We have a little fun with Copywriters in my newest Content Marketing Institute post, How to Find the Right Copywriter for your Landing Pages. If you could only hire one professional that would increase the number of people who buy or become a lead on your site, it would be a copywriter.
They can paint more detailed pictures than a photographer.
They can use more colorful language than a designer.
Communicate with humans and search engines.
If you’re going to dominate your competition online, it is because they write their copy themselves. I suggest you find a good direct response copywriter and let them do their work.
To help you get familiar with the kinds of copywriters you might meet in a dark alley, I’ve described five that I’ve run into on a regular basis.
The Styrofoam Sandwich Writer
The SEO Substituter
The Frustrated Novelist
The Soviet-era Propagandist
The Persuader
Most copywriters you meet will be a combination of some of these.
Tell me about your favorite copywriter in the comments. Let us know what combination of the above he or she exhibits.
Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist teaches businesses of all sizes how to get more leads and sales from the traffic coming to their Web site.
Increase your email open rates. Get inspired by these 165 great email subject lines from the SXSW catalog.
The amazing SXSW conference has kicked into full swing here in Austin. I haven’t been to a single session yet, and I’ve already learned something of great value I can share with you.
It came in the SXSW session catalog.
The session selection process is very competitive. Every summer, SXSW puts out a call for session and panel ideas. People vote on their sessions and then the crew at SXSW passes final judgment.
If your session gets accepted you will find yourself competing for attendees with some of the most interesting, influential and innovative professionals. Your session title has to really grab attention in a sea of hundreds of choices.
It’s kind of like the competition for your inbox. All of this competition has created perhaps the most creatively named agenda in conferencedome. The SXSW conference has always been known for the quirky session titles it inspires. The competition for panel slots is intense, with 2500 ideas were submitted in 2011 and 3,000 panel submissions presented for 2012 alone. Part of the selection process involves voting by the public. So, an effective title gets attention when garnering votes for a panel.
We have the same problem with email.
We need attention grabbing email subject lines that pull inbox scanners from their numbed slumber in which most emails are unceremoniously deleted. If our email is to be read, our subject lines must save our recipients from mindless autonomy.
Your email campaign would enjoy significantly greater open rates if you used SXSW email subject lines. No one’s going to click through from your email if they don’t open it and read it.
165 best email subject lines from the SXSW catalog.
Email Subject Lines Must Wake Up the Mind at Any Cost
To use these techniques, you must believe that you can use almost any premise in your subject line to engage the reader and entice them to click.
To prove this point, I am going to take the most abstract title from the following list, use it as a subject line, and create an email that will get readers to click through to my site.
First, the list. Yes, these are actual SXSWinteractive session titles. I’ve grouped them by the strategies the presenters used in naming their sessions, strategies that you can incorporate into your email subject lines.
Best Email Subject Lines on Sex and Relationships
Even the “oldest profession in the world” required some persuasive messaging. Your reader may see sex as the most base or most exalted activity humans can engage in. This is the risk and the reward for bawdy banter in your email subject lines.
Brands That Believe in Sex After Marriage
Sex, Lies and Cookies: Web Privacy EXPOSED!
Sex in the Digital Age
Big Brands and You: Make the Love Connection
Social Media Comes of Age Without the Help of Porn
Nudity and Online Journalism
Sex Nets: Pickup Artists vs. Feminists
Sex on the Web – The Sabotage of Relationships?
The Sexual Survival Guide for Geeks: Healthy sex and relationships
Sausagefest: Getting More Women into New Media & Tech
Fun with the Lights Off: Interactivity Without Graphics
How Social Media Fu@k’d Up My Marriage (Learn how not to have your relationship ruined by the online world)
Subtle Sexuality: NBC.com Adds Spice to Shows
Things that Don’t Fit Together (non sequiturs)
Our brains are wired to discard the familiar faster than a bear can spell Constantinople. It is the unexpected that gets the attention of our conscious and prepares us for action. These titles demonstrate the use of twists to pull readers out of their inbox apathy.
Block Party Capitalism: Where Analog and Digital Intersect
What Comic Books Can Teach Mobile Application Designers
Your Mom Has an iPad: Designing for Boomers
Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better
Why New Authors Should Think Like Indie Bands
Why my phone should turn off the Stove – Mobile monitoring of energy consumption
Building Fences in the Sky: Geo-fencing Has Arrived
I’m so productive, I never get anything done
Your Computer is the Next Wonder Drug (Improving interactions with the medical community)
What Digital Tribes Can Learn from Native Americans
A Penny Press for the Digital Age
Philanthropy Is Not the Future of Journalism
Cloudy with a Chance of Gaming
Multiple Personalities–Not a Disorder but the Norm
Does Your Product Have a Plot?
Meat is Might: Epic Meal Time Rules the Web
Social + Location + Mobile = The Perfect Beer
When Goliath Tries to Steal Your Lunch Money
Can Growing a Mustache Change the World?
Bootcamp for a UX Team of None
Explorations in Corporate Zoology
How to Be Strategically Unlikeable Online
Sunspots: The Promise and Pitfalls of Gov 2.0
Dreams of Your Life: A Darkly Playful Experience
Help, My Avatar Is Sick
Being Considered Obsolete Is Awesome
The Science of Good Design: A Dangerous Idea
Why Karl Keeps His Shades On: Style & Social Media
Great Email Subject Lines out of Left Field
Help! A Giant Meteor is Headed Our Way! Cause Shift, Things that need to change
OMG – My Pancreas Just Texted
Metaphors and Similes
Similes are like can openers for the mind. Metaphors are the batteries in the flashlight of your email. The technical term for this style of messaging is “transubstantiation,” using the characteristics of one thing to add meaning to another in the eyes of the reader.
Rev Up Your Product Design, the “Concept Car” Way
Online Personality Disorder: Resumes & Profiles
Knitting a Long Tail in Niche Publishing
Snackable Content: Working in a Bite-Sized Future
Hunt or Be Hunted: Get the Design Job You Want
Keeping Kids off the Street: Wall St. vs. Startups
Death of Digital Downloads: MP3s the New 8-track?
Target an Audience with the Best Email Subject Lines
Right-handed marketers, take note! Targeting your audience can significantly increase the relevance to two groups of people: those to whom you are speaking, and those who feel left out by the fact that you aren’t speaking to them (you left-handers felt a twinge of anger at being left out, didn’t you?). This approach takes guts, as you are consciously ignoring part of your audience in the hope of truly engaging another.
Why Women Fail to Rule the Social Networks
Greek to Geek: Classical Rhetoric & the Modern Web
Blogging: Why So Many Women Are Doing It
Digital Divas: How Girls Rule the Digital Universe
Monetizing Mommy
Lists of Three
There is something memorable, readable, and easy-to-count about lists of three. This method is especially successful when the third item is overly specific or doesn’t fit. See “Things that Don’t Fit Together” above.
Drugs, Milk & Money: Social & Regulated Industries
Credits Coins Cash: Social Currency & Finance 2.0
Free Coffee, Bad Apples & the Future of Currency
Clouds Here, Clouds There, Clouds Everywhere
Pop Culture References Can Make Awesome Email Subject Lines
If you know your audience, you slip them some “Funky Cold Medina” in the form of a pop-culture reference. For your geeks, “Star Trek” or “Star Wars” will do. For the younger generation, something from the “Harry Potter” series might make a connection. Music is usually a sure bet. Can you name the sources of the following references?
Star Trek and Social Media
Do Gamers Dream of HTML5 Sheep?
The Cloud as Skynet: Conquering Digital Overload
Get Smart! Hack Your Brain for Peak Performance
Wall-E or Terminator: Predicting the Rise of Al
Gimme Shelter from the Storm Clouds
Defense Against the Dark Arts: ESAPI
The Field of Dreams Manifesto
Is That Your Final Offer? Mobile Dynamic Pricing
Not Your Mommy’s Blog: The Evolution of Dad Blogs
Why Doesn’t Congress Grok The Internet?
LEAN STARTUP: Baby Got (Feed)Back – Putting the Lean in Learn
So Long, and Thanks for All the Babelfish: Automated Translation
U.S. Military’s Mad Science Revealed: DARPA Projects predict the future
Dear Miss Manners: the Social Web, WTF?
Social Media and the NBA
Zombies Must Eat: How Genre Communities Make Money
Minority Report: Social Media for Decreasing Health Disparities
My Prototype Beat Up Your Business Plan
Geppetto’s Army: Creating International Incidents with Twitter Bots
#FAIL: Infamous social Media PR Disasters
Contrarian Email Subject Lines, why not?
Stop Listening to Your Customers: Researching customer needs without asking them.
I’ve Never Met My Coworkers: Running International Teams
Who Are You and Why Should I Care? Personal branding
When Facebook Falls: Future-proofing Your Social Media Efforts
27 (Fun!) Ways to Kill Your Online Community
HTML5? The Web’s Dead, Baby.
A World without SXSW
Fail big, Fail Often: How Fear Limits Creativity
Congratulations! Your Brand is About to Become Obsolete
The End of Reading in the USA
Science or Science Fiction References
The Next Rocket Scientist: You
Do Tablets Dream of Electric News?
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Pure Shock and Awe Email Subject Lines
Boring subject lines make me want to poke needles into my eyes! Sometimes it makes sense to hit readers over the head with something that is just plain shocking. Sometimes.
How Not to Die: Using Tech in a Dictatorship
How Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Harness Social Media
Language of Mutilation: Grammar for Ads & Life
Demographics Are Dead: Unlocking Flock Behavior
Everyone Is Gay: Social Media As Social Action
Media Measurement: Science, Art or a Load of Crap
Please Touch Me! Enterprise Delight via Multitouch
Your Social Media Job Is Dead: Now What?
Avoiding Bulls**t Personas: A Case Study
Eat, S**t, Sleep: Enlightenment Through Unemployment
Bordering Incest: Turning Your Company into a Family
Baby’s Gotta face For Radio: Web Based Radio?
Grow some balls: Build Business Relationships
Social Media and Comedy: F**k Yeah!
Kill Your Call Center! Bring Your Support Home
Bend Over? Surprise! Agencies Are Screwing You
How Blogs with Balls are Saving Sports Media
How to Personalize Without Being Creepy
Conflict
Bloggers vs. Journalists: It’s a psychological Thing
Seven Reasons Your Employees Hate You
Influencer Throwdown: Proving Influence Once and For All
Email Subject Lines with Invented Words
If you find yourself with subjectlinitis, tossing a memebomb or two may be your best hope. New words can turn a deletophile into a reader.
Adprovising: Agile Marketing Made Easy
The Making of Twittamentary
Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas
Discover the New Frontier of the Glocal Internet
The Local Backbone of the SoLoMo Revolution
Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media
Wireless Wellness: App-tastic or Just Fun & Games?
The Hyperlocal Hoax: Where’s the Holy Grail?
Radically Onymous: How Ending Privacy is Awesome!
Old Spice Resurrected: How Aging Icon Pwned Internet
The Future Enernet: a Conversion with Bob Metcalfe (Internet founder)
Technomadism: Becoming a Technology Enabled Nomad
Rhymes and Alliteration
Sensual subject lines supplement the bottom line. Alliteration is the repeated use of consonants. Rhymes grab your readers like a musical phrase. Don’t be afraid to add a little poetry to your prose.
Social Music Marketing: Bands, Brands & Fans
An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant
Invention & Inspiration: Building a Better World
Contextual Communication: Crowds and Coordination
Check Yo-Self Before U Wreck Yo-Self, Startup Metrics of the Masters
The Creative Collaboration Conundrum
Binary B****es: Keeping Open Source Open to Women
Teaching Touch: Tapworthy Touchscreen Design
Defining the Diaspora: Global Collaboration and Social Change
The Man in the Van needs Geo Location
Chatter Matters: Using Twitter to Predict Sales
People as Peripherals: The Future of Gesture Interface
Of Fanboys & Fidelity: Adopting Comics for Broad Audiences
Twisted Euphemisms
Cure for the Common Font – Secrets of selecting type
Influencers Will Inherit the Earth. Quick, Market to Them!
Create a Common Enemy
You may find your reader united behind you by identifying a common enemy – like the delete key.
When IT Says No: How to Create Fast Feature Flow
The Systematic Undoing of Copyright Trolls
Screw the Job Market: Young + Passionate ≠ Broke
Rise of the Social Spammers
Can Washington Make Your App Illegal?
Epic Battle: Creativity vs. Discipline in Social
Why Your 5-Year-Old Is More Digital Than Most CMOs
Has Twitter Made the Sports Reporter Obsolete?
Insult Someone
Don’t be a wimp. When all else fails drop the political correctness and tell the reader what you really think.
Advise THIS! Matchmaking Startups & High Profile Advisors
Shut Up & Draw: A Non-Artist Way to Think Visually
Flash: F Bomb or Da Bomb?
Big Ol’ Babies: Why Baby Boomers=Public Media FAIL
Your Marketing Sucks: Why You Need to Think Local
Powerful Email Subject Lines: Lead With a Number
Four session titles that use numbers. When we offer the reader a specific number of things, they know they are going to get a manageable set of tips or tricks that is easy to scan and digest.
11 Reasons QR Codes Are Not Engaging Consumers
3 Secrets to a Killer Elevator Pitch
100 Things Designers Need to Know About People
Enterprise Social Media: Five Emerging Trends
Big Email Subject Lines Make Big Promises
If you’ve got the goods, big promises will make you rich in as little as three days. Big promises make the reader ask, “So, how can you do that?” even if they are skeptical. Of course, if you can’t deliver on the promise with sufficient proof in your email, all is lost – including your credibility.
Expanding Our Intelligence Without Limit
How to Live Forever
We Are Legion: Digital (R)Evolution
Change the Course of History with Greasemonkey
UCB Comedy presents: The Best Damn Stand-up
New This Year: Add an “i”
Turn your subject line into an iLine! All it takes is one little vowel.
iVision Africa: New Media’s Role in Reframing Africa
iPlant: Advanced Computing to Feed the World
Any Email Subject Line Will Do
There you have it. Over 100 titles to tantalize and titillate your email mind like a jolt of electricity from an unlicensed nuclear reactor, guaranteed to help you get lucky and make your ex jealous – if you’re not a total iDiot. Did I miss anything?
Hit us with your favorite subject lines in the comments.
Even the most abstract subject line can be used to make a point. Here’s how I would tie one from the list to an offer for my business:
From: Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist
Subject: OMG! My Pancreas Just Texted
OMG, my pancreas just texted.
My Liver just phoned.
My stomach just tweeted.
My brain is sending smoke signals.
Every cell of my body is dying to tell you about a new video I’ve just released.
Why am I (and all of my bodily parts) excited? Because online video marketing is rocking conversion rates.
Search engines love it.
Visitors love it.
Businesses like yours are getting more leads and sales from it.
And I think I’ve made it easy for anyone to understand how to use video on their Web site.
In just 11 minutes, I’m going to show you how to present a video on your site that will significantly increase the number of leads you’re getting from the traffic you already have.
Skeptical? Maybe I’m crazy.
I challenge you to take a look and see. If you don’t come away with a better understanding of how to increase conversion rates with video, I’ll get my spleen to cut down the chatter and leave you alone.
If you DO get it, I invite you to join a very special mailing list in which you’ll start to understand how to make all of your marketing convert visitors to leads and sales.
Persuade with passion. Engage with the unexpected.
His face was slightly ashen, and had clearly fallen since he first entered the conference room. I felt a lump in my stomach as he reviewed the revisions to the copy he’d written just a week earlier. I was a bit sick at being part of this, but it was… inevitable.
I marveled that he still held out any hope to begin with. The work before him was little more than a carcass of the original. Of course, he’d been in this position before.
Eager to bring some excitement to a new client’s Web site, he’d spent more time than he should have crafting a story for our business. His work communicated what the visitor needed to know, and did so using the tools of the persuasive writer.
Words that convert.
The heading invited the reader to read the first sentence, as it should. The work started with a story. It generated an emotion, if only a slight one. Details were held back so that the reader’s interest would mount.
Juicy words were chosen in favor of posing adjectives. Simile and metaphor were scattered here and there.
These are the tools that engage those parts of the brain that ask the reader to remember what they’re reading.
I’ve said it before. You can create more engaging images with paragraphs than with Photoshop.
The Tyranny of the Managing Amateur
What I delivered to this beleaguered writer was the internally edited version of his work.
It had been squeezed dry, like a lemon.
Those within the company that edited it down meant well. Sadly, they were not writers, but they had the privilege of position. The “rules” that they had heard in passing were to be the undoing of this prose:
“You only have 8 seconds to engage your reader,” and, “brevity is the soul of wit,” and “No one reads below ‘the fold.’”
Unfortunately, all of this is true. Ironically, it is only true for writing that is bereft of storytelling, diluted of color, and opaque with hyperbole.
Here are the quotes business marketers should be spouting:
“Web visitors will give you as much time as you have the talent to muster.”
“Brevity without wit is soulless.”
“You can entice anyone to scroll by entertaining or educating.”
I was young. I didn’t defend his work. I didn’t stand behind the very thing that was going to make this new website successful. I just didn’t know any better.
Can you recognize and defend writing that will set you apart from your competitors?
Can you identify copy that increases conversion rates? Do you have the knowledge to say “NO” to hack editors, though they may hold the key to your paycheck? Do you need some copywriting tips that deliver results? Or some copywriting hacks you wish you’d known sooner?
It’s 130 words long, and can build your practice or get you more interviews
Email is the biggest social network on the planet. Even 80-year-olds have been on email long before giving Facebook a try. Because of this, it is the most effective tool for building a network that will connect you with the people that can give you work — whether you are a freelancer or a The Market for Me Book Blog.
The problem is that email is a very personal medium. If we send unsolicited email, we feel we’re invading someone’s personal space. After all, we’ve all had spammers invade our space.
The Magic Email for Freelancers and Job Seekers
The Magic Email
The Magic Email gives you polite, respectful access to your email network. It contains the following components:
It is specific about it’s purpose: to get permission to contact someone by email
It states exactly what the recipient can expect from future emails
It states specifically how the recipient can help
It offers to reciprocate, making you a resource for them
It tells the recipient how to remove themselves from your list
As a bonus, it should offer something of value; a link to something of broad interest.
The Magic Email creates an email network that has given you permission to contact them. It is through these contacts that you will win more freelance opportunities, and have your resume and cover letter delivered directly to hiring managers.
The Details of the Strategy
If you want to turn email into a work-generating network, listen to my presentation at Freelance Austin. Furthermore, Austin-based CardboardResume.com™ has sponsored a free copy of my book The Market for Me: Surviving Job Loss and Building Your Lifetime Career Network.
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.
If you could only hire one professional that would increase the number of people who buy or become a lead on your site, it would be a copywriter.
