One of the most important aspects of communicating your message in print is having a good copy or a sales letter.
Any advertisement, classified ad, magazine ad, direct mail sales letter, a website that sells your product, can all be summed up as copy. And being a good copywriter is the single most important skill you can develop if your business is going to depend on communicating your marketing message in print on the internet. You don’t have to become a good copywriter you can also hire one to write your ads, but someone will have to do it.
Having a good product, a simple explanation, and a price is not always good enough, especially if you’re selling a service, an information product, or an expensive item.
Copywriting is salesmanship in print. It needs to engage your prospect and pull them in to read the entire ad. Some of the best sales letters have been as long as 30 and 40 pages long. The typical response is, would someone actually read that much?
And the answer is yes, IF they’re the target prospect. Meaning that they have an interest in the topic and want to learn more about it.
Think about late night infomercials. They’re usually 30 minutes, not your typical 1 minute tv ad. There are stories, lots of emotional stories and testimonials. Strong promise, a great offer, and a very strong risk free guarantee. If they didn’t work, do you think these companies would keep running them?
No they wouldn’t. But they do work. And your copy, needs to be the same way. It has to be compelling, and emotionally driven. It needs to state the problem, and then show a solution, while pointing out, that your solution is the best, and that your competition’s is not. There has to be some social proof, or testimonials. Your prospect needs to see that others just like them has used this product or services and has benefited. The more specific the testimonials the more believable and emotionally enticing they are.
And lastly there needs to be a strong guarantee. Now I know that there are some big marketers who don’t offer guarantees, but I believe that the longer and stronger the guarantee, the easier it would be for a person to make the decision, because it’s risk free. Imagine you’re thinking of buying something, but you’re not sure and there’s no money back guarantee vs. you find a similar product and they offer 30 days, no questions asked money back guarantee. Who would you buy from? What if they offered a 1 year or even a lifetime satisfaction guarantee, how much more comfortable would you be in making the decision to buy?
If you have a good product you should have no issues offering a strong satisfaction guarantee, because you won’t get many refunds, but you’ll sell a lot more people that wouldn’t of otherwise bought.
So the bottom line is, look at your marketing pieces, ads, sales letters, or a website.
Is it compelling?
Is it emotionally driven and does it tell a story that clearly shows the benefits of your offer and what it will do for your prospect?
Does it have a strong guarantee?
If you answered no to any of these questions, than it would make sense improve it. Read it as if you were the buyer, would you buy it, is it convincing enough?
If you already have a good copy and you’re selling with it, then what could you improve to have a better conversion? Test any changes you make to see if the number of people who buy increases.
This is a continuous process, there’s always room for improvement. Remember that you could spend a great deal of money to get people to look at your offer, but if it’s not emotionally driven to get your prospect to act now, at the end of the day nothing else will matter.
Leave a Reply