Copywriting

I Always Listen to My Clients, But…

by

“I always listen to everything my clients have to tell me. And then I ignore them… I write it the way it’s supposed to be, up to, and including, sometimes changing the offer without their permission.” ~ John Nicksic

So much for permission-based marketing!  …I’m kidding.

Seriously though, there an a few important lessons here. Today, I only want to talk about the most obvious takeaway.

No Disrespect Intended

If you’ve never heard of Mr. Nicksic, let me fill you in. He’s one of the highest-paid old-school direct mail copywriters around. He’s learned a few things about printed persuasion over the years.

When he says he ignores his clients, he’s not being a jerk. He’s simply using his best judgement as an expert in getting stuff sold. He explains it this way:

“I’m a much better direct mail copywriter than they are, so what do I do? I seize control of the message without asking their permission…

“I rely on the power of the copy I hand them for the first draft. I let them read it and see for themselves how much better it is my way than what they had in mind… They quickly see what I’m up to, why it makes more sense, and why it is time for them to readjust their thinking.”

It’s not an issue of hijacking the words that end up on the page. In most cases the copywriter is expected to lead that charge. The thing that needs to be changed is quite often the proposition itself.

Many business owners are sadly mistaken about how boring their offers are. If the product or service you’re selling doesn’t:

  • promise a benefit that gets the ideal prospect’s blood pumping
  • describe a danger hiding just out of sight, waiting to pounce and devour the ideal prospect
  • offer secret knowledge or exclusive access to something the ideal prospect wants to get his hands on

…or some other such exciting result, it will be next to impossible to write sales copy that’ll fix the problem.

Sales copy isn’t designed to make lame products exciting. It’s supposed to

  • extract the interesting and useful elements of a quality product
  • shine a spotlight on them and
  • draw buyers over to take advantage of the newly-exposed value.

A boring offer is a problem that needs to be fixed. Sometimes that means ignoring a client.

I Missed It Bad…

One of my clients had the opportunity to write an email to the subscribers of a well-known personal finance newsletter last week. (I’m excluding names to protect everyone involved, except myself.) The list was 29K strong, all paid subscribers. My client sells a product these subscribers KNOW they need. The tricky part is, a lot of them already own one.

Positioned properly, it could have been a slam dunk.

I spent 3 days writing a 300-word email that would planted doubts about the quality of the product they already owned, insinuated that there is critical information they’ve never been told and gave them access the “hidden truth” in a nonthreatening way.

The marketing director loved it and sent it up the chain for final approval.

The big boss vetoed the free info offer. Instead, he opted to go for the sale immediately with an educational but generic pitch.

The results: 28,987 emails delivered, 14% open rate (which I’m told is over 3 times the average for marketing emails to that list) and 6% click per open.

email marketing client

The number that matters? The email only produced 3 leads. That means only one in about 10,000 people who received the email became leads. When I checked on the results yesterday, none of them purchased the product.

I was bummed out all day.

70% of Copywriting Success Is in the Offer

Denny Hatch estimates that the efficacy of an online marketing promotion depends 70% on the offer, 10% on the list, and 20% on creative (copy and design).

In the case above, I missed it.

I could have taken a more aggressive stance, as Nicksic recommends. I caved without a fight, hoping to keep the client happy. As a result, a pretty massive opportunity slipped through our fingers.

Take note: Even with a great list and a solid product, you have to have an enticing offer.

P.S. I always advise clients and colleagues to make it easy for customers to take the first step. Going directly for the sale isn’t always the best idea.

What are you doing today to make it easy for your “should-be” customers to take the first step toward you?

Psychologically-Proven Ways to Get Anyone’s Attention

by
get anyones attention creatively

I love this quote from Steuart Henderson Britt — “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does.”

The same is true for writing valuable web copy. If you can’t seize the attention of the people you can help, you might as well be winking at them in the dark.

Unfortunately, attention is one of the scarcest commodities in the world today.

There are 3 things that are psychologically-proven to draw the attention. Well, really there are 4, but the fourth one kinda goes without saying

  • danger
  • entertainment
  • curiosity
  • surprise, which is sort of a combination of the other three.

In my guest post on the Orbit Media blog, I discuss specific ways web writers can leverage danger, entertainment and curiosity to surprise their audiences and grab their attention. The article also includes some of the best examples of other writers putting these psychological forces to work.

Here are a few that didn’t make the cut:

Danger

How about this example from my inbox today:

danger attention bill bonner

Doom and gloom is a powerful motivator, always has been. And with the recent craziness in the financial markets, “danger” headlines abound.

Your wallet (which you are quite fond of) is in trouble, and if you just read this email, you’ll be prepared to protect yourself.

For a certain audience, headlines like this are nearly impossible to ignore.

Entertainment

Your camera advertisements can talk about frames per second, lenses and apertures — or you can shoot a video like this:

Did you watch the entire 4 minute video? Exactly.

The title of the video is pretty attention-grabbing, too: Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex. The active verb (locked), the intrigue of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”… and for camera fiends, the prospect of playing with a $100K camera. All juicy details.

(Note: Don’t get me wrong; you do have to talk about the features of your product or service. But, more often than not, you should lead by demonstrating the benefits, the transformation that your product creates.)

Curiosity

Bill Jayme’s famous direct mail envelop for Psychology today is a classic study in curiosity. Questions are always a good way to engage people, and a question like “Do you close the bathroom door even when you’re the only one at home?” is a doozy. It does more than force your brain to come up with an answer; it makes you wonder, “why do I do that?” and “what does that mean about me and my personality.”

Bill Jayme Curiosity Attention

The teaser copy makes you want to find out more about the human mind — YOUR mind to be precise. And now that you’ve started thinking about it, your brain practically begs for more insight into the meaning of it all.

Masterful.

Read the full article, The Psychology of Attention: 10 Lessons for Web Writers from Deez Nuts  on the Orbit Media blog.

The most famous formula for selling, e.g. AIDA, starts with attention. Without attention, you don’t have a chance of selling, educating or effecting any kind of change for your readers. You are constantly competing for space and time in the mind of your competitors and every other distraction your should-be customers have to deal with.

This study on the psychology and application of attention will help give you an edge in this battle.

(You may also like to check out Attention-Jacking with Terry Crews)

Big Mistakes Small Businesses Make: Podcast

by
copywriting mistakes small businesses make

What’s are the biggest mistakes small business owners and solopreneurs make?

Well, I can name a handful of major ones — and I dealt with a couple of them during my guest appearances on the Rhino Daily Podcast with Steve Sipress.

Steve is a well-respected, well-connected guy in the direct marketing world. He gets excited about big marketing ideas that help small businesses make big money.

Naturally, we get along very well.

He brought me on the show to talk about some of the most painful mistakes entrepreneurs make when sitting down to write sales copy…and how to fix them. In the short time I had, I gave a few specific tips:

  • Make your message about your customer, not so much about yourself. Even your “About Me” page should really not be about you
  • Never forget to appeal to the emotion. I gave one tip that even the least exciting industries can use to crank up the emotional volume of their messages
  • Boring = marketing death. How do you make a boring business interesting? What are the only two things your prospects are guaranteed to be interested in? You’ll have to listen to find out my prescription
  • “3 strikes and you’re out” is bad way to think about marketing, but it’s better than the “one and done” approach. Strangers rarely turn into paying customers the first time they see your marketing material. Don’t give up! Build follow-up and multiple touches (in multiple media, if possible) into your strategy

Check out Episodes 171 through 174 of the Rhino Daily Podcast on iTunes or on the Rhino Daily website. All 4 are less than 14 minutes long for your listening convenience and enjoyment.

I’ve also contributed a few articles to the Rhino Daily blog in the past, just in case you were wondering. You can read here if you like.

 

 

Love + Active Verbs = The Start of Strong Copy

by
Donnie Bryant on direct response copywriting

“Make the verbs do the work.”

Writing “The new sales letter pummeled the previous version,” paints a more vivid picture than “the new sales letter is better than the previous version.”

“Pummel” paints a powerful picture. That’s what verbs do for writers.

I adore adjectives, but overusing them usually ends up sounding like hype. Hyperbole causes allergic reactions for many would-be buyers.

Anyway…

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being Adam Franklin’s guest on the Web Marketing that Works podcast. I’ve come to admire Adam quite a bit over the past few months, and I was honored to be on his show.

We talked for about half an hour, discussing what I believe are the most important elements of direct response copywriting and marketing:

  • a desire to understand, empathize with and provide value for your customers (which I refer to as “falling in love” with them)
  • communicating clearly and directly, rather than trying to be cute or clever
  • watching out for hype, without undercutting the strength of your promises and big ideas
  • etc.

It was a lot of fun. Have a listen over on the Bluewire Media site.

While you’re over there, check out all the other helpful resources and information Adam and his partner Toby give away. They give away 33 marketing templates from their book Web Marketing that Works. I highly recommend that you pick them up (opt-in required) and put them to use.

6 Painful Reasons You Can’t Rely on Headline Analyzers

by
headline analyzer

A colleague of mine shared this tool in one of the Facebook group I’m a member of:

http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer#

I don’t spend much time at all on Facebook, but I happened to see this post, and I couldn’t pass by without adding my two cents. Here’s a slightly modified version of my response:

This IS a cool tool, Jamal.

I’d just note that there are several important factors that this analyzer doesn’t take into consideration:

1) Whether a headline is strong or not is determined as much by WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS as by the words you choose. Vegans won’t click on articles about making your steak tender and delicious, no matter how interesting the title looks.

2) Are your claims believable, or do they scream “Hype!”? It’s impossible for a machine to figure that out…

3) The formula used by the tool doesn’t know whether or not the headline is nonsense. As long as you put the right words in there, you’ll score high.

E.g. “how to startling orangutan spine surprises surprisingly” scores an 80 — but it doesn’t make any sense.

I entered the title of this post “6 Painful Reasons You Can’t Rely on Headline Analyzers,” which scored 66. When I switched “Analyzers” to “Awesome,” the score went up to 72 — even though the change destroys the headline.

(Both versions get an A+ for “structure, grammar and readability.”)

4) Some of the “right” words (“emotional” and “power” words listed in the free download Coschedule gives you when you opt in) are less powerful than you might think. “Awesome” is so overused that it will fall flat in many cases.

Again, you can’t know the right words unless you know who you’re talking to.

For example, financial copywriters know that “the Fed,” “Yellen” and “rate hike” have emotional punch that may not really work in any other industry.

5) As far as I can tell, this tool and the accompanying article focus on getting cold traffic to click on a blog post. It doesn’t — nor could it — calculate familiarity, relationship, name/brand recognition, etc.

The degree to which your readers know/trust you, enjoy your style and know you deliver value has a huge impact on your readership.

For example, if two articles have the exact same headline, who wins: Joe Schmoe or Seth Godin? More to the point, who wins a showdown between Seth Godin and Rachel Ray?  Of course, that’s a trick question. It depends on the audience and topic.

Many of you have heard that one of the most opened and responded to emails sent during President Obama’s reelection campaign had “Hey” as the subject line.

“Hey” gets a zero on the headline analyzer, and as a blog title seen by cold traffic, maybe it should. But to people who know the Prez (or whoever), it sounds personal and really makes you curious to know what he has to say.

Email is a different animal, so keep that in mind.

6) If it sounds like you’re trying to sell something, you’ll have a different response than if it seems like you’re just sharing content.

If you’ve ever tried selling anything online, you know what I mean.

Having said all of that, I think the tool could be very helpful in helping your strengthen you headlines.

—–

Now, this critique is a bit of a nasty sandwich. One slice of positive at the beginning and end with a pile of negatives stuffed in between. I DO think tools like these can be helpful in making writers think creatively about how they’re crafting headlines and openers.

Just keep in mind that a you can communicate with your audience better than a machine ever could.

 

 

Are You Really “Connecting” with Your Audience?

by
Connecting Content Copy

Forgive the alliteration. It might get a little crazy in here.

Connection. Conversation. Content.

Eleven months ago to the day, I did a Google Hangout with Roger Courville. Roger’s question to me was “How do you connect with people?” It’s a topic I feel like pretty well-equipped to answer.

Roger, on the other hand, is the KING of connectorship (which is a term he coined). He’s a genius in every sense of the word.

During this 50-minute conversation, we talked about my dark past in retail management, how that led me to explore the copywriting and how even in that stifling environment, people can connect with each other through content, and giving.

We also discussed the forces that make copywriting and content marketing connectors, from person to person, business to customer and business to business.

This hangout will benefit you because you’ll learn

  • what makes deep connections happen
  • how to be more customer-centric, even when time are hard
  • why giving is so important, and how to be more intentional about your giving
  • the various forms content can take, in real life as well as online
  • the best advice on the planet for copywriting that really connects
  • and plenty of other stuff.

It was a fun conversation with a good friend I don’t spend enough time with (and one of my all-time favorite clients). Have a look:

We recorded this conversation the day after my then 7 year-old son broke his arm. In all the hustle and bustle, I forgot to share this with you sooner.

I recommend you also check out Roger’s website and look him up on social media. He’s one of the smartest guys I know, and also one of the coolest and most generous. You’ll like him. More importantly, you’ll learn from him.

(FYI, Brother Roger wrote THE book on how to create webinars that rock — in 2009.  His thinking is always cutting edge, yet practical. As I said, he’s the king of connectorship.)

Writing Copy to Crush Your Competitors

by
Copywriting

Wanna write great copy?

If not, have you ever wondered how you go about finding the right copywriter to partner with your business and make your competition tremble with fear?

Listen up.

I recently had the privilege of being interviewed by former Olympic athlete, current podcasting machine, the one and only Fabienne Raphael, on her Marketing to Crush Your Competition podcast.

Episode 138: The Secret of Writing Great Copy

Or listen here:

We talked about:

  • why copywriting is so important
  • the right way for any copywriter or marketer to approach a project
  • the must-have ingredients of persuasive copy
  • when you should and when you SHOULDN’T hire an outside copywriter and
  • what success really means.

It’s just 31 minutes, but I think there’s some valuable content in there.

(If you’re at all interested in getting more familiar with me and what makes me tick, there are some personal details about me and my “backstory,” as well as a few insights into my worldview.)

Check it out. I hope you find it helpful.

Productivity Hacks – Hanging Out with Carey Green

by
Productivity Hacks

The early bird catches the worm, as the old proverb says.

Sometimes I think that’s a rather destructive piece of advice.

Earlier this month, I shared a few of my most useful productivity tips with Carey Green. We were talking about my contribution to his new book Entrepreneur Mind Hacks Part 1. The dual volume series is a compilation of tips from some of the brightest entrepreneurial thinkers in the game today (like Seth Godin and Cal Newport), as well as powerful insights from thinkers of the past (like Winston Churchill).

Somehow I sneaked into the roster.

During this interview, Carey and I talk about:

  • why “early to bed and early to rise” isn’t always best
  • one of the many business lessons I extracted from sermons of an itinerant 18th century preacher
  • generosity versus greed in business
  • why humans need to stop treating their brains and bodies like machines during the workweek
  • how two different Schwartzes (Gene and Tony) forever altered the way I set up my schedule — their advice will revolutionize your productivity if you listen and apply
  • step-by-step instructions to discover your unique rhythms
  • how God made you different — and what you need to do to make the most of that fact.

We also got into copywriting and marketing a little bit. I talked about how important persuasive copy is, but there are two things that have far more impact on the punching power of your sales messages. Most decent copywriters are aware of this. That doesn’t mean they’ll talk about it in public.

Carey was a great host. He’s also a top-notch businessman and MAN. The world could use more like him.

Get more details about Entrepreneur Mind Hacks books. Book 1 addresses productivity and creativity. (That’s the one I contributed to.) Book 2 dives into connections and success.

If you’re in business or thinking about going into business, pick em up. You’ll definitely learn something.

My Top 5 Email Subject Lines from 2014

by

Email marketing results are measured in a few different ways: open rate, clickthroughs, revenue, etc. Open rate is one of the most widely-used and probably the one we have the most control over as marketers.

Emails that don’t get opened don’t accomplish much else, so it’s a good place to start.

I wanted to share the best email subject lines I used in 2014, as measured by open rate. These results are from my own email newsletter. Subject lines from my client work went as high as 81%, which is more of a testament to the quality of the client’s relationship with his audience than my copywriting abilities, all the way down into single-digit percentages. I don’t like to talk about that part.

Here are my top five from last year, and why I think they worked so well. There is also a quick summary at the end with key takeaways you can use right away.

#1: Kindle Book Giveaway from Two of My Favorite Marketers – 47.3%

No matter how overused it seems, “free” still works. But in a time when there’s so much information available for no charge, even free stuff needs to be sold.

Because I’ve earned the trust of my subscribers, and they know I won’t put anything in front of them unless it’s valuable (or fun), they listen to my recommendations most of the time. Pointing to a helpful free resource sounded like a good idea to them.

Note: the 3rd highest open rate I achieved in 2013 also pointed to a giveaway, also a Kindle Book. “One of the World’s Most Trusted Email Marketers Wants You to Have This” got a 48.6% open rate.

#2: Why You Should Stop Thinking Big – 45.7%

Taking a position opposite what is popular also gets attention and generates curiosity. Common advice is almost always to think big. Saying that someone thinks too small is an insult.

Bigger isn’t always better, as Volkswagen has proven.

VW think small

Subtly, this subject line also implies that the reader is doing something wrong, something they never even thought to question. Curiosity and self-interest practically force him to open the email to find out if he’s making the mistake of thinking too big, and how he can fix it.

#3: <First Name>, This Is Probably the Main Thing Holding You Back – 44.2%

This subject line also speaks to the reader’s self-interest. If you’ve felt held back at all…if you you haven’t made as much progress as you had hoped…you want to know why. And how to fix it. This wording implies that there’s “insider information” as to what’s preventing you from being as successful as you want to be and offers hope that there’s a solution close at hand.

I believe the body of the email offered some darn good insights that helped my readers move forward.

Adding the recipient’ first name to the subject line may have also had an impact. I rarely do that, so this subject stood out as extra personal.

Taken in isolation, this is the most profitable single email I wrote all year.

#4: How to Be Assertive Without Making People Run at the Sight of You – 44.2%

A lack of assertiveness is a major pain point for me. A good portion of my list share some of my personality traits, so quite a few of them have the same problem.

On the other hand, many entrepreneurs, leaders and people in sales positions (who make up the majority of my audience) have no problem with being assertive, but they may worry about coming on too strong. I wasn’t aiming this email at that crowd, but I’m sure some were drawn in anyway.

In fact, I wrote this email because of how much havoc my passive disposition was causing in the way I managed my time. Because a lot of my readers are a lot like me, I researched and wrote for myself, knowing it would help them as well.

A lot of your readers are a lot like you, too. Or, they’re a lot like the persona you’ve created for your business, brand or spokesperson. That perception of interpersonal similarity and shared values goes a long way. Make the most of that resonance.

#5: Writing Copy to Sell Your “Crazy” Offer – 44.1%

My newsletter supposed to be about copywriting. Most of my readers connect with me for that reason. So it makes sense that subscribers would open an email that explicitly states it’s about writing copy.

Also, everyone on my list would like to get more sales. I’ve made a promise in the subject line to help them out in this area.

This subject also connects this email to the previous one. Anyone who had read the previous newsletter (which was the 7th most-opened email of the year) would see a connection and probably want to follow the “continuing saga.” The tie back to the last email opens a loop that can only be closed by reading the current email.

Speaking of crazy offers, have you heard about this one from Art Van Furniture?

Crazy Offers Marketing Sales

Who wouldn’t like free furniture?

This store is driving action (sales) by making a crazy offer: if it snows more than 3 inches on Super-Sunday, anyone who buys furniture during the promotional period will get a full reimbursement.

Key Takeaways for Writing Subject Lines that Get Emails Opened

— Freebies still work. But just because they’re free, doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard to sell them.

Speaking of free, Creating Business Growth, a book I’ve co-authored, is available on Amazon Kindle for no cost until January 5th. It has already reached bestseller status in several countries. Get your copy here.

— “Curiosity is the strongest human incentive.” Claude Hopkins

— Appeal to the self-interest rather than the coolness of the thing you want to talk about. (E.g., this email is about email subject lines that have worked well for me, but I’m writing it because I know you’re looking for ways to continually improve your email marketing results.)

— Solve problems. Offer hope.

— Remember the values you share in common with your subscribers. More than we tend to realize, people are looking to connect with people who are like them. When they see themselves and their values reflected in others, it’s naturally attractive. As C.S. Lewis said, “Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…'”

— Email series work well. Leaving open loops from one message to the next increases readership. Talking about your chosen topic more than once also helps drive the point home.

— Make big offers. You can’t bore people into opening your emails.

For exclusive training to help you write better emails, faster than you may think possible, check out Inbox X-Factor.

Dissecting the Best Copy I’ve Seen All Year

by

If you’ve been hanging out with me for a while, you may recall the story I told about the four-day power outage I endured during the summer. Four sweltering days with no power, no air conditioning or fans, no internet.

The more prepared people in town used generators to keep the electricity flowing. My father-in-law was able to reserve one before all the food in his refrigerator spoiled. He needed my help getting it to his house. While we tried to figure out how to make the thing work (which took much longer than it should have for people of our intellectual abilities), I couldn’t help but notice the Danger sticker:

Danger Copywriting

This is the sort of warning I usually ignore (I am a man, after all…), but I couldn’t dismiss this one so easily. The message was too strong.

“Using a generator indoors WILL KILL YOU IN MINUTES…”

Tell me those words don’t hit you right in the gut. I was shocked by their power — and inspired at the same time. The copywriter hired for this project was pretty darn good!

No Good Excuse for Wimpy Sales Messages

A danger sticker like this one covers a lot of ground, and it only takes two sentences. I see four big reasons why those twenty-one words make such a strong impact on the reader.

1) Unambiguous meaning. There is no question what’s being said. No alternative interpretations are possible. Clarity and specificity create vision. If you don’t heed the warning, you know exactly what’s going to happen.

Are your sales and marketing messages THIS clear? Do you address the problems your potential client is facing this plainly? Are the benefits of your product/service laid out this specifically? Are your calls-to-action simple to understand and easy to follow?

2) Tangible results. The label leaves no doubt about what will happen is you don’t pay attention to its warning. Anyone who reads it knows precisely what he’s dealing with.

When promoting your product, do you leave prospects wondering what’s in it for them? Do they have to put the pieces together themselves? Does your message talk about YOU or the buyer? Do you describe the physical components of your product or the specific ways it will change the customer’s life?

Again, clarity and specificity create vision.

3) Forceful language. Some people may call this kind of language hype or sensationalism. But it’s not that at all, is it? It is a matter-of-fact statement of impending danger. The cost of disregarding the warning is high. Using strong language in this manner is the responsible thing to do.

All sales messages should contain a measure of warning. If you truly believe what you’re selling can help your customers, there’s a little bit of danger if they don’t take action. They’re going to miss out on something good…or experience something bad. You are duty-bound to help them see that.

If you solve a big problem, remind your listener/reader how serious the situation is. If it’s more serious than he knows, educate him.

On the other hand, if you have a bold promise that you can deliver on 100%, don’t water down the message. There’s no better way to get ignored and forgotten than to under-promise. (You will probably never get a chance to over-deliver.)

4) Appeal to existing desire and fear. In this case, the desire to stay alive and the fear of death. In the case of the generator, undetectable poison gas is a genuine concern. It is not fear-mongering to warn people of the risk.

What is it that your potential clients desire that you can help them get? What problems that they’re afraid of facing can you help them eliminate? Those should be major components of your message.

Did I Say Duty-Bound?

I said it and I meant it.

If you provide a product or service that improves people’s lives, and if you care about people, doesn’t it make sense to actively persuade them to purchase your product or service? Doesn’t it also make sense that you remove every possible barrier that may keep them from buying from you?

Selling makes sense.

As I said in a recent newsletter, “selling is not putting external pressure on people. It is creating circumstances where targeted prospects feel internal tension caused by the disparity between where they are currently and where they want to be. A strong sales message heightens that tension as the listener feels the desire to take you up on your offer.”

Selling isn’t something you do to people. It’s something you do with people.

You can tell I’m pretty fired up about this topic. I believe that a majority of business owners and service providers, especially those who primarily operate online, need to re-think the way they sell. I also believe that a smart approach to selling will revolutionize their businesses.

For that reason, I’m starting a training program in January to help entrepreneurs, marketers, and salespeople

  • discover why your should-be customers turn you down
  • overcome their natural resistance and
  • sell actively without being obnoxious.

I’ll share more details soon.

Enjoy the last moments of 2014!