There are some things that should stay private, but everyone likes a good story. That makes storytelling the best way to get someone's attention - and hold it.
So, if you have a need to communicate and share - whether that's selling toothpaste or asking for help - try telling rather than selling.
The best copywriters practise storytelling at least as much as sales psychology. And the most interesting people are the ones with a story to tell, not a product to sell.
Roy
PS. Did I ever tell you the one about the unlit tunnel, the unlit cyclist and the oncoming car?
Showing posts with label sales copy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sales copy. Show all posts
Monday, 25 March 2013
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
Call Stephen Hawking!
I've just proved the theory of multiple, parallel universes to be true!
Hello again,
Who would have thought a copywriter could answer once and for all one of the great imponderable questions of the cosmos? And who would have believed it would be so easy?
I'm sure you know the theory...
Every time something happens, when something else could have happened, both things actually occur and one universe carries on in one way while another carries on in another. Since these maybe/maybe not events happen all the time, new universes are constantly being created.
Although that doesn't give us an infinite number of universes, it does give us an awful lot!
It turns out that copywriting works in exactly the same way. And that's how I proved it to be incontrovertably true.
There I was, pondering on ideas for a headline, when I remembered I really should be saving every idea that came to me, rather than trying to pick a 'winner' straight off. And that the same thing applies to the opening paragraph of the sales letter. And every paragraph that follows. And every decision about how long or short, what benefit to focus on, how to frame the offer, etc, etc... Almost an infinite number of sales letter possibilities could be 'calved' from the original, in just the same way as universes are 'calved' from one original universe.
Now, whether you believe in a 'creator' or 'designer' on a cosmological level, it's probably just as well there is such a thing as a 'creative' or copywriter, in the salesletter cosmos, or we could be here forever, trying to decide.
So, if God exists, do you think he ever has trouble deciding which universe to pick? Or maybe we're all part of one giant, multivariant split test!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
Hello again,
Who would have thought a copywriter could answer once and for all one of the great imponderable questions of the cosmos? And who would have believed it would be so easy?
I'm sure you know the theory...
Every time something happens, when something else could have happened, both things actually occur and one universe carries on in one way while another carries on in another. Since these maybe/maybe not events happen all the time, new universes are constantly being created.
Although that doesn't give us an infinite number of universes, it does give us an awful lot!
It turns out that copywriting works in exactly the same way. And that's how I proved it to be incontrovertably true.
There I was, pondering on ideas for a headline, when I remembered I really should be saving every idea that came to me, rather than trying to pick a 'winner' straight off. And that the same thing applies to the opening paragraph of the sales letter. And every paragraph that follows. And every decision about how long or short, what benefit to focus on, how to frame the offer, etc, etc... Almost an infinite number of sales letter possibilities could be 'calved' from the original, in just the same way as universes are 'calved' from one original universe.
Now, whether you believe in a 'creator' or 'designer' on a cosmological level, it's probably just as well there is such a thing as a 'creative' or copywriter, in the salesletter cosmos, or we could be here forever, trying to decide.
So, if God exists, do you think he ever has trouble deciding which universe to pick? Or maybe we're all part of one giant, multivariant split test!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
Friday, 11 January 2008
At Least Something Works!
Hello again.
Frustrating isn't quite the word when you've gone to the trouble of directing people to a website, only to find you can't update the content to give them what you've promised.
The mysteries of Internet Explorer and/or Google conspired to prevent me updating this page yesterday, but I'm here now.
And the plan was to tell you how the death of email marketing has been greatly exaggerated. To point out that any other advertising medium that could deliver a twenty-four percent response would be lauded to the hills. And any that subsequently delivered over sixty percent of those responders to the advertised event would be hailed as revolutionary.
It wasn't lauded (except by me) and there's nothing very revolutionary about email marketing. I guess it depends on three things:
Frustrating isn't quite the word when you've gone to the trouble of directing people to a website, only to find you can't update the content to give them what you've promised.
The mysteries of Internet Explorer and/or Google conspired to prevent me updating this page yesterday, but I'm here now.
And the plan was to tell you how the death of email marketing has been greatly exaggerated. To point out that any other advertising medium that could deliver a twenty-four percent response would be lauded to the hills. And any that subsequently delivered over sixty percent of those responders to the advertised event would be hailed as revolutionary.
It wasn't lauded (except by me) and there's nothing very revolutionary about email marketing. I guess it depends on three things:
- How targeted the original list is
- How good the offer is
- How well we write the emails
So we can probably say we got three out of three for our last campaign. Fifty attendees from a list of about three hundred people (and from just under eighty opt-ins) has to be good.
So when I finished congratulating myself for that success I could only think I should be doing this kind of thing for a living!
Then I remembered I was, decided to tell a few people about it, and hit the brick wall that either Microsoft or Google temporarily threw up in my path.
Still, I'm here now, I've told you about it and I can only ask one question: how would a twenty-four percent response to your next campaign help YOUR business?
Roy Everitt, Writing for Amazing Results
Friday, 16 November 2007
If I Read it in The Papers...
...It must be true.
Apparently, there's a depression on the way. 'Everyone' is saying as much, so I guess it will happen, even if it wasn't going to before.
Sometimes, I think 'everyone' just gets a bit bored with doing okay from time to time...
But anyway, there's a recession on the way and it's great news.
Not for everyone, it's true. But for me, and for you, if we both play it smart.
Because the business I'm in thrives on difficult times and competition and even a shortage of cash. If that sounds counter-intuitive then you may be a marketing executive or the head of a company that's about to 'pull in its horns' in a vain attempt to ride out the recession.
I was born in the 1950's and, although the war was long over, the UK was still deep in debt as a result of it. The UK economy was struggling and a lot of prewar companies didn't survive.
Some, though, thrived.
Mysterious, eh? Some kind of conspiracy? Not really. The companies that thrived during the most difficult periods of the last hundred years (it was much the same in the decade or so after the first war) were the ones who invested in marketing, in a big way. Pretty much all the household names of the fifties and sixties became household names because they advertised - on commercial television, in newspapers and magazines and on commercial radio (mostly 'pirate' stations in the UK back then).
Their goods weren't cheaper and they weren't better - they were just there.
And most of them survived, while the firms who drew in their horns and tried to ride it out, very often didn't.
And, as marketing people, we owe it to our clients to remind them of the lessons of history. When there's a squeeze on, and money is tight, we all tend to spend it on the products that are most visible, and not on the ones that seem to disappear. If there are two items to choose from, we'll choose the one that's put in front of us.
For us, there's a simple lesson:
you must market yourself hard and persuade your clients to do the same. If they want to not just survive the recession, but thrive in it, they must out-sell the competition. Persuade them of that and, for you and your clients, the boom times are here!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
Apparently, there's a depression on the way. 'Everyone' is saying as much, so I guess it will happen, even if it wasn't going to before.
Sometimes, I think 'everyone' just gets a bit bored with doing okay from time to time...
But anyway, there's a recession on the way and it's great news.
Not for everyone, it's true. But for me, and for you, if we both play it smart.
Because the business I'm in thrives on difficult times and competition and even a shortage of cash. If that sounds counter-intuitive then you may be a marketing executive or the head of a company that's about to 'pull in its horns' in a vain attempt to ride out the recession.
I was born in the 1950's and, although the war was long over, the UK was still deep in debt as a result of it. The UK economy was struggling and a lot of prewar companies didn't survive.
Some, though, thrived.
Mysterious, eh? Some kind of conspiracy? Not really. The companies that thrived during the most difficult periods of the last hundred years (it was much the same in the decade or so after the first war) were the ones who invested in marketing, in a big way. Pretty much all the household names of the fifties and sixties became household names because they advertised - on commercial television, in newspapers and magazines and on commercial radio (mostly 'pirate' stations in the UK back then).
Their goods weren't cheaper and they weren't better - they were just there.
And most of them survived, while the firms who drew in their horns and tried to ride it out, very often didn't.
And, as marketing people, we owe it to our clients to remind them of the lessons of history. When there's a squeeze on, and money is tight, we all tend to spend it on the products that are most visible, and not on the ones that seem to disappear. If there are two items to choose from, we'll choose the one that's put in front of us.
For us, there's a simple lesson:
you must market yourself hard and persuade your clients to do the same. If they want to not just survive the recession, but thrive in it, they must out-sell the competition. Persuade them of that and, for you and your clients, the boom times are here!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Why Long Copy Works
(and why it needn't matter if it doesn't)
It seems to be a perennial debate: long copy versus short copy. But most copywriters know from experience (and from reading the copywriting gurus) that long copy far outsells short copy, especially for high-ticket items.
Why?
Well, first let's look at why short copy might sometimes be better.
Business people are busy people. They don't have time to spend reading page after page of sales material, however excitingly written, before they decide whether or not to spend a few pounds or dollars. It just isn't cost effective – their time is too precious.
They'd be better off buying something a little less than perfect than wasting that precious time.
So, for a low priced item, short copy is the way to go. In fact, it might not be worth investing in a copywriter’s fees for a low cost item. Of course, if the item sells by the million it would be worth every penny, but that's another matter.
In short copy, there's a headline, a story, an offer and a call to action. Call them by other names if you will, but they're the essential elements, and the advantage to the customer is that they know exactly what your offer is, almost at a glance.
For higher-priced items, it's different. When someone is contemplating spending a lot of money (for them) they need to be convinced it's worth it. They may take a fair bit of persuading, but the time spent - yours and theirs - will be worth it if they can save or make the value of that time, plus the price of the product, many times over.
They may not make that calculation consciously, but on some level or other they will be making a judgement on whether you're wasting their time. Even before, that is, they decide whether they'll be wasting their cash buying your product.
Which is why, perversely, it needn't matter. So long as your long copy is constructed properly they can get all the short copy benefits, while you offer all the reassurance and potential persuasiveness of long copy.
You may spend page after page extolling the virtues and numerous irresistible benefits of your product, but a hurried and harassed businessperson needs to be able to scan your copy in seconds and deduce exactly what you're offering, how it can solve their problem and the price they'll have to pay.
Then, if they're interested, they’ll go back and read in more detail. And study after study shows that while long copy outsells short copy, it's the short copy 'scanned' version that the buyer actually sees first and on which they'll most likely base their decision to buy or not buy.
So, when you produce your long copy it needs to have exactly the same elements as your short copy.
In fact, at first sight it should actually look like short copy with a lot of extra detail between the essential bits!
So, you'll need:
· a headline, emphasising the main benefit
· body copy, explaining the product and its benefits
· the offer, which is the price plus bonuses and guarantees
· the close or call to action, made as easy as possible.
Each of these elements must be highlighted with a sub-heading so the busy reader can pick them out at a glance.
And here’s the critical part: those sub-heads must tell a coherent story on their own, to get the message across to the quick-scanning reader.
Here’s how legendary John Caples put it recently: “[Long or short] depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Generally speaking the more explaining you need to do to get your reader to understand the product’s benefits fully, or the more money it costs, the longer the copy you’ll need.
In many cases, longer copy will work best. But remember, it’s not because it’s long that it works. It still needs to be brief and succinct in the sense that it packs maximum meaning and benefit into each sentence … Distil it down as much as possible without omitting any of the points … of interest to the target market …then render the copy in logical chunks prefaced with powerful, curiosity inducing sub-heads that stop skimmers and skippers, drawing them into the copy. Finally … edit your sub-heads into a logical summary of your entire sales argument.”
So the details (detailing benefits remember), the credibility-building testimonials and explanations of why this is such a terrific never to be repeated offer, etc, all fit in between these compelling sub headings.
End with a PS - the ultimate short copy summarising all the above - and there you have it - long copy that works like short copy. But better!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
PS. I’ll be giving you more tips of the copywriter’s trade right here in the days and weeks to come. But you can make sure you don’t miss a single one by subscribing to this site – it's free and the sign up is top right on this page – AND you’ll also get occasional, exclusive information for subscribers only, PLUS a member’s only free offer in the very near future. But you’ll have to subscribe to find out what that is!
It seems to be a perennial debate: long copy versus short copy. But most copywriters know from experience (and from reading the copywriting gurus) that long copy far outsells short copy, especially for high-ticket items.
Why?
Well, first let's look at why short copy might sometimes be better.
Business people are busy people. They don't have time to spend reading page after page of sales material, however excitingly written, before they decide whether or not to spend a few pounds or dollars. It just isn't cost effective – their time is too precious.
They'd be better off buying something a little less than perfect than wasting that precious time.
So, for a low priced item, short copy is the way to go. In fact, it might not be worth investing in a copywriter’s fees for a low cost item. Of course, if the item sells by the million it would be worth every penny, but that's another matter.
In short copy, there's a headline, a story, an offer and a call to action. Call them by other names if you will, but they're the essential elements, and the advantage to the customer is that they know exactly what your offer is, almost at a glance.
For higher-priced items, it's different. When someone is contemplating spending a lot of money (for them) they need to be convinced it's worth it. They may take a fair bit of persuading, but the time spent - yours and theirs - will be worth it if they can save or make the value of that time, plus the price of the product, many times over.
They may not make that calculation consciously, but on some level or other they will be making a judgement on whether you're wasting their time. Even before, that is, they decide whether they'll be wasting their cash buying your product.
Which is why, perversely, it needn't matter. So long as your long copy is constructed properly they can get all the short copy benefits, while you offer all the reassurance and potential persuasiveness of long copy.
You may spend page after page extolling the virtues and numerous irresistible benefits of your product, but a hurried and harassed businessperson needs to be able to scan your copy in seconds and deduce exactly what you're offering, how it can solve their problem and the price they'll have to pay.
Then, if they're interested, they’ll go back and read in more detail. And study after study shows that while long copy outsells short copy, it's the short copy 'scanned' version that the buyer actually sees first and on which they'll most likely base their decision to buy or not buy.
So, when you produce your long copy it needs to have exactly the same elements as your short copy.
In fact, at first sight it should actually look like short copy with a lot of extra detail between the essential bits!
So, you'll need:
· a headline, emphasising the main benefit
· body copy, explaining the product and its benefits
· the offer, which is the price plus bonuses and guarantees
· the close or call to action, made as easy as possible.
Each of these elements must be highlighted with a sub-heading so the busy reader can pick them out at a glance.
And here’s the critical part: those sub-heads must tell a coherent story on their own, to get the message across to the quick-scanning reader.
Here’s how legendary John Caples put it recently: “[Long or short] depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Generally speaking the more explaining you need to do to get your reader to understand the product’s benefits fully, or the more money it costs, the longer the copy you’ll need.
In many cases, longer copy will work best. But remember, it’s not because it’s long that it works. It still needs to be brief and succinct in the sense that it packs maximum meaning and benefit into each sentence … Distil it down as much as possible without omitting any of the points … of interest to the target market …then render the copy in logical chunks prefaced with powerful, curiosity inducing sub-heads that stop skimmers and skippers, drawing them into the copy. Finally … edit your sub-heads into a logical summary of your entire sales argument.”
So the details (detailing benefits remember), the credibility-building testimonials and explanations of why this is such a terrific never to be repeated offer, etc, all fit in between these compelling sub headings.
End with a PS - the ultimate short copy summarising all the above - and there you have it - long copy that works like short copy. But better!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
PS. I’ll be giving you more tips of the copywriter’s trade right here in the days and weeks to come. But you can make sure you don’t miss a single one by subscribing to this site – it's free and the sign up is top right on this page – AND you’ll also get occasional, exclusive information for subscribers only, PLUS a member’s only free offer in the very near future. But you’ll have to subscribe to find out what that is!
Thursday, 25 October 2007
Blame Dating Direct...
... and Jon McCulloch for this post.
I'm unashamedly borrowing from Jon's excellent newsletter today because he reminded me of an analogy I'd almost totally forgotten.
Now, Jon not only writes a mean newsletter and blog (at http://www.jonmcculloch.com/), he is also a damn fine copywriter, although you probably can't afford him.
He'd say you can't afford not to hire him, but then he's very picky whom he works with and has a long waiting list, so the point is moot, you might say.
Anyway, Jon met his partner Sarah through an online dating site, and I met my wife Jacqui the same way.
Jon's point, to get to the point, is that when you post your profile on a site like Dating Direct, or any of the dozens of others, the last thing you'd think to lead with is your name, unless you're Brad Pitt, or Angelina Jolie, perhaps. I can't say I ever encountered either of them advertising on a dating site...
And yet, so many company websites begin in just that way - with their name in the headline. As Jon points out, a company website is really just a commercial version of a lonely hearts ad - where the sole purpose is to persuade likely mates to contact us, or leave us their contact details so we can do the 'chasing'. From there, we'd hope to build a relationship with the ones we like.
Put that way, it's obvious why so many apparently excellent company web sites and sales letters fail. No one wants to know your name - they want to know who you are (which is a different thing) and what you have to offer them.
Names don't come into it until you choose to say 'Hello'.
I've no idea if Jacqui would have fallen for the name 'Roy', or if Sarah would have been bowled over by 'Jonathan'.
But both Jon and I can feel pretty chuffed that we got those particular pieces of 'sales copy' spot on!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
I'm unashamedly borrowing from Jon's excellent newsletter today because he reminded me of an analogy I'd almost totally forgotten.
Now, Jon not only writes a mean newsletter and blog (at http://www.jonmcculloch.com/), he is also a damn fine copywriter, although you probably can't afford him.
He'd say you can't afford not to hire him, but then he's very picky whom he works with and has a long waiting list, so the point is moot, you might say.
Anyway, Jon met his partner Sarah through an online dating site, and I met my wife Jacqui the same way.
Jon's point, to get to the point, is that when you post your profile on a site like Dating Direct, or any of the dozens of others, the last thing you'd think to lead with is your name, unless you're Brad Pitt, or Angelina Jolie, perhaps. I can't say I ever encountered either of them advertising on a dating site...
And yet, so many company websites begin in just that way - with their name in the headline. As Jon points out, a company website is really just a commercial version of a lonely hearts ad - where the sole purpose is to persuade likely mates to contact us, or leave us their contact details so we can do the 'chasing'. From there, we'd hope to build a relationship with the ones we like.
Put that way, it's obvious why so many apparently excellent company web sites and sales letters fail. No one wants to know your name - they want to know who you are (which is a different thing) and what you have to offer them.
Names don't come into it until you choose to say 'Hello'.
I've no idea if Jacqui would have fallen for the name 'Roy', or if Sarah would have been bowled over by 'Jonathan'.
But both Jon and I can feel pretty chuffed that we got those particular pieces of 'sales copy' spot on!
Roy Everitt, Writing For Results
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)