Two weeks ago I posted about my new Inbound Marketing eBook only to discover the email subscribe button didn’t work. Cue double face palm.
It’s working now, but to avoid a repeat disaster I’m going to just hand it over without having to register.
This does mean you’ll miss out on the followup emails with additional advice, so if you need any help getting your inbound marketing strategy rolling, feel free to email me.
It’s not just about keywords anymore. Smart marketers and SEO copywriters have known for some time that focusing on keywords alone is a fool’s errand. There’s just as much, if not more, traffic to be gained from social media if you create content around hot topics and key customer problems.
But how can you identify popular topics that are going to get shared, as well as feed the search engine spiders? All it requires is going through a few extra steps than keyword research alone.
How to find popular topics in your niche
Keyword suggestion tools are great for identifying which specific words to mention. But if you want to know what’s going to be popular with living, breathing people, you need to find out which articles have been shared the most or attracted the most links in the past.
There are a few tools you can use:
Topsy.com – Allows you to search for the most Tweeted articles of all time in your niche.
Moz Opensite Explorer – Pop in a popular website in your industry then click on ‘Top Pages’ to find articles which attracted the most links.
Google – Find the most popular articles in Google’s search results and then use your backlink checking tool of choice to find out how many links these articles got and where from.
Once you’ve identified some red hot topics in your niche the next stage is to not merely replicate them but to go one step beyond. This is a strategy popularised by Brian Dean at Backlinko, which he calls ‘The Skyscraper Technique’ and increased his own traffic 110% in just 14 days.
If you want to standout in your industry, there’s no point creating content, or a skyscraper, that’s offering the same level of information as what’s already out there. You have to add another few floors on top, and improve on it, if you want your content to be worthy of people’s links, shares and traffic.
How can I add extra floors to my SEO content?
There are a few ways of improving on the popular content that’s already out there:
Go into more detail – If a popular post shares 10 ways to beat procrastination, yours needs to offer 20 ways.
Better design - A few custom designed vector graphics and diagrams can go a long way to making posts look more interesting, easier to consume and of higher value.
Bring it up to date – If the original post is a few months or years old, consider what’s happened in your industry that can make the topic more up to date and relevant to today’s reader.
Combining all three of these tactics is a surefire way of hitting a home run with your SEO skyscraper content and creating something remarkable that’s going to get some traction for your website in even the most competitive niches. An extra step you can take is to contact website owners and people in social media who shared popular posts previously, and suggest they take a look at yours.
So take your seo copywriting strategy beyond chasing keywords. Start building content skyscrapers on hot topics that are already proven to be popular and watch your search engine ranking and website traffic rise.
P.S. I’ve linked to it already, but you really should check out Brian’s post for a more thorough explanation of this strategy.
If you would like to make a good income as a self-employed copywriter then it's a good idea to enhance your direct response copywriting knowledge. This is because direct response copywriters get the most rewarding projects, both in pay and the end result. The success of their copywriting is measured exactly, unlike when writing a website, press release or brochure. Through tracking how many leads a direct response copywriting message generates, businesses can assess why direct response copywriters deserve to be paid more money.
So how can you learn how to become a direct response copywriter? There are a few ways of brushing up your copywriting ability to the level that direct response copywriting requires.
To begin with, read all the books by the world's most famous copywriters. This includes books by David Ogilvy, Joe Sugarman, Eugene Schwartz and John Caples. The lessons they teach are as valid as they were decades or even a hundred years ago.
The second thing is to start a collection of copies of successful direct response sales copy. Finding examples of great direct response copywriting can be done by searching in Yahoo or Google. Google images, in particular, offers a quick, easy way of finding successful direct response sales letters and adverts. Then study every advert or sales letter to understand what copywriting tactics are being implemented and why the sales letter or advert was profitable.
Last of all, as always, practice makes perfect. Get some paper and write out the examples in your swipe file word for word. This helps you to recognize the thought process when the copywriter wrote them. Next try writing your own sales letters and adverts using everything you've come to understand from the last two steps.
Direct response copywriting types
There are quite a few types of direct response copywriting. Although the format and delivery mechanism might vary, they all have the focused goal of making cash.
Email copywriting - When done poorly, email is no better than junk mail. But email marketing can be an effective way of creating leads if you make a persuasive offer. When people respond it means you have gained their interest. Achieving this requires a lot of direct response copywriting skill, making it a nicely paid copywriting task.
Direct mail - These are the letters and post cards you get in the post to promote time shares, magazine subscriptions and other deals you didnt ask for. In each case, their purpose is to persuade you to react and confirm your interest in the offer, whether done by phone, email or posting a reply card. While the writing used in direct mail might seem simple, every word and sentence is carefully selected to get attention and build interest. You are competing with lots of other offers in the post for attention. Just getting people to read the first line of your message can be challenging. It is for this reason that direct response copywriters are the highest paid.
Sales letter writing - Direct response copywriters are hired to write the very long web pages used to advertise training courses, eBooks and other online products as well as for traditional sales letters. Offline sales letters are often shipped with brochures as an introduction and to develop curiosity in the product. Direct response letters can be just a single page or ten or more for a high value product. Writing sales letters of this length that are interesting to read and successful at getting readers to respond and buy the product demands a level of ability every copywriter aims to achieve.
Advertorial writing - These kinds of sales copywriting are created to look like normal articles in magazines and newspapers. They frequently have headlines announcing a miracle breakthrough or startling fact, much like the other articles in the magazine or newspaper. The big distinction is that after speaking about the subject discussed in the headline they rapidly transition to a sales pitch, presenting a solution to the problem mentioned previously. A response form or telephone number is another obvious sign that it is direct response copywriting.
Hopefully you now recognise how becoming a direct response copywriter calls for a lot of experience, practice and skill. It is also a very rewarding skill to build up, both as a result of the sense of achievement from creating income for clients and the boost in paycheck. So if attaining the status of a direct response sales writer is something you aim for, start studying all the books by the most highly respected copywriters and developing your sales writing skills.
I’m about to share some information that could destroy my business. What I’m about to tell you could cause sales of my new eBook to plummet, shakes of the head from peers and derision throughout the industry. I could even be banned from future conferences and subjected to a writ forbidding me from speaking of copywriting ever again.
I’m so nervous about what I’m about to say that I even phoned my indemnity insurers to check if I’m covered. They say I am…but I’m also nuts.
But it’s something I feel people have to know. They’ve been fooled by this myth we’ve created in the copywriting world for too long. The sales patter has to end and reality be allowed to breathe.
What is this sparkling powder keg of an admission?
What is this incendiary admission that will send shockwaves to knock down the hallowed pillars of copywriting, while my clients rush to block my commission cheques?
My admission is this – copywriting is easy.
There. It’s done.
The bottle is uncorked and the genie of truth freed to spread chaos and enlightenment as it deems fit.
For too long we’ve cultivated this image of the reverently wise copywriter – a uniquely talented being able to glimpse through a caffeine/alcohol/nicotine fueled haze to grasp words only a select few can see, words that penetrate the very soul of humankind.
For too long we’ve been told that copywriters are special people. Gifted individuals who, once handed a brief, will disappear into mahogany encased studies to be surrounded by leather bound tomes, piles of dog-eared moleskin notepads and framed quill pens of past scribes. There they will sit in solemn silence awaiting inspiration’s arrival.
Days, if not weeks, will pass. But eventually they’ll emerge on deadline day, emotionally drained and mentally stretched to their limits, but with the glint of victory in their eyes.
They’ll then hand over a document of such finely sculpted perfection that heaven help those who dare to change the merest subhead or comma.
But I’m afraid, dear reader, this is all a ruse.
It’s a carefully manufactured image to beguile unsuspecting business owners to stump up the trade’s eye watering fees.
The fact is that copywriting, and getting people to buy stuff, is easy.
Allow me to explain how you can sell more of anything without clever wordplay, magical mind tricks or any creativity at all…
How to Sell More of Anything
1. Discover your customer’s motivation – Telling your customer why they should buy your product is the wrong way round. You first need to know what it is they need solved. Listen to them and ask how you can help.
2. Don’t create the motivation for them – You can’t trick, force or beguile a customer into thinking they have a motivation that doesn’t exist. They may feign interest or admit what you’re saying to them about wanting more money and time is true. But if they don’t truly believe it in their gut, they aren’t going to buy. The motivation to buy is only something they can tell you.
3. Tell them the truth – Some say you have to put ethics on the backseat if you want to power towards success, to be willing to paint over the cracks and belittle the competition to get the sale. But with the access to information customers have these days, glossing over the truth or remolding it entirely is only going to make them lose trust in you. Lie to them once and you can forget about further business down the road.
4. Answer their questions – Copywritingshouldn’t be a magical dark art. You’re not trying to bully or fool people to do anything they don’t want to do. Instead you need to discover the concerns or doubts holding them back. You then nod your head and provide them with the answers that address their objections and remove the barriers blocking a sale. Answering questions enables you to replace bland statements dressed as facts with reasons why they should buy.
5. Give them what they want – When you know their motivation and have answered their objections truthfully, selling is easy. It doesn’t require you to outsmart them, exaggerate or overpowering them with the sheer force of your words. You simply state how your product fulfills their deeply felt motivation and why buying it is a beneficial exchange. Money is purely a means for customers to get the things they want. All you’re doing is encouraging them to get what they want in a way that switches the sense of loss from spending money to that of a sense of gain.
Ensure your website, brochure or sales letter does these five things and you can sell more of your products. You can also save the hundreds or thousands you’d spend on some wizened copywriter to do the exact same thing.
When a campaign withers, plummets and bombs, the temptation can be to write it off as a dud. But sometimes it’s worth sifting through the debris. Sometimes all that’s needed is minor tinkering to turn a spluttering campaign into a rocketship. A phrase in direct marketing is ‘tiny hinges swing big doors’. Putting the metaphors aside, what this means is that small tweaks can create big improvements in response rates and sales.
Renowned copywriter Ray Edwards recently shared five small hinges on his podcast. I’ve ‘curated’ a few of his and added some of my own to create ten ways you can dramatically increase response to your existing campaigns:
1. Headlines – The single most powerful way of improving response is to change the headline. As David Ogilvy taught us, on average 80% of people will read the headline but only 20% will continue to the body copy. It follows that you can dramatically increase readership and response with a more targeted and interesting headline. Time and again, it’s been proven that headlines which offer benefits, build intrigue and tell the reader what they will gain if they read further are the most effective. Trying to be cute or clever will only turn off readers who don’t get the joke or see any point of reading further.
2. Short First Line – This is a tricked I picked up from copywriting genius Joe Sugarman. He describes sales letters as ‘slippery slopes’ in which they are structured to simply keep people reading. After the headline has caught their attention, the first line’s only aim is to get them to read the next line, and so on. A short first line minimises the friction. It helps to build velocity you can build on with short paragraphs, bullets and enticing subheads to keep readers sliding through your copy until they are ready to leap and take action at the end.
3. Go Old School. Send a Letter – Email’s low cost and measurability make it a true workhorse. It also has an ROI that puts social media to shame. But while readership of is on the rise (with two thirds now reading emails on a mobile device) you still have to battle for attention within a flood of marketing emails. So why not compete in a mail box with less competition? Nobody sends letters anymore, in this digital age. Use this to your advantage by sending a sales letter with a physicality that’s hard to ignore.
4. Preframe Your Offer – Preselling is a popular tactic in the affiliate marketing world. By writing reviews of other people’s products they give them the reassuring glow of third party endorsement. Any business can use this tactic. Consider review copies of your product to journalists and bloggers with Klout to presell it to their readers and followers.
5. Change the Format – Many people like to read. Others like to watch video and some even prefer listening to product information at the gym or on the commute. If a written sales letter isn’t doing the trick, consider creating a sales letter video with a downloadable audio version. That way you can max consumption of your message and expand its reach onto YouTube, Vimeo and more.
6. Images of Real People – People like looking at images of other people. Better yet, they like looking at photos of real people, rather than the beaming caricatures that populate the realm of stock photography. The best option is to use photos of people working within the company, or you can try sites like Flickr, Wikimedia and Openphoto for creative commons licensed images. Images of real people makes a message appear more authentic and trustworthy, driving up response as a result.
7. Change Your Offer – Your product might be a masterpiece of German engineering, Italian design and British luxury branding. But if you’re not pitching it the right way nobody will care. If your campaign is falling flat, find out why. Interview your customers. Do some market research with Survey Monkey. Look at what your competitors are doing. Find out what the hot buttons are and get prodding.
8. Post and Promote – Many campaigns fail because the client simply hits publish and hopes for the best. Rather than post and hope, the mindset should be post and promote. Use social media monitoring tools, like Hootsuite and Buzzbundle, to find bloggers and Tweeters with large followings and then reach out to them. Viral marketing might be a game of chance, but it doesn’t hurt to give it a little nudge in your favour.
9. Check Your Mobile – The rise of mobile has hit the restaurant industry like a hurricane. Those that have adapted are able to prosper from people looking for restaurants while on the go. Those still dragging their feet are left to count the tumbleweed blowing past empty tables. As mentioned, two thirds of emails are now read on a mobile device. If people aren’t responding to your messages, it might be worth pulling out your mobile to see what reading experience you’re giving them.
10. Get Retargeting – SEO is expensive, unpredictable and takes a lot of time and effort before you can expect to see results. Digital advertising has evolved to beome quite the reverse. With retargeting tools, you can display your ads to people who’ve already expressed an interest in your in your market or product. You can them lure them to your website without the king’s ransom of yesteryear. If you’re not yet retargeting, head over to Adroll or Perfect Audience to get your tracking code installed tout suite.
So there you go. Ten small hinges that can open big doors. Deploying a few of these will reinforce your ‘added value’ copywriter credentials and help to send campaigns soaring instead of bouncing along and flat lining after a few days. Any small hinges you’d care to add?
PR used to be a lonely soul. It would perform tasks in isolation, diligently writing back slapping press releases to keep the boardroom happy. But times have changed. PR has since been brought in from the cold to work shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the marketing crew. Social media and modern content creation demands mean we all have to pull together to get the job done.
The market tells you what to publish. You don’t tell it what it wants to hear
Hot topics, trends and customer problems ebb and flow at rapid pace. News is commented on and opinions voiced in an endless flow of blog posts, threads and status updates. This has been going on for some time. What’s changed is that smart marketers are now finding and dipping into these conversations with predatory cunning. With tools like Buzzbundle, Radian6 and Boardreader, they can be alerted as soon as they’re trigger keywords are mentioned and then dip in their fishing lines, with comments of their own, before reeling in customers to be fed more info on their client’s website. Inbound marketing, in other words.
PR is now taking its seat to join in the game. Instead of pushing out bland one way announcements, about new warehouses, executive appointments and product launches, it’s discovering that it can get better results from listening to what the market wants to hear. That way PR can create press releases and articles which (marketing cliché alert) resonate with the hot topics and trends. This in generates more interest within the market and a more positive reaction to what it has to say.
The New Rules of Marketing of PR – My update for 2014
It’s been six years since David Meerman Scott first published ‘The New Rules of Marketing and PR’, advising businesses to target customers directly with content instead of publishing into the digital hoping someone would hear. It’s taken a while, but with blogging evolving into content marketing and now taking on the respectable guise of inbound marketing, people are starting to get it.
This is the PR strategy I recommend, so it can play a more effective part within the marketing mix:
Use the social media monitoring tools already mentioned to identify the trends, customer challenges, hot topics and the people with influence in your market
Create a relevant message that answers key issues or addresses hot topics with a unique twist. Don’t just add your voice to the cacophony, but challenge the status quo with conviction. Phrases I’ve heard for this tactic include ‘newsjacking’ and ‘rip, pivot and jam’.
When you’re ready to publish, leave the scattergun for the amateurs. Instead, target the people who you want to hear your message with laser precision. Approach influential bloggers and social media commentators with Klout and publish to relevant forums with Oktopost or Buddy Media. Contacting journalists directly is also a good idea. As always, no spamming please. It’s time consuming, but targeting influential people and networks is going to lead much more exposure than entrusting PRWeb to do all the promotion for you.
Track the results with Kissmetrics, Google Analytics or your stats tool of choice to gauge increase in brand mentions, social media influence, website traffic, subscribers and, yes, even leads.
Keep PR within reach in case you need them to jump online and respond to feedback.
So there you have it. The above five points should save you some time should David decide to update his book. You can now stop publishing press releases and articles into the vacuum but instead be creating content the market is interested in. This in turn means you can look forward to a rise in quantifiable results, which is certain to delight PR and their boardroom masters alike.
Originally posted 2012-05-16 20:11:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
This is part 7 of an 8 part series on how to improve the conversion rate of your website using a new testing approach to web design, rather than the old way of guesswork and assumptions.
All the testing, market research and analysis work you’ve done so far should have given you some ideas on what changes you can make to your website more trustworthy and effective at converting browsers into buyers.
The temptation might be to now plough ahead and to pull down your existing pages before replacing them with the shiny new benefit laden versions you have in mind. But now you’ve come so far, now is not the time to abandon the tested philosophy of website design we’ve followed thus far.
As with every step in this series, you need to test your thoughts and ideas on how your new website should be designed, rather than rely on intuition and guesswork.
Create wireframes of your new pages
Instead of getting bogged down in html, a quick way of creating web pages you can test is to use wireframe creation software. If you’ve got money to spend, Adobe Illustrator is the premier choice for creating test web pages.
Another option, that’s kinder to your wallet, is Balsamiq mockups. This is a rapid wireframing tool that enables you to create sketch like versions of the new web pages. A couple of mouse clicks later, and you’ve got a PDF or graphical version you can pass around to get people’s feedback.
Use Notable for decision making by committee (but in a good way)
Emailing off your wireframe and then trying to amalgamate everyone’s feedback is a headache just waiting to happen. Instead, you can use a collaborative feedback tool, like Notable.com, so everyone can contribute and share feedback in one place. Simply upload your wireframe and then invite team members to paste notes, vote on changes and suggest better ideas. This approach enables faster iterations and improvements to be made so you’re ready to move onto the next stage with the best version of your website yet.
Get feedback from actual visitors through usability testing
It’s easy to assume that you and your team know best when it comes to how your website should look, read and feel. But as I hope this entire series of posts has shown you, assumptions and guesswork aren’t the best way.
Instead, you need to get some third party feedback on what works, what doesn’t and what sends them clicking their way out the door. Two possible approaches are:
Ask visitors to your website if they’d like to take part in usability testing. Using Ethnio you can add a call out box to your website that pops up and offers visitors an incentive for taking part in usability testing. You can then conduct the tests individually over Skype or you could hold a group testing exercise using conferencing software, like GoToMeeting.
Sites like usertesting.com enable you to select testers matching the demographics of your target visitor. They’ll then record a video of them navigating through your website, performing tasks and hunting for usability bugs.
After all this, you’ll now have a new version of your website ready to be built and unleashed onto the world. But the testing isn’t over yet folks, because we still need to know whether the new version is more persuasive, engaging and higher converting than the one you have already.
In the final post I’ll give you an overview of how to use an amazing conversion rate optimization tool provided by Google that is probably worth $1000s but they generously give away for free.
Visit http://ift.tt/1iHC5P4 for more website copywriting tips and how to improve responses to your marketing. Does your website copywriting address visitors as humans? Or is it filled with tired old cliches and marketing speak? This video provides website copywriting tips for making your website more customer focused and less sounding like it was written by a robot.
