Increasing Sales With Advanced Copywriting Tactics

This is about the dumbest thing but I’m going to make this a sticky just to be sure.

IF I, RECOMMEND, COMMENT ON, OR OTHERWISE STEER YOU TOWARDS A PRODUCT OR SERVICE YOU CAN BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR I STAND TO MAKE SOMETHING IF YOU BUY FROM MY LINK.

Okay, if you didn’t know that was for our “g’vment friends”

I’m a tad disgusted with this - like your too stoopid to figure  it out.

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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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As I’m venturing into Social Networking more, I asked a question on one of the major ones and got a surprising response. The question?

“What part of marketing do you hate the most and how do you deal with it?”

Most of the answers defended the “DYI” (Do It Yourself) attitude. This can be a massive trap for anyone who runs a business or department.

One person wrote ‘delegation is also a potential risk’ (paraphrased).

Well, yeah, delegation IS a potential risk. In business what isn’t a risk? Life is a risk. As one old-timer once told me..

“If you haven’t made any mistakes today it’s because you haven’t done anything.” So make some mistakes.

Back to my question…

As I’m dusting off and polishing my shingle - moving back into copywriting for clients, I need to reconnect with what the needs of prospects and clients really are - from your perspective not mine.

It’s the process I go through when I’m working on a new project. It’s not good enough to “think” I know what customers want. I need to know. But I’ve got a problem. A big problem. The fact is, this problem could affect you too - whether I ever write anything for you or not.

I know my stuff.

I know business. I know copywriting. I know sales. I know this sounds like bragging. Maybe it is. But I’ve absolutely awed some people - people I hold to be very savvy business people in their own right. And I’ve done it right off the top of my head, never even starting to work up a sweat. And that’s a problem. Why?

Because standing too close to a problem can obscure my view.

I’ve seen this happen to my own clients over and over again.  My clients aren’t stupid people. They are smart. They are savvy. Often I find things that are staring them in the face, but they are too close to the situation to see it. They don’t hire me because I am smarter than they are - often I’m not . They hire me for my perspective and my objectivity. They know how difficult it is to be objective when you’ve invested your heart and soul (and everything you own) into your business.

On the other hand, my copywriting clients want my specific knowledge and ability to write a message people will respond to. Maybe they hate writing. Maybe they just know their efforts are better spent elsewhere. Either way - just as I hire a professional to do my taxes, they hire a professional to craft their marketing messages. And they are avoiding the DYI trap.

What about you? Are you feeling trapped? Does it seem like you’re missing “something” but you just can’t put your finger on it? If so then maybe it’s time to bring someone in. Keep in mind, this is not an admission of failure but a show of strength. You are proving you are strong enough (and smart enough) to look for chinks in your armor.

God bless,

Andy

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Over the years I’ve known quite a few auto mechanics. A few I’ve considered good friends.  Through the years I worked on a good number of my own cars - enough to know I hate it. And that is the first thing auto mechanics taught me about copywriting. Auto Mechanics? Copywriting?

Well, yes. You could even broaden those principles into life lessons.

The first lesson comes from a mechanic who was the father of a friend of mine. He was considered the best auto mechanic in town. After he “retired”, so many loyal customers drove or limped their vehicles to his driveway, he finally opened for business in his home garage. So what did I learn from him?

Besides the fact that if you know your stuff and can offer what other people can’t, there will always be a demand for your services - Mr. Bergerson had a particular pricing policy.

He always charged double his rate for the first hour. His reasoning? Most problems brought to him could be solved in an hour or less, thus his first hour was the most valuable. Whether you agree with this or not, his customers - myself included - gladly paid it. Why?

Because he was worth every penny. He did the job right the first time and, yes, it usually did take an hour or less.  And that revelation led me to a second insight I learned from another mechanic.

After a few years, Mr Bergeson passed away - no doubt with a wrench in his hand. I was forced to find a new mechanic. I settled for the most expensive mechanic in town. Why?

Because in the long run, he was cheaper than all the rest.

A lot of auto mechanics is trial and error. The really good ones can find the problem with less trial and error. The best rarely missed. Paul was the best. Not only that but when I would take my car in for even an oil change, he would present a list of what the car needed - broken down into what needed immediate attention - what could wait and how long it would likely last and what could be fixed but didn’t effect the performance or safety of the car. Paul was adamant on safety. If something was unsafe it did not leave his shop. He would go toe to toe with you on that one.

Paul’s lesson is obvious to me: buy the best you can afford. It will save you money in the long run. As I said, while these principles certainly apply to copywriting, they also work in so many areas of life.

So how can I apply Mr. Bergeson’s  lesson to copywriting?

For one: don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth. Actually, Paul also taught me that but he also taught me a couple of other things. More on that in a moment.

Mr. Bergeson felt he was worth a fair but decent rate - and twice that for the first hour… and he got it. Not only that but he was always busy. And without advertising (ouch). So charge what you are worth. What else did Paul teach me?

Be worth what you charge. Paul always went over every car that entered his shop with a fine tooth comb. I’ve had mechanics who found “other problems”, but none ever instilled the confidence Paul did. He was one of the most honest men I ever encountered.

And as  you may know, I decided to seek out some copywriting projects in the next few months and that is what turned my thoughts to fees.

Ironically, if you follow my advice,  you may never hire me. I do not claim to be the best copywriter in the world, nor am I the most expensive… not even close. As a matter of fact, if I do my job well enough, I may never be able to charge what I’m truly worth… why?

Let’s say I quote a project for you. For the sake of argument,  let’s say I charge what some “A list” copywriters charge - $15,000 + a 5% royalty. (Shocked? Some charge more than that and have a waiting list!)

To make the math easy let’s assume you have a product you sell for $100 and make a 50% profit. You get 500 visitors a day to your site and it converts at 1%.

So you sell 1 in 100 visitors or 5 units  per day with a gross profit of $250 per day.

My new sales page doubles your conversion rate bringing in another $250 per day gross profit. At that rate it would only take 60 days to pay for my services. in 120 days you’ve doubled your investment and the profits keep rolling in. Here’s the kicker…

According to Google - a 2% conversion rate is about average for US websites.

Oh yes, that 5% (usually of gross sales) would cost you another $25 per day or $750 per month for as long as you use my copy. Would it be worth $25 to bring in another $225 in profits every day?

Even with this exercise I still  have a hard time charging anywhere near that kind of fee.  Maybe I’ll get over it at some point, but for now rest assured, I am much more affordable.

If you would like a quote for your project email to admin at this web address with the subject line “Quote Requested” or call me at 443.254.3703. For a limited time - because my own time is limited - if you ask, I’ll perform my own version of Paul’s car inspection for your business and present you with a “punch list” of what you need to fine tune your profits.

God bless,

Andy

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Out with the old - in with the new… right? Well here it is:

The old: I’m taking a hiatus from marketing my own products online. Sure you can still buy my Hot Buttons and Paperless Copy products, but I’m taking a break from marketing my other sites, products, and so forth. So what am I going to do?

I’m going to write copy! Gasp!

Yep, I’m going to actively pursue clients and write copy for cold hard cash. I’ll also continue consulting with my current and future clients. What does this mean to you?

Maybe nothing. If you need some copy written - anything from AdWords ads to sales letters to special reports and/or white papers - feel free to ask for a quote. You can email to admin at this web address or call me at 443.254.3703. Ditto for readers who need an objective perspective on their business. I’m known for finding previously overlooked but lucrative profit centers along with coming up with ideas that bring in substantial dollars.

In short, my services pay for themselves in more sales and profits.

And if none of that interests you, I’m sure to chronicle my adventures in marketing as I learn new tricks and new ways to apply old ones.

Either way - stay tuned and stop on back. It should be an interesting year.

God bless,

Andy

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Gee, almost sounds like those WWF Raw commercials except instead of a fight you can expect profits! What AM I talking about?

CPA or Cost Per Action Marketing  is one of the hottest things on the Internet these days. Why? Because CPA ads pay quite well and generally convert well too. Add that to the fact that smart marketers are dedicating whole pages to getting that action and you’ve got some huge profit potential.

One article I read recently stated some marketers are pulling down - get this - revenues  of $10 - 20 MILLION per MONTH! Who wouldn’t want a piece of that pie? The best part is there are no products to develop, you don’t need to build a list, and so on. By the way, just because you don’t have to build a list, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t - it depends on the market. Okay let’s get down to brass tacks…

First I know for a fact this is the real deal. How? An acquaintance of mine told me over two years ago he was dumping AdSense in favor of CPA. HE was generating over $10K per month in revenues - and that was verified.

Like a dope I got distracted and never really got into CPA. I played around a bit but that’s all. Well a couple of days ago something changed all that. What was it?

I ran across a fellow who let me take a sneak peak into his soon-to-be opened member site (re-opened actually - he technically opened it to a few beta testers.) In any case,  I like his site a lot.

He shows you real campaigns making real money and also shows you how to copy him exactly… even down to to giving you templates to download. And yet his methods are simple and easy to do. Now I’m chomping at the bit to do some real CPA Marketing myself. What’s stopping me?

Well, I’ve got some other projects to tidy up first. And I promised I’d review this site. Anyway, I was impressed enough to not only publish my review but I decided to offer a bonus package to anyone joining via my link. You can find details about that here Loot4LeadsReviewed.com If you decide to join sure to clear you cookies first.

God Bless,

Andy

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Okay, I admit it, I’ve been distracted the last couple of days. I finally got around to uploading a package I’ve been itching to try, but this is NOT for everyone.

If you market to the Internet Marketing niche or have access to Internet Marketers then you should consider this package. It’s called the Super Sign-up System and it works like this…

First you offer one or more Internet Marketing titles to your visitor - The package has 7 titles available and it’s designed to offer all 7 at once. However I can see some advantage to offering just one to certain markets - more on that in a moment…

So you offer these 7 free high-quality ebooks from a very nice squeeze page to your visitor. Once they bite you send them to a page offering them Master Resale Rights to all 7 ebooks. Should they take you up on this offer, you now offer them the entire super sign-up package as an upsell.

Now for the downside.

Like I said this is not for everybody - I normally do not marketing to Internet Marketers. I just haven’t pursued this niche. BUT I do belong to a a couple of member sites that DOES fit well with this product. As a matter of fact this kind of package that marketers in these sites SHOULD be selling. For example…

ListDotCom allows me to email 5,000 people every other day (I’m a Diamond member)

I kind of ignored this market for a long time because I had a heck of a time getting any response from my mailings. Then it hit me - these folks are interested in IM - ALL of them are. We all want to make money from our ListDotCom memberships but this really the only common thread. Now excuse me for being blunt here but I don’t want anyone to miss this point which is now totally obvious:

ListDotCom members should be offering ONLY Internet Marketing stuff to other members.

Now granted - at best - I expect response to be quite low here even though I’m now giving this market exactly what it screams for - a way to make money from their LDC membership.

I took this experiment a bit further with another membership - Traffic Swarm

Here I’m a free member, but I’ll go Pro if I get the hang of making money from it. Again, this market is extremely narrow - even more so than the IM field. So I split out a title I thought would do well and  I’m sending traffic right to just one title, with a brief promise of 6 more.  We’ll see how that goes.

Now for the rest of the downside - the Super Sign-up system is a bit complicated to set up.  I used XSitePro and I’m glad I did. I’d hate to think of trying to do all this one page at a time.

Not only is it hard to set up but I did not care for the documentation at all. I ended up setting up my own OTO scheme. I used Robert Plank’s Panic OTO script that came with his Sales Page Tactics Volume 3 - it’s near the end - I think number 21 in the list if tactics.

I don’t want to snow anyone - this is not for newbies. If you do decide to try this and get stuck, I’ll help you.  If you want me to set it up for you - let me know - leave a comment on this blog or submit a support ticket. Right now I’ll charge $100 for setting it up. Don’t whine - that’s dirt cheap :-). If I can find someone to do it for less, I’ll post it here.

Anyway this experiment is in progress. If I don’t post again, you can assume I dropped it or got distracted. I’m very accomplished at that.

Meanwhile this has been a very good experience for me. I’ve got a much better grasp on how this part of the sales process should work.

Oh, by the way if you want to see how the system works - check out the Super Sign-up System.

Follow that link to the end (sign up for the free stuff, order the master rights, and you’ll get an offer for the whole system at a rock bottom price.

I don’t know how long I’ll offer it at this price, I think it’s worth far more. Note the one time offer (OTO) really IS a ONE time offer. Click off and  you won’t see it again.

God bless,

Andy

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Do vicious tactics work? You tell me. Are you still reading?

“Go For the Throat Sales Tactics”  emits a more vivid scene than “effective copy techniques” don’t you think?  And that’s what it’s all about.

I’ve been browsing Jakob Nielsen’s  Alertbox - it’s hands down the best stuff out there on how to get and keep your reader’s attention. Jakob is a researcher not a copywriter, not another internet marketer, not a sales guy at all. He focuses on observing how people act and modifying web pages to accommodate.

So what can you learn from him?

People only read 18% of what you write on average.

Text ads far outsell banner ads - they actively seek out text ads

Active text blows away passive text

And so much more. He’s been doing this for over 10 years and  I have yet to get a “sales email” from him. Does he ever sell stuff? Oh yeah. Jakob has some books you can buy and he also holds conferences all over the world. I haven’t checked but I bet attending one would set you back  a bundle.

The bottom line you should pay attention to guys like him. He’ll put more money in your pocket than a circus full of “gurus”.

By the way - most everything Nielsen reveals applies to copywriting as well as it does to content marketing as it does to web design.

You can find a list of his articles here.  Sign up for his newsletter too. Just like my blog  alerts - you won’t get a bunch of hyped up ads from him. Actually, your more likely to get a “salesy email” from me than from Nielsen - and I don’t do that very often at all… as most of  you know.

God bless,

Andy

P.S. Notice how his site isn’t what you might call “pretty”?

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I’m moving into Article Marketing big time these days. But what exactly IS article marketing?

Article Marketing is really two, count ‘em, TWO concepts in one!

 First: “Article Marketing” means driving traffic to one or more web pages using articles. Since you can post articles, blog entries, web pages, and and a bunch of other places - the term “Content Marketing” maybe more accurate. For now I’ll stick with using the term “Article Marketing”. Though you may check back as I expand this concept into full-blown “Content Marketing”.

It wasn’t long ago when you could post an article or two on a few article directories with an affiliate link and rake in some - sometimes a lot of - cash.  This is not so true anymore… which leads to the second phase of Article Marketing…

Secondly: Article Marketing refers to promoting your articles - think if it as writing a book. First you write the book and get it published but if you fail to promote the book - do interviews, get your book reviewed, hold signing events and so forth then your book is doomed to end up in the bargain pile in short order.  So…

You get busy and get promoting. This second phase of article marketing is much like this except you use tools techniques more geared to the Internet such as blog commenting, forum posting, and social bookmarking. The idea is to get the article in front as many people as possible so they will click on your link and drive traffic to the pages of your choice.

I’ll post more on this in the  weeks to come and you are welcome to follow my progress - nicks and cuts and all - as I proceed. Feel free to jump in with your own comments and observations.

God bless,

Andy

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In a perfect world - one could look at a sales page - find the glaring error - fix it and wallah! Done. In the world we all live in it’s not that easy.

Some mistakes are hard to find. Worse what works in one market may not work in yours. People change. Circumstances change. The long and the short of any sales question is… there are no pat answers.  But what if the problem has little if anything to do with the sales copy itself?

Sometimes It’s the Process

What!? What the heck is THAT supposed to mean?

Look. Let’s say your on a trip and your gas gauge dips below your comfort level. What do you do? Duh. You find a gas station and fill it up… right?  Well then, that’s what everyone “I” know would do!

Well that’s a sales process. You need gas. You pull up to the gas station. Maybe you pay at the pump like so many of us do. Maybe you pay it all in cash. Whatever you do you don’t usually think about it.

You Just Do It.

Now let’s say your spouse gets a hankerin’ for a new living room suite. Whatever you are likely to do - that is your personal “sales process”. For most of us it means we end up in some furniture store someplace to close the deal.

Again, you work through a process of some sort - first whatever process you and your spouse go through to decide on what to buy and then you work through process to complete the sale. For most it should be at least a two-step process. So what am I getting at?

All Sales Require Some Sort of Process

And each process differs between products AND buyers. Think about this for a moment.

Consider my “Hot Buttons” product. From my standpoint all  you have to do is click on the order button and the rest is automatic. Maybe you want to pay via a direct debit or use your credit card - either one involves a slightly different process but neither variation matters one bit to me. Maybe you want to send me cash. No problem

But to get someone to the point of “click here to order” there can be many, many processes or ways to get someone to this point. And that’s where the fun begins.

• You could just be poking around, find the link and decide this product is just what you need. (Hey! No argument from me)
• Or maybe I decide to promote it and send off a series of emails demonstrating how you can benefit from this ebook.
• Then again, I could write a special report, post a classified ad, or blog about it right here.

Each way starts a process that may or may not entice you to invest in this resource.

No matter what, chances are someone will realize the value in having these “Hot Buttons” at their fingertips and go for it.

Whether you buy or not you go through a process where you evaluate what I’m offering against what you need and decide one way or the other.

Back to my original point - if your product or service is not selling then the process (or processes) you offer prospective customers fails at one or more points.

• It’s not your headline
• Your bullet points are just fine
• The offer is excellent
• Your guarantee is perfect

But, like a bad comedian, your timing is off.

Take another look at that living room suite. Who drives down the road, decides they need a new sofa and stops at the nearest furniture store to buy the first one they like? Well that’s how you buy gas - more or less.

The processes are different. They have to be because each solves a totally different problem.

If someone tried to sell  you furniture by trotting out in the parking lot and posting the price on a big sign you could see from 1/4 mile a way - you’d just stop and buy it right? Of course not.

So I’m suggesting that you take a good look at what your prospective customers expect - the general processes they use to come to a decision - and start from there. Maybe add a method or two. Like right now, I’m wondering why I’m not posting ads to free ad sites… who knows?

Reconsider who your potential buyers are and why they are coming to your place of business now. Maybe they are expecting something totally different. Or maybe they don’t realize you’ve got exactly what they are looking for! It happens.

By they way - last time I offered a special report “Why Johnny Can’t Sell” by Paul Myers. I’d still like you to have a complimentary copy. Don’t let the price fool you - there’s a gold mine of information in this report.

God bless,

Andy

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