HIPS – A Simple Storytelling Formula

You hear all the time that the best way to sell is with stories.

They’re instantly engaging and people think they’re being entertained, rather than sold to, and their cloak of cynicism is temporarily lowered.

But how do you write them?

That’s the tricky part.

A good place to look for inspiration is forums and product reviews.

And a good way to tell them is to use the HIPS storytelling formula:

Hook

The angle, shocking fact or event that sets the stage for what your story is about.

Example – How you’ve always loved hearing people play the drums as a child.

Interest

The reason why this story is going to be interesting to be your reader, such as the pain point it addresses.

Example – Learning a new skill, like playing the drums, can be difficult and frustrating.

Parable

A simple story that reflects how your product solves the customer’s problem.

Example – How you learned to play the drums and how much satisfaction you get from it.

Slide

This is the close when you explain why the story matters.

Example – Learning to play the drums is like any skill. The best way to learn is practice and to have a good teacher, which is why you should buy my course.

By following the HIPS formula, you can easily create stories around your product that will be fun and engaging while selling your product at a deeper level – an emotional one.

Try using HIPS in your next emails, advertorials or sales letters and let me know how you get on.

 

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7 Easy Tweaks to Turn a VSL Dud into a Sales Rocket

My VSL campaign last week bombed – and I know why…

Facebook’s targeting is now second to none.

You can test campaigns for as little as $5 a day and find customers with diamond cutting precision.

BUT…

that doesn’t mean they’re going to rush to download your report when they have no clue who you are.

You’ve got to build the relationship first.

Selling via Facebook is the same as bringing a new client onboard in real life.

You don’t want to tell them how much you’ll charge in the first email.

In the wise words of Homer Simpson, “If you want to make you’re move, you’ve got to play it cool.”

You invite them out for coffee first. Discuss their challenges over Skype or email them back to explain why their current strategy isn’t working.

Only then can you start thinking about presenting your offer.

I did none of this.

 

Instead, I bought my way into their newsfeed and expected people to handover their email address.

I rushed things, and got the door slammed in my face.

I wont be making the same mistake again.

Now that’s been said…here’s my entire VSL report published and offered upfront with no strings attached.

We live and learn in this marketing game.

You’ve dropped $10k on a copywriter, another $15k on full animation and then watched in HORROR as views of your VSL fall off a cliff in the FIRST minute.

It’s enough to make even the steeliest of marketers cry.

Why aren’t people watching?

Can it be saved?

You have questions. I have answers.

Take a deep breath, have a seat and let’s see if we can’t turn your VSL car crash into a conversion monster…

Why VSL’s are so powerful

VSLs are probably the most effective way of selling right now (particularly for converting cold traffic).

Why?

Because you control the thought process.

Instead of allowing viewers to flick through the sales page, skimming and missing out all the best bits, you have them locked in to a predetermined path.

Like a conveyer belt that takes them from curious to convinced and ready to buy.

BUT…

as any seasoned salesmen will tell you – you can’t convince someone to buy something unless they feel it in their gut.

You can’t just TELL people how wonderful your magic beans are and expect them to hand over the cash.

You have to find a way of standing by their side and explaining how that numbing pain or itch will never go away unless they take action – TODAY!

To do this, your VSL has to engage the conversation already taking place in their head.

It has to prod their pain, build their hopes and feed on their nightmares before you can hope to sell them anything.

But to do any that – people have to WATCH IT.

All the way from start to finish.

In this report I explain the 7 simple tweaks that can ensure people keep watching and you can skyrocket your conversions and sales as a result.

1. GRAB their interest with a goldfish

It’s now scientific fact that people have shorter concentration spans than goldfish (seriously, they’ve done studies on it).

So it’s ironic that presenting them with a goldfish in the first three minutes could be the best way to keep them watching.

What the heck am I talking about?

Let me explain…

The Tao of Badass is a dating VSL which for no clear reason starts with the introduction of a goldfish.

The viewer’s mental response is something like this:

“Why has he shown me a goldfish?”

“What can this possibly have to do with dating?”

“I’d better keep watching to find out!”

Creating an unresolved question (or ‘open loop’) is a powerful way of keeping people watching to get the answers.

And the best time to ask an open question is right at the start.

Why?

Because most people quit VSLs within the first 3 minutes.

But if you can keep them watching for that long they tend to watch for longer because they feel they’ve invested so much time already they might as well keep watching.

So best practice is to create three different intros of 3 minutes to see which keeps people engaged the most.

This will naturally result in more conversions at the end.

Along with showing something weird like a goldfish to create a WTF moment, try sharing some SHOCKING stats, reveal an industry conspiracy or have a short video clip of a skateboarding dog to suck them into your presentation.

 

2)  Give them a REASON to keep watching

VSLs bomb when they completely miss the viewer’s pain buttons.

This typically happens because you haven’t done enough research.

Even worse, you’ve ASSUMED you know all the answers.

No matter how well you think you know the market, you still need to find out about their pains, complaints and problems they need solved.

The first step is to check forums, Facebook groups, Amazon reviews and perhaps even using Survey Monkey to find out.

You can then create a ‘buyer persona’ of who your VSL is targeted at.

You can then fine tune your message based on their ‘awareness scale’ of the problem your product solves.

You can find a more detailed explanation in Michael Masterson’s ‘Great Leads’. But for the sake of brevity, they are:

 

Awareness Level	Best Approach for the VSL’s Pitch
Most Aware	Make an offer
Product Aware	Outline how your product helps
Solution Aware	Explain the problem your product solves
Problem Aware Option 1	Expose a secret they didn’t know about
Problem Aware Option 2	Pitch your VSL as a big announcement related to their problem
Unaware	Use storytelling to discuss their problem and your solution

 

When you understand who your customer is and where they are on the awareness scale, you can make your VSL’s main message more laser focused on hitting their pain buttons.

 

3) Tell them a STORY to create emotional connection

People buy with emotion and justify their decision with logic.

Everyone in sales knows that.

So you need to make our viewer FEEL the need for your product if they’re going to keep watching and to imagine what their lives will be like when your product fixes that pain.

What’s the best way to do this?

With a STORY!

We are hardwired to respond to stories ever since our ancestors spent long nights around a campfire or painted their walls.

When we hear a story we imagine ourselves in the same predicament and this naturally triggers our emotions.

Beverly Hills MD is one of the highest converting VSLs in skincare.

It does a lot of things right, notably its use of a story about how someone rediscovered their youthful looks and confidence with its face cream.

Presenting the product in this way is a powerful way of sidestepping people’s normal cynicism or marketing.

It just seems more believable and gets the viewer to imagine the same outcome in their own life. They’re also more open to buying into the VSLs other claims, thinking they could just be true.

 

4) Focus on ONE key message or BIG idea

Ever heard the saying ‘keep it simple stupid’ (KISS)?

KISS is a popular copywriting acronym that reminds us to keep our sales copy as simple as possible.

Your VSL is not an episode of Lost.

It needs to take viewers on ONE logical path of thought.

Your viewer probably has lots of other windows open, chat messages,mobile pings and maybe even have the TV – all at the same time.

They are NOT going to absorb a complicated message.

Imagine that each idea in your VSL is a ball, which you’re passing to them. The more balls they have to manage the harder it gets to juggle them all in their head.

Throw them too many balls and the whole pitch falls apart.

So focus on ONE key message or one BIG idea on why your product matters.

 

5) Provide PROOF so buying becomes logical

People are more jaded, cynical and downright distrustful of marketing than ever.

It’s no use just making CLAIMS that your supplement will make them beach body ready, turn them into Einstein or make them rich – all overnight.

You’ve got to PROVE it.

Just making stuff up is also a fast track to a court date with the FDA.

Imagine Dr Richard Dawkins’ is watching your VSL and what claims will make him furrow his brow then rip your VSL’s pitch to pieces.

Or imagine your viewer’s doubts are fences between them and the buy button. And think about what you need to say to resolve each one so that their confidence is won and their path to buying is clear.

Write down all the possible objections they may have then make sure you remove each one so that buying is the only route they can take.

 

6) Create SCARCITY so they buy now

By the time they finish watching your VSL, you want viewers to be jumping up and down in their seat in anticipation of what your product can do for them.

You don’t want them pondering for a minute longer. Or close the video, thinking they’ll buy it later.

They won’t!

So, you need to light a firecracker under their chair, and make it clear why they MUST buy RIGHT NOW!

How can you do this?

A few tactics to try:

• Offer a 24 hour discount they can only get through the video.
• Tell them you have limited stock and the buy button could disappear any second.
• That the ingredients are in high demand and the price could rise.
• Add a timer that shows when the price will go up.

People HATE to feel they’re missing out.

So try to create a sense of SCARCITY and that the door is closing so they’d better hit that BUY button fast.

7) FRAME the price

You’ll have done most of the hard work by the time you announce the price.

By this stage they should be jumping up and down in their seat with their credit card out.

But if you present the price in the wrong way, you can still easily lose them.

So you need to FRAME the price in a way that makes it appear like excellent value for money.

If it’s a supplement, a popular tactic is to compare it to a cup of coffee, and reinforce how it will be much healthier and cheaper for them then a stimulant they’re relying on for performance already.

Or you could discuss how it will save them thousands on future medical bills by slowing the decline in their mental or physical health.

If it’s a training aid, you could say how it saves them the cost of coaching, or the hours of time they’d have to practice to get the same results.

If it’s an eBook you could frame how much time it will save them on collating the information themselves, or trying to complete a task without a roadmap.

Compare it to the alternatives and reinforce why winners invest in their own success.

Then explain why your product is such an investment and how it will save them vast amounts of time and money in the long run.

That’s 7 for starters…

Implementing these seven changes are key tactics that can improve engagement and response rate for any VSL.

Extra advice I’d add is to not underestimate your customer’s intelligence. Be aware of the sales messages your competitors use that your customers have heard millions of times before.

Claiming a skin cream is ‘anti-aging’, for example, can be a big turn off to baby boomers,.

They’ve been bombarded with these claims so many times that they no longer believe them. It’s better to say ‘skin enhancement’ instead.

Also, be bold in your ideas.

Look for ways to challenge your viewer’s preconceptions, while backing up the things they may have been questioning already.

A conspiracy angle about how big pharma buries natural therapies is a classic example.

As always, the key is thorough, detailed research into both your product AND your customer.

A good rule of thumb is to keep researching until you’ve convinced yourself to buy the product. This will naturally come across in your copy.

Turning a VSL into a Million Dollar Business

VSLs are great at converting even cold traffic, whether from Facebook, Google, Outbrain, Taboola or any other ad network.

They can also be the entryway to a sales funnel (also known as the ‘backend’). This is where the big money is made and what can take a business from thousands of dollars a week to millions.

Even a $7 eBook can be the entryway for a six or seven figure business when you have a solid email series and enough upsells in place.

To give you some examples:

The Truth About Abs VSL generates around $1million a month for its product creator, Mike Geary.

The Tao of Badass VSL took the business from making a few thousand dollars to becoming a best seller on Clickbank

Text Your Ex Back  helped dating coach Michael Fiore to build a business empire in one of the most competitive niches on the internet.

And the list goes on…

What’s more, when have a high converting VSL, traffic takes care of itself as affiliates will be desperate to promote you to their email list.

I just want to give you some insight into what is possible with a VSL.

It has the potential to be a MAJOR profit generator that can take your business from small scale to prime time.

 

Want a VSL that Converts?

I hope you’ve found this post useful and it’s revealed how you can skyrocket your VSL’s conversions and sales.

If you have a VSL that scares off viewers in minutes or you’d like a new one created, get in touch for a no obligation proposal.

I’ve written tons of short corporate videos and 60 minute epics for nootropics, insomnia, heart disease, weight loss, skincare, fitness and even golf training aids (examples here).

So if you’d like to discover how a VSL can provide the entryway to your sales funnel and the best revenue generator for your business, let’s talk.

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7 Reasons Your VSL is NOT Converting (and how to fix them)

You’ve dropped $10k on a copywriter, another $15k on full animation and then watched in HORROR as views of your VSL fall off a cliff in the FIRST minute.

It’s enough to make even the steeliest of marketers cry.

Why aren’t people watching?

Can it be saved?

You have questions. I have answers.

To get my solutions to the 7 biggest VSL mistakes, pop your email into the box below:

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4 Better Ways of Getting Exposure than Press Releases

Do you still write press releases for clients?

If you have media contacts, it may be a worthwhile strategy.

But just publishing press release in the hope they get read by the right people is about as effective as air dropping it as confetti in a force 12 gale.

Here are four alternatives:

1. Buy a slot in an email list

If there’s someone in your client’s niche with 100,000 or more subscribers, paying to email their list is a great way of getting directly in front of your target audience.

Press release distribution site stats may show thousands of reads. But that doesn’t mean they’re the people you’re trying to reach.

2. Write an advertorial and promote it on Facebook

As discussed in my #1 Facebook advertising mistake post, overt sales pitches bombs on Facebook.

A better strategy is to present your pitch as valuable information instead. With the right angle, just $10 or $20 spent on ‘boosting it’ or showing to a custom audience can generate thousands of views and hundreds of clickthroughs.

The added benefit is that you can draw people to your site. You can then offer a lead magnet to get them on your email list for followup marketing activity.

3. Write a guest post

If you can find relevant bloggers with 100,000 readers, guest posting is a powerful way of getting in front of the right eyeballs.

Again, you’ll need to make it an interesting read focused on a reader’s problem, rather than a straight pitch. And once it’s published you can also run a Facebook ad campaign to turbocharge its exposure.

4. Turn the press release into a ‘report’ and use it as lead magnet

If the press release is about a new solution to a common industry problem, you could turn it into a report. This approach makes it appear more like valuable info and more trustworthy.

You’ll need to expand the content to cover the problem in more depth and to explain why the status quo is broken. You can then introduce the press release’s subject as the solution in a non-salesy way.

Why not run all four?

Those are just four alternatives to press releases for getting exposure and leads. All four are trackable. So you could run all of them and let the stats decide which is the most effective.

In today’s competitive marketing world, if you offer ‘leads’ or ‘sales’ rather than ‘expsoure’ as a goal, clients are more likely to hire you. And with your writing linked to profits, you can charge more when they do.

Any exposure hacks you’s add?

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The #1 Facebook Advertising Mistake

Facebook has probably the best targeting of any ad platform. And it got even better with the updated ‘Custom Audiences’ and Lookalike audiences.

You can now target new prospects for your blog posts or reports with precision.

But creating quality content and finding the audience is a waste of time unless they click on your ad.

And this is where most campaigns fail.

Because arguably the single biggest mistake when advertising on Facebook is  – to write your ad like an ad.*

In other words, creating an ad with obvious stock photography, a headline announcing what you’re trying to sell and body copy loaded with superlatives and exclamation marks.

These ads fail on Facebook because it’s not what people want or are looking for.

You need to take a step back and look at Facebook’s feed from a prospect’s perspective.

They’re not reading every post but flicking through with their thumb while slumped in front of the TV or waiting at the supermarket checkout.

You need to think what will make them pause for long enough to read the body copy.

So rather than self promotional, your post needs to be about an amazing new discovery, breaking news or a valuable info that will help them in their job.

Put simply, the secret to advertising success on Facebook is not to write ADS but to write NEWS.

But don’t just take my word for it.

The other key to success is to test, test and test again.

Run a selection with different types of approaches, headlines, body copy and images.

See what the stats tell you. Then let me know if I was right.

*Unless you’ve got an ecommerce store.

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4 Easy Ways of Doing Buyer Persona Research

Ever find yourself staring at a screen as blank as your brain? If so, you probably haven’t done enough research on who you’re writing to and why.

Research should take up two thirds of your time. Your goal should be to keep going until you reach the ‘a ha’ moment when everything clicks into place and you know exactly why the product matters and how you’re going to sell it. Then writing it down is the easy part.

Remember, we’re in the selling business. We’re not trying to win a literary prize or to get compliments on our elegant turn of phrase. It’s structure, making the complex simple and sales psychology that matters.

One of the key goals when researching is to understand your target customer’s hopes, dreams and motivations. Your copy may be read by millions, but you want to imagine you’re selling to just one. An imaginary person (a.k.a. buyer persona) sat across the table from you whom you have to convince to spend money.

So how do you work out who this person is and what to say to them?

You could do what most marketers seem to do and guess. But I know you’re better than that.

Here are four tools you can use for finding out who that person sat opposite you is, what they care about and what will motivate them to buy your product:

1. Quantcast – Pop in the URL of your client’s website to get demographic and lifestyle insights on their target audience.

2. Surveys – You can drop a survey to your client’s existing email list. Or you can use tools like Survey Monkey to ask strangers what they thinks about your product, the problems they need solving and what will get them spending money.

3. Reviews – When selling B2C, Amazon’s reviews are a goldmine of opinions and insights. It’s amazing how much people are willing to share on the problems they were experiencing with other products. Here’s a tip – check out the one or two star reviews to find objections you must address.

4. Competitors – Does a competitor have a high converting VSL, sales page or email series you can gain inspiration from? If so, go through their copy and note down the key elements of their sales argument, what proof they provide and the benefits they focus on. Then make it your mission to not just replicate but improve on what they’ve done. There’s no such thing as a crowded market when your copy out-converts your rivals.

The best door to door salesmen know how to listen and what questions to ask. You can’t convince someone to buy something unless they feel a gnawing pain in their gut. With these four research tips you can unearth deeply buried market needs to address in your copy and make it more persuasive as a result.

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The 9 Word Email – The Highest Coverting Email of All Time

It’s true.

If you have an email list you haven’t contacted in a while or are stubbornly refusing to respond, a nine word email is all it may take to turn silence into sales.

What are those nine magical words?

You simply say – “Are you still looking for [insert product]?”.

That’s it. Not a syllable more.

Countless folks have been astounded at how such a tiny message can generate such a huge response.

Its power comes from its brevity and directness. No one could imagine something so brutally abrupt being sent to an entire list. Surely it’s been sent to them only. Ignoring it would be rude.

Try it out and let me know if it works.

Disclaimer – I’m not a marketing genius that comes up with these ideas off the top of my head. This dynamite copywriting tip comes from Joe Polish and Dean Jackson via their I Love Marketing Podcast. If you’re not yet a subscriber, what’s keeping you?

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My Morning Routine

Morning routines are a hot topic among ‘growth hackers’ these days. And many of them get competitive over who can set their alarm clock at the most insanely early hour and pack in the most soul enriching stuff before the milkman arrives.

My routine is pretty lightweight, so Tim Ferris and The Rock can rest easy.

I’m not a morning person. My routine’s only aim is to force my brain into a gear slightly above sluggish, rather than redefining my place in the mulitverse.

7.30am – Alarm clock goes off. My brain wakes up long enough to switch on CNN or RT at high volume before I slip back into a coma.

8.00am – Headline news on what Donald Trump said wakes me up long enough to sit upright. I check my email, browse the news and see what Skype chats I missed.

8.15am – Grab my headphones from a drawer next to my bed and listen to a 15 minute guided meditation on YouTube (I recommend the Honest Guys channel).

8.30am – Now a full hour after my alarm clock first went off, I slide (rather than leap) out of bed to put on a pair of shorts before heading to the gym.

8.45am – Exercise for 30 mins, alternating between weights. running and yoga on different days to get the blood and brain cells flowing.

9.15am – Shower and breakfast.

9.30am – Grab a notepad and pen and fire up the latest assignment on Copyhour. This is a course I’ve been doing for the last year where they email you a successful direct response ad to dissect and copy by hand. If you’ve done all your homework on copywriting theory, I recommend taking Copyhour to start hardwiring smart sales writing into your brain.*

10.30am – I’m ready to tackle the day’s projects with gusto. Just for good measure, I’ll take a tablet of L-Theanine with my morning coffee (L-Theanine is a key active ingredient in most nootropics supplements) to get a caffeine buzz that seems to last the whole day..

My two ‘hours of power’ help me to banish the lethargy that plagued my mornings. I now feel more mentally alert and focused, and not wasting hours shopping for moleskine notebooks.

How about you? Any morning routine hacks you’d love to share?

* Affiliate links!

 

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How a Dog Helped De Beers to Sell More Diamonds

Did you know that a dog invented branding?

Tis true.

It wasn’t devised by an ancient sect of theologians, psychologists and savvy Greek business owners of luxury spas.

Branding was invented by a dog.

Allow me to explain…

If you’ve read Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion (and if not, add it to your list to Santa), you may know this story already.

In 1904 Ivan Pavlov won a Nobel Prize.

Not for finding a cure to indigestion or for negotiating a peace settlement to end the Chile-Bolivian war, but for discovering that you could get a dog to salivate by rubbing meat paste on its nose and ringing a bell.

What Pavlov discovered was that it’s possible to implant an associative memory into the brain (a bit like Inception, I guess) that can be triggered with a recall cue.

In the dog’s case, the memory was the smell of meat paste linked to the bell, and the memory became so hardwired that just ringing the bell was enough to get the dog to salivate.

What’s this got to do with branding?

It turns out, people are as susceptible to mental cues as dogs.

It’s how advertising is supposed to work – bombard your audience with enough noise and messages and they’ll subconsciously reach for your brand on the supermarket shelf.

But mentally bullying your audience into submission, like it’s a war of attrition, isn’t the best way of selling.

Branding is at it’s most effective when the implanted memory is ‘salient’. This is a neurological term for important or relevant. When the message is salient you don’t have to repeat it so many times for it to be embedded into their chemical long-term memory (rather than short-term electric memory).

So how can you create a salient memory?

There are three keys:

Consistency – Focus on one core message.
Frequency – Contact prospects multiple times with your core message.
Anchoring – Implant a recall cue that triggers the memory of your message.

De Beers doesn’t sell diamonds

I can imagine you were nodding in sage agreement with the first two and then the mental brakes came on when you reached the third, correct?

So now you’re wondering why I’ve opened another question loop and how do you anchor a memory?’

The answer, dear Crucible reader, is to give the dog what it wants.

Pavlov’s dog salivated because it loved the smell of meat paste. You need to do the same with your audience.

Don’t sell them the drill, sell them the hole.

To give you a less rolled out example, De Beers doesn’t sell diamonds.

People could care less about the cut, clarity and Karat weight. They care about the reaction they get from giving them to the person they love.

Give your customers what they want

Do the same in your copy – offer the customer what they want.

Don’t write about ‘exceeding expectations’, ‘blue sky thinking’ or about your widget’s speed settings.

Talk about what they care about – their motivations, problems and dreams – to implant a salient memory.

Then when they actually need your client’s product or service, it will be their brand that pops to the forefront of their thinking.

It may have seemed an odd choice, but awarding Mr Pavlov a Nobel Prize is something us copywriters have a lot to be thankful for.

Disclaimer – I’d love for you to believe that I wrote this post off the top of my head, but all the information came from Dan Lok’s ‘Advertising Titans Volume 1’. As the name suggests, it’s packed with interviews with some of the biggest names in direct response copywriting, such as Joe ‘BluBlocker’ Sugarman and Bob ‘B2B’ Bly. So if, like me, you’re looking to up your direct response game next year why not buy it on Kindle, and save Santa the back strain.

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The 5 Step ‘Sideways Sales Letter’ Method

Yesterday when I was working from a coffee shop when I overheard a conversation between a marketing consultant and a client.

Let me tell you, it was painful listening.

The consultant was trying to convince a rightly cynical client that social media was the ‘new way’ of marketing. That nobody read emails or visited corporate websites anymore and the client needed a flow of Facebook updates, Tweets and hashtags to shift his wares. I think the consultant may even have called it ‘content marketing’.

After spitting coffee all over my laptop, I was forced to change seats. Partly because my battery was running low and I needed a wall socket. But mainly because I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit in silence much longer without sharing some poignant facts:

• Email generates $44 for every $1 invested
• Only 34% of marketers think Facebook marketing is effective
• Even if you have 500k Facebook fans, less than 2% will see your updates
• With email, you’re guaranteed they will at least see the subject line (as long as you’re not spamming)
• Open rates for email are typically 20-30%
• Readership of email is increasing year on year, with people checking messages at spare moments on their smartphones

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Never build your farm on rented land

As I’ve mentioned multiple times at the Crucible: ‘never build your farm on rented land’. In other words, building up Fans and followers puts you at the mercy of whatever changes the owner of that platform wants to make.

When Facebook tweaked their algorithm to limit the number of times people viewed ‘promotional’ posts it made a lot of social media marketers look sheepish. And best not to mention Google+ around anyone who does marketing for Starbucks.

With, an email list you keep control over how and when you can contact subscribers for as long as they stay subscribed, enabling you to keeping selling and promoting your services whatever disruption happens in the social media world.

So we’re agreed: a large social media following is nice to have, and it can be effective when numbers run into the tens of thousands (on Twitter, anyway). But it’s dirt poor engagement rate make it a questionable sales channel compared to email’s massive (and quantifiable) ROI.

Using Email as a Sideways Sales Letter

Now, I’m not just writing to you to vent. I also wanted to share a strategy for maximizing your email marketing success. After all, it’s easy to quote studies and stats on email, but the best way to guarantee success is to have a clear strategy.

Clients often ask me to write just one email, but I always tell them that five is better. Not to inflate my fee (you cynical types), but because any salesman worth his salt will tell you that the majority of sales come after the fifth contact.

So you should also structure campaigns so that prospects are contacted multiple times, whether it’s by email, letter, postcard or biting the bullet and using for phone for something other than Whatsapp (or is it Telegram, these days?) and Words with Friends.

Anyway, let’s say we’re focusing on email and we’ve built a list after running a lead generation campaign with a lead magnet. So we’ve given away something valuable to get people registered but haven’t done anything yet to sell to them.

A smart approach would be to structure your emails so they follow the awareness scale, and take people from clueless about what you do to interested then convinced then whipping out their credit card before your stocks run dry. Jeff Walker coined this as using email like a ‘sideways sales letter’.

You could structure your emails like this:

Email 1 – Unaware – Introduce yourself, tell them what you do and what’s coming up in future emails (a.k.a. an ‘onboarding’ email).

Email 2 – Problem Aware – Rub salt in their wound by addressing the problem discussed in your lead magnet. Remind them how this problem is holding them back from the good life.

Email 3 – Solution Aware – Discuss their options for solving their problem. More importantly, mention why the existing solutions aren’t working and they need something better.

Email 4 – Product Aware – Introduce your product or service as the optimum solution that can answer all their worries and their fears. The future looks brighter with it in their life.

Email 5 – Most Aware – Make an offer. Remind them of the problems they face if they do nothing and what they have to look forward to if they decide to buy (the crossroads method).

Following this email structure enables you to deliver a long sales pitch in delicious fun size portions that are easier for today’s attention shy consumer to digest and respond to.

So if you ever find yourself within earshot of a social media consultant, consider politely tapping them on the shoulder and showing them this post. Hopefully, it may persuade them that they need a copywriter and digital sales warhorse, like yourself, sat alongside them the next time they pitch.

from The Copywriter's Crucible - A Melting Pot of Punchy, Persuasive Copywriting by Freelance Copywriter Matt Ambrose http://ift.tt/1NnCZfE
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