What if George Carlin had riffed on behavioral targeting?
In doing the research for my new ClickZ column on behavioral marketing, I became fascinated by all that could be measured and inferred about me from the simple act of visiting a Web page. The agents at work when you visit a Web site are an invisible Pixel and something called a Cookie. Then the marketers, advertisers, publishers, scientists and statisticians go to work on the data, divining what they can from it about you and what ads you want to see.
The list, which you will find on ClickZ.com, is long, ironic, funny and sometimes disturbing. It’s exactly the kind of thing that needs a Carlinesque treatment.
Learn how to use Search, E-mail, Conversion, and Social Media to grow your business while your competitors are shrinking.
All in One Day
I’ve shown dozens of businesses how to use the most cost-efficient marketing methods available to increase their sales. There is no more cost-efficient way to market than online, and the top eMarketers in Austin will be in one place on January 29 to show you how it’s done.
Will you be there?
eMarketing Techniques for Business will show you how to use the bread-and-butter online marketing techniques in your business: E-mail, Search, Conversion, and Social Media. If you don’t know the names of these companies, you should:
Hubspot, Apogee Search, WorkSmart eMarketing, Aperio Marketing, IncSlingers, NLI Media Group, Writeous Words, and Conversion Sciences.
These are the companies that are writing the book on growth when everyone else is pulling back. How much would it cost to engage each of these online specialists? Not as much as you would gain, but a LOT more than a ticket to eMarketing Techniques for Business.
It’s Time to Take Action
The decisions you make in the next 30 to 60 days will determine your fate in 2009. Will you be one of the businesses with a shrinking customers base or one of the few with a growing prospect list, new customers, and more visibility in the market?
The good news is that you don’t have to get up the learning curve on all of these proven eMarketing Techniques. Everyone you need to know will be in Austin on Friday, January 29. All you have to do is show up.
As a speaker at the event I’ve been given a discounted rate. There won’t be another day on which you will be able to get so much decision-making insight as you will at eMarketing Techniques for Business.
eMarketing Techniques for Business
Make visitors stick with Copy and Headlines
I’m going to be working with Amy Lemen to tell you exactly how you can change the copy on your Web site to make visitors stay and take action. No design changes. No new logos. Just change your copy. What could be easier? Well, it would be easier to just stay at home, but then you’d have a much less profitable year than you could.
It’s time you put E-mail to work for your business
Imagine owning a list of 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 prospects who have shown an interest in what your company sells. How would that change your fortunes? You’ll learn how to build that list and then turn the members of that list into buyers with e-mail marketing.
Learn Only the Most Valuable Search Techniques
There are thousands of strategies for using search to drive your business. There are only a handful that matter to your business. Find out where you should be focusing when you seek to turn searchers into your customers.
Social Media is here. Are you a part of the conversation?
The conversations about your business are happening all around the Internet — if you’re lucky. What if you could be a part of those conversations? Social media is the newest tool for building brand, loyalty, goodwill, and more traffic to your Web site. If you don’t understand how it works, you can’t make good decisions about using it to grow your business.
There is more. Much More.
While this exclusive event could easily garner $2000 or more, it is being offered for just $199. Imagine the very people who know how to drive more sales for your business in one place, and you can get in for just $199. That’s just nuts.
I’ve begun a series on ClickZ on Behavioral Marketing. If you follow my writing, you may realize that I don’t write about behavioral marketing — at all. This is new ground for me, and that may be my advantage. I’m not a Behavioral Marketing expert. I’m willing to ask the dumbest of questions, and to do it in a public space.
If you’re not a behavioral marketing expert either, you may find my “beginners mind” approach helpful; you’re the business owner or marketer that I am writing for.
My special thanks goes out to Chris Vanderhook of Specific Media, who patiently listened to my questions for this first article.
When we’re looking at an eCommerce Web site pattern, we want to focus on the following key strategies:
Product Pages
Category Navigation
Transaction or Shopping Cart
For this ConversionCast, we don’t have the time to dive into the purchase process, so we’ve focused on the Home Page, Product Pages and Category Navigation.
Tell us what your eCommerce site offers in the comments below.
If you are building a site as a service website, you have some important advantages when converting visitors to subscribers.
ConversionCast: Spinscape.com Site as a Service
Editor’s Note: While Spinscape is no longer in business, there is something to be learned from my critique of the site.
In this ConversionCast™ we review the conversion strategy for online application Spinscape.com. I am a big fan of mind-mapping software.
The Site as a Service Pattern
This site follows the Site as a Service Web pattern. You can identify your Web pattern by listening to my presentation at Innotech.
The key strategies for a SaaS pattern are:
Trial or Demo and a Home Page that encourages the trial
Effective signup Process
E-mail notifications that encourage use and subscription
Yes, there are more things you could do to increase conversion, but if you don’t get these right, the rest is not going to help much.
If you can delivery what you offer online, you have some marked advantages over other patterns.
You can move a visitor quickly through the conversion funnel, from awareness to action.
You can use a trial or demo to begin a relationship with your visitors
You can find new reasons to email your subscribers using notifications and updates
Enjoy this 15 minute review.
Tell us what your Site as a Service offers in the comments below.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
Dave Evans is one of the smartest guys in Social Media today and has the ability to ask questions that make you stop and think. Really think. So, when he asked my opinion on where social media meets conversion strategy, I really had to think.
The result of our collaboration is his latest ClickZ article Social Conversions: Taking Step Two. For me, the process crystallized the reasons that so many of us have trouble seeing the ROI in social marketing. We’re looking at it wrong.
I will expand here on how we use inappropriate strategies for our social marketing campaigns. In subsequent posts, I’ll drill down on some of the strategies mentioned in the column and show you how they work.
The Flaw in our Social Marketing Model
Dave’s article hints at the way we use old measures of success in new paradigms. We see social media as simply another way to drive traffic to our traditional conversion funnels.
With this model, we try to cram our social strategies into the Awareness portion of the marketing funnel. While this is a valid use of social marketing, it is it’s most limited.
When we realize that there is a whole world of conversion after the purchase we begin to use our social marketing more strategically.
Strategic Social Marketing
We can use social media strategically when we apply it to the post-purchase portion of the funnel
This expanded model for social media let’s us use social channels more strategically.
Instead of asking, “How can we use video to drive more traffic to us?” we can instead ask, “How can we use video to increase use of our offering?”
Instead of asking, “How can we use Facebook to build a list of prospects?” we can ask, “How can we use Facebook to get people talking about our product?”
Can you see how we would apply social marketing in a more purposeful way when we change our point of view? Doesn’t it become clearer how we would measure the success of our social campaigns beyond just traffic and page views? If you answered “Well, kinda,” don’t worry.
I’ll be exploring best practices for some of the strategies mentioned in the Social Conversion article, including:
Use of notification emails which “are among the most overlooked opportunities for engaging new product users.”
Designing a blog that converts buyers to users, users to opinion, and opinion to talk.
You can connect with thousands of visitors to your site by understanding only four modes of persuasion.
Relate to Four Connect with Thousands
Communicating is connecting. If you’re communicating successfully, each of your readers will feel that you are writing directly to them.
I’m going to introduce you to a method of writing that will forge strong connections with your readers.
You will understand your readers when you understand the four “Modes of Persuasion.” Every visitor fits into one of four modes, and, as will see, each mode describes a different way of connecting. If you can master each of these modes, you can effectively draw anyone closer with your words.
Each of your visitors will come in one of four modes: Competitive, Methodical, Humanist, or Spontaneous.
COMPETITIVE visitors are looking for information that will make them better, smarter or more cutting-edge. Use benefit statements and payoffs in your headings to draw them into your content.
METHODICALS like data and details. Include specifics and proof in your writing to connect with them.
HUMANISTS want information that supports their relationships. They will relate to your writing if you share the human element in your topic.
SPONTANEOUS visitors are the least patient. They need to know what’s in it for them and may not read your entire story. Provide short headings for them to scan so that they can get to the points that are important to them.
When you understand that every visitor consumes information differently, you can build empathy with more of your readers. In time, your content will appeal to a wider audience making your Web site more enjoyable and accessible.
You can learn more about these four Modes of Persuasion in the book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
A good writer can create images better than a graphic designer.
Whenever we design a Web site, we inevitably ask our graphic designers to give us three comps. Then we, the completely unqualified non-graphic-designers decide which one we “like” best. We might even ask a number of our equally unqualified colleagues to tell us what they think.
Zero Steps to Copy That Will Make Visitors Stick
Then we pay a copywriter a fraction of what the designers get, and ask them to write the copy for the site, knowing full-well that when we get it, we’ll revise it until every ounce of color, every animating metaphor, and every shred of a story is squeezed out onto the ground in a pool of red ink.
A good writer can create images and convey meaning better than a graphic artist because the writer has the richer toolset. Put down your red pen. Trust your copywriter.
Be Bold and Your Visitors Will See You That Way
If you’re designing a new site or refreshing an old one, it’s time to be a little daring.
Tell the designers to hold on until you’ve completed the copy. They’ll look at you like you have an arm growing out of your head.
THEN, start interviewing copywriters. Tell them that you’ll pay them to develop three different versions of your Copy Body, the document that contains the text from which you will take your copy when writing headings, text, offers, emails and any other Web-based communications.
The interviews will be short. You’re looking for a certain reaction.
When you present this proposal to the right writer, their eyes will flash. A smile may creep across their face of its own will. Be careful, though. If they say “You’ll pay me?” you’ve gotten a false positive. You want to choose the writer who feels that you’ve just opened the door to their a cage of mediocrity.
If you let them out, they’ll take you with them.
Be very clear about what you’re trying to accomplish as a business and what your visitors are trying to accomplish. Give them a set of personas if you can.
Take No Steps
Once you have your three copy “comps,” do not allocate time to have the writing revised by a committee. Do not attempt to combine the best from each. Do not seek to insert superlatives that declare you the “leader,” to be “unique” or “innovative.” If you have to say it, it ain’t true.
If you have the right writer, one of your choices will be far out, one will be written in business speak, and one will be somewhere in between. Throw away the one written in business speak and consider the remaining two very carefully.
Select the copy body that best illustrates your value proposition, the one that captures the essence of your company without stating it. Look for metaphors that can be applied to a variety of your benefits. Seek a story that can stitch every page together into a coherent theme.
Then fix the inaccuracies, and leave everything else alone.
Does this sound scary? Wait till you see what’s next.
You Can Let the Designers Into the Room Now
If you’ve selected an engaging copy body, it’ll be really clear to the designers what their designs should express. They can create real images from the ones your writer paints with words. They can guide your visitor through the story with navigation. They can throw away stock photos of pretty people and choose images informed by metaphor and analogy.
Give them the copy body, the corporate style guide and tell them to create a design. One design. Sure, you’ll make decisions along the way and maybe even significantly change the first comp, but try to let them do what they do well.
Steps You Could Add to Copy that will make Visitors Stick
If you realize the immense advantage that powerfully written copy gives you, consider investing in some testing. Implement two of the three copy bodies on your home page and on key landing pages. Use analytics to see which makes visitors stick and which generates more leads or sales.
Which has the lower bounce rate?
Which home page generates more page views and more time on site?
Which has the higher conversion rate?
There is no better way to know if you’ve made the right decision than to test. And you may need some proof when your colleagues tell you that your copy isn’t “corporate” — and they mean that as a criticism, not a badge of honor.
Do you know a great copy writer? Do you have a success story or test results that demonstrate the power of effective writing? Let us know in your comments and I’ll feature you in an future post.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
Six E-mail Mistakes that Bassett Furniture Used to Piss Me Off
I’ve gotten three e-mails from Bassett Furniture this week. I did not opt-in for this communication. And, to top it off, the e-mail address they sent to is used in one place: my kids’ elementary school. It’s the address I expect to get information from my kids’ school. This sort of thing disgusts me enough to blog about it.
Will you vote for this on Digg and Sphinn? They need to get the message. You can do so at the bottom of this post by clicking on “Share.”
We Know How this Happened
This is probably more common in the tough market that retailers are currently facing. Some executive says, “We’ve got to get more sales. Use e-mail.” The underlings say, “But, we don’t have a database of e-mails because you didn’t approve that program last year.”
The execs don’t want to hear it. They’ve got a bonus to worry about. So, the underlings go out and buy a list from a list broker. This list was probably presented to them as a list of opt-in email addresses. List providers lie knowing that they can always hide behind the “we were told it was opt-in” excuse.
Bassett, this is not an opt-in list. It was scrapped from an elementary school Web site in Round Rock, Texas. You may get away with infringing on my privacy, but stay away from my kids.
Dear Bassett, in a down market, take market share away from your competitors, don’t give it away.
Poorly Executed to Boot
Once they’d found the list, the Bassett underlings asked, “what do we send?” Well, they didn’t spend much time on that question. They essentially scanned a print flyer and sent it on as one big image.
No introductory text
On my smart phone and in my email client, all you see is an email from Bassett Furniture and a URL.
This is what the email looks like in my e-mail preview pane.
With images turned off in my client, I got a big blank page. That’s their value proposition. “Big blank desperate spammer.”
There is no setup text to tell me why I would open it. Of course, I opened it because the address was scraped from the Web site of the school my elementary age kids attend.
No Value Proposition
Actually, “We’re Desperate” wouldn’t have been a bad value proposition. I would have responded to:
“We’re overstocked on the kind of furniture you’ve been wanting for your home, and we’re discounting to move it.”
No compelling call to action
If you allow your e-mail client to download the big stupid image, it says “Buy Online” at the top and bottom, and tells you when their sale ends. Most of the center is taken up with nine images of beds, tables and sofas with discounted prices. The never ask me to “Learn more” or “See more pictures.”
Not written in English
At the bottom of the page, below the big blank space you’ll find this lame — so lame — call to action: “Contact You Local Store for Details and other Special Offers. [sic]”
It makes you wonder what language this was translated from. “All your base are belong to us.”
The store finder is a nice feature and other retailers should steal this one shining feature of the site. Of course, Bassett fumbled the most important aspect of this effort: getting people to buy what they advertise.
Bad landing page
Given my horrid impression of Bassett from their e-mail, could they save themselves with an online experience that rocks? Nope.
The big graphic is a big link. No surprise. The page it takes me to has non of the products advertised in the email. In fact, it picks something at random from their “CLEARANCE” tab. The featured item changes with each click.
So, the trail to a discounted item is lost within the first click, and I’m outta there.
The lawyers were consulted
To their credit, they did consult the lawyers. Their spam-mail is CAN SPAM compliant, with opt-out and mailing address.
What you should learn from this
Don’t buy lists. It’s too easy to generate your own, pure, powerful opt-in house list from your own Web site. You just have to be willing to put in the time.
Before you send an e-mail with a big image, consider plain text. It works better on phones and in e-mail clients where images are turned off (>50% by most accounts).
Give me a reason to open and read. Each email has a value proposition that is part of your business’s value proposition. State it. Clearly.
Take me to a page that has what you offer in your email. Whether it’s information or products, I have to see the same picture or the same text on the landing page. Never take me to your home page. Please.
Have someone review your copy, someone who knows English.
Follow the CAN SPAM rules. It’s the only reason I can’t report these idiots.
I’m not going to go into their subject line and From: address. It’s amazing that they even thought to include these.
I suspect Bassett’s marketing underlings will be fired for poor performance this Holiday Season. Maybe this post will save them.
Behavioral Targeting Lullaby
Conversion Marketing StrategyIn doing the research for my new ClickZ column on behavioral marketing, I became fascinated by all that could be measured and inferred about me from the simple act of visiting a Web page. The agents at work when you visit a Web site are an invisible Pixel and something called a Cookie. Then the marketers, advertisers, publishers, scientists and statisticians go to work on the data, divining what they can from it about you and what ads you want to see.
The list, which you will find on ClickZ.com, is long, ironic, funny and sometimes disturbing. It’s exactly the kind of thing that needs a Carlinesque treatment.
Download | Subscribe | On iTunes
Try as I might, I’m no George Carlin. Here’s the real deal. Warning: Explicit Language
The eMarketing Techniques That Will Make Your 2009 Big
News & EventsAll in One Day
I’ve shown dozens of businesses how to use the most cost-efficient marketing methods available to increase their sales. There is no more cost-efficient way to market than online, and the top eMarketers in Austin will be in one place on January 29 to show you how it’s done.
Will you be there?
eMarketing Techniques for Business will show you how to use the bread-and-butter online marketing techniques in your business: E-mail, Search, Conversion, and Social Media. If you don’t know the names of these companies, you should:
Hubspot, Apogee Search, WorkSmart eMarketing, Aperio Marketing, IncSlingers, NLI Media Group, Writeous Words, and Conversion Sciences.
These are the companies that are writing the book on growth when everyone else is pulling back. How much would it cost to engage each of these online specialists? Not as much as you would gain, but a LOT more than a ticket to eMarketing Techniques for Business.
It’s Time to Take Action
The decisions you make in the next 30 to 60 days will determine your fate in 2009. Will you be one of the businesses with a shrinking customers base or one of the few with a growing prospect list, new customers, and more visibility in the market?
The good news is that you don’t have to get up the learning curve on all of these proven eMarketing Techniques. Everyone you need to know will be in Austin on Friday, January 29. All you have to do is show up.
As a speaker at the event I’ve been given a discounted rate. There won’t be another day on which you will be able to get so much decision-making insight as you will at eMarketing Techniques for Business.
eMarketing Techniques for Business
Make visitors stick with Copy and Headlines
I’m going to be working with Amy Lemen to tell you exactly how you can change the copy on your Web site to make visitors stay and take action. No design changes. No new logos. Just change your copy. What could be easier? Well, it would be easier to just stay at home, but then you’d have a much less profitable year than you could.
It’s time you put E-mail to work for your business
Imagine owning a list of 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000 prospects who have shown an interest in what your company sells. How would that change your fortunes? You’ll learn how to build that list and then turn the members of that list into buyers with e-mail marketing.
Learn Only the Most Valuable Search Techniques
There are thousands of strategies for using search to drive your business. There are only a handful that matter to your business. Find out where you should be focusing when you seek to turn searchers into your customers.
Social Media is here. Are you a part of the conversation?
The conversations about your business are happening all around the Internet — if you’re lucky. What if you could be a part of those conversations? Social media is the newest tool for building brand, loyalty, goodwill, and more traffic to your Web site. If you don’t understand how it works, you can’t make good decisions about using it to grow your business.
There is more. Much More.
While this exclusive event could easily garner $2000 or more, it is being offered for just $199. Imagine the very people who know how to drive more sales for your business in one place, and you can get in for just $199. That’s just nuts.
We Are Actively Dismantling Your Trusted Marketing Strategies
Conversion Marketing StrategyFrom the Society of Word of Mouth comes this little podcast about the change in marketing. It’s more serious than you might think.
Download Audio | Subscribe to the Podcast | Subscribe via iTunes
| Read the Post
We Are Actively Dismantling Your Trusted Marketing Strategies
Getting Started with Behavioral Marketing
Conversion Marketing StrategyMy New Series for ClickZ
I’ve begun a series on ClickZ on Behavioral Marketing. If you follow my writing, you may realize that I don’t write about behavioral marketing — at all. This is new ground for me, and that may be my advantage. I’m not a Behavioral Marketing expert. I’m willing to ask the dumbest of questions, and to do it in a public space.
If you’re not a behavioral marketing expert either, you may find my “beginners mind” approach helpful; you’re the business owner or marketer that I am writing for.
My special thanks goes out to Chris Vanderhook of Specific Media, who patiently listened to my questions for this first article.
ConversionCast: eCommerce Site Gradware.com
Ecommerce CROWhat are the key strategies you want to get right if you’re running an eCommerce site? I offer my opinion in the workshop “Identifying Your Key Conversion Strategies,” which you can listen to free. You can also subscribe to The Conversion Scientist Podcast for more on conversion and Web strategy.
ConversionCast- eCommerce Site Gradware
The eCommerce Web Site Pattern
When we’re looking at an eCommerce Web site pattern, we want to focus on the following key strategies:
For this ConversionCast, we don’t have the time to dive into the purchase process, so we’ve focused on the Home Page, Product Pages and Category Navigation.
Tell us what your eCommerce site offers in the comments below.
ConversionCast: Spinscape.com Site as a Service
Conversion-Centered DesignConversionCast: Spinscape.com Site as a Service
Editor’s Note: While Spinscape is no longer in business, there is something to be learned from my critique of the site.
In this ConversionCast™ we review the conversion strategy for online application Spinscape.com. I am a big fan of mind-mapping software.
The Site as a Service Pattern
This site follows the Site as a Service Web pattern. You can identify your Web pattern by listening to my presentation at Innotech.
The key strategies for a SaaS pattern are:
Yes, there are more things you could do to increase conversion, but if you don’t get these right, the rest is not going to help much.
If you can delivery what you offer online, you have some marked advantages over other patterns.
Enjoy this 15 minute review.
Tell us what your Site as a Service offers in the comments below.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
"*" indicates required fields
Drilling in on Social Conversion Strategies
Conversion Marketing StrategyThe result of our collaboration is his latest ClickZ article Social Conversions: Taking Step Two. For me, the process crystallized the reasons that so many of us have trouble seeing the ROI in social marketing. We’re looking at it wrong.
I will expand here on how we use inappropriate strategies for our social marketing campaigns. In subsequent posts, I’ll drill down on some of the strategies mentioned in the column and show you how they work.
The Flaw in our Social Marketing Model
Dave’s article hints at the way we use old measures of success in new paradigms. We see social media as simply another way to drive traffic to our traditional conversion funnels.
With this model, we try to cram our social strategies into the Awareness portion of the marketing funnel. While this is a valid use of social marketing, it is it’s most limited.
When we realize that there is a whole world of conversion after the purchase we begin to use our social marketing more strategically.
Strategic Social Marketing
We can use social media strategically when we apply it to the post-purchase portion of the funnel
This expanded model for social media let’s us use social channels more strategically.
Instead of asking, “How can we use video to drive more traffic to us?” we can instead ask, “How can we use video to increase use of our offering?”
Instead of asking, “How can we use Facebook to build a list of prospects?” we can ask, “How can we use Facebook to get people talking about our product?”
Can you see how we would apply social marketing in a more purposeful way when we change our point of view? Doesn’t it become clearer how we would measure the success of our social campaigns beyond just traffic and page views? If you answered “Well, kinda,” don’t worry.
I’ll be exploring best practices for some of the strategies mentioned in the Social Conversion article, including:
For a complete understanding of the marketing funnel, read Dave’s book Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
"*" indicates required fields
Relate to Four, Connect with Thousands
Conversion-Centered Design, Persuasion ScienceRelate to Four Connect with Thousands
Communicating is connecting. If you’re communicating successfully, each of your readers will feel that you are writing directly to them.
I’m going to introduce you to a method of writing that will forge strong connections with your readers.
You will understand your readers when you understand the four “Modes of Persuasion.” Every visitor fits into one of four modes, and, as will see, each mode describes a different way of connecting. If you can master each of these modes, you can effectively draw anyone closer with your words.
Download
The Four Modes of Persuasion
Each of your visitors will come in one of four modes: Competitive, Methodical, Humanist, or Spontaneous.
COMPETITIVE visitors are looking for information that will make them better, smarter or more cutting-edge. Use benefit statements and payoffs in your headings to draw them into your content.
METHODICALS like data and details. Include specifics and proof in your writing to connect with them.
HUMANISTS want information that supports their relationships. They will relate to your writing if you share the human element in your topic.
SPONTANEOUS visitors are the least patient. They need to know what’s in it for them and may not read your entire story. Provide short headings for them to scan so that they can get to the points that are important to them.
When you understand that every visitor consumes information differently, you can build empathy with more of your readers. In time, your content will appeal to a wider audience making your Web site more enjoyable and accessible.
You can learn more about these four Modes of Persuasion in the book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
"*" indicates required fields
Zero Steps to Copy That Will Make Visitors Stick
Persuasion ScienceWhenever we design a Web site, we inevitably ask our graphic designers to give us three comps. Then we, the completely unqualified non-graphic-designers decide which one we “like” best. We might even ask a number of our equally unqualified colleagues to tell us what they think.
Zero Steps to Copy That Will Make Visitors Stick
Then we pay a copywriter a fraction of what the designers get, and ask them to write the copy for the site, knowing full-well that when we get it, we’ll revise it until every ounce of color, every animating metaphor, and every shred of a story is squeezed out onto the ground in a pool of red ink.
A good writer can create images and convey meaning better than a graphic artist because the writer has the richer toolset. Put down your red pen. Trust your copywriter.
Be Bold and Your Visitors Will See You That Way
If you’re designing a new site or refreshing an old one, it’s time to be a little daring.
Tell the designers to hold on until you’ve completed the copy. They’ll look at you like you have an arm growing out of your head.
THEN, start interviewing copywriters. Tell them that you’ll pay them to develop three different versions of your Copy Body, the document that contains the text from which you will take your copy when writing headings, text, offers, emails and any other Web-based communications.
The interviews will be short. You’re looking for a certain reaction.
When you present this proposal to the right writer, their eyes will flash. A smile may creep across their face of its own will. Be careful, though. If they say “You’ll pay me?” you’ve gotten a false positive. You want to choose the writer who feels that you’ve just opened the door to their a cage of mediocrity.
If you let them out, they’ll take you with them.
Be very clear about what you’re trying to accomplish as a business and what your visitors are trying to accomplish. Give them a set of personas if you can.
Take No Steps
Once you have your three copy “comps,” do not allocate time to have the writing revised by a committee. Do not attempt to combine the best from each. Do not seek to insert superlatives that declare you the “leader,” to be “unique” or “innovative.” If you have to say it, it ain’t true.
If you have the right writer, one of your choices will be far out, one will be written in business speak, and one will be somewhere in between. Throw away the one written in business speak and consider the remaining two very carefully.
Select the copy body that best illustrates your value proposition, the one that captures the essence of your company without stating it. Look for metaphors that can be applied to a variety of your benefits. Seek a story that can stitch every page together into a coherent theme.
Then fix the inaccuracies, and leave everything else alone.
Does this sound scary? Wait till you see what’s next.
You Can Let the Designers Into the Room Now
If you’ve selected an engaging copy body, it’ll be really clear to the designers what their designs should express. They can create real images from the ones your writer paints with words. They can guide your visitor through the story with navigation. They can throw away stock photos of pretty people and choose images informed by metaphor and analogy.
Give them the copy body, the corporate style guide and tell them to create a design. One design. Sure, you’ll make decisions along the way and maybe even significantly change the first comp, but try to let them do what they do well.
Steps You Could Add to Copy that will make Visitors Stick
If you realize the immense advantage that powerfully written copy gives you, consider investing in some testing. Implement two of the three copy bodies on your home page and on key landing pages. Use analytics to see which makes visitors stick and which generates more leads or sales.
There is no better way to know if you’ve made the right decision than to test. And you may need some proof when your colleagues tell you that your copy isn’t “corporate” — and they mean that as a criticism, not a badge of honor.
Do you know a great copy writer? Do you have a success story or test results that demonstrate the power of effective writing? Let us know in your comments and I’ll feature you in an future post.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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Six E-mail Mistakes that Bassett Furniture Used to Piss Me Off
Conversion Marketing StrategySix E-mail Mistakes that Bassett Furniture Used to Piss Me Off
I’ve gotten three e-mails from Bassett Furniture this week. I did not opt-in for this communication. And, to top it off, the e-mail address they sent to is used in one place: my kids’ elementary school. It’s the address I expect to get information from my kids’ school. This sort of thing disgusts me enough to blog about it.
Will you vote for this on Digg and Sphinn? They need to get the message. You can do so at the bottom of this post by clicking on “Share.”
We Know How this Happened
This is probably more common in the tough market that retailers are currently facing. Some executive says, “We’ve got to get more sales. Use e-mail.” The underlings say, “But, we don’t have a database of e-mails because you didn’t approve that program last year.”
The execs don’t want to hear it. They’ve got a bonus to worry about. So, the underlings go out and buy a list from a list broker. This list was probably presented to them as a list of opt-in email addresses. List providers lie knowing that they can always hide behind the “we were told it was opt-in” excuse.
Bassett, this is not an opt-in list. It was scrapped from an elementary school Web site in Round Rock, Texas. You may get away with infringing on my privacy, but stay away from my kids.
Poorly Executed to Boot
Once they’d found the list, the Bassett underlings asked, “what do we send?” Well, they didn’t spend much time on that question. They essentially scanned a print flyer and sent it on as one big image.
No introductory text
On my smart phone and in my email client, all you see is an email from Bassett Furniture and a URL.
This is what the email looks like in my e-mail preview pane.
With images turned off in my client, I got a big blank page. That’s their value proposition. “Big blank desperate spammer.”
There is no setup text to tell me why I would open it. Of course, I opened it because the address was scraped from the Web site of the school my elementary age kids attend.
No Value Proposition
Actually, “We’re Desperate” wouldn’t have been a bad value proposition. I would have responded to:
No compelling call to action
If you allow your e-mail client to download the big stupid image, it says “Buy Online” at the top and bottom, and tells you when their sale ends. Most of the center is taken up with nine images of beds, tables and sofas with discounted prices. The never ask me to “Learn more” or “See more pictures.”
Not written in English
At the bottom of the page, below the big blank space you’ll find this lame — so lame — call to action: “Contact You Local Store for Details and other Special Offers. [sic]”
It makes you wonder what language this was translated from. “All your base are belong to us.”
The store finder is a nice feature and other retailers should steal this one shining feature of the site. Of course, Bassett fumbled the most important aspect of this effort: getting people to buy what they advertise.
Bad landing page
The big graphic is a big link. No surprise. The page it takes me to has non of the products advertised in the email. In fact, it picks something at random from their “CLEARANCE” tab. The featured item changes with each click.
So, the trail to a discounted item is lost within the first click, and I’m outta there.
The lawyers were consulted
To their credit, they did consult the lawyers. Their spam-mail is CAN SPAM compliant, with opt-out and mailing address.
What you should learn from this
I’m not going to go into their subject line and From: address. It’s amazing that they even thought to include these.
I suspect Bassett’s marketing underlings will be fired for poor performance this Holiday Season. Maybe this post will save them.
For more rants and helpful tips on e-mail marketing, subscribe to The Conversion Optimization blog.