Street Guide to Copywriting » Conversions

The Ultimate Way to Get People to Buy Things They Don’t Even Know They Want

David Husnian — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:00:54 +0000

What is the one thing that Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, and all the great copywriters agree is the single most important thing in a sales letter to make sure your prospects do what you want them to do?

What is the one thing you must split test if you can one split test one thing?

The answer is easy when you think about it, but only a fraction of people I ask this get it right.

What is your guess?

An eye-catching, curiosity building headline that pulls your prospects right in
A compelling, interesting story that gets your prospects to say, “that’s me!”
Making your prospects ABSOLUTELY SURE your product works quickly and easily with truckloads of glowing testimonials
Having so many benefit bullets that they’d feel foolish if they didn’t do what you asked
Including a rock-solid, almost unbelievable guarantee
Having an offer they “can’t refuse”
Nailing the P.S. so they must go back and look at see what you say
None of the Above

Got your answer?

If you’re not sure look at each one and say to yourself “if everything else was bad but this was spectacular then I’d want to do what they ask (buy the product, etc.)

This is so powerful that it makes people buy things they don’t even know they want!

While obvious after thought it may not be what you think.

Got your answer ready?

Theone thing, the most important thing in a sales letter to get people to take action is:

F. The Offer

Yes, the offer.

While all of the choices (except H!) are very important, the offer is most important.

Interestingly, the most popular answer from people is the headline.

They justify this by saying “if you have a bad headline people might not read your sales copy and see your “killer” offer.”

While that may be true, nobody takes action because of the headline.

That isn’t even the purpose of the headline and if you try to “sell” in the headline you’re going to fail.

Why is the Offer So Important?

This answer is simple also.

It is what the prospect actually gets, what provides the benefits, and that is the bottom line.

Wouldn’t you rather have a stinky old salesmen, in a bad, slept in suit, who rambles on forever but can’t hardly even explain what he’s got but who hands you the keys to a $250,000 Porsche over a fine looking, fine smelling, Armani suit wearing, Harvard Ph.D. who has a golden tongue who hands you a toy car worth $1.29.

Sure you would, because, while the second guy might be more pleasant to deal with, what you end up with in the end is worth the stinky old guy.

And that, my friends, is the essence of the offer and why the great copywriters known that if there is one thing you can’t afford to get wrong it is the offer.

If you’re having trouble turning prospects into customers the first place to look is at your offer.

Now, you might say, “the offer is great” and it might be, but it isn’t great to your prospects; so either fix the offer or get new prospects.

An exaggerated example is, if you open a Tiffany’s with the absolute finest in jewelry and you are selling it for half what anyone else in the world is selling it for but you are located in the poorest region of Bangladesh then you aren’t going to get a lot of buyers (a lot of thieves, yes, but not a lot of buyers!)

How to Make a “To Die For” Offer?

Easy answer, exceed expectations.

No, that’s not even right, extravagantly exceed expectations.

To do that you need to understand the general expectations of your prospects otherwise how can your exceed them.

To do that you need to, as Dan Kennedy says, “Get ‘Into’ the Offer”.

Whatever cliché you want to use: “walk a mile in his shoes” or “climb into his head” or whatever, you need to understand the motivations and expectations from the prospects point of view.

That probably means using the product or service yourself, and it certainly means talking to true prospects.

It may even mean going to the places they go to, eating the things they eat, entertaining yourself at the places and in the ways they do, depending upon the situation and the action desired.

Then you take those expectations and give at least 10 times more although 100 times is better.

A quick way I like to do this it to make a little chart like this one:

Meet Expectations	Exceed Expectations	Blow Them Away

In the first column, I write what the general expectations are of the prospects. That is, what they usually will receive (maybe from competitors) in the situation.

In the second column, I then add what would be considered to be things that people wouldn’t normally expect.

In the third column, I write what would be so unexpected that people look at the offer in a completely different way.

This works for everyone in every industry and niche and helps you to craft a truly extraordinary offer.

An Example of a Great Offer

To show you what I mean, let me use an offer I created in the last couple of weeks as part of a promotion for Mike Filsaime’s The 7 Figure Code; he is giving away his $1,297 premier home study course and some bonuses for just a shipping and handling fee.

Given the nature of what Mike is providing particularly to affiliates, general expectations are that people will promote with an affiliate link and, in fact, that is what most people did.

It might even be within current expectations that affiliates would provide a little something extra, maybe one or two of their products, something like that (although very few are doing that in this situation).

To exceed expectations, you might add some things like paying the $15.99 shipping cost for the prospects and/or adding those products, maybe throwing in a tele-seminar about how to best get value from Mike product.

I wanted to do more so I decided to pay the $15.99 shipping so the product was really free.

I decided to add some products that were specifically chosen to provide more depth in the areas critical for being successful using The 7 Figure Code.

I decided to provide more than just 1or 2 products because there are more than 1 or 2 critical areas.

I then decided to provide various rights to the products so people could actually earn more money by selling them (this would be particularly important to people who are newer and don’t have a lot of products and services they sell).

I then said to myself, “times are tough and people might need some extra money, if only to pay for some of the cost of having an online business and many people did not get the invite to be part of the promotion and maybe they’d have liked the opportunity.”

Yeah, I talk a lot to myself

So I thought about what I could do and I came up with a way to provide people with just those things.

I let people sign up with me (like a sort of affiliate) and promote the products themselves.

I provide them with a special, personalized link which they can use and for everyone they send through there link and who get Mike’s course and bonuses will get $5.

So the offer wildly exceeding anything anyone would expect; you can check it out here.

They get:

Mike Filsaime’s $1,297 home study course, The 7 Figure Code
Mike’s 2 bonuses
A refund of $15.99 to cover the shipping and handling fee
A number of additional product that strongly complement and support The 7 Figure Code giving them additional value by helping them succeed more quickly and easily
Rights to the product so they can sell them and get more money (hopefully using the things they learning in The 7 Figure Code!)
A way to earn additional money by promoting for product for themselves

A lot more than your expectations, right? Certainly a lot more than anyone else is doing!

Conclusion

The most important thing about getting more sales is the offer.

Everything else is important but the one thing that makes people actually act is they offer.

Have everything else wrong but have a fantastic offer and you will make sales, maybe a lot of sales.

Having a bad offer but great sales copy will get you few sales.

To craft a powerful, compelling offer you need to do more than exceed expectations, you need to create an offer that so far exceeds expectations that even people who aren’t that interested perk up.

Provide value 10 or 100 times what is expected and you’ll land the hook and you’ll sleep very well at night because you are doing the opposite of taking advantage of people you are giving them so much their lives are enhanced in the process.

Check out my offer for The 7 Figure Code for a good example of this.

Want to how to create great offer and make more sales, just sign up here

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

What’s the best offer you’ve seen?

What’s the best offer you’ve done?

How could you change your offers to be extraordinary?

What’s the Copywriter’s Most Powerful Psychological Tool

David Husnian — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:58:55 +0000

In my last blog post, Apples-to-Oranges, Using Contrast and Compare to Make More Cash, I continued talking about the C’s of copywriting by talking about the concepts of contrast and compare; we’ve also talked about commitment and consistency.

This time we’re going to talk about what Joe Vitale calls “the most powerful psychological tool any Hypnotic Writer can use.”

Joe Sugarman says it is “the one major psychological reason that makes direct marketing so successful today” and he’s sold millions of BluBlocker sunglasses using this technique.

He’s also said that in 1973 he sold thousands upon thousands of (at the time revolutionary) pocket calculators using the technique.

What appeals to us in many deep, visceral levels so much that it’s been used in virtually all of the most successful direct response marketing campaigns online and off?

What has its roots in our primitive needs to find food and make better tools?

Well, that is what we’ll be looking at today.

Yes, I mean…

Curiosity

Yep, good old fashioned curiosity is the copywriter’s bosom buddy.

What is Curiosity?

I looked it up and found this definition for curiosity:

A desire to know or learn.
A desire to know about people or things that do not concern one; nosiness.
An object that arouses interest, as by being novel or extraordinary: kept the carved bone and displayed it as a curiosity.
A strange or odd aspect.

That really sums it up and, anyway, you know what curiosity is because you were curious enough to continue reading to find out what I was talking about

Anyway, as I’ve said before, great copywriting is like putting together a puzzle and curiosity is an important corner piece.

Why is Curiosity Important?

Basically it’s important because everyone wants to understand things they don’t know that they think will be valuable to them.

If someone knows something you don’t and you think it would be good for you to know it then you want to know it. The more valuable you think it will be the more you want to know it.

For example:

If I know how to write sales copy that converts at 10% and sales letters are important to you then you want to know too.
If I know how to drive a golf ball 400 yards and golf is important to you then you want to know too.
If I know how to make triple the average tips waiting tables and you wait tables to you want to know what I know.
If I know how to [fill in the blank] and it is important to you then you want to know too.

Curiosity is an extremely powerful force of motivation; this need to know gives us power and superiority over those who don’t know so the more you know the more power you potentially have.

It’s how we were built in order to survive and it is still one of the driving factors in the human experience (ever have a 2 year old!) and plays a huge factor in successful sales campaigns.

How to Use Curiosity?

P.T. Barnum was THE master at creating curiosity.

He was famous for his side shows acts which he developed (and marketed) so that they created more than curiosity, they create an urgent sense of curiosity.

There are many ways to use curiosity in your sales copy but one of the, if not the, best way to use curiosity is the “secret”.

Look at some of the most successful headlines in history:

How To Win Friends And Influence People
Do You Make These Mistakes In English?
Why Some People Almost Always Make Money In The Stock Market
How I Made A Fortune With A “Fool Idea”
Do You Do Any Of These Ten Embarrassing Things?
They Laughed When I Sat Down At The Piano — But When I Started To Play!
It’s A Shame For You Not To Make Good Money — When These Men Do It So Easily
What Everybody Ought To Know…About This Stock And Bond Business

Each at least hints at a secret, from the secret of how to influence people to the secret of succeeding in the stock market.

Bottom Line/Personal had a great headline that made lots of sales and it was based on a secret it was “What Never… Ever to Eat on an Airplane!”

Makes you curious doesn’t it!

Here’s another examples of using curiosity in a headline; this is another of the most successful headlines of all time:

Amazing Secret Discovered By One-Legged Golfer
Adds 50 Yards To Your Drives, Eliminates Hooks And
Slices… And Can Slash Up to 10 Strokes From Your Game
Almost Overnight!

Can you see curiosity in it?

I’m sure you can, because a real prospect (a golfer) would be really curious to know the secret of the one-legged golfer!

Secrets torment and tantalize, they start small and chip away resistance until a person just has to know. The person feels like they’ve got to know the secret; like the secret that helped the one legged golfer and they imagine how it would help them!

Of course, secrets aren’t just for headlines.

You can build an entire story in your sales page around a secret; it can be everything from a conspiracy to a forecast.

You just need to arouse curiosity by hiding or obscuring something that the prospect wants to know and that can only be found out by the prospect doing what you want them to do.

Just leave out a few critical facts and you’ve got that curiosity starting.

Maybe you talk about the solution to their problem but you don’t tell them what the solution is.
Maybe you talk about the results they can have but you don’t tell them exactly how to achieve those results.
Maybe you hint at valuable information but don’t actually divulge it.
Maybe you have a “rags-to-riches” story but how the “riches” were achieved isn’t spelled out.

You can see that they all pique the prospects curiosity by promising to tell secrets, directly or indirectly, that they know but that most people don’t know.

In headlines, there are some proven and powerful techniques for planting the curiosity seed and they work well in the rest of the sales letter also, here are some of them:

Use a “how to” which tells them how you can show them how to do something they want.
Make a big, bold promise and back it up with a big, bold guarantee.
Ask a question they don’t know but want to.
Make an outrageous statement and promise to show how or prove it.

It really isn’t more than that, just hold that tasty carrot out so they know what they’ll get (the strong benefits) and let it do its work until they’ll follow you just to get the carrot (the secret of how to get the benefits); both together are important.

Just don’t forget that call to action

The Seeds of Curiosity

As far as I know this was coined by Joe Sugarman, at least he’s the first person I heard who named it.

It is a create way to use a sort of “mini-curiosity” to keep people reading from one paragraph and section to the next.

You see this a lot on TV and in good sales copy.

How it works is that at the end of a paragraph you add a short sentence that gets the reader to want to read the next paragraph. Joe has some good examples so I’ll just use them:

But there’s more.
So read on.
But I didn’t stop there.
Let me explain.
Now here comes the good part.
And here’s why.

These are sort of subconscious cues that spark a person’s curiosity just enough to read the next paragraph.

Don’t you just want to know the explanation or what the “good part” is?

Anyway, don’t over do it but it’s a great way to use little bits of curiosity to get people to keep reading your sales copy and that should improve your conversions.

Conclusion

Curiosity, the “most powerful psychological tool” and “the one major psychological reason that makes direct marketing so successful today”.

Sounds pretty important, doesn’t it?

Well, it is!

Curiosity is creating an “itch” that just must be scratched.

It’s such a powerful motivator because of the perceived advantage it gives the person who satisfies their curiosity; they believe it will give them power and superiority whether it is making more money, having a better love life, hitting longer golf shots, or having more successful children.

To use it, you tantalize the prospect with benefits and that you know how to get those benefits.

You weave a “spell” of curiosity so that their innate desire compels them to do what you want (buy, sign up, etc.) just to get the answer.

Promising to divulge “secrets” is a great way to do that.

To learn more about using curiosity and about having better sales copy, just sign up here

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

How do you use curiosity?

Do you have any examples you really like of using curiosity?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Talk soon,

The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.Twitter.com/DavidHusnian
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdWords.com
http://www.MadMondaySale.com
http://www.2ForTuesdaySale.com

O.Y. Don’t forget to retweet this! Use the button on the page or Tweet this:
What’s the Copywriter’s Most Powerful Psychological Tool http://bit.ly/1ZVDTd (via @DavidHusnian)

O.O.Y. In case you’re interested, here is where you can get Sugarman’s Copywriting book and Joe Vitale’s Hypnotic Writing book.

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

What’s the Copywriter’s Most Powerful Psychological Tool

Apples-to-Oranges, Using Contrast and Compare to Make More Cash

David Husnian — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:43:23 +0000

After the last post on using commitment and consistency to increase conversion rates, I received some questions about some of the other C’s of copywriting.

Great copywriting is like putting together a puzzle where each piece trigger that emotional or leads the reader down a nicely paved path toward your ultimate goal.

We’ve talked about many of the pieces in the past and will talk about many in the future.

So we’re going to look at two more “puzzle pieces” that are actually pretty fun to use (hey, I don’t get out much

The first is one that psychologically prepares the prospect to easily purchase what you want to sell at the price you want them to pay.

It’s “devilishly” subtle and works great when done right.

You see it a lot both on the Internet and off it, but lately Internet Marketers have so abused it that is some niches it doesn’t work as well; it still works but you just have to do it better.

What am I talking about?

Contrast and Compare

Contrast is when you compare one thing to the other to make the perceived differences much greater and make the one you want them to choose look even better than it did.

But you never want to do an apples-to-apples comparison because that brings you down to the lowest common denominator and, to be honest, it may make you look bad; it don’t mean your offer is actually bad but it may appear bad and it isn’t the value of the deal it is the perception of the value of the deal that is important.

Always compare apples-to-oranges.

Selling a $97 dollar e-book, don’t compare it to the $27 e-book (or even the $97 e-book) compare it to the $997 home study course.

Selling a $997 home study course, compare it to the $1,997 (plus expense for travel, food and lodging) 3-day seminar.

Selling a $1,997 3-day seminar, compare it to the $9,997 coaching program.

Heck, if you’re selling that $97 e-book compare it to the home study course, the 3-day seminar and the coaching program.

By the time you get to $97 they’ll be thinking what a great bargain they’re getting.

A great example of this I heard about from Yanik Silver.

Some company was selling a book.

They had a premium version in a special custom case that was signed by the author for over a thousand bucks.

They had something like a “corporate” version that sold for hundreds and they had the one they really wanted to sell – just a regular book – for about $25.

After hearing about the higher priced versions they were thinking how much they saved by buying the cheapest one not “what am I getting for my $25?”

I can hear the thoughts now.

“Do I really need that special case and author’s signature or should I pocket those many hundreds of dollars?”

“Do I need … or should I save that couple of hundred bucks and just get the regular book?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Man, I’ll save over $1,000, I’m taking these guys to the cleaners!”

And now you’ve got the sale you wanted to get at the price you wanted to get and, as a bonus, you actually do get some sales for the higher priced versions.

Contrast and compare is also great for doing down sells; you’ve probably seen those.

You go to a sales page and try to go off it and a window pops up and says, “hey I’ll give you the same deal except this one or two things for half the price.”

So now the prospect is not thinking about spending that $47 they’re thinking how they’re getting almost the $97 offer for less than half price.

Can you say buy, buy, buy? Those things convert like crazy.

Whatever apple you are selling you can find one or more oranges to compare it to. You can even compare it to a peach and a pear and a banana!

Conclusion

Contrast and compare, it works, and gives you another piece of the puzzle.

In essence, you find something that is similar enough (both “fruits”) that you can compare favorably to in one or more specific and desirable ways – is less expensive, works faster, gets better results, is more popular, whatever.

Then you present the “orange” and compare and contrast it to your “better apple”.

This has always improved conversions and likely always will.

Next time we’ll look at another of the C’s of great copywriting, one where you drive your prospects wild

To learn more about contrast and compare and about having better sales copy, just sign up here

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

How do you use contrast and compare?

Got any great example of using it, either yours or someone else’s?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Talk soon,

David

O.Y. Don’t forget to retweet this! Use the button below or just copy and paste this into Twitter (or send it out to your list):
Apples-to-Oranges, Using Contrast and Compare to Make More Cash http://bit.ly/4v4hsE (via @DavidHusnian)

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

Apples-to-Oranges, Using Contrast and Compare to Make More Cash

Get a Commitment, Get a Sale – The Power of Commitment and Consistency

David Husnian — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:29:54 +0000

I read this a quote by Leonardo Da Vinci that got me thinking about a “secret” conversion technique that is startlingly successful. The quote is:

“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end”

Essentially, what this means is that once someone has started down a path it is much easier to continue down the path than to change to a new path.

There have been psychological studies showing this to be true, even if there is no rational reason to continue, even if there are reasons not to continue.

In fact, my mother did just that. She started down a career path that she didn’t like due to circumstances and necessity when she was young and stayed in that career for decades long after the necessity passed; in fact, she is still in that career while admitting she has always hated it.

That’s a large scale example but I used it to show the point Da Vinci was making in a big way.

Fortunately for us, it is true even in small things and can be used to turn your conversions from simmering to boiling.

It’s all about what is called…

Commitment and Consistency

Psychologists have found that we have a desire, bordering on obsession, to be consistent with what we have done in the past; or at least appear to be consistent. Some call it one of the prime motivators of human behavior.

Once a person has made a choice, that is, a commitment, they are hell-bent on being consistent with that choice; this is caused by internal and external pressures and often causes us to act in ways that are harmful (remember my mother).

Now matter how tentative or concerned someone is about making a decision, after that decision is made they become, at least for some period of time, significantly more confident in it.

There are many theories of why this is true and in many aspects of life commitment and consistency is very valuable (don’t you want it from your friends, family co-workers, etc.); in fact, think of what things would be like without, it actually be hard to trust or rely on anyone because you’d never know what they would do or say.

Using Commitment and Consistency

That’s what it is but how can it help you increase your conversions?

It’s really “easy” if you think about it.

Remember that once a decision is made, no matter how small, the next one will be easier to make in a consistent manner and it gets easier and easier.

So, just get a commitment, or series of commitments, and your prospects are more likely to remain consistent with those choices and decisions.

What’s interesting and useful to you is that the commitment can be small and not always even directly related to the ultimate goal.

What you want to do is to turn a lead into a prospect and a prospect into a customer.

So you need to get the lead to make some commitment to you and the path you want them to take; that is, the path to being a customer.

How to Get a Commitment

The first step in the process is finding something where you can get an easy commitment from the person.

I remember reading in Cialdini’s Influence book about how the Communist Chinese successfully did this with Korean War prisoners and it really hit home.

I may not have all the facts right but it went something like this…

The prisoners would be asked to make a very small “commitment”, for example, they’d be asked if America was “perfect”.

Now, most people will say, “no America isn’t perfect.”

They may have difference reasons for thinking why it isn’t perfect and they many people even might think or say “but it better than the alternatives.”

In that one small answer, the commitment was made.

Then they’d be asked for something that wasn’t perfect and so it would go slowly.

Eventually they’d be asked to write a list of the things they’d already said and then the list would be talked about in “discussion groups” and eventually it was broadcast to both prisoners and to soldiers still fighting throughout Korea.

Now the person was a collaborator and many of the prisoners made subtle, subconscious changes into their mindset and do actual acts of collaboration.

The percentage of people who did this was astonishingly high particularly for trained soldiers who were just supposed to stick to name, rank and serial number.

It really shows you the power of commitment and consistency and how you can use it to help you get more sales.

To start you need to get even a trivial commitment or agreement from the lead or prospect to get them to make a decision in your favor and subtly change their self-image in relation to you.

Then get increasingly larger commitments that are internally consistent with their previous decisions until they make the final commitment and purchase.

You can do that same thing on your sales and squeeze pages.

Start, like the Chinese, by asking a series of questions that you know people will answer in the way you want, particularly a positive answer.

Maybe it is a “do you want” type question of some kind “do you want more money”, do you want to lose weight”, etc.

When they answer yes, now you have that seed of a commitment and they have started the habit of answering yes.

Sprinkle these types of questions throughout, making them increasingly specific towards your goal and adding to their commitment (and their desire to be consistent).

What I and others do is to create a plan and included in that plan are questions and statements that lead to a commitment.

Then consistency kicks in as the person become more and more committed.

It’s not hard but does take some practice to get it right.

Try it, you bank account will thank you for it!

Conclusion

Commitment and consistency are innate human behaviors that are consistent through time and culture.

They can be used to drastically increase your conversion rates.

The key is to get a small, essentially trivial, commitment from the person reading your sales copy and slowly build on that by getting further commitments from them that are consistent with the ones already made.

Eventually you lead the person to make the decision you want them to make.

To learn more about commitment and consistency and about having better sales copy, just sign up here

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

How do you use commitment and consistency?

How does it use you?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Talk soon,

O.Y. Don’t forget to retweet this! Use the button on the page or Tweet this:

Get a Commitment, Get a Sale – The Power of Commitment and Consistency http://bit.ly/QK00Y (via @DavidHusnian)

O.O.Y. There is a lot more to this commitment and consistency stuff but I am trying to be consistent with my commitment not to write huge blog posts so sign up for my free copywriting course to learn more.

O.O.O.Y. Cialdini’s Influence book has a chapter about commitment and consistency; it’s one of his 6 rules of influence. It’s an interesting book if you want to learn more about how to influence people and how people influence you. Get it at http://StreetGuideToCopywriting.com/Recommends/CialdinisInfluence

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

Get a Commitment, Get a Sale – The Power of Commitment and Consistency

Want More Sales? Create a “Super Sales Letter” and Widen Your Sales Funnel!

David Husnian — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:52:51 +0000

I was thinking about how to improve my conversion rate, in particular, how to build trust to improve conversions.

Wondering what I could add to my sales and squeeze pages that would make a difference; what could I test to see if it worked?

Then it hit me.

Something I read a little while ago, in combination with something my wife said to me this morning, made it all come together

There is one area I hadn’t even tapped that would build trust, reduce competition and improve conversions.

One area that few people, that is, few competitors, use to build trust and shut out competitors.

Remember, the sequence of steps a buyer goes through is:

They get an idea or become aware of something new, they do a little preliminary looking around
They let it soak in and become interested, they have a question now and then that needs answered to increase their interest
Then they do some real research
They then select the product or service they want
Finally, they buy.

These steps may take days, months or even years but ultimately, if they buy, they go through all those 5 steps.

Looking at that, it became clear what I had been missing out on and what I needed to do…

I needed to deepen and widen the top of my sales funnel.

Make the entire sales funnel one big super sales letter using all the regular copywriting techniques just spread over many pages that people will read over a long period of time

Normally Internet Marketers focus on steps 4 and 5, some maybe even focus a little on step 3 but nobody focuses on steps 1 and 2.

Sure, you need to focus on buyers because that’s where you’re going to make your money; but I’ve heard that only 10-20% of people at any particular time are actually ready to buy (that is, are in steps 4 and 5) which means that 80-90% aren’t buying now (sounds like a waste .

So what are they doing?

It turns out that most of the others are in steps 1 through 3. Few, if anybody, are marketing to them.

Yeah, you’re saying, I’m not going to waste my time and money marketing to people who aren’t buying. I know I’ve said it myself.

What if though, you did? What would happen?

How could you tap into that 90% of the Internet that is being ignored?

If you are providing these people with their first looks at a particular topic you could actually shape their view of the topic and even control their eventual selection criteria.

By building a relationship, by communicating with them, very early in the buying sequence you can do just that.

By providing great, informative content to help and educate them, you start building trust with them while they’re just “babies” in the topic.

Have something for all the early steps then they’ll have a level of comfort with you and allow you to guide them to you when they are ready to purchase.

Just inform, entertain, guide and engage them BEFORE they are thinking of buying, then when they’re ready to buy – tomorrow, next month, next year – YOU are the trusted source and will have a huge advantage over your competitors.

To do that you need to find the keywords the “idea”, “interested” and “researching” people are using when they go to a search engine.

Create Web pages and Web sites that provide lots of free content. Video, software, tools, guides and those types of things are really good for this; anything that will catch their attention and will get you viewed as someone knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Try to answer all the questions people in the early stages will ask; just like trying to answer all the questions a good prospect has on a sales letter.

Don’t try to get the “idea” and “interested” people to join a list or anything. Very few will be ready at that point so make sure the content is truly free without any obligation to do anything; don’t worry though as you’ll be able to get them on your list later.

Then get those Web pages ranked highly for those keywords you found above.

I know it sounds like something I should be talking about on my web traffic blog but you’re doing this to get conversions just like “normal” copywriting.

The earlier in the process you can get people to like and trust you, the easier it will be to get the sale whenever they are ready to buy.

Plus, it will mean that many of them won’t even look at competitors because you’ll have already got them trusting you; effectively shutting out the competition. That type of connection is priceless to a marketer.

Where do you start?

Let’s look at an example to help you see the types of things you can do to broaden your sales funnel.

Let’s say you sell Asian vacation packages. What are the initial questions someone would ask if they just decided to go on a vacation?

What are the cultures like?
What’s the weather like?
What time zone will you be in?
Is there political turmoil?
How safe is it? Is there a lot of crime? What type?
Are there any health issues in the area? What vaccinations will you need?
How long is the flight?
Are there any specific environmental issues to be concerned about?
What activities are available?
What will be the visa requirements?
What currency is used? What is the currency conversion rate?
And on and on…

Now I’d want to make a number of different pages addressing all those questions. No selling, just great information and resources.

Here are some examples of pages and sites you can make that target those people early in the process:

Make pages that provide information on the culture, include image, etc. and reference places like Wikipedia
Hook into weather.com and let people see the average weather for various time periods
Have a map and a list of the various time zones; use something like Google Maps
Create pages with RSS feeds of news for the various areas
Give updated information on local safety conditions
Provide slideshows and videos of various activities and “must see” spots
Create a currency calculator and put it on a page
etc.

Really anything goes as long as it is desired, useful and doesn’t sell.

Remember the point is to build trust and slowly move them down the sales funnel towards a sell at their pace, not yours.

Conclusion

By widening and deepening the top of your sales funnel you’ll capture more people earlier in the sales process gaining their trust and blocking your competition.

Do this by providing highly desired content and other resources to people in the early stages of the buying sequence.

Discover the question these pre-pre-pre-buyers will have and answer them as well as others they may not even think of at the time.

Be creative in your questions and in your solutions.

Just remember, don’t sell just, just build trust.

If you want to learn more about building trust and having better sales copy, just sign up for my free copywriting course:

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

I will admit, I haven’t done this and don’t know if it will work, I just thought of it and wanted to share it, but I think it will work and will be trying it myself; it is something you should consider though.

This is somewhat radical thinking, so please let me know what you think or if I am crazy by leaving a comment.

Talk soon,

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

Want More Sales? Create a “Super Sales Letter” and Widen Your Sales Funnel!

Confession is Good for the Soul and the Wallet: Selling More by Confessing

David Husnian — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:44:20 +0000

One of the key ways to improve your conversions is to make sure your sales copy builds trust one step at a time.

There are many ways to do that, as I and many others have talked about in the past.

There is one particular way though that people some people overlook and that many are afraid to use.

That’s a shame because it can make a big difference in your conversion rates.

This fear stems from the belief that bad things can have bad consequences so it is better to ignore and avoid them.

Of course, that’s true bad things can have bad consequences but the opposite can also happen. You know the old saying “it’s not what you do but how you do it”, well that applies here.

So forget the fear, make sure you confess to your prospects to improve your conversions.

What do I mean? Read on…

Admit Your Faults

The basic idea of this is to admit problems or flaws in your product or service; this showing of honesty and trust on your part makes your prospect in turn trust you more – being perfect breeds doubt.

I’ve talked about this before including in my copywriting course but what I’ve found is I didn’t emphasize certain aspects enough or, at least, properly.

Some people use this technique to hide big faults, I believe this is ultimately as path to failure but showing your faults in the correct light can really make a big difference.

Show the Positive, Ignore the Negative

Much (most?) of the sales copy out on the Internet shows only positive features of a product or service and this does work.

Several main problems with it are: the prospect starts wondering what the flaws are and imagined flaws are usually worse than actual flaws; the prospects expectations are built up and then when they see the flaws they are disappointed even if all the things important to them are good; and the prospects doesn’t build trust because of the innate skepticism of the prospect.

All this hurts conversions and increasing refund requests.

Show the Positive and the Negative

Probably the second most common technique is to show the positive features and throw in some negative ones that aren’t related to the positive features.

This also works and overcomes much of the problems with just showing positive but it also has a primary problem, it shows the negative.

You’re probably saying “what, you just said it was good to show the negative!”

Yes, it is good and confessing those flaws does improve conversions over just showing the positive but it is still shows negative and doesn’t maximize conversions.

What if you could get the advantages of the “confession” while maximizing conversions?

You can!

Show the Negative and the Silver Lining

What you need to do is point out a negative and then turn it into a positive by showing the silver lining.

The classic example I’ve seen is for a small restaurant.

Instead of not mentioning it and instead of throwing in that the restaurant is small but there is plenty of free parking say “we are a small restaurant with little space but that is what makes the atmosphere so cozy and the service so great”.

See how it changed the confession of the flaw into something that is highly desirable by the people they are trying to attract.

You can use this in many ways, here are a couple of examples:

Our $97 book is short, just 15 pages, and we could have puffed it up and turned it into a $997 course but we wanted to cut all the fat from it and make it something you could read quickly and start benefiting from it an hour after you received it.
Listen, our price is 25% more than our competitors but that is more than made up for because it lasts twice as long (compare our guarantee, you’ll see it is twice as long) and saves you money on energy and maintenance costs.
We’re not the biggest car rental company, we’re only #2, but that is why we try harder to have better cars and better service at better prices.

To properly use this just point out a flaw and immediate show why it is really a positive (the silver lining); this will optimize your conversions.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen confession can also be good for the wallet by building trust and showing why things that seem like flaws are really not so bad, in fact, they are good things.

Don’t be afraid to show your flaws and warts as that can backfire on you but tie each negative to a positive and watch your conversions soar.

If you want to learn more about building trust and having better sales copy, just sign up for my free copywriting course:

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

What are some negatives you have that you can show the silver lining?

What are some negatives you have that you can see a silver lining?

Let me know by leaving a comment and, if you don’t see the silver lining I’ll try to help.

Talk soon,

O.Y. Need a sales letter fast but have no knowledge or talent (or time!), try Armand Morin’s Sales Letter Generator

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

Confession is Good for the Soul and the Wallet: Selling More by Confessing

Skyrocket Conversions with a Belcher Button

David Husnian — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:25:44 +0000

Conversions are one of the 3 Pillars of Guaranteed Success and the stronger each pillar is the greater the success.

There is this “buy button” that you see everywhere and I finally got intrigued enough to learn more about it.

It is called a Belcher Button, after its creator Perry Belcher, and it claims to be the “world’s highest converting buy button”. Here is an example of one:

I’m sure you’ve seen some variations of it lots of places even if it wasn’t consciously.

The more I learned about it the more I just had to try it; after all Perry says “split tests show close rates increased by 35 to 320% over ANY other buy button… been tested individually in over 10,000 closed transactions.” And that doesn’t count all the other people who’ve used and tested it.

As “ugly” as it is, I’ve been trying it and have gotten some initial good results; although I have a lot more testing to do.

I’ve been pleased enough though to tell you about it and to give you the HTML source code so you can easily use it yourself.

Parts of the Belcher Button

Perry has a nice video explanation on his blog but I’ll give a written description of what he says here because some people prefer to read and text is easier to search and refer back to than a video.

The Buy Area

Perry calls the entire thing a “buy area” not a “buy button” because it is meant to all work together with each part proven to add to the value of the entire area.

The first thing you notice is how it looks. Yes, as his says, it is big and ugly.

Of course, that’s the point, you do NOT want your call to action to be subtle or hard to find, you want it to attract attention.

Let’s look at the individual parts…

The Call to Action

The call to action is the text outside and above the dashed line box; in the example it says “The Belcher Button”, of course, though you would change it and put in your own call to action.

The Dashed Border

A dashed border originated in print ads and has been proven over and over to improve conversions online; which is why you see it so frequently

Perry says just that alone increases his conversions by 5-10%.

The Price Drop

The price drop is the first thing inside the dashed border; in the example it says Regular Price $297 Today $97.

Perry found that leaves the price drop out caused 15-20% fewer sales than putting it in.

As an aside, he points out that the best price drop down he’s found is about 1/3 the original (so he goes from $300 to $100).

Basically say “Regular Price” and put the “regular price” or the “actual value” and make sure you have a line go through it. Then put the word “Today” and put in the cost of the product or service.

The Add to Cart Button

The important points, the points that have proven to convert the best, are:

The red border around the button
The two-toned orange-yellowish background is, as he says, paramount because orange buttons work best. This is because while it is the “second most noticeable color” (after red) but doesn’t have that danger, fear or warning associations that the color red has. I can attest to the power of orange buttons which is why you see me use orange buttons a lot!
The navy colored text on the orange background because the navy color establishes trust
The use of the words “Add To Cart” has tested out to give up to 100% improvement in conversions. That means that he has seen his sales DOUBLE by just changing the test to say “Add To Cart”, no other changes; Pointing out again the importance of doesn’t split testing!

The Add to Cart Text Link

Perry’s testing has clearly shown that adding a text link below the button improves conversions above having just the button or just the text link.

The Credit Card Symbols

Meant to improve trust and credibility, the various credit card and PayPal symbols have the least amount of conversion improvement but why not get the extra 3-5% if you can.

He also points out they reinforce the entire buy area call to action, the “get it here, now!”

Getting Your Own Belcher Button

On his blog, Perry generously gives away his Belcher button, he doesn’t even ask for an email address, but the “problem” with the button is that he just give it as an flatten image format making it difficult to edit at best.

So, I have made an HTML version of it for myself and am giving it to you for you to freely use as you wish.

It allows you to easily change every part of the Belcher Button although you may not want to mess with success at least to start, although then doing your own split testing should be done.

You can get the HTML source here:
http://www.StreetGuideToCopywriting.com/FreeStuff/BelcherButtonHTMLCode.zip

I’ve included both the template for you to use (a file named BelcherButtonTemplate.htm) and an actual example of its use (a file name BelcherButonExample.htm).

Using Your Own Belcher Button

To use it just copy and paste the template source code into your sales page and change everything that begins with “[*” and ends with “Goes Here*]” with what you want them to say.

For example to set the actual button link destination and text the template code looks like:

[*Add To Cart Button Text Goes Here*]

Change: “[*Buy Button Link Goes Here*]” to be whatever your link destination, like the PayPal link or a 1ShoppingCart link.

And change: “[*Add To Cart Button Text Goes Here*]” to get the text you want to see on the button, like “Add To Cart”

I’ve made it so you can change the text, styling and images of just about everything rather easily and, of course, with the source code you can change anything else you want also.

If you have questions about it let me know by leaving a comment below and I’ll answer them and, if there are lots of questions, I may create a video showing you how to do it.

Conclusion

Conversions are critically important to achieving success in business, online or not, and you should do everything you can to continuously be converting better.

The Belcher Button is a proven way to convert better and make you more money so you should STRONGLY consider using it in your business.

Take the free HTML source code and start using it and then start doing split testing to optimize it for your specific situation.

If you want to learn more about converting better and split testing just sign up for my free copywriting course:

* I Will Never, Ever, Sell, Rent or Give Out Your Info

Do you use a Belcher Button? Post a comment and let me know how it has helped you and please, if you have questions about how to use the HTML source code don’t hesitate to ask; I answer every question I receive.

Talk soon,

The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.8-8-8Sale.com
http://www.MusicForInternetMarketers.com
http://www.SecretsOfGoogleAdwords.com
http://www.MadMondaySale.com
http://www.2ForTuesdaySale.com

O.Y. If you missed it, get the Belcher Button HTML source code here:
http://www.StreetGuideToCopywriting.com/FreeStuff/BelcherButtonHTMLCode.zip

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

Skyrocket Conversions with a Belcher Button

What Would Make More People Opt-in?

David Husnian — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:00:52 +0000

This blog post is short but interesting.

I was listening to a Webinar from the people at Marketing Experiments and they had some interesting statistics from some research they did.

As part of that research they asked the question “Which email options would increase your likelihood of opting in as email subscriber?”

This was the response…

This shows the e-mail option and the percentage of people who said it was much more likely and somewhat more likely to opt-in if the option was available.

E-mail Option	Much More Likely	Somewhat More Likely
Guarantee not to share e-mail address with other companies	43%	23%
Special pricing for e-mail subscribers	32%	29%
Ability to customize how frequently you receive e-mail	27%	30%
First look at new products	22%	28%

This certainly explains why everyone sees an increase in conversions by putting in the statement about not sharing e-mail addresses.

The one that surprises me, and the one I do not do, and most people don’t, is the third one but 57% of the people said it would make then at least somewhat more likely to opt-in.

That’s a pretty big percentage and make me think I should be doing it, although I can’t remember anyone who is and the technology isn’t present to assist in doing it automatically (at least in this industry).

So there you have it, some simple ways to increase your conversion rate.

Talk soon,

David

O.Y. If you are familiar with Marketing Experiments check them out at:
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/index.php

This post from: Street Guide to Copywriting. To read more post like this, head over to Street Guide to Copywriting

What Would Make More People Opt-in?