Increasing Sales With Advanced Copywriting Tactics

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Thank you for stopping by Copy Tactics! My goal is to make this your number 1 stop for information on getting the most from your sales copy but I need your help…

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Enjoy and God bless,

Andy Havens

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Few things strike more fear into a marketer’s heart than an “over the top” guarantee. I mean Gutsy with a capital “G”. And yet few elements of a sales page exude more power. Why?

Because your reader doesn’t trust you. Not at all. Few marketers have earned enough trust to risk even a few dollars for something “unknown”. Not all marketers have this problem…

A few years ago I bought a high ticket item from a marketer - it wasn’t even his product - he was an affiliate. By “high ticket” I mean over $1500. Online. And I didn’t blink an eye. Why is that?

I knew the product. The company it came from is a leader in the field. The marketer who sold it has a way about him I find very trustworthy. He is always helpful. He gives a lot of good information away at no charge. And I’ve never seen a “hypey” sales pitch from him. In short - he has positioned himself far above many of those in his field.

So my first suggestion to you is to follow this lead. Take the high road. Avoid anything that hints of shady practices or shoddy products. Be worthy of trust and people will trust you.

Secondly, gather as much proof as you can. Social proof (testimonials, etc.), scientific proof, endorsements, anything you can gather to back up what you say. And don’t say anything you can’t back up.

Finally, offer the absolute strongest guarantee you dare. This is where things get interesting. You see, when it comes right down to it…

You Don’t Trust Your Customers!

Why else would you fail to guarantee an information product forever? Do you think hordes of customers are going to way 7.33 years and then descend on you at once for a refund?

The most common objection for strong guarantees is thieves. Yes some people will take your product and then ask for a refund. You will get that no matter what guarantee you offer. Think about the psychology of a thief for a moment…

They lie, cheat and steal… right? Do you expect them to be patient also? How long do you think a thief will wait to get a refund? A year? Not if they can get it in minutes. Or a week. In other words, guaranting your product for a year will make NO difference with thieves. So what does that leave?

Marginal customers. Customers who bought your product but don’t really want it because it doesn’t meet their needs or expectations. It happens.

The fact is you should be EAGER to give a refund to marginal customers. WHAT! Why?

Because these are the customers who will tell you what’s wrong with your product or your sales approach. Not only should you be able to cut down on future refunds but you should also armed to get more customers by refining your product and/or sales letter!

On the other hand the general rule is the more solid the guarantee the greater the sales. Yep more people will buy if you convince them they have absolutely NO risk if they decide to buy your product. Just make sure you honor this!

Now for that “Gutsy” Guarantee…

If you really want to “Go for the Gutsy” here one of the most daring guarantees going:

FREE If You Choose!

At firt it even chills me to the bone, but think about it…

You’re selling a digital product so what are the chances someone will get the refund and then delete your product from their hard drive? (I do but I think I’m the exception here.)

What are you going to do otherwise? Go to their house and check? Yeah, right. So why not take advantage of this and say “go ahead and try it if you don’t like it, I’ll refund your money”

I’ve seen others do this, most recently, Brad Callen for his SEO Elite product. I was impressed. If you get something different it’s because he’s testing and you’ve hit an alternate offer - it happens.

Other Gutsy Guarantees include offering to give back more than the reader paid - 10%, 20% even double your money back! Frankly, such offers scare me as a buyer and as a seller.

The bottom line is you should offer the best guarantee you can and still sleep at night.

One final note - is this rule written in stone? No. One very successful marketer comes to mind… Matt Furey.

Matt offers NO guarantee at all. Matt makes far more money with his products than I do. I’m fairly certain Matt tests his messages but I’m still not convinced this concept would be valid in most markets.

I’ve done this myself on occasion because I offer a product so cheap it would nearly cost me money to refund it. I’m not a fan of this tactic. I’ve come to believe you are better off offering value and getting a fair price for that value.

The best overall advice I can offer is to test your own market.  See what is acceptable to them. There’s no reason you can’t limit your tests in extreme cases to just a few hundred or even 1,000 visitors.  Even if you have a 5% conversion rate and your “double your money back” guarantee doubles this you’ve only risked 100 refunds.  If your refund rate remains  less than 50% and you’ll still make a gross profit.

God bless,

Andy

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Your P.S. is an integral part of your sales message.  Many marketers contend a large majority of readers fly from headline to P.S. making it the second most read part of your sales letter. I noticed I do this but I may be conditioned by my copywriting and testing studies so I cannot consider my own habits valid. Besides I always stop by the price myself on the way to the P.S.

If you’re stuck for a P.S. here’s one thing not to do and a couple of things TO do…

First what NOT to do: Don’t summarize your offer. If you put you’re whole offer in a nutshell and tack it on to the end of your sales page - you are essentially counting on one or two paragraphs as your entire sales page. Why?

Because the “summary offer” generally answers the questions most people have - what is it and what does it cost? So what can you do?

One method is to simply put a couple of testimonials in your P.S. this can work very well especially if the testimonials offer up some good benefits.

Another thing you can to is try to invoke curiosity by stating a benefit from your body copy or bullets.  This can be tricky but it can work well too.

Finally you can add another bonus to your product - one that changes every now and then. You can tell the reader this bonus is “for a limited time”. The magazine “Fly Fisherman” did this well by offering creels. They said they only had so many and when they were gone…

If you sell a physical product this can be a very effective method - especially if your product is a high ticket item with a good profit  margin because you can afford to offer high value bonuses.

This last method is one of the easiest and most effective ways to add a P.S. but you really should change your bonus from time to time so your readers know you mean business. And you might be surprised at how many stop again to see if you’re “limited time offer” was for real or just another gimmick.

God bless,

Andy

P.S. Do you have a favorite technique? One other one is to add some tidbit not found in the body copy.  My own favorite is number two above.

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Hi,

I know I haven’t posted so much lately. I finally realized I was posting too often. From now on expect 1-2 posts per week. If this doesn’t set right with you, feel free to let me know.

Other changes on the horizon…

I’m dropping the idea of video critiques. The fact is I’m apparently just too brutal. It takes a thick skin to write copy and have it reviewed by someone. I know. I’ve been there. And while I do make every effort to be gentle, I refuse to ignore the concept of “best practices”. What is that?

It’s is what is generally known and proven to work. Does that mean I’ll “attack” anyone or any ideas deviating from “best practices”? Ablsolutely not!

I’ll be the first to suggest testing just about anything. I do draw the line at the “vulgar” and anything that rings of questionable ethics. Other than that, I am all for pushing the envelope. Now for the third and final change…

I’m raising prices substantially for “Sales Page Makeovers” . I just finished a quote for a complete re-write of a sales page. I quoted it both ways - as a straight copy job (something I rarely do these days) and as a makeover. I was stunned at what I’ve been giving away!

No more.

I’ll post more on this next time but the figures justify much higher prices for this service. If no one is willing to pay then I’ll just have to focus on maximizing conversions on my own products.

Until next time…

God bless,

Andy

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Yesterday someone mentioned to me he made some wholesale changes to his web site and he hasn’t seen a sale since! That happens. I told him to immediately put up his old page back.  If he hadn’t saved the old page he could have face disaster. Sure, he may be able to reconstruct it eventually but… Anyhow he did save his old copy and was able to swap back. The “good” page was one he wrote himself after a copywriter dropped a bomb. In a related event…
Another copywriter asked me to review some copy he wrote. He mentioned the old copy was some shoddy page that converted fairly well. What’s going on here?

Stay tuned for not one but two important points here…

First: is it true that “crappy copy” cranked out by a novice can outsell a carefully crafted masterpiece wrought by a journeyman copywriter? You bet! Why?

It could be a number of reasons but high on my list are believablity and credibility. And yes, these are related. In both of these cases the copy was written by someone who knew the product better than anyone. They believed fully in the product and were enthusiastic about what they were selling. You can’t buy that. And it comes through on the sales page loud and clear.

The second point is not so obvious… or maybe it is: don’t just “swap out” sales pages! One copywriter put it this way…

Rather than “replacing” your web page - plant in your mind the concept of testing new ideas. It is so easy to do on the Internet these days. You can use Google Web Site Optimization - something I use and recommend a lot. Or you can choose from a wide variety of split testing scripts. Actually you’ll more likely want a “multivariate” testing script but that’s another post.

Many people see terms like “multivariate” and their eyes glaze over. Don’t let the big bad word scare you… it simply means “many thingys” as in what it tests. With split testing you should test one thing at a time. One headline vs another and so on. Multivariate tests lets you plug in several headlines, and other parts and test different combinations. All you do is tell it what parts to test and it does the rest.

Even if you think you’re “not ready” to test (you can always let someone like us friendly folks at sales page makeovers do it all for you you should at the very least make sure you save your old page just in case those spiffy new changes make things worse.

God bless,

Andy

P.S Update on the “Project Management” Software… I thought I had rights to this but I’ll be darned if I can find them. I’ve got a pile of stuff on a hard drive determined to give me a hard time so I have no idea when I can check it.  Meanwhile, if you’re chomping at the bit for this  leave a comment and I can get you a copy for $10.

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Just finished a report on the 5 reasons people run from your website screaming in terror. Okay so maybe that’ s a little overboard. However if you look at your stats, you may find a large number leaving before the first 30 seconds.

If you want them to stay longer and maybe buy something then this report is for you. I do have one problem…

I’d like your help with the title. I narrowed it down to the two I like best but I’m open to suggestions.  Here’s the two I ended up with:

“5 Reasons Folks Flee from Your Website Like Extras in a Godzilla Movie”

or

“5 Common Reasons Visitors Flee from Your Website and How to Fix It”

Which one to you prefer? Please leave a comment below.

God bless,

Andy

By the way, if you want a copy of my report with my compliments, simply sign up for my blog alerts.

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Is thers such a thing? Well yes and no…

I’ll be the first to admit there are days when stuff just isn’t flowing the way I want it to. I write something and set it aside and sometimes I never get back to it. Today is such a day for me.

On  the other hand I NEVER sit and stare at an empty screen. Okay, almost never. So what do I do?

I write something. Anything. And I keep writing until I either have something of value or it’s time to quit. So what good does that do me?

First of all it keeps me from claiming I’ve got “writer’s block”. I’m writing even if it’s not worth the cyberpaper it’s written on. Plus…

I almost always get something out of my musings - even if it’s just a list of ideas.  I often end up with something worth editing. So what can you do?  Here’s some 4 ideas you can use if your stuck…

Make lists. List everything about your product you can think of. It doesn’t take any creativity to do it and you need to have a list.

Write a page from your swipe file. Or use my swipe file if you like. You’ll find it at the “Hot Sales Letters” link to your right.

Edit something. Check over your sales page for typos, awkward sentences and such. If you can’t find anything readi it out loud. You’ll be surprised how different you page sounds compared to how it reads.

Re-write something. Pick an element from your sales page and re-write it. Even if you don’t have it in you to re-write the whole thing, look for one or two words you can improve upon.

All this should get your juices flowing or at least stop the flood of excuses. The fact is “writer’s block” is a self-fueling, self-fulfilling (or unfulfilling) concept that just adds fuel to your procrastination fire. Don’t let it.

God bless,

Andy

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 Money magazine’ Dan Ariely just published an article on “tricks” maketers use to get folks to buy.

Here’s a link to the article: Consumer Habits 

Is this ethical? Some might say if you have to ask if something is ethical, than it’s not. But I don’t think this is true  and I consider myself a very ethical person.

Some of these tricks are well-known - such as offering something for free. Some marketers contend this tactic  is losing some of it’s appeal. I think it’s all in the context. We humans are “hard-wired” to grab offers like these. Certainly as everyone offers stuff for free and much of the stuff is worth less than the asking price - you will find more resistance.

On the other hand, consider the “free offer” Ariely himself got caught up in… buy this car and get free oil changes for a year. And this is a guy to studies consumer behavior.

Another way to apply this principle is when building your offer. The next best thing (or maybe even better) is offering so much value for the money one would have to be a fool to pass it up.

The other interesting aspect of this article is his observation of “comparative” pricing. Ariely says for example, if your comparing menu prices at a restaurant, the  $45 dish may seem outrageous in one restaurant. But if another dish on the same menu is $60, it may seem comparatively cheap.

Another thing to keep in mind is the consumer’s expectations. You’d scream bloody murder if somone placed that menu in front of you at “Joe’s Diner” but if you were in “Antione’s Bistro” you may not blink an eyelash, even if the food at Joe’s is not all that bad.

Ariely’s article is from his book “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.”  It may be a good companion to Cialdini’s “Influence: The Psychology of Persuason”. I haven’t read Ariely’s book yet.  When I do, I’ll post a review.

God bless,

Andy

P.S. You’ll also find a wealth of sales triggers in “22 Secret Hot Buttons“

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Gary Bencivenga has got to be one of the best copywriters ever. He is phenomenal. I’ve been reading his newsletter Bencivenga Bullets for some time now and he always wows me with his knowledge and his abililty to apply that knowledge. And now he’s going to retire.

I’m going to miss him. Don’t know if he’ll continue with his newsletter. I hope he does. As I said Gary’s leaving with a BANG! He’s offering a set of DVD’s “Gary Bencivenga’s Master Secrets of Wealth Creation or Marketers and Copywriters” for a measly $5,000.

It’s a lot, I know. And in a sense it’s a pittence too. 5 grand is nothing compared to what Gary has made with this information. Let’s face it, if he sells all 2,000 (and he will) - Gary will gross a cool $10 Million. I guarantee you he’s already made more than that. So what’s all this mean to you?

Well, if you perchance have an extra $5k - no actually, if your serious about your copywriting - whether it be a career or for your own personal fortune - you should do what you can to get this. I can’t see how you can fail.

Even if you get NOTHING out of the DVD’s they are all signed and numbered so there will be an aftermarket. While it’s hard to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if the set increased in value after they are sold out.

In honor of Gary, I’m going to offer my services to one new client. One sales letter for $5,000 ($5,500 via paypal). Pay in advance and you can opt to have your letter written after I devour Gary’s DVD set. Am I crazy?

Sorry, the above  offer is no longer available.  If you’re still interested in my services, please visit my Sales Page Makeovers site and fill out the contact form. I won’t promise anything except a consultation (on me) to see if I can help.

You tell me… after taking John Carlton’s course, the first sales letter I wrote generated (by my estimate) $11,792 for my client in his first month. It was a member site so the money kept rolling in month after month. Granted this client knew how to drive massive traffic to his site and the site makes less now because the niche has cooled off but it still turns a decent buck.

If you can’t afford Gary’s DVD’s (or me) the next best thing is to study Gary’s sales letter for his set. It’s a masterpiece. You’ll find the link below…

“Gary Bencivenga’s Master Secrets of Wealth Creation or Marketers and Copywriters”
http://www.bencivengabullets.com/b100dvd.asp

By the way, I don’t think Gary even offers an affiliate program for this so it’s just a straight link

God bless,

Andy

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I originally offered the post “Crank Up Your Credibility” to anyone who stopped by. Then I got to thinking…

The information and the report offered in that post is simply too valuable to give away. So if you want it, then please sign up for my blog alerts and I’ll send you the password.

God bless,

Andy

(the sign up form is in the right panel)

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