July 2nd, 2008 — Tactical Copywriting
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No, I haven’t been hiding under one but it’s been a busy time.
My wife and I have decided to sell our house so I’ve been working like a madman getting it ready. With that and trying to keep clients happy, I’ve barely been able to keep up.
More on selling our house in a future post - nothing has been written in stone yet.
So what else is new?
I’ve had canniptions testing for one client in particular. This one is a total web site re-design… something I normally run from. I’m not doing the design work per se but we’ve been testing pages with and without headers and that’s where we’ve run into trouble…
Let me tell you - if you’re going to purchase design services make sure the site works with and without a graphic header! I’ve never had a problem like this come up but basically this site was designed so you can’t simple pop off the header or pop on a new one. One has to do some major fudging to do this.
In my “graphically challenged” opinion - this just doesn’t work. Sorry but too many of us testers are finding out some markets simply buy more with less “eye-candy” so I will look for those design factors from now on.
What other considerations should one consider?
First, keep in mind, I am NOT an expert here. My thingy is copy not “pretty”. On the other hand I’m not convinced an ugly site with good copy will outsell a pleasant-looking one either. That said there are a few things I like to see…
Clean pages with good colors. Don’t get gaudy on me.
What happens when you want to test the name of a product or a slogan? Is it going to be easy or difficult?
No Clutter. I’m not partial to pages with a gadzillion thingys going on all at once.
A strong message. When I land on your page I’d like to know what you’ve got to offer.
Does this mean there’s not room for portal pages or other general-type sites with lots to offer?
I think there’s plenty of room for those types of pages. I just don’t want to be overwhelmed.
What about You?
When you go searching for something - do you want to be bombarded with everything up to and including the kitchen sink?
Do you prefer lots of “action” on the pages you visit?
I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say on this.
Meanwhile, I’ve got house to work on…
God bless,
Andy
May 8th, 2008 — Tactical Copywriting
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.
April 17th, 2008 — Testing
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.
February 23rd, 2008 — Tactical Copywriting
I’m just finishing up the information page for it now. Sales Page Makeovers will offer testing services for selected clients.
Here’s the plan:
If you have a sales page, squeeze page or something else whre you want to boost conversions, we’ll set up the test and confirmation pages for you including 3 variations each on 5 crucial areas - headline, p.s., offer, guarantee, and your lead paragraph.
We’ll test them until a clear winner appears and you realize an overal conversion increase.
If you’re interested in finding out more, please send your name and email address. Don’t forget to confirm it or I won’t be able to contact you.
We don’t spam and we’re not out to sell, trade, or otherwise share your information with anyone else.
There will not be a sales page at this time. Why?
Since this is a service it needs tailoring to your needs. We’ll need to evaluate any page to ensure it’s a good candidate for testing.
Before we agree to test any page, both parties need to understand what can be expected. If you’re already getting a 5% conversion, we may not be able to promise a massive increase.
Our aim is to provide a service that not only pays but provides a significant return on investment in minimum time.
Again, if this is something you’d like to explore further, fill out the form above and we’ll get the ball rolling.
