August 25, 2004 Part 3 // Copywriting http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?BG8CW4OaiSS4kjIObCOqZg
Dear Nelayan This chapter is about copywriting, the most important skill you will ever have to learn. It is rather long, please print it out study it, practise it. refer to the Quickie Tips CDS for Lee Benson's templates and many other excellent resources on the net. http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?3Z2Rmy3P60ndqKPj481h2g How to write a Killer Sales Letter Step by Step! Learning to write a powerful sales letter is a m*oney *making skill that *will be with yo*u for life. Finding a product is easy in comparison to actually selling the product. As a mail- order/Internet marketer, your sales letter is your sales pitch. Every aspect of it should play a part in convincing and motivating the reader to take action, and buy your product. You need to formulate the foundation of an effective sales letter - and an effective business for that matter -by researching the desires, habits, needs, hobbies, and absolutely EVERYTHING you can f*ind *out about your prospective customers. Thoroughly get to know the type of people you are writing and marketing to, and you'll be much more effective in presenting your product (or service) in a way that's appealing to them. Before you can begin writing your sales letter, you'll need to determine the primary benefit of your product. If you've been selling a particular product for a while, you can simply ASK your customers what they like best about the product. If you're starting out with a new product, ask others why they would (or wouldn't) purchase it. Step 1) Your first step in writing the ultimate sales letter is putting wha*t you*ve determined to be your NUMBER ONE benefit in the form of a provocative headline. The purpose of your headline is to create curiosity or desire - TO STIR UP EMOTION - within the prospective customer to read on... Here are a few examples of effective headlines: Find out how I turned $1000.00 into $23,400 in just 3 weeks!!! How to take five Strokes off Your game in five days, Guaranted!! What would you do if you weighed 75 pounds less by Summer? Avoid yes or no questions in your headline. Use headlines that are thought provoking or arouse curiosity. Step 2) Open the main body of your letter *with a short, potent paragraph or a sentence that reinforces the headline, and "hooks" the prospective customer into reading further. Summarize how you are going to deliver the benefit you've promised in your headline. Here's an example of a headline followed by a powerful opening paragraph: Headline: Free Report- How you canstart making $200+ aday on ebay! eBAY! OPENING PARAGRAPH: Create your very own, custom software/information product and have it ready to be instantly "delivered" to your customers... All in about the same amount of time it takes to read this letter! I sometimes open with a short story to draw my readers in. If it's interesting enough, and relates to your product's main benefit, a story can be THE most effective hook of all. Step 3) Once you've got your reader anxious to read every last word you've written, begin bombarding them with a good strong list of the emotional and/or problem solving benefits of your offer. List ALL the features of your product and ALL the benefits of those features. I like to find similar sales letters to the products I'm selling and see what types of benefits they list. I often find benefits that apply to my product, and that I can add to my list by re-wording the sentence or phrase. You can effectively list your benefits in the form of bullet points. Step 4) After your features and benefits, or as part of your features and benifits, demonstrate why your product is better than the competition's. To build credibility with the reader, describe some of the competitor's products and why they are inferior to yours. Your readers will ask themselves why they should select your product over your competitors product. So the idea is to build your product up while discrediting other products, thereby making your product stand out as the "clear choice". Think of it as creating a "margin" between your product and competing products. The wider the margin (of superiority), the better. If it's not feasible to marganalize on a product to product basis, you should be able to minimally create a contrast between you and your competitors' products in general. For example, "Our line of products is better than you'll find anywhere else because..." and list as many reasons as you can come up with. Further differentiate your product from competing products with a "USP", or "unique selling proposition"... This is similar to the main benefit of your product, but you'll possibly need to dig even a little deeper to find your USP. Find what is unique about your product OR the way your product is offered. Mention this unqiue aspect several times throughout the sales letter. Can you still have a USP if you're selling the same item as someone else? Sure you can! Again - it's a unique SELLING proposition, not a unique product proposition. More often than not, it's not the product that's unique but the way that product is offered. Including a USP is not *only critical in your ad copy... It's also important in your overall business. What is unique about you*r *business that makes it stand out? What's your niche? Step 5) Next, continue to establish credibility. The best way to do this in the sales letter itself is through testimonials, or refferals from satisfied customers. Your testimonials should be specific, and reinforce the benefits that y*ou listed. If you're starting out with a new product and don't have testimonials, you could possible sen*d out free product samples in exchange for honest testimonials. This works especially well with information products, which are relatively inexpensive to produce. Step 6) After you've established credibility - and there's no such thing as too much credibility - create a sense of urgency in the reader. You can do this in a variety of ways... A "speci*al, limited t*ime of*fer" is one of the most common ways. For example, "You must act fast as these won't last long at this incredible price!" or "Order within the next 30 minutes and I'll throw in this special bonus absolutely FR*EE!" Step 7) At this point you'll hopefully have your prospective customer nearly ready to order, but now it's time to "set the hook": Include one or two (or as many as yo*u want) fre*e bonuses to customers. Sometimes bonuses are more appealing to people than the main product, and therefore can make all the difference in making the sale! Step 8) Next, throw in a strong "risk-reversing" gua*rantee. Take away your customers' risk by offering the most powerful guarantee you can back up. If it's a thir*ty day* mone*y *back guarantee, great! But if you can stand behind a "double your money back" guarantee, even better! Here's a guarantee for you: NOT having a solid customer guarantee on your products or services will cost you business! Step 9) Before asking the prospective customer to take action, summarize everything you've presented in your sales letter thus far. Give the reader a "mind's eye view" of owning, using, enjoying, and benefiting from the product you're selling. Ideally, you want to convey an emotion or feeling within the reader that he (or she) "can't live with*out this *prod*uct!" Step 10) Finally, it's time for the most important part of the letter - the call to action. ASK the prospective customer to place the order. In addition to asking for the order, EXPLAIN exactly how to go about placing the order. The easier you make it for people to place orders with you, the more business you'll recieve. In your eBay ads, this means including a brief section about the cost of shipping & handling, the types of payment you accept, your policies, and other related information you may need to include. Step 11) After closing the letter, include a "P.S."... In the P.S. you can once again summarize the strongest benefit of your product, reiterate your guarantee, offer a final bonus... Include whatever you feel will remove any last inkling of doubt or reservation your reader may have about ordering. There are exceptions to every sales letter rule, but you'll want to stick pretty close with the sales writing formula I've just given you. This is a formula that WORKS, plain and simple, and only once you've mastered the basics would I advise experimentation. Additional Sales Letter Techiques Make your sales letter personal, using the word "YOU" throughout. Use short paragraphs and seperate each with a line of space. Use attention grabbing subheadings whe*n yo*u change subjects, such as before your bonuses (i.e., "Here are 30 more good reasons why yo*u need this product!"), before your testimonials (i.e., "Don't take just my word for it, look what others are saying..."), before your guarantee (i.e., "You have nothing to lose and EVERYTHING to gain!"), before your bonuses (i.e., "Get these exciting FREE bonuses, alone worth over $150, by ordering now!"), and so forth. Put your headlines and subheadings in bold and in a larger font than the rest of the text. Use exclamation points (!) where fitting to make your point strong! Make the most important words and phrases stand out by putting them in bold, in color (red or blue), underlining, in italics, or in caps (don't use all caps throughout your letter). If in doubt of which colors to use for the backround and text of your ad or sales letter, you can't go wrong with black text on a white backround. Always do a spell check, to look professional and credible. Follow the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle when designing the layout for y*our ad or sales letter (this applies to web *sites too!). Powerfull words to use in your sales letters Absolutely.. Amazing.. Approved.. Attractive.. Authentic.. Bargain...Beautiful.. Better.. Big.. Colorful.. Colossal.. Complete.. Confidential.. Crammed.. Delivered.. Direct.. Discount.. Easily.. Endorsed.. Enormous.. Excellent.. Exciting.. Exclusive.. Expert.. Famous.. Fascinating.. Fortune.. Free.. Full.. Genuine.. Gift.. Gigantic.. Greatest.. Guaranteed.. Helpful.. Highest.. Huge.. Immediately.. Improved.. Informative.. Instructive.. Interesting.. Largest.. Latest.. Lavishly.. Liberal.. Lifetime.. Limited.. Lowest.. Magic.. Mammoth.. Miracle.. Noted.. Odd.. Outstanding.. Personalized.. Popular.. Powerful.. Practical.. Professional.. Profitable.. Profusely.. Proven.. Quality.. Quickly.. Rare.. Reduced.. Refundable.. Remarkable.. Reliable.. Revealing.. Revolutionary.. Scarce.. Secrets.. Security.. Selected.. Sensational.. Simplified.. Sizable.. Special.. Startling.. Strange.. Strong.. Sturdy.. Successful.. Superior.. Surprise.. Terrific.. Tested.. Tremendous.. Unconditional.. Unique.. Unlimited.. Unparalleled.. Unsurpassed.. Unusual.. Useful.. Valuable.. Wealth.. Weird.. Wonderful. ---------------------------------------------------------------- You don't need to write a complete sales letter... But follow some (or all) of the techniques that you've just read to write a shorter ad (1/4 or 1/2 page). You may want to talk about the benefits you've personally received as a BizQuick associate (if perhaps you've been an associate for a while now). Tell people how easy it is to get started, etc. One of the most effective ads is a specific testimonial by you. You entire focus is getting people to click on your link. Remember these key points... Get the reader's attention with a headline (the most important element of your ad) that provokes curiosity and further interest, keeping in mind that many people will just be skimming the ads. Make the reader stop and take notice. Then go into your testimonial, or body of your ad. Finally, tell the reader to take action by clicking on your special link to find out more, and to "get started making money in just minutes from now". "Cl*ick here" should be your special link set up as a text link. You can use Netscape Composer to create your redirect page. Put a hit counter at the bottom of your redirect page to track your responses. (Free hit counters are available through Honesty.com and many other sources.) Here's another technique for the effective use of ezine advertising. This is more of a "round about" approach, but can be even more effective than the direct approach I've just explained. You could offer your reader an enticing free product, such as a special report or eBook, via email autoresponder. Make sure your readers know it's free, and that there's "absolutely no catch". It's easy to set up an autoresponder, allowing readers to receive your special report or fr*ee download link in just a couple minutes. Include your ad - and special link - along with the fr*ee offer. Your fr*ee offer, by the way, should be a product related to making money, or marketing on the Internet. By offering a free product related to your product, you're "prequalifying" your prospects. What's the advantage to this method of ezine advertising? Repeat exposure! Studies have shown it takes an average of 7 "exposures" before a person finally orders a particular product or service. When a person clicks on your link and is taken to your site, they may choose not to order right away for a variety of reasons. And once they leave, they may never visit the site again! But if they've downloaded your product, or received your special report via email, there's a much better chance of repeat exposure to your ad, and therefore a sale. In addition, you can also set up yourautoresponder to (automatically) deliver follow up messages,saving you time and helping you make more money! Here's how to gauge the results of your ads using autoresponders... Autoreponders allow you to "key" your ads by inserting a special code/key word in the email "subject" bar. The html tag to do this is as follows: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Replace the word "key" with your "secret" word, letting you know which ad is being responded to. The most popular email autoreponsder service on the web is http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?fkcmL0YvW0Y5E1zf4UQirw. Cl*ick here to check it out. The bottom line: When your visitors are taken to your web site, they'll have a powerful sales letter right in front of them, the same one that convinced you to order. Your job is to get them to that sales letter - in one way or another - and let it do the rest of the selling for you. As you research various ezine publishers, pay attention to what kind of ads they allow. Different ezines have different requirements and options for placing your ad. Some will allow you to create your ads using html, and others accept only text with your URL or autoresponder link. Make sure your links will be "live" in the actual ad as recieved by subscribers, or your ad will be relatively ineffective. You can use a simple, free html editor such as Netscape Composer to create "spruced up", or display style ads. Composer also works very well for creating eBay ads. Your assignment: If you don't have an html editor already, download Netscape Composer (available as a component of the Netscape Communicator download package) and spend some time learning to use it. Click here to go to Netscape's download page. Start learning by trying out each one of Composer's functions to "see what happens". Create a sample ad or web page. Refer to Composer's "Help" section, or visit one of many sites on the Internet providing "tips" and "tutorials" for using Composer. Here's just one such site. Some ezine publishers allow you to place fr*ee ads simply for subscribing to their publication. You can gain some good exposure this way, and test your ads in the process, before graduating to paid ads. Your mission: Search the web for "free ezine ads" and similar searches. Create several if you haven't allready You want to subscribe to ezines that relate to the subjects of business, the Internet, online marketing, making money online, etc. By doing so, you're targeting the right group of prospective customers - those that are most likely to be interested in your site. Next, test your ads, one at a time, by submitting them to the ezines you've signed up for. Take your best performing ad and set it aside. You'll be needing it soon. When you feel comfortable enough to begin placing paid ezine ads, start researching ezine "candidates" for your ad using the list of ezine directories below... (This list represents only a sampling of ezine directories available.) http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?3sqH6nJDGJMVaLeR18eXbg http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?drRguQF3OjKpWO3DG6XnYQ http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?ktsEQUZAfBFnF.NPZqIn.Q http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?TOko8w19iz9vepo9vZkAEA http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?UMZRdheLUJR8XaYG0D2dOw http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?ea1FGfmWY7SZnsv9YcMwHQ Research only the ezines that have some relation to marketing, hom*e business, making money on the Internet, etc. You want your ad in amongst your competitors' ads, and not in ezines where ads similar to yours can't be found. Compare pricing in relation to the number of subscribers for each ezine. In some cases, you'll have to send out some emails to the various ezine editors to inquire about pricing/rates and subscriber numbers. Make a list of the ezines that seem the most promising. Subscribe to the ezines on your list, and browse through a sample issue of each one, lookin*g for content and the type of ads contained within. Now here's my personal "secret" for finding the ezines that really get the results... Email a handful of advertisers (those with similar offers) from the ezines you're interested in and ask them if they're happy with the results of advertising with that particular ezine. You can also "follow" what other advertisers are doing by regularly reviewing the issues of the ezines. Keep an eye out for repeat ads. Repeat ads are a good sign, not just for the product or service of a particular advertiser, but for the effectiveness of the ezine itself as well. Your mission... Place an ad with one or two of your most promising paid ezines. If the ad performs to well, put your advertising with that ezine on "autopilot", by telling the editor to regularly place your ad. Depending on the frequency of issues, you may not want to advertise in every single issue. Once a month is usually satisfactory, however, there are exceptions... If you're ad is performing extraordinarily well, you may want to "roll out" and advertise as often as you can until referrals/sales begin level off. TIP: Check out http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?SpHCKqkI7YptyHde0V6mgQ for a list of great ezine advertising resources. Presented by Mike Hepburn Written by Brian Winters http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?1_uS9bLFpq2cXMeI1acBBg Thanks for your time Brought to you by: Mike Hepburn / Editor of The Quickiebiztips Network http://www.quickiebiztips.com mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 1-888-758-7832 In Canada http://www.quickiebiztips.ca mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 1-888-758-7832 Mail / USA Mike Hepburn Plus-Tech Specialty Printing Inc. 4506 Main St. Buffalo, New York 11623 Mail / Canada Mike Hepburn Plus-Tech Specialty Printing Inc. 643 Ossington Ave. Toronto, Canada M6G 3T6 To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit: http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?TAxsbMxMtCwMzOyM7GwM ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/BCfwlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kumpulan/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
