Double Marketing Response With 12 Copywriting Secrets
Profit Boosters Copywriting provides proven tips to increase leads and sales for any company that markets their products or services.
Twinsburg, OH (PRWEB) March 13, 2006 -–
Profit Boosters Copywriting offers the following 12 copywriting secrets to help double companies’ marketing responses.
1. Forget What’s Always Done:
To gain a response breakthrough, forget about what’s always done and what everybody else in the industry does. That's tunnel vision. Look at copywriting with a fresh set of eyes and a wide-open mind. The fact is, continuing the same practices will only foster the same results. Remember, the 8-word battle cry of a dying company is: "That's the way we have always done it."
Be different. Be bold. Be original. Use your imagination if you want a breakthrough.
2. Start With the Prospect's Wants:
Most marketing falls short for one reason: It focuses on the product or service. The inevitable result of this line of thinking is a list of features that may or may not be of interest to anyone but the marketing company.
Start, instead, with the benefits the prospect wants. This requires research, interviews, brainstorming and multi-industry experience to look at what’s selling through the eyes of the potential customer. This is only way to develop the best customer benefits that make sales and profits skyrocket!
3. Promise to Give Prospects Exactly What They Want Most:
Great copywriting is great salesmanship in print. The best salespeople find out what the prospect wants most and then promise to deliver on it.
Write as if you are the prospect. What benefit do readers want most from this product? What end result? What hidden benefit? What would be the ultimate benefit? Determine the most important benefits, start with them and keep stressing them throughout the copy. Prove them with specifics facts, a guarantee and no-risk offer.
4. Double Or Triple Responses With a Great Offer:
Offers include product presentation, name, price, terms, payment options, ordering information, bonuses and guarantees. The right offer can double, even triple the response rate, so it pays to put a lot of thought into this... and continually test.
5. Write a "Dynamite" Headline to Get More Response:
Legendary copywriter John Caples saw response to an ad increase by 19 1/2 times simply with a different headline and no other copy changes. Headlines must feature the benefit(s) customers want most in a specific, easily digestible, believable way. Try to use the magic words “guaranteed,” “new,” “secret,” “fast,” “easy” and “free.” It also helps to include the strong offer in the headline.
For example, if customers’ main desire is to save time, and the product will do that for them, tell them boldly and specifically like this: "YOU WILL SAVE 6 HOURS EVERY WEEK...OR YOU WON'T PAY A DIME!"
6. Use as Much Copy as Needed:
Don't try to write "long" or "short" copy. Instead focus on the benefits you want prospects to know, and write as much or as little as needed to convey all of these benefits. Don't be afraid of longer copy. When copy is full of excitement and benefits that the readers want, they will read every word and response will be much higher.
7. Use an Authority, Expert Or Celebrity If Possible:
More people will read, believe and order from copy when it comes from someone they perceive as an authority. For example, one company selling health products recently tested the exact same sales letter coming from the company president vs. coming from an M. D. The M. D. letter pulled 62% more orders!
8. Use Today's Visual Society to Your Advantage:
This is an MTV society where people's attention span is about as short as a newborn baby's. To get maximum response, a mailing or ad must look very easy to read and be visually appealing. In addition, copy must be exciting, up-beat, passionate and enthusiastic! Get the reader excited and interested enough to act now.
9. Write the Closing Paragraph and P. S. First:
By the time most writers get to these critically important pieces, they've run out of gas and can barely get them written. For high-impact copy, write these first. Be sure to close hard in both of these, telling the readers what they'll lose if they don't respond immediately.
10. Be Creative, But Don't Be Cute:
Most copywriters try to be too clever to be humorous and get attention with "clever" photos, headlines and copy. The response from this type of "clever" copy is awful.
The only reason people buy anything is to gain an advantage, or to get a benefit they want. To be successful in marketing, use creativity to focus on how best to present the end-user benefits of the product or service.
11. Write to a Specific Person You Know Who:
Requires a large benefit promise to get their attention. Doesn't like to take risks. Is skeptical. Is not very self-motivated. Must be thoroughly convinced and excited to take the action you want.
12. Tell Customers What to Do:
Many people who are interested will never respond to copy due to inertia. They just haven't been motivated enough to take action. The way great copy motivates them to action is with benefits, excitement and by telling them exactly what to do over and over again throughout the copy.
It’s a world of slogans and images. People are inundated by ads on TV with vague slogans that say "Just Do It," and are left wondering just what it is they're supposed to do. In direct marketing, such appeals are doomed to failure. Be specific, never vague. Repeatedly and unashamedly ask for the order or the phone call or whatever specific action you want.
These 12 secrets can double marketing responses. Of course, knowing what they are and successfully applying them are two different things.
Mike Pavlish is the president of Profit Boosters Copywriting. The company has completed more than 1,200 maximum-response copywriting projects for clients since 1978. Fees start at $3,000 and up. He can be reached at www. ProfitBoostersCopy. com.
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