Sunday, October 30, 2011

How to Write "Hot Button" Sales Copy in the Coming Recession of 2012

Author: Barry A. Densa

There are, as you may have heard, 13 human motivators, or "hot buttons" that inevitably drive sales.

Employ any one, or two of them, in your marketing campaigns, with a deft and artistic touch, and you'll easily deliver your customers to the precipice – the point at which he or she is presented with an all-important and consequential decision:

To buy … or not to buy.

Yet, use more than one, or at the most two hot button motivators in a single marketing campaign … and more than likely, you'll lose the sale.

Just as a sentence should contain only one thought, lest in confuse and distract the reader, a sales promotion should appeal to one dominant motivator at a time.

So which one, or two motivators will work best in a recession?

First, let's identify these 13 motivators.

In no particular order, they are:

1. Fear

Fear of lost opportunities, or the loss of a possession. (Plus, millions of people just love it when they're scared – why else Stephen King and Final Destination 5?)

2. Greed

The coveting of more … more … and more(And its still never enough)!

3. Vanity

Mirror, mirror on the wall ... (Indeed, why mirrors at all)?

4. Lust

Sex sells. Dare to deny it.

5. Envy or Jealousy

It all began when we were little mini-me's, and we pulled on mommy's skirt and screamed: "I WANT ONE, TOO!"

6. Pride

Who doesn't want to be valued and feel important … (And drive a BMW)?

7. Laziness

Why stand when you can sit; why sit when you can lie down; why work when someone else can work for you (otherwise known as outsourcing)?

8. Anger

You've been robbed! You've been cheated! And now you want REVENGE!

9. Strength

C'mon, do you know anyone who really wants to be weak?

10. Charity

The pleasure is in the giving (so they say).

11. Hope

Why else do we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune (Shakespeare). Because … after all, tomorrow is another day (Gone with the Wind).

12. Prejudice

We all have one or two. Because in some perverse way, it makes us feel better about our miserable, guilt-ridden selves.

13. Justice

The politically correct, socially acceptable and legal equivalent of revenge.

Ok, so which hot buttons work best in a recession?

Hold on, not so fast.

Along with these 13 motivators, we humans are also prey to 12 universal desires.

Indeed, at one time or another, regardless of our sex, age, race, political persuasion, or whether we watch CNN or FOX, we are all subject to these 12 desires – and some of us are subject to all of them all at the same time!

Again, a warning: Pander to more than one or two and you will muddle your marketing message.

Okay, these 12 desires are, in no particular order (and they need no explanation):

1. Money

2. Good looks

3. Comfort

4. Time

5. Praise

6. Popularity

7. Leisure

8. Self-confidence

9. Enjoyment or pleasure

10. Success

11. Health

12. Security in our old age

Now, which of these 12 desires appeal most strongly to consumers during a recession – when money is tight, the future is murky and an overall sense of anxiety and dread causes many a sleepless, frightful night?

Hmn. Well, truthfully, from where I stand, a recession won't stop, inhibit or negate any of them!

They all belong to the basic human emotional and visceral food groups, regardless of whether Bernanke institutes QE3, or not.

Because they function in all climates – and in all economies – indeed, they will survive and thrive in the best of times and the worst of times (Dickens, sorta).

Therefore …

Great News!

If your product or service can successfully satisfy any of these 12 desires, your promotion could be squarely on the road to making you oodles of money – if you can combine it with a hot-button recession-proof motivator!

Important Caveat: The desire you choose to arouse and satisfy must berelevant to your product.

For example, if you sell car parts, security in old age or good looks might not be the best two desires to leverage.

But, if you sell pimple cream … good looks certainly works, as would popularity, praise, self-confidence, and, a case could even be made for health (after all, if you look good, you feel good).

Okay, now on to …

The motivators you should absolutely use in a recession…

Well, FEAR certainly works – but use it sparingly. For example, use it in the lead, to get the readers attention. After all, you don't want to drone on and on about how terrible things are – they get enough of that watching the nightly news on TV.

What they really want, therefore, is HOPE!

Okay, so now we've got two motivators that go hand-in-hand: FEAR and HOPE.

Anything else?

ENVY or JEALUOSY works.

For example, your prospect grumbles to himself: "Gezus! How can Harry next door still take annual Hawaii vacations, when I can't even afford to fill my gas tank?"

So, here comes your product to the rescue, allowing him to act like neighbor Harry, thereby restoring his PRIDE (and presumably filling his empty wallet and gas tank).

LUST, now that's clearly a motivator for all seasons. Nothing will stop carnal desire, not rain, nor hail, not even old age (as long as your product has the horse power of a little blue pill).

GREED, on the other hand, wouldn't work.

The average consumer isn't looking for more – he's looking to hold on to and protect what he's got.

And for that same reason, CHARITY isn't a big motivator in tough economic times either, unless…

Your customers are rich and philanthropic. And if they are, then GREED or CHARITY, and certainly VANITY can be used with wanton abandon!

What about ANGER? Absolutely!

Yes, play into the rage – the loss of privilege and comforts that a recession robs your customers of.

And by all means – pin the blame – join your customers in throwing rocks at the enemy!

Who is the enemy? Those whom your customers may have a PREJUDICE against – Wall Street, Congress, Obama, the Tea Party, your landlord, your boss who denied you a raise, the list could be endless!

After all, your customers want, indeed they demand JUSTICE!

But be smart and sensitive about it. Use good taste. Don't blame the Jews, the blacks, the Mexicans, the poor, or even your mother-in-law (unless you're fully capable of cooking and doing your own laundry).

And what about LAZINESS? Silly question – that's another all season perennial!

For example, there are millions of overweight men and women who would eagerly pop a handful of pills rather than run 5 miles on the treadmill, much less deny themselves the pleasures of chocolate, ice cream and cake.

And if a pill, powder, or chair (which easily folds and stores in a closet), can miraculously turn their pot bellies into a rippling rack of 6-pack abs in 90 days or less – and – give them the STRENGTH to bend steel in their bare hands and leap tall buildings in a single bound (Superman) – it's a no-brainer!

My, my, my, dear marketer, what have we just discovered here?

There are no one, or two, hot button motivators best suited for a recession!

Depending on who your customers are, what they value, what drives them and what they desire – there are exactly 13 motivators… and 12 desires … to choose from.

In which case … what recession? 2012 is going to be a great year for you!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/copywriting-articles/how-to-write-hot-button-sales-copy-in-the-coming-recession-of-2012-5340582.html

About the Author

Barry A. Densa is a freelance marketing and sales copywriter at Writing With Personality. Read more of his irreverent musings, anddownload a FREEcopy of hisNEW eBook, containing 21 of his most outrageous rants,when you visit his blog:Marketing Wit & Wisdom!

8 Tips For Writing A Profitable Sales Letter

Author: Nick Cobb

The fact is, if you're selling a product online and you want to make a lot of sales, then you need a great sales letter. Powerful, persuasive and cunningly manipulative sales copy is the biggest weapon that any online marketer can have, because it can turn any product into an absolute goldmine!

And in order to achieve this, you need to bear in mind that a huge proportion of online purchases are driven by emotion and impulse, rather than logic. As a result, it's crucial that you keep the visitor reading your sales letter for as long as possible, by really emphasizing the benefits of your product. If you can do this, you'll stand a far better chance of clinching that sale!

And in this article, I'm going to be revealing eight incredibly useful tips that you can use in your own sales letter to captivate your audience and boost your conversion rates.

So listen up…

Tip #1: Set Your Product Apart From The Rest

Whether your product is an e-book about SEO or a piece of sales letter writing software, it's important that you emphasize the fact that it's different to anything else out there on the market. There are thousands of products being released each and every day, and inevitably there are going to be many products that are virtually the same. You need to set yours apart from the rest, and demonstrate why it's different from, and indeed superior to, the others.

Tip #2: Relate to Your Reader

A great tactic for increasing sales is to build rapport with your potential customers. And the #1 way of doing this is to include a back story. So if you're selling an acne-cure, for example, let the reader know that you suffered from acne in the past. You know what it's like to suffer in the way they've been suffering, and you found a solution. A back story like this will help to build trust and credibility, and make the reader a lot more likely to buy. Just be sure that your back story is the truth. Whatever you do, don't lie. If you start lying in your sales letter, then you're on the slippery slope towards becoming a scammer, and your reputation will soon suffer.

Tip #3: Be Secretive!

A great tip to use when writing your sales letter is to hold back the nature of your product for as long as possible. If you can come up with an intriguing or shocking headline that keeps people reading, you'll be able to draw them further into the sales copy. But keep them guessing! Everyone loves a mystery, and not revealing what the product actually is can be a very effective sales tool because once your visitor has started reading your sales letter, they'll want to find out what the product is, and how it can help them!

Tip #4: Be Selective With Your Words

When it comes to a sales letter, your choice of words is absolutely crucial! I'm talking about very simple things here that can be the difference between the customer clicking on the order button, or leaving within a few seconds of getting there. For example, instead of asking the prospect to ‘buy', ‘purchase' or ‘order' your product, try alternatives such as ‘invest' or ‘secure' instead. These words possess more positive connotations, and suggest a long-term investment rather than a one-off, impulse-driven buy!

Tip #5: Add a Bonus Product

When selling anything online, it's important that you provide value for money. In fact, you should always be looking to over-deliver, creating something known as "perceived value". This way, the prospect feels as though the value of the product and the related bonuses far exceeds the price they're paying. And the best way of creating perceived value is to include useful and relevant bonuses towards the end of your sales letter.

Tip #6: Be a Problem Solver

The most successful products are those that provide solutions to people's problems. Indeed, problem-solving is where the big money is made online. So when you're writing your sales letter, always bear this in mind. What problem does the reader have? How can your product solve that problem? Does your product solve more than one of their problems? If so, be sure to list them. Ultimately, solutions to problems constitute BENEFITS, and benefits sell!

Tip #7: Make Things Easy

People buy online because it's easy and convenient, so bear this in mind when constructing your sales letter. For instance, it's important when retaining visitors and closing sales to make the ordering process as straightforward as possible. So when the customer clicks on the order button, make sure that they're sent straight through to the payment page, which is clear and concise. I've seen some order buttons send people through to another page, which requires the prospect to read things like disclaimers, terms and conditions and the like, and then scroll down through more content in order to press the order button AGAIN. Why?!

Tip #8: Allay Their Fears

Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of scammers, phishing sites and cyber criminals out there who 10 years ago would have been rummaging through your bins to steal your credit card details. Today, they can do it all online, and completely anonymously. As a result, a lot of your potential customers will want reassurance that you're the real deal before they make payment. So when they reach the payment page, be sure to make them aware – in the clearest of terms – that your ordering system is completely secure. It's also a good idea to include things like a privacy policy, terms and conditions, your office address, company number, VAT number, contact details etc, at the bottom of your sales letter. This will make you look a lot more credible, and most importantly, genuine.

Keep all of these points in mind when you come to writing your own sales letter, and you'll stand a far bigger chance of not only keeping visitors on your sales page, but converting them into customers!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/copywriting-articles/8-tips-for-writing-a-profitable-sales-letter-5316871.html

About the Author

Nick Cobb is a freelance copywriter, online marketing consultant and the founder and Managing Director of Write For You Ltd, a copywriting agency based in London, England. His principal website; My Freelance Copywriter provides a wide range of copywriting services to domestic and international businesses, while his sister site; Red Hot Sales Letters, is dedicated to producing profit-pulling sales copy for online marketers.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

SEO copywriting tips: Reduce the bounce rate of your website with quality content

Author: Pragya Katariya

One interesting aspect of web analytics is the bounce rate, which is defined as the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at an entry page on your web site, then leave without visiting any other pages.

Most SEO specialists would agree that a higher bounce rate means lower engagement and vice versa. However, there is another interpretation for a high bounce rate, which is that people found what they wanted on the landing page and didn't feel the need to explore the other web pages. While this is true, businesses usually prefer the visitors to go through the other web pages also, just in case they find other products or services equally interesting or they mark the information for future use.

So the effort should be to aim at a lower bounce rate. This can be achieved by ensuring that the content on your website is relevant, engaging and informative.

The need to provide relevant web page content can not be over emphasized. While writing web content, SEO copywriters need to think from the readers' perspective and then answer all the questions that they might have. Relevant content can also be described as something that is easy to understand and not too high on technical terms, and written in the language that the readers speak. If

The second thing is to provide enough content. Now, the ideal length of a web page is debatable. Instead of focusing on the number of words, an SEO copywriter should focus on expressing what needs to be expressed. Or in other words, the thought process and the information should be complete so the reader is not left with unanswered questions.

With this said, if you have to write a lengthy article, it is better to break it down into small paragraphs and use bulleted points, where ever possible. Also, make sure to give subtitles and include relevant keywords in them.

One of the reasons visitors leave a landing page is that the information presented there is inaccurate, irrelevant or outdated. Therefore, it is necessary to keep updating your website with fresh content. This is not just to give updated information to your visitors and thereby reduce the bounce rate. Fresh web content is also fodder for the search engines and so the more content you add, the higher the chances of your site showing up in search results.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/copywriting-articles/seo-copywriting-tips-reduce-the-bounce-rate-of-your-website-with-quality-content-5303747.html

About the Author

Pragya Katariya is a content writer with over 10 years experience covering a wide variety of subjects, from producing articles for print and online media to writing copy for brochures, newsletters and web copy in clear, concise language. . Please visit her website http://www.oceanbluecommunications.com/ for your content writing needs.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Why Blog Writing Is The New Journalism

Author: PAEveryday

No one is surprised anymore when practically all the teenagers right this moment are glued to the internet. From shopping to document searches, it has every little thing a young mind needs. Although one secluded part of most teens' life is their journal, it is not anymore a secret to see how much there is to obtain about their lives today.

Everyone now considers blog writing as the window for the reader's to see what is on the blogger's thoughts. We have blogging or publishing web logs to thank for. It lets the blogger expound on mundane information such as what he has had for breakfast last Tuesday or why his second grade teacher gives him the creeps. This brand new medium for writing and generating articles has been simplified into these internet blogs. If one is tired of jotting down every single detail on his life on paper, he can always opt for the brand new fad of journalism - blogging.

Composed of texts, documentaries or multimedia topics, a blog literally means sharing a comment or fact of life to the internet. Because it is close to a diary, blogs are best updated regularly in a sequence of events of one's timeless exhibit of creativity and style.

Anyone can blog and write something that comes out of his head whether he was just talking about his dinner or the number of cars he had counted while on his way to work. Others write about a specific niche from fashion to travelling to dining and technology. A person can even hire a blog writer as his virtual assistant to update his site. The level of expertise gives the blogger authority on the topics he has written even if blogging requires minimal modification such as editing and proof reading.

Professional blog and content writers on the other hand boost a business' online presence and drive traffic to its site. Hired blog writers can even work with a company's marketing team member. If a company has his very own in-house writer to work on his content writing needs, from blog and article, to editing and proofing, it can certainly help in his business' real time updates.

Blogs and blogging are recognized in totally different arenas and the best part about it is that is does not require a lot of energy and effort compared to writing off journals and diaries in paper. When everyone else is glued to the internet, rest assured that everyone, including teenagers, will be reading off someone else's life online in real time.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/copywriting-articles/why-blog-writing-is-the-new-journalism-5371774.html

About the Author

About PA Everyday
PA Everyday is an Australian-owned Business Process Outsourcing firm with its headquarters located in Cebu, Philippines. Founded in 2009 and later additionally incorporated in the Philippines, PA Everyday has grown into a premier provider of process outsourcing for the small-to-medium business sector. With personnel and virtual offices in the Philippines, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, PA Everyday has a truly global reach.
PA Everyday's clients benefit from a wide variety of services, from the "do-it-yourself" model of virtual assistant staff leasing, to full-fledged divisional outsourcing such as blog writers, Inbound/Outbound Call Centre and Bookkeepers. Our flexible contract lengths and rapid recruitment processes allow seamless integration into our clients' businesses. Our clients range from work-from-home sole operators to medium-sized telecommunications companies and software providers. To get started on your virtual assistant, visit www.Paeveryday.com.