laugh at.

Because there are a lot of people out there who started hammering at a keyboard and calling themselves copywriters, it’s easy to assume that copywriters are a dime a dozen and it doesn’t require a whole lot of skill to be one.

However, if the entrepreneur is paying attention to his conversion rates (and he should be), he’ll notice that’s not the case.

Why Copy is Just As Important

The problem with letting just anyone write your copy is that you end up a with piece that’s all style and no substance.

Good copy builds trust.

Good copy guides customers through the buying process.

Good copy helps the customer choose.

Good copy sells.

Sure, just about anyone can write.  But can just anyone write something that does all of the above?

One argument for privileging design over copy is that, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  I don’t doubt that, but which thousand words is it saying?  The trouble with relying on a visual message is that people interpret visuals differently, and so it’s impossible to be hyper-specific with an image.  An image gives the customer a vague sense of what you want her to see, feel and do.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but if I only have one shot to get my point across, I’d rather use a thousand written words to make sure there is no mistaking what I’m saying.

Does that mean that you should go fire your graphic designer, strip down your website and post a text-only version instead?  Of course not.  Design is also important.  Design can do a lot to set the emotional triggers needed to encourage the purchasing process.  Not to mention that design is what creates the first impression.  When walking into a store in the mall, the first thing you notice is the decor and the layout.  The store could be selling the greatest product in the world, but more than half the people that walk in won’t stay long enough to actually appreciate it if it’s not well decorated.

My goal is not to shift focus away from design.  It is to ensure that the design exists to complement solid copy.

Copy is the most important part of your marketing.  Don’t be so naive as to think you can get away without giving it as much attention as you do your design.

What’s your take?  What’s your process for creating marketing campaigns?  Do you start with a design and then insert the copy?  Do you do it the other way around?  Am I overstating the importance of copy?  Let me know in the comments.