IT CAN HELP YOU MAKE MONEY AND IT'S FREE
by: Anthony Stillwell
A lot of what you need to know about writing powerful, order-pulling ad copy
can be learned for free if you have a little patience.
I have written sales letters that have brought in up to a 10% to 12%
response rate to my product offers and I've been offered paid copywriting
jobs. Now you would think that I've spent tons of money on "How To Write
Killer Ad Copy" courses trying to learn all I could about the "art of the
written word", but that's not the case at all.
Don't get me wrong. Those types of courses certainly have their place, but
that's not the route I took. Starting from scratch with no money for courses
like that and a real need to learn how to sell I just sat and waited for
tens of thousands of dollars worth of proven copywriting secrets to be
handed to me just like YOU can.
How?
Well... nearly every kind of market you can think of has magazines and other
publications devoted to it. Take the "Business Opportunity" field for
example. There are dozens and dozens of magazines you can buy related to
just this ONE market.
Get off the computer and buy some magazines.
All you have to do is look for the "Classified Ads" section and whenever you
see an ad offering something for free... send away for it. At one point I
was getting POUNDS of mail a day by doing this and loving every minute of
it.
You see unlike the Internet... advertising in the "real world" costs money.
People advertising by mail either make money or they stop doing it. You can
see first hand what's working and what's not simply by letting the people
who are actually out there testing and spending their own money show you how
it's done.
After you send away for all the free offers you can find you'll find that
your name has been put on mailing lists to get even more offers. You'll get
Free Offers and Sales Letters relentlessly for a couple of months.
This is actually a good thing. When you take the time to read the so-called
"junk mail" you get you'll start to see the kind of advertising that works.
You will be able to spot what's great about a sales letter and what isn't.
You'll be able to use proven techniques that other marketers have spent
months testing on the advertising YOU do.
Organize your mail into what's called a "Swipe File"
http://www.ablake.net/archive62/index.cgi?read=61186
All Profitable Sales Letters Have...
[1] A Benefit Rich "Here's Why My Product Should Interest You Headline" that
Practically Forces It's Readers To Pay Attention. Does your website
have a strong headline or just your company logo. There's a thing called an
"attention span" and most people don't have much of one.
If your website doesn't get attention within the first couple of seconds
someone hits your site then most people will just leave.
[2] Enough copy to tell the whole story. People will read a 16-page sales
letter IF it's written with the reader in mind. It's not about YOU and
what YOU think or want. It's about what your readers think and about what
they want.
Powerful sales letters and ads are all about the benefits of owning your
product. I've read 16-page sales letters cover to cover and thrown out
single page flyers. Ad copy that's centered around what your reader wants to
read gets read no matter how long it is.
[3] Bullets that scream... "Hey you... Here's why you should order this
product. Bullets can in some cases make or break your sales letter. Bullets
are simply mini-headlines one after another that give your reader more and
more reasons to buy your product.
I've even seen people go to the extreme and send me sales letters that were
95% bullet points. I mean they just went on forever. They got the sale from
me so I guess that works. ;-)
[4] Strong testimonials. The fact of the matter is that you'll say anything
about your product to make a sale. The people who buy from you don't have
money to gain by saying nice things about you or your products. Your
potential customers want to know what other people think BEFORE they
buy.
You can get testimonials for your products by giving review copies away
asking for feedback. Ask for feedback and NOT testimonials because
you WANT to know if people don't like your product so you can correct
problems and make what you're selling just that much better.
If you've created a quality product you shouldn't have any problems in the
testimonials department.
[5] Reasons Why. Why should YOU get my money when there are other
similar products out there? When you start getting offers by mail you'll get
all kinds of ideas on how you can make your products stand out even if your
product is basically the same as everyone else's.
While I was surfing around I found this:
http://www.adsurgeon.com/teach1.shtml
You'll see why it's important to tell more about the product you sell. There
are things about your product that YOU take for granted, but "HEY...
Everybody Doesn't Know What You Know About Your Products!" Tell people what
your competitors don't!
[6] There's the close. The "TAKE ACTION NOW" part of the letter.
You can give people all the reasons in the world to do business with you,
but if you don't ask for the sale you might not get it. Don't beg and don't
be shy. Tell people what you want them to do. If you know that your product
will help people achieve a goal then you should have no problems asking for
their money.
[7] And let's not forget the P.S. Yes people do pay attention to this
online. You can use this part of your sales letter to give people that extra
little push they may need to order or you can just bribe 'em with an
exclusive bonus of some kind.
The last second P.S. bonus is something that I've found to work very well.
It's best to add a bonus that fits in directly with your product. An example
would be a course I sell on getting Free Advertising online. The P.S. talks
about a report on how to get top 20 search engine positioning without
submitting your site.
That kind of bonus lets me push another one of my prospects 'hot buttons'
and increases my chances for making the sale.
Last but Certainly Not Least... Testing. The most important thing you can do
is test to see what works best. There's a lot of testing going on in
mail-order and you get to watch it for free. Just one simple change to your
sales letter can increase your sales instantly.
The bottom line is that you have to be willing to look outside of the
Internet for the answers to your website troubles. Effective advertising
existed BEFORE the Internet and continues to exist in spite of it. Pay
attention to it. Take advantage of what you can learn from mail-order and
get an advantage most of your "Internet Marketing Competitors" overlook.
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Anthony Stillwell is the author of "Unlimited Free Traffic" and
publisher of the EnterNet P R O F I T S newsletter where you'll get the
hottest tips and the coolest resources to give you the advantage.
http://www.getfreeadvertising.com
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