Keeping it Simple.There are some extraordinarily clever people in marketing, as there are everywhere, but there's no need for you to come up with anything very radical to compose a successful sales letter.All you need to do is remember the basics (and then remember to apply them).Successful sales copy does just that.Long or short copy?The answer is that sales letters should be as long as they need to be to carry the marketing message, and no longer.If your marketing message is so simple it only takes a few lines, ask yourself if you're really communicating the benefits of your product or service to everyone who reads it.If you truly are, your letter is long enough.When someone is really interested in a subject, they may well be happy to read a 24 page sales letter - we write plenty this long to specific, targeted niche markets, and with good results.If, on the other hand, your sales message seems to drag or take forever to explain, ask yourself if you could be more succinct without losing an essential part of the message.Are you describing the benefits or trying to explain too many of the features? If you can shorten your message without 'losing' it, then do so.If not, then keep it long, but do look at the structure and presentation (design) of the letter. see if you can make it easier to read and more persuasive to people who might just skim the letter or just skip straight to the end to see your offer and your price.Most people do skip or skim, and you can't compel anyone to read the entire letter, so you really need your letter to work for them, too.We'll explain how you do that a little later but let's start at the beginning, with the most crucial part of any letter, the headline.Your Headline.Most of us are constantly bombarded with messages of all kinds. from our senses, from 'the media' and from our own internal dialogue.If your headline doesn't command attention sufficiently to overcome all those other messages, at least for a moment, the rest of your letter probably won't get read at all.What's more, people are increasingly cynical about the hundreds of marketing messages they receive every day, so competing successfully for their attention gets tougher all the time.It's not all doom and gloom, though.Once again, there are some quite straightforward principles that will help you to come up with the best headline every time, and we're here to explain them to you.There are four key themes behind any successful headline.Aim to incorporate as many of them as you can and certainly never use a headline that doesn't include at least one of them.The four key themes are..Engage your readers by appealing to their to their self interest.Have an element of news to it (for example, 'Announcing', 'At last', 'Recently discovered').Create curiosity - this is not as powerful as number 1, but it's still good.Avoid any hint that there's work involved on their part and show there's a quick and easy way to solve their problem! People generally want the easy button, the magic bullet.Much as you may not like the idea, people who are buying are buying a solution - they want the fish delivered, not to learn how to fish.Show there's a quick and easy way.Here's a famous headline by Jack Carlton that incorporates all four elements.He (and his client) made huge amounts of money from this one.."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".In this example, the self interest is in the phrase 'slash 10 strokes from your game', the discovery is in the first three words and the one legged golfer is surely intriguing.Adding 50 yards and eliminating hooks and slices is the average golfer's equivalent of 'delivering the fish' with no work required.It's no wonder this headline was such a great success.One thing that does strike us about that headline is its length.At almost thirty words long, it's about double the length that most copywriters would advise is the maximum.It actually contains almost the entire sales message, apart from the call to action.But testing showed the headline worked, so it was used, and used successfully, for years.Remember to always test every componenet of a sales letter yourself.Swipe Files.One of a copywriter's most valuable assets is his or her 'swipe file', and there's no reason you can't create a swipe file of your own.To explain, a swipe file is a collection of other people's sales letters, headlines and ideas, which you can 'swipe' and adapt for your own purposes.While we would never suggest anyone should directly copy another writer's work, adapting a successful headline or formula for a different product or an entirely different market is almost an art form in itself.It's certainly a craft that's worth practising, and it's an accepted part of the copywriter's trade.Our swipe file probably comprises hundreds of letters, while other writers have gathered thousands of examples.If you study copywriting for any length of time, you'll start to see old favourites cropping up time after time.That's not because writers are too lazy to create something new but because, in test mailings, the old favourites kept coming out ahead of the new things they tried.For example, a prize-winning headline we wrote was borrowed from one of the most imitated and adapted (and most successful) headlines of all time.."They all laughed when I sat down at the piano - but when I started to play.".So the next time you're 'grabbed' by a strong headline, keep a copy and you'll have started your own swipe file.Soon, if you're sufficiently interested, you'll begin to spot headlines you can swipe, borrow and adapt almost every time you pick up a newspaper or open your post.And every headline will begin to suggest a theme for your body copy.Your Body Copy.Once you've grabbed your prospects' attention, you need to keep them interested long enough to read your offer.Remember at this point that your readers are not that interested in you, your company or even your product.They are mostly interested in themselves and 'what's in it for them'.So your copy has to speak directly to them and their (self) interests.Now, we've already said that the majority of people will skip past your body copy to get to the offer.That's true, but things are not quite so simple as they seem.There are two Tricks to use to make your body copy work, even if your prospects don't actually seem to read it.Use Repetition.Firstly, have you ever spotted your own name, or another name or word that means a lot to you, amongst a whole page of text - and then struggled to pick it out when you actively search for it? That's because our subconscious minds register far more than we can consciously 'notice', and only when something seems significant does our subconscious alert our conscious mind and allow us to 'see' it.Then, if we choose, we may have to laboriously search for it by reading every word.In the same way, have you ever bought a new car and then suddenly noticed how many cars there are just like yours? That's your subconscious mind deciding that the car you've obsessed about for weeks must be significant and therefore worth your conscious mind's attention.All that time you've spent thinking and reading about your new car has conditioned your subconscious into regarding that make and model as vitally important to you.Meanwhile, your subconscious mind still continues to record thousands of other sights, sounds and events (and dozens of models of car) that your conscious mind will probably never notice.You can use that conditioning effect when you write your sales letters.While your prospect flicks quickly through your letter, looking for the offer (or the catch), they will be subconsciously absorbing some of your sales message, but especially any key phrases you choose to repeat, until their subconscious mind decides they must be important and begins to react to (and crucially believe) them.Conditioning also works if they read your letter in full, especially if you're clever enough to 'embed' some of your key phrases inside longer sentences or even between adjacent sentences.'Embedding' can be a very good way of putting across your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition - the thing that sets you apart from your competitors - without simply repeating it ad nauseam.For example, say your USP is 'delivery within one hour or less'.There are lots of phrases you can use to remind your prospects of that, such as 'fast delivery', 'instant delivery', 'rapid', 'quickly', 'no more waiting', or a hundred others.But just using all those phrases and variations on them would make your letter repetitive and dull.So choose a few of the strongest, use them explicitly early in your letter, even in your headline, and then embed them in a letter that also talks about some of the other benefits of your product or service.For example, taking the word 'quickly', you could say. 'If you change your mind, we can change your order just as quickly' and thus effectively reinforce your USP, although you don't actually repeat the same one-hour delivery promise.Another company might take an amended order just as quickly but then take six hours to deliver it.But to your reader, your 'quickly' message has been repeated.Just make sure the word 'quickly' has been anchored to (associated with) your USP earlier in the letter.You might even have used a headline like..Need [your product or service] Within One Hour Or Less? We Deliver to Your Door, Quickly, Easily and for Less than You Might ExpectWithout wishing to go too deeply into the psychology of selling (this would become a very long article), we certainly recommend that you read some of Jay Conrad Levinson's books on 'Guerrilla Marketing', and books by the likes of Bob Bly, Dan Kennedy, Richard Denny and others.Use Sub Headlines.Meanwhile, the other way your body copy will work for you, even without your prospects apparently reading it, is through clever use of sub headlines (or 'subheads').As your prospect scans quickly through your letter, you can almost force them to read the key elements of your sales message by summarising it into your sub headlines, picked out in bold, possibly in a different colour to the text, and maybe centred or highlighted.When you construct your letter well, with sub headlines that encapsulate your story or theme, your prospect can still read the essence of your sales message, even at a glance.But don't try to be too witty or clever with your sub headlines.Although a clever phrase might work very well for a reader who is reading it in context, it might be meaningless for someone skimming quickly through your letter.So don't waste your wit; instead, apply your intelligence to constructing a letter that works on all levels.For that reason, a sub headline should often just state a benefit, which can then be explained in the body copy that follows.It may be one of the many headlines you came up with originally but decided not to use.Then you could go on to explain how you achieve that, or better still, why that's such a great benefit.Break up the Text.Also, try to construct your letter with plenty of subheads so that there will always be at least one or two sub headlines visible, or something else to break up the text, because masses of unbroken text can be intimidating, however brilliantly you may have written it.Without white space, people just won't bother to read the copy, especially if it's on a screen.Increasing Desire.Your best way to create and increase desire is to engage with your prospects' feelings, rather than trying to appeal to their logic.All successful selling is done to individuals, not to companies, because however big a corporation may be, it's always a human being who makes the buying decision.For this reason, emotions outsell logic every time, however much we may sometimes dress up the emotions in logical clothes.Transfer Ownership.You'll find the easiest and most powerful way to engage your prospects' emotions is to transfer ownership.Do this, not by talking about your product and its benefits, but by speaking to their emotions and the feelings they will experience when the product is theirs.The most banal and unemotional products can still be sold in this way.For example, cheap flights are sold not just on price, but also on the emotional pull of the destination (even if most of the emotional selling is done by the full-price rivals).Because who wants a cheap flight to nowhere? We imagine ourselves on those golden, sunlit beaches or taking in all the cultural highlights of the great city.Not crammed into a low-cost airline's seats for ages, then enduring a two-hour bus ride to the hotel.Then we justify the discomfort (which we still prefer not to think about) by recalling the low price.But the crucial decision to take the trip was always emotional and often quite illogical.Keep piling on the emotional benefits (a prospect's imagination is your ally here) and people will want you to sell them your product.Add Scarcity.If you can honestly say that your product is in short supply, or you can only offer your service to a limited number of clients, that can be a great way to increase their desire to buy.There are two important things to bear in mind, though..You must have a valid reason why your product or service is in short supply, especially at that price, and you must explain it.For example, damaged stock can be moved in this way, as can last season's design.Your own commitments are a good reason why you can only provide your service to a few people.Whatever the reason, it needs to be plausible, and an explanation will add to your credibility.They could go elsewhere.If you haven't sold them on your USP, but only on the idea that they need something like what you sell, then being unable to guarantee to supply it might backfire.Overcome this with a priority ordering system of some kind (a phone number will do) so they can instantly confirm you've accepted their order.Make them feel like the special customers they are, and they will probably buy more from you another time.Better still, sell them on your USP!Add Urgency.This works in much the same way as scarcity, and the same caveats apply.There's always a rush for petrol on budget day, to beat the predicted price rises, and you can create a similar effect by announcing a forthcoming price rise.You could also tap into news and current affairs, so a company selling burglar alarms will sell far more during a 'crime wave' because the perceived need is more urgent.Most cures are far more attractive if they promise to be fast.Also, by accentuating something your prospect may be missing out on if they don't act now, you can create an urgency they weren't aware of.But you should concentrate on the positive aspect (your cure) rather than the negative (their pain), if you want them to have positive associations with you, your name or your brand.For example, a golfer with back pain would rather think about being able to play without pain than on all the rounds of golf he or she is missing because of their bad back.Remind them of the feeling of pain-free golf on an idyllic day, and say they could have it soon, and they'll be another step closer to buying your 'cure'.Add Exclusivity.If you offer your exclusive product to only a limited amount of people, you'll increase its desirability immensely.Rather than screaming 'a shortage of supply', it appeals more to snobbery and the sense of 'them and us', and everyone wants to be part of 'us'.This works well for financial and investment products, expensive cars and jewellery, property and special events (or special enclosures or seats), amongst other things.Few of us can resist a little privilege.In the next article, we'll look at "after the body copy".
Monday, August 27, 2012
Effective Copywriting 4 - The Headline & Body Copy
Keeping it Simple.There are some extraordinarily clever people in marketing, as there are everywhere, but there's no need for you to come up with anything very radical to compose a successful sales letter.All you need to do is remember the basics (and then remember to apply them).Successful sales copy does just that.Long or short copy?The answer is that sales letters should be as long as they need to be to carry the marketing message, and no longer.If your marketing message is so simple it only takes a few lines, ask yourself if you're really communicating the benefits of your product or service to everyone who reads it.If you truly are, your letter is long enough.When someone is really interested in a subject, they may well be happy to read a 24 page sales letter - we write plenty this long to specific, targeted niche markets, and with good results.If, on the other hand, your sales message seems to drag or take forever to explain, ask yourself if you could be more succinct without losing an essential part of the message.Are you describing the benefits or trying to explain too many of the features? If you can shorten your message without 'losing' it, then do so.If not, then keep it long, but do look at the structure and presentation (design) of the letter. see if you can make it easier to read and more persuasive to people who might just skim the letter or just skip straight to the end to see your offer and your price.Most people do skip or skim, and you can't compel anyone to read the entire letter, so you really need your letter to work for them, too.We'll explain how you do that a little later but let's start at the beginning, with the most crucial part of any letter, the headline.Your Headline.Most of us are constantly bombarded with messages of all kinds. from our senses, from 'the media' and from our own internal dialogue.If your headline doesn't command attention sufficiently to overcome all those other messages, at least for a moment, the rest of your letter probably won't get read at all.What's more, people are increasingly cynical about the hundreds of marketing messages they receive every day, so competing successfully for their attention gets tougher all the time.It's not all doom and gloom, though.Once again, there are some quite straightforward principles that will help you to come up with the best headline every time, and we're here to explain them to you.There are four key themes behind any successful headline.Aim to incorporate as many of them as you can and certainly never use a headline that doesn't include at least one of them.The four key themes are..Engage your readers by appealing to their to their self interest.Have an element of news to it (for example, 'Announcing', 'At last', 'Recently discovered').Create curiosity - this is not as powerful as number 1, but it's still good.Avoid any hint that there's work involved on their part and show there's a quick and easy way to solve their problem! People generally want the easy button, the magic bullet.Much as you may not like the idea, people who are buying are buying a solution - they want the fish delivered, not to learn how to fish.Show there's a quick and easy way.Here's a famous headline by Jack Carlton that incorporates all four elements.He (and his client) made huge amounts of money from this one.."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".In this example, the self interest is in the phrase 'slash 10 strokes from your game', the discovery is in the first three words and the one legged golfer is surely intriguing.Adding 50 yards and eliminating hooks and slices is the average golfer's equivalent of 'delivering the fish' with no work required.It's no wonder this headline was such a great success.One thing that does strike us about that headline is its length.At almost thirty words long, it's about double the length that most copywriters would advise is the maximum.It actually contains almost the entire sales message, apart from the call to action.But testing showed the headline worked, so it was used, and used successfully, for years.Remember to always test every componenet of a sales letter yourself.Swipe Files.One of a copywriter's most valuable assets is his or her 'swipe file', and there's no reason you can't create a swipe file of your own.To explain, a swipe file is a collection of other people's sales letters, headlines and ideas, which you can 'swipe' and adapt for your own purposes.While we would never suggest anyone should directly copy another writer's work, adapting a successful headline or formula for a different product or an entirely different market is almost an art form in itself.It's certainly a craft that's worth practising, and it's an accepted part of the copywriter's trade.Our swipe file probably comprises hundreds of letters, while other writers have gathered thousands of examples.If you study copywriting for any length of time, you'll start to see old favourites cropping up time after time.That's not because writers are too lazy to create something new but because, in test mailings, the old favourites kept coming out ahead of the new things they tried.For example, a prize-winning headline we wrote was borrowed from one of the most imitated and adapted (and most successful) headlines of all time.."They all laughed when I sat down at the piano - but when I started to play.".So the next time you're 'grabbed' by a strong headline, keep a copy and you'll have started your own swipe file.Soon, if you're sufficiently interested, you'll begin to spot headlines you can swipe, borrow and adapt almost every time you pick up a newspaper or open your post.And every headline will begin to suggest a theme for your body copy.Your Body Copy.Once you've grabbed your prospects' attention, you need to keep them interested long enough to read your offer.Remember at this point that your readers are not that interested in you, your company or even your product.They are mostly interested in themselves and 'what's in it for them'.So your copy has to speak directly to them and their (self) interests.Now, we've already said that the majority of people will skip past your body copy to get to the offer.That's true, but things are not quite so simple as they seem.There are two Tricks to use to make your body copy work, even if your prospects don't actually seem to read it.Use Repetition.Firstly, have you ever spotted your own name, or another name or word that means a lot to you, amongst a whole page of text - and then struggled to pick it out when you actively search for it? That's because our subconscious minds register far more than we can consciously 'notice', and only when something seems significant does our subconscious alert our conscious mind and allow us to 'see' it.Then, if we choose, we may have to laboriously search for it by reading every word.In the same way, have you ever bought a new car and then suddenly noticed how many cars there are just like yours? That's your subconscious mind deciding that the car you've obsessed about for weeks must be significant and therefore worth your conscious mind's attention.All that time you've spent thinking and reading about your new car has conditioned your subconscious into regarding that make and model as vitally important to you.Meanwhile, your subconscious mind still continues to record thousands of other sights, sounds and events (and dozens of models of car) that your conscious mind will probably never notice.You can use that conditioning effect when you write your sales letters.While your prospect flicks quickly through your letter, looking for the offer (or the catch), they will be subconsciously absorbing some of your sales message, but especially any key phrases you choose to repeat, until their subconscious mind decides they must be important and begins to react to (and crucially believe) them.Conditioning also works if they read your letter in full, especially if you're clever enough to 'embed' some of your key phrases inside longer sentences or even between adjacent sentences.'Embedding' can be a very good way of putting across your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition - the thing that sets you apart from your competitors - without simply repeating it ad nauseam.For example, say your USP is 'delivery within one hour or less'.There are lots of phrases you can use to remind your prospects of that, such as 'fast delivery', 'instant delivery', 'rapid', 'quickly', 'no more waiting', or a hundred others.But just using all those phrases and variations on them would make your letter repetitive and dull.So choose a few of the strongest, use them explicitly early in your letter, even in your headline, and then embed them in a letter that also talks about some of the other benefits of your product or service.For example, taking the word 'quickly', you could say. 'If you change your mind, we can change your order just as quickly' and thus effectively reinforce your USP, although you don't actually repeat the same one-hour delivery promise.Another company might take an amended order just as quickly but then take six hours to deliver it.But to your reader, your 'quickly' message has been repeated.Just make sure the word 'quickly' has been anchored to (associated with) your USP earlier in the letter.You might even have used a headline like..Need [your product or service] Within One Hour Or Less? We Deliver to Your Door, Quickly, Easily and for Less than You Might ExpectWithout wishing to go too deeply into the psychology of selling (this would become a very long article), we certainly recommend that you read some of Jay Conrad Levinson's books on 'Guerrilla Marketing', and books by the likes of Bob Bly, Dan Kennedy, Richard Denny and others.Use Sub Headlines.Meanwhile, the other way your body copy will work for you, even without your prospects apparently reading it, is through clever use of sub headlines (or 'subheads').As your prospect scans quickly through your letter, you can almost force them to read the key elements of your sales message by summarising it into your sub headlines, picked out in bold, possibly in a different colour to the text, and maybe centred or highlighted.When you construct your letter well, with sub headlines that encapsulate your story or theme, your prospect can still read the essence of your sales message, even at a glance.But don't try to be too witty or clever with your sub headlines.Although a clever phrase might work very well for a reader who is reading it in context, it might be meaningless for someone skimming quickly through your letter.So don't waste your wit; instead, apply your intelligence to constructing a letter that works on all levels.For that reason, a sub headline should often just state a benefit, which can then be explained in the body copy that follows.It may be one of the many headlines you came up with originally but decided not to use.Then you could go on to explain how you achieve that, or better still, why that's such a great benefit.Break up the Text.Also, try to construct your letter with plenty of subheads so that there will always be at least one or two sub headlines visible, or something else to break up the text, because masses of unbroken text can be intimidating, however brilliantly you may have written it.Without white space, people just won't bother to read the copy, especially if it's on a screen.Increasing Desire.Your best way to create and increase desire is to engage with your prospects' feelings, rather than trying to appeal to their logic.All successful selling is done to individuals, not to companies, because however big a corporation may be, it's always a human being who makes the buying decision.For this reason, emotions outsell logic every time, however much we may sometimes dress up the emotions in logical clothes.Transfer Ownership.You'll find the easiest and most powerful way to engage your prospects' emotions is to transfer ownership.Do this, not by talking about your product and its benefits, but by speaking to their emotions and the feelings they will experience when the product is theirs.The most banal and unemotional products can still be sold in this way.For example, cheap flights are sold not just on price, but also on the emotional pull of the destination (even if most of the emotional selling is done by the full-price rivals).Because who wants a cheap flight to nowhere? We imagine ourselves on those golden, sunlit beaches or taking in all the cultural highlights of the great city.Not crammed into a low-cost airline's seats for ages, then enduring a two-hour bus ride to the hotel.Then we justify the discomfort (which we still prefer not to think about) by recalling the low price.But the crucial decision to take the trip was always emotional and often quite illogical.Keep piling on the emotional benefits (a prospect's imagination is your ally here) and people will want you to sell them your product.Add Scarcity.If you can honestly say that your product is in short supply, or you can only offer your service to a limited number of clients, that can be a great way to increase their desire to buy.There are two important things to bear in mind, though..You must have a valid reason why your product or service is in short supply, especially at that price, and you must explain it.For example, damaged stock can be moved in this way, as can last season's design.Your own commitments are a good reason why you can only provide your service to a few people.Whatever the reason, it needs to be plausible, and an explanation will add to your credibility.They could go elsewhere.If you haven't sold them on your USP, but only on the idea that they need something like what you sell, then being unable to guarantee to supply it might backfire.Overcome this with a priority ordering system of some kind (a phone number will do) so they can instantly confirm you've accepted their order.Make them feel like the special customers they are, and they will probably buy more from you another time.Better still, sell them on your USP!Add Urgency.This works in much the same way as scarcity, and the same caveats apply.There's always a rush for petrol on budget day, to beat the predicted price rises, and you can create a similar effect by announcing a forthcoming price rise.You could also tap into news and current affairs, so a company selling burglar alarms will sell far more during a 'crime wave' because the perceived need is more urgent.Most cures are far more attractive if they promise to be fast.Also, by accentuating something your prospect may be missing out on if they don't act now, you can create an urgency they weren't aware of.But you should concentrate on the positive aspect (your cure) rather than the negative (their pain), if you want them to have positive associations with you, your name or your brand.For example, a golfer with back pain would rather think about being able to play without pain than on all the rounds of golf he or she is missing because of their bad back.Remind them of the feeling of pain-free golf on an idyllic day, and say they could have it soon, and they'll be another step closer to buying your 'cure'.Add Exclusivity.If you offer your exclusive product to only a limited amount of people, you'll increase its desirability immensely.Rather than screaming 'a shortage of supply', it appeals more to snobbery and the sense of 'them and us', and everyone wants to be part of 'us'.This works well for financial and investment products, expensive cars and jewellery, property and special events (or special enclosures or seats), amongst other things.Few of us can resist a little privilege.In the next article, we'll look at "after the body copy".
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