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Only one out of five people get beyond the headline to read
the rest of the Web page.
You have 30 seconds or less to
make a positive impression, or
your site visitor will rapidly click away.
The right wording in your headline can
increase your sales
conversion rate by 1700%
It's true! Studies show the right headline
can increase response
to an offer
exponentially, which is a good reason
to test different
headlines until you find
your 'killer'. Once you've got it, it's the
key to your success. So spend the time
to make your headline
work.
Here's how
to find the right headline: Tell your target audience
the single most important benefit you are offering them. That's it.
State a powerful benefit in your headline
that clearly enhances
THEIR LIVES, using
power words such as: 'Discover'; 'Announcing';
'Breakthrough'; 'Facts'; 'New'; 'Now'; 'Yes';' Sale' - all words that are
active, grab the
attention of prospects, and promise them
to your
customers are 'You', and 'Free'.
Finally, keep in mind that your customer
is never buying a product or
service. They are actually buying a key benefit that will
make their
life better.
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II. The Value Proposition for Your Customer
===================================
Immediately after your headline comes the
opening salvo of text on
the page - the
value proposition. This 1-3 paragraph
section is all
about your target customer. Either it states their current situation, and
'ain't it awful', or it reveals a dream they
have about what their life
could become:
'If only...'
To write it, go back to the roots of the product
or service you are
offering. Why does it exist
in today's world, and what good does it
do your
target customer? Ask yourself why you sell it, and
perhaps
why you got involved with it in the first
place. Be idealistic. The
proposition section of
your home page sets up a kind of vacuum, which
you are about to fill with...
======================
III. The Benefits You Deliver
======================
A benefit is anything that will make your
customer's life better by using your
product or service. This is the payoff
and the crucial section of your home
page where you must deliver the goods. Take a good look at what you are
promoting, and then...
Write down each and every benefit
you can, with no thought about which
is the most important. You'll order them
later. Write down everything that can
possibly do your customer some good.
Everything.
After finishing this 'brain dump', go back
and prioritize. Don't prioritize as you
go
because that will inhibit you. List first, order
second. (NOTE: consider
using a powerful
benefit as a text link leading to your sales
letter.)
On your home page you will clearly state
the top benefits you deliver, but
you'll
expand upon them in...
===========================
IV. Your Benefit-Rich Sales Letter
===========================
The benefit-rich sales letter always closes
the sale. It builds upon what you
have
promised to deliver on your home page
answers any objections or
questions your
readers may have and fully justifies the
price you ask. On this
page longer copy
will outsell shorter copy, so make a
complete sales pitch from
start to finish.
Here are 10 key formatting tips that will
keep your prospects reading so you
can close the sale.
1. Break the copy of your sales letter up
into short copy paragraphs. A single-sentence
paragraph can make a striking point.
2. Use headlines and sub-headlines.
3. Use bullets, numbers, and dashes (-) to
further break up copy, allowing plenty of
white space to make reading your offer
even easier on the eye.
4. Use arrows (-->), boxes, color or shading
graphics, indentations, bold lettering, CAPITAL
LETTERS, italics, and punctuation!!
Note: use a light touch here, rather than the 'HIT them over and over 'til they beg for
mercy!' approach.
5. Give customers premiums. Over-deliver
on the offer that first interested your
prospective customer any way you can.
The goal is to give your customers far
more perceived value than they actually
pay for. Premiums can add tremendous
value to your offer without substantially
increasing your cost of delivery.
6. Emphasize the word FREE wherever
it applies.
7. Use fast-loading graphics that actively
support your message. Avoid generic clip-art
'success' graphics if you can.
8. Provide testimonials. If you don't have
them, give your product or service away
and gather some immediately. It's a
suspicious world, and you need other
people to validate your offer.
9. Urge 'Immediate Action'. State a time
limit to your offer (note: many marketers
offer their premiums only if prospective
customers buy within a window of 3-14 days).
10. Make an iron-clad guarantee. Do
what you can to over-deliver in this
area, too - a guarantee that is better
than your competitors offer is a
powerful selling point.
====================================
Finally, here is the progression people actually
follow when they read:
====================================
a. The Headline
b. Any Captions for Photos or Drawings
c. Any Large Text Subheads
d. The PS
e. Ordering Information and Price
f. (Finally!), the Actual Text itself
Which means, spend the time to buff and polish
each of these elements for your target audience.
The better you know these people and 'how
badly they hurt', the more sales you will make.
... article by Scott T. Smith ...
..http://www.copywriting.net..
.__ Copywriting that Sells __.
**** Article II***
Nine
Key Sources for Building Your Opt-In Lists
===========================================
9 Key Sources for Building Your Opt-In Lists
===========================================
It's no secret.
Your opt-in list means everything to your
online business. Building a great email
list you can send to again and again is key to your success. Here are the nine
fundamental sources from which you
can build your opt-in email list:
1. Your Current Customers
This is your best source of contacts.
The hardest thing for any business to
do is to find new customers. It's
expensive, time consuming, and you
have to earn their trust. But - it's easy
to sell again to a satisfied customer.
They already know you and 'love' you.
As long as you provide products or
services that are of fair value and high
quality, your customers will continue to
trust you and buy from you. In fact, they
will prefer to buy from you. A loyal
customer base is your best friend in
business.
If your business does not yet have a
database of customer email addresses
here's how to get them:
The next time you contact them by post
or mail, make a special offer if they
reply by email. It could be a free report
or special discount. You MUST get
their email address.
Remember: there are more of your
customers on the Internet than
you think, and the rest of them will
be online very soon.
2. Customers For Other Businesses
Joint venture through endorsed mailings.
Customers of other related, non-competing
businesses are excellent prospects for
your personalized email offerings. In
exchange for a split of the profits, let
the other company send their endorsed
emailing of your offer to their customer list.
Here's a secret: you should be willing
to give away a healthy portion of the
profits on the front end, because the
buyers will become customers on your
list. Once they are loyal buyers, you
can sell to them again and again on
your back end. That's why joint ventures
can be highly profitable for you in the
long term.
3. Your Web Site Visitors
One of the most powerful ways to build a targeted list of prospects is through
forms on your Web site. For a 'how-to'
look at this process, visit the home
page of Business Copywriting. Net where
you'll find three tactics encouraging people
to opt in:
They invite people to subscribe to
our free newsletter. They offer a free
no-obligation copywriting consultation. And, they invite people to refer their
site to friends and associates.
There's a lot you can do to get people
online to interact with you:
Offer a free report on autoresponder.
Create a newsletter. Provide free
downloads of freeware or shareware
programs appropriate for your audience.
And always, always ask for their name
and email address in return.
Give people good reasons to give
you their contact information so you
can stay in touch with them, sending
them new offers for your line of
products and services.
4. Advertising.
In all forms of advertising you do, online
and offline, always give your email
address. Encourage people to contact
you by email, because your objective is
to funnel prospects and customers into
your email box. You will automatically
create a hot list of prospects whom
you can responsibly contact via email.
Include your email address on business
cards, stationary, invoices, faxes, print, radio
and television advertising. Give customers
incentives to email you. This email 'relationship'
empowers you to send them updates and
offers by email.
5. Press Releases.
Press releases offering genuine news
(as opposed to a poorly disguised
sales pitch) are highly effective. Here's how to use them to build your
email list:
Your press releases can offer a free
report that people must email you to
receive, or a product that can be
emailed back to them. Write your
press release to provoke this response
from readers, and collect their names
and email addresses in the process.
6. Referrals.
When a prospect contacts you for a free
report, contact them and offer to send
the report to any of their friends they think
might be interested. As you can see, this is
similar to an endorsed mailing.
When a referral comes in, send out a personalized email letter to the referral
explaining that they were referred by
their friend (give the name), and you are
sending them a free report because
their friend asked you to. To ensure that
they don't mind you keeping
them on your list, end your message with
this paragraph:
"To be sure this message has arrived, please
reply with the word in the subject line: 'thanks'.
We'll know that we sent this report to the
right place, and that we've fulfilled our
promise to (friend's name)."
If they do not reply to let you know they
received the report, be safe. Assume
they are not interested in hearing from
you in the future, and don't mail to
them again.
7. Renting Lists.
This can be very expensive, but worth it if the list is highly targeted. Prices can
vary between .05 and .40 per name depending upon the number you are
mailing, how targeted the list is and
how the names have been gathered.
Our suggestion is to test mail to a small
list at first and gauge your response, or
use one of the direct email services listed
below.
Only get lists from reputable companies
online, and be very careful about this.
Never mail to a CD-Rom list of millions
of names. We promise - they don't want
to hear from you, you'll get spam-fried in
the process, and many addresses will
be defunct.
=================
Direct Email Services
=================
Direct email services will send out your
email in bulk to a targeted, opt-in list. Be
sure to confirm that these companies do
Indeed mail to lists of individuals who are
targeted, voluntary subscribers. And before
you spend a dime, make sure that these
are the people your business most needs
to reach.
3W Online
http://actionsites.com/advert.html
Direct email is sent to 5,000-200,000 Internet
users who subscribe to this service. It is a
powerful tool when used in combination with
a Web site, electronic storefront or an
autoresponder.
Email Announce
http://www.EmailAnnounce.com/
eTechNet
http://www.enteract.com/~ebizlist/bulkmail.htm
Email to opt-in subscriber lists.
They offer co-op and private ad mailings.
Please Mail Me!
http://www.pleasemailme.com/special.htm
Special offers for first time advertisers.
Postmaster Direct
http://www.netcreations.com/postdirect/business.html
Offering business-to-business and
consumer (voluntary subscription)
email lists.
WebPromote Direct Email
http://www.webpromote.com/de/
YesMail. A good, reliable company.
http://www.yesmail.com
8. Direct Response Mail. Give prospects you mail to by post
an extra incentive to respond by email. Tell them their order will be processed
much more quickly, and offer a bonus
if they respond by email.
The goal is to transform your expensive
postal mail prospect list into an inexpensive
email list. The more people you can reach
by email, the more you will reduce your
costs (and the higher your profits will climb).
9. Membership Organizations. People working together for a common
goal are excellent prospects for your
email list. If you belong to an association network, an alumni group, a club, a school
board, or other organization where 'birds of
a feather' have flocked together, offer them
a discount for your products and services -
and only allow them to contact you by email.
Publicize this special bonus for members
through their newsletter or other announcement
outlets. You're doing their membership a service
which is certainly newsworthy.
Mining these 9 sources can build your opt-in
list in record time. Start as soon as you can -
a good list is worth it's weight in gold, and is
fundamental to your success online.
... article by Scott T. Smith ...
...http://www.copywriting.net..
..__ Copywriting that Sells __.
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Copyright 2003 Jmar Marketing Concepts