02.01.07
“Crawl Inside the Heads of Your Customers…”
You send out a mailer and get no response. Your Web site doesn’t convert traffic into sales or new customers. What’s going wrong?
Getting action online or off happens naturally when you:
- Reach those most receptive to your message
- Speak to their emotional triggers (what they care about)
- Give them a reason to act now
Target Audience
Before you can begin to create sales copy that gets results, start with your audience. Know who they are. Know what they want.
Get personal. Before you begin to write sales copy, try this. Picture in your mind your ideal target customer. If you’re selling life insurance, maybe your perfect contact is a middle age man with 3 kids.
You want your writing to sound like a conversation between two friends. You can’t really picture some nebulous "audience" in your mind. You can picture an individual. As you write, speak to this person’s needs.
Speak to Readers’ Emotional Triggers
What’s an emotional trigger? It embodies the emotional reasons you can use to move people to action. Here’s the 3 most important you’ll use in effectively reaching your audience "where they live."
- Frustrations – In dealing with competing services offering your product or when doing without your product or service, what has frustrated or angered this person?
- Fears – What things is this person afraid he or she will lose if they don’t buy your product or service?
- Ambitions – What goals does this person have which you can show your product or service will help make happen?
It’s a simple truth none of us want to admit to. We buy what we want, not what we need. Want is emotional. Need is mental and practical.
If your writing sounds like some dry list of features, you keep your readers on a detached mental level. Benefits, on the other hand, embody why they should care.
If you’re selling computers, a feature might read, "3.0 GHz Dual Core Processor." To a computer fanatic, this means something. To you and I, it only has any meaning in comparison to another computer with only a "2.6 GHZ Dual Core Processor." Yawn!
Now compare this with "The fastest processor on the market today – so you can play all the latest games." For the average computer user, which has more meaning? The specific speed of the processor gives a feature of the computer. But the second example tells you why you should care. Effective copy is based on benefits, not features.
Call to Action
Lastly, effective copy calls to action. Make it clear what you want your reader to do. Maybe you want them to pick up the phone and call. You may want them to buy something online or sign up for your newsletter. Whatever it is you want your reader to do, make it crystal clear.
In short, don’t make them have to think about what to do next. When they have to consider options, they almost always choose something other than your most desired action. Never rely on your Web site’s navigation to provide direction. Lead your reader by the hand. You’ll convert far more site visitors into buyers, customers, and leads.
Many salespeople will tell you that for most sales presentations, you have to attempt to close the sale more than once. The Web is no different. That’s why successful Web copy has calls to action all through the content.
I’m a huge fan of long copy. Not all my readers are. So when I create a long sales piece, I’ll put a call to action about a third of the way through, one at the two thirds point, and one at the end. I tracked the results of where on the page people clicked and got a real shock when I tallied up the results.
I assumed most people would read all the way to the bottom. I figured that if I kept putting good reasons to buy and made it interesting, they’d keep reading. What I actually found was that on my sales letter, a full 40% clicked on the first link. 10% clicked on the second. Only 50% of those who clicked on my call to action read all the way to the bottom of the sales piece and clicked the link there.
Wrapping It All Up
To get the most measurable action out of your writing, you must:
- Reach those most receptive to your message
- Speak to their emotional triggers (what they care about)
- Give them a reason to act now
Follow this pattern and you won’t believe the improvement in how people react to your message. Learning all the specifics of how to do this in your writing is certainly beyond the scope of this article. I’ve studied this process for years and I’m still continually learning.
Online Marketing Advisor has helped many clients to increase their sales by 50% to 400%. The number one thing that makes the difference is the quality of your conversation with your customer. Online, that conversation is dramatically improved with effective copy.
Attractive or Effective?
A prettier site won’t speak to your audience as well as better sales copy. Yet when many clients come to us wanting to improve their online presence, they focus first on the look of the site.
OK, if your site looks like a high-school student created it, you may need a new look. But I’ll go so far as to say that some of the best-selling Web sites I have seen out there have a very simple look, but a deadly-accurate message.
Go to a famous art museum like the Louve in Paris. I guarantee that as someone looks at a famous painting like the Mona Lisa, you’ll never hear them exclaim, "Nice frame!"
On your Web site, the look of the site is just the frame. Your content is what people have come to see. So give them content that speaks to them and their needs, greeds, and fears of loss. You’ll see dramatic results.
-Steve Myers