Many copywriters have a hard time getting hold of one of the most vital concepts of writing compelling copy: selling the BENEFITS. Why is it so hard to get hold of? Because to sell the BENEFIT, you have to LET GO OF THE PRODUCT.
I know it's hard to grasp, because from your own point of view, you are selling a product. But you must remember that the prospective customers are not actually interested in the product, they are interested in WHAT IT CAN DO FOR THEM.
Just think back to when you last bought any product, online or offline. Why did you buy it? Because of its size, colour, measurements or technical specifications? Or because of what it could DO FOR YOU?
Of course, the features of the product are important, in that they can differentiate it from competing products. But they are not what the customer is buying. The customer is buying the benefits arising from these features. So you must be speciific - identify the benefits then TURN THEM INTO FEATURES.
Last week I bought a new hosepipe for the garden. I bought a 100 foot hosepipe to replace the 50 foot one I had before. Why? Because my old hosepipe didn't reach to the bottom of the garden. This was a PROBLEM I had. The 100 foot length of the hosepipe is a feature, but this wasn't what I was buying - I was buying a SOLUTION to my PROBLEM!
Your copywriting, and especially your headline, has to reach into the heart of your reader, has to CONNECT with them on a visceral, "feeling" level, has to strike a responsive chord. Otherwise they won't respond. And you won't do this with highlighting features.
More on benefits in headlines in the next post, but don't forget to come and visit us at Bizwrite to learn more about writing compelling copy.
The last post on headlines stressed that the most likely headline to GRAB attention is: The major benefit your customer gets from the product. For more on Benefits, check the June 12, 2010 post.
Remember your customer only cares about how your product can make their life easier or better... or how you can solve a crucial, nagging problem they have... or how you can
help them achieve a goal they desperately desire.
So why fool around with anything else? Use your headline to drive your advertising stake directly through the heart of your customer's most critical needs. It's simple and it works like wildfire.
The following headline is from a sales letter for the Lifecycle:
Now you can cut your exercise time in half – risk-free for 30 days!
Plus receive a $199 home gym absolutely FREE –
No obligation!
Let's take a look at what kind of promises the advertiser is using in this headline and subhead. First, they concentrate on the major benefit "cut your exercise time in half."
Then they kick in another benefit, a "risk-free 30-day trial."
The subhead makes another powerful promise:
A bonus of a $199 home gym absolutely FREE.
They worked FREE into their promise too – a powerful motivator.
Now, let's take a look at one more example.
How To Sell Much More Of Your Software And Eliminate Your Two Worst Headaches!
....Now an ace copywriter (who is also a former software engineer) can kick your sales
into high gear – and make your life a whole lot easier at the same time
This example demonstrates how focusing on the key benefit and offering the solution to a critical problem makes a powerful combination. Also, notice how the subhead speaks directly to making the reader's life easier.
More on benefits in headlines in the next post, but don't forget to come and visit us at Bizwrite to learn more about writing compelling copy.
So - you now have your list of keywords. Keywords that are as competitive as possible - that is, that have reasonably high search levels, but not too many competing results so you have a reasonable chance of appearing near the top. (However, if you are selling a particular brand, by all means use that as a keyword - even if not many people are searching for it, those who do type it into the search engine are absolutely targeted.)
Similarly if you are marketing a particular book - use its title as your main keyword - so people who arrive at your page will se exactly what they are looking for.
So what now?
When writing website copy, use the keyword as many times as possible, right?
WRONG!
This is called "keyword stuffing". “Stuffing” means putting your keyword far too often, in order to try to get your site or article ranked high in the search engines for that keyword.
So you get sentences like: “When your small business is ready for a small business start-up, your small business should get the best small business resources for a small business start-up.”
In the first place, this clearly sounds ridiculous. If all your website copy is like this, nobody will read it. In the second place, far from impressing the search engines, it will get you BANNED! Their spiders are very clever and can easily detect keyword stuffing.
You should aim for a keyword frequency of between 5% and 8% of your total copy. Certainly have your main keyword near the beginning and near the end, but otherwise have them spread out throughout your copy - not more than once, or at the most twice, in each paragraph. And weave them into your writing so that it sounds natural. Remember, you want real people to read your copy as well as search engines!
And, of course, you need to have your keyword in your HEADLINE! We'll start discussing headlines in the next post.
Meanwhile, come and visit us at Bizwrite to learn more about writing compelling copy! Or to find out all the ways we can help you. And don't forget to let us know any questions you'd like dealt with in this blog, or anything you don't agree with!
In the last post we saw that writing website copy is a special skill you need to learn. A really vital skill if you want to make your website a success. And one of the most vital aspects is: getting your use of keywords right.
- First, you need to know which keywords to concentrate on. You presumably know that keywords are the search terms that people type in to search engines, when they want to find a product or an answer to a problem. So, you need to use these search terms in your website copy, otherwise nobody will find your site.
- But: how do you choose which search terms to use? If your site is selling golf equipment, you could use the phrase "golf equipment". That is probably the most frequently searched term by people wanting that kind of product. But, unfortunately, it will almost certainly have literally millions of results that come up on the search engine. So your chances of getting highly placed for that search term are very poor. It's well known that very few people keep looking beyond the first five or six pages at most, so if you are on page 146 your chances of anybody finding you are virtually zero. So that search term is too general.
- You really want to use much more specific terms, like "golf fairway woods", "ladies golf set", "junior golf set". Or you can use specific brand names in your copy, if you think people will search for them. The trick is, to use a keyword tool, e.g. the free Google adword tool, to identify the most competitive terms, balancing number of searches against the amount of competition. The main point of using very specific terms is that your visitors will be targeted - that is, they will be looking for EXACTLY what you are offering. (But make sure you ARE offering what you use in your keywords).
So, having decided on your most advantageous keywords to bring people to your site, how do you actually use them in your copy? That is what we shall be looking at in the next post.
Come and visit us at Bizwrite to learn more about writing compelling copy! Or to find out all the ways we can help you.
A great copywriter called Bob Serling taught me this. And it's true. I promise that if you master this one simple concept alone, you can easily double or triple your sales. Bob is one of the greatest masters of persuasive website copywriting - and writing powerful copy of all kinds. So if you want his kind of success, listen to what he says!
In today's marketplace, your offer is the most important component of your advertising. Or, put another way, the "deal" is everything.
Bob said he attributed the majority of the success he'd had to his ability to craft an extremely potent offer. And I can testify that this is true for me, too.
Always develop, refine, and perfect your offer before you do anything else with your ads, sales letters, or web marketing.
In fact, I'll take it one step further: I know this might sound highly simplistic – even too good to be true. But I'll let you in on the greatest marketing secret you could ever hope to learn!
You can virtually write your own ticket by becoming an expert at creating powerful, compelling offers.
Here's why: In today's marketplace, prospects and customers are saturated with advertising material. Television, radio, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, billboards, movie theaters, grocery stores, and many other sources bombard us all on a daily basis with more advertising than you can possibly absorb.
What does this mean? It means your customers are almost immune to advertising. It barely registers any more.
The way to cut through this saturation layer and overcome your prospects' resistance is to make an offer that is (1) so compelling, and(2) so believable, it stops them in their tracks.
So, when you sit down to create copy, for yourself or someone else, slave over the offer. Once you've come up with an offer you feel will be successful, put it aside for a few hours. Then edit it and reedit it. Then put it aside until the following day.
The following day, edit and re-edit the offer yet again.
The objective of this entire process is to come up with an offer that's so exciting, nobody can resist reading the rest of your copy.
Your offer can't leave anything to the imagination. Every aspect must be totally clear.
Come and visit us at Bizwrite to learn more about writing compelling copy! Or to find out all the ways we can help you.
