Copywriting

Why They Must Buy Now

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There’s a psychological reason the words “I’ll be back” from customers are the kiss of death for salespeople.

It’s the reason that you have to sell prospects when they’re “hot,” and any delay between receiving your marketing material is costly.

Watch this video:

This is the trailer for the newly-released book You’re Not So Smart (which, for the record, I haven’t read yet).

I don’t think this book is aiming at business education or sales training, but I’ve gotta ask: What are the implications of procrastination/present bias for your marketing and sales?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, but first, I’ll share some of my own observations.

Continue reading on Diamond Website Conversion’s blog.

7 Email Marketing Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make

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Nowadays, I don’t spend very much time on LinkedIn Answers, but the other day I saw a question that I could help out with.

The question: What should never be included in an email marketing campaign?

My (slightly modified) response: 
1) Don’t make claims without proof. Skepticism is at an all time high. Everyone is scared of getting burned. If you make claims that you don’t back up in the body of the email, you’re setting your campaign up to fail.

2) Never use deception.

3) Generic language is a bad idea. Craft your message so that you’re talking to ONE PERSON. Be as specific & vivid as possible.

4) Don’t use untintelligible language. Overly technical terminology can kill a sales message especially in B2C campaigns. Refrain from using jargon unless you know for sure your audience will understand.

Confused customers don’t buy.

Use the language that your readers use in their own conversations.

5) Avoid links to unrelated sites. If the body of the email is about consumer electronics, don’t insert links to a Viagra vendor.

5.1) Don’t use any links or make any reference whatsoever to Viagra.

6) The copy should not focus on YOU (the sender). It really shouldn’t even be about your product or service. Rather, speak about the recipient and his/her needs/wants and how your offering can satisfy those desires.

7) Each email should try to accomplish ONE objective. You lose readership when you go off in too many directions.

Direct mail legend Dick Benson once said that “you cannot sell two things at once.” Choose one thing.

That’s what autoresponder sequences are for. Multiple emails allow you to focus on or sell more than one product or service
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P.S. If at all possible, the emails should come from a recognizable sender. Even non-spam messages look like spam if they’re sent from strangers.

If you’re emailing cold, attach/associate yourself with someone your list knows and trusts/

You Need Help

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I think my fees are very reasonable, but from time to time potential clients have accused me of charging too much for my copywriting services.

Yes, it’s true; you can hire a writer on Elance to write your sales page for $20. But chances are, you’ll get what you pay for.

Price is what you pay; value is what you get.

This morning my buddy John Breese sent me an example of someone who should have put more thought into who they put in charge of writing their copy.

This is a real example taken from a real website:

Can Everyone Take Creatine?

It appears so. I have seen no major problems with creatine reported in the literature, even in long-term studies. Yet, just to be safe, anyone with diabetes or kidney dysfunction should probably avoid creatine until further long-term studies are done. Some people do experience bad breath, flatulence, cramping or an upset stomach with high doses. If cramping occurs, just drink more water; for an upset stomach just ingest less creatine. Bad breath and flatulence are babyboomers’ companions anyway, so big deal. Take some mints and stay out of crowded rooms.

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Here’s the real truth: no matter how much this copy cost (even if the site owner wrote it himself for $0), it was too expensive.

If your marketing or website copy looks like this, please get some professional help, before you lose anymore customers.

People Versus Spiders

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Denny Hatch wrote another brilliant article this week.

“Search Engine Optimization is the current rage—grabbing the attention of spiders and crawlers in the hopes that the message will surface all over the Internet.

Yet it’s flesh-and-blood people that want information, spend money on goodies and give to charity—not emotionless, pre-programmed electronic robots.

Go ahead, fascinate robots. But if your message is a bore, you are a mouse click away from oblivion.

Call me Luddite or troglodyte, but I will continue to write headlines and copy for people, not robots.

And I’ll study the work of the great copywriters, such as Mel Martin.”

Hatch then goes on to talk about the “greatest copywriter you’ve never heard of.” He describes Martin’s career, successes and genius, along with a few evidences that he was a mere mortal just like the rest of us.

Go read “Are You Writing for Spiders? Meet Mel Martin, Master of Fascinations.” This is the kind of stuff copywriters like me just can’t get enough of.

The Myth of Selling Without Selling

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It seems like nobody likes sales people (at least when they’re customers), and “sales” seems like a dirty word these days. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Nothing I can think of sells without selling. Not even candy bars in vending machines.

Let’s explore that thought experiment for a moment. Imagine one of those vending machines with the glass front that allows you to see its contents. In this one, all the merchandise is packaged in identical, completely nondescript containers. Perfectly cube-shaped, unmarked cardboard boxes.

You have no clue what’s inside any of them. Could be anything.

When you happen across this vending machine, what are you going to buy? Will you press A1 or E7?

I’m willing to bet you’ll choose to keep the dollar in your pocket.

Why? Because nothing is being sold. It’s just there. It’s available for sale, but it’s not being sold.

Now let’s imagine the vending machine is in the middle of a sweltering desert. There’s nothing else in sight but sand and scorpions. And you’re getting really, really thirsty.

What do you do now? Remember, you can’t tell what’s in any of those containers. Might be bottled water, or a bag of cheese curls. But since you have that dollar in your pocket, you might take a chance and pick something at random. You desperately need something to drink, and you have no other options. So you take a chance.

Why? Because your thirst is more important, more urgent than your dollar bill.

A Salesman’s Journey

I’ve sold lots of different stuff over the course of my career. Everything from warranties to watches. I loved it. The rush of closing a deal. The battle of wits and wills when overcoming customer objections. The competition between peers and with myself

At one point, I felt like I could sell anything to anyone.

Then, Harry Browne smacked me across the face with his painfully simple, brutally powerful book, The Secret of Selling Anything.

The question is often asked, do salespeople sell, or do customers buy? I always held to the position that salespeople sell. When transactions take place, the success is 90% due to the ability of the salesperson.

Reading Browne’s book, I found out that I was wrong. I was introduced to what Browne referred to as the “universal fallacy:”

“The universal fallacy is the belief that an individual would willingly accept something unprofitable to himself.

“No individual will give up some of his own resources for something he values less. When you think he will, you’re headed for failure. He may very well make an exchange that you would never make — but he will not willingly make an exchange that will lower his values.” (Author’s emphasis)

No one willingly does what she does not want to do.

Jonathan Edwards, considered by many to be the one of the greatest minds in America’s history, had this to say about making decisions: people “always act according to the strongest inclination they have at the moment of choice.”

Edwards is saying that, from the options available to us, we always choose what has the strongest, most desirable emotional impact on our lives in that moment. Period.

Back to the Vending Machine

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot.

If you were responsible for the sale of just ONE of the items in the vending machine, how would you get the guy in the middle of the desert to spend his dollar on your product?

For starters, you’d make sure that he knows it’s a refreshing liquid.

In our example, where does the selling power come from? It comes from the thirst of the guy in the desert.

On the other hand, could you sell salty potato chips to him? I don’t care how good a salesperson you put on that job, he’s not going to have much success.

We see that people buy what they want. Selling is (or at least it should be recognized and treated as) giving people what they want. Helping them satisfy their desires and needs.

With the vending machine, you’re not selling without selling. You’re selling without being obnoxious. There’s a major difference!

Guess what. Your salesmanship is nothing more than increasing the likelihood that your product in that vending machine is the one that gets picked.

The argument isn’t so much whether salespeople sell or customers buy. It’s both! The desire comes from the customer. It is the job of the salesperson or marketer to help the customer make the best decision.

Better Writing in Just Six Decades

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Here are 6 tips from legendary author George Orwell, writer of 1984 and Animal Farm. Use them to punch up your own writing.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

These directions come from Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language.” It’s 65 years old, but the content is just as valuable and applicable now as it was when it was written. You can read the entire piece here.

Selling Cash for Profit

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I think I’m in the wrong business…

These guys are selling $2 bills for ten bucks!

I’m not going to talk about the 9/11 World Trade Center “bombing” or “conspiracy” (at least not today). Nor will I address quantitative easing, hyper-inflation or the plummeting value of the American dollar.

I just want to briefly talk about selling $4 worth of money for $10.

Do you believe someone is getting the short end of the stick in this deal? Is someone ripping someone off?

The fact is that this is a mutually profitable transaction for everyone. Both the company selling the bills and those who buy them are getting what they want. The sellers are creating revenue and the buyers are getting commemorative collectibles.

I think everyone knows what they’re getting into in this deal. It’s not like the older brother tricking the younger sibling into trading her dirty, dull quarter for his shiny new penny. Those who make this purchase know they’re paying 2.5 times more than the monetary value of the product.

And they’re happy to do it.

Good copywriters and marketers have been said to “sell money at a discount” to their clients. But I gotta admit, selling NEW money at a marked-up price is somewhat new to me.

5 Judo Moves Every Copywriter Should Know

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If you’ve been involved in copywriting for any length of time, you’re painfully aware of how challenging it can be to grab the attention of your desired readers.

Once you succeed there, you still have an intimidating uphill climb ahead of you. It takes hard work to keep that attention, channel desire, and close the sale.

You may have heard it said that marketers and salespeople without a system for selling are at the mercy of the prospect’s system for not buying.

A million thoughts and emotions scream for attention. Distractions seem to pop up at least once a minute. Then there’s the ever-present resistance to “being sold.” Like I said, your copy has a tough uphill battle.

But what if you could leverage the mind’s strength against itself, much like a judo master redirects the force of an opponent?

Let’s briefly consider 5 points of psychological leverage you can use in your copy. Each can strengthen your persuasive power by causing forces already active in the mind to overcome its own resistance.

1. Self-Perception
The most important factor in the buying decision is how people categorize themselves. The way they think about themselves and their place in the world affects everything they do.

To a tremendous degree, they choose products, services, and brands because of how they tie into their perception of themselves. That applies to both how they see themselves now, and how they hope to see themselves in the future.

For example, how many millions of dollars does Nike make selling equipment to people who are athletes? How many more millions do they earn from those who dream of being athletes?

Find out how your customers identify themselves. Use the insights you gain from that research to make your business and your offers more relevant to customers.

Develop serious rapport instantly by connecting with who your prospects and customers really consider themselves to be.

2. Belief
Gary Bencivenga said, “Almost everyone in the world, in every field of human endeavor, is desperately searching for someone to believe in. Be that person, and you can write your own ticket.

“Belief is today’s most overlooked yet most powerful key to boosting response to any ad, in any medium. Harness it and you unleash the core atomic power for exploding response. Because the hunger for belief is so vast in every market, so deep-seated in human nature itself, you can tap into it again and again — infinitely — to make yourself and your clients rich.”

Actually be trustworthy. Then present yourself or client to your prospects and customers as an individual or business with integrity. Never abuse their trust. Never give the impression that you’d deceive them.

Finally, build whatever credibility you can, and exploit it to the fullest. Experience, education, endorsements, etc. They all make you more believable.

3. Mental/Emotional Momentum
We hear it said all the time, but you can never hear it too much: good copy, good advertising, good sales pitches all enter into the conversation that the audience already has going on inside their minds.

Hitch a ride on a train that’s already in motion. Grab onto a motivator your reader is already being driven by. The stronger the motivator, the better.

Which do you think is going to get better results: adding another voice to the noisy cafeteria of your customer’s mind, or talking with him about something he’s already thinking about, caring about, and ready to do something about?

4. Curiosity
Claude Hopkins mentions in Scientific Advertising that curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives. Once it’s been aroused, we can hardly sleep until we satisfy that curiosity.

How can you add curiosity to your business, product, or service? To your marketing message?

5. Likeability
People like to do business with people they like. I’m sure you know of instances where the only reason people continue to hire less-than-ideal service providers is that they have good relationships with them.

When customers like you, barriers are removed, doors are opened, and everyone feels good about the process.

Personality is of the utmost importance when attempting to be likeable in print. No one enjoys stuffy, emotionless, impersonal wording.

Write until it sounds as if you were talking directly to one of your prospects. Be yourself. Don’t manufacture a personality. Sounding contrived can be worse than being boring.

Even great copywriters in hot markets convert less than minor league baseball players. In many cases, you’re getting legendary results if you can close 5 sales from 100 leads.

That’s why I encourage you to stop fighting against potential customers and simply use their mental and emotional momentum to get the results you want.

Kinda like judo…

Framing for Failure

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If you’re anything like me, you find yourself “framing” quite a few of the statements you make in day to day conversation. This can be constructive or detrimental, depending on how you do it.

Framing is simply saying something to prepare your hearer or reader for what you’re about to say. For example, “Listen up! What I’m about to tell you is important.” That’s an example of positive framing.

You can do some harm to your cause by setting up your comments with something like “This is gonna sound really dumb, but…” (I’m really bad with that one.)

I had thought about this topic before, how negative framing such as the second example hurt your chances of being persuasive or sounding authoritative. Why do I talk like that? Why does anyone do it?

It all came to a head when I was looking at a letter my sister wrote yesterday. She used the other “bookend” to frame her argument after she had said what needed to be said. It was something like “This may not sound like the best idea, but I believe in it.”

So, why do we talk and write that damaging stuff? Here’s my thinking on the subject.

We lack confidence in our position. We think something is wrong with what we want to say. Or that the audience is going to shoot us down.

So we choose to soften our statements by framing them. It’s more for the us than for them.

Rejection will come easier because we have prepared everyone for it.

Imagine using these kinds of remarks in a sales pitch. “You may not like this product, but here it is anyway.” “Most people choose the competitor, anyway.” “You don’t really want this additional feature, do you?”

See how much that hurts you?

Negative framing is something that I’m going to work on eliminating from my speech and writing immediately. I encourage you to join me. Let’s get some guts about ourselves to make strong, bold statements without feeling the need to cushion them. No more self-destructive talk.

Courtship Copywriting

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A thought for your consideration (which happens to be a comment that I made on John Carlton’s blog last summer)

Selling is just like a marriage proposal. You can’t just walk up a stranger and ask her to marry you. You have to take the process one step at a time, starting with small, easy-to-make choices (“hey, wanna catch a movie?“). Make the first step for your prospect irresistibly easy to take. Over time, the actions get larger.

Long copy allows the message to start small and move the customer increasingly toward making the purchase. Short copy doesn’t have that ability-there’s no time!

Long copy is can be a “greased slide” to the sale. Short copy is one big step, and grease on a step (stair) is not usually a good idea.

This is what Gary Bencivenga called “throwing the monkey fist.”  Most big tasks can’t be accomplished in one move. Master salespeople (that includes smart marketers) use a sequence  of expanding steps to move the prospect to take the desired action.

Think about it…

More importantly, implement it.