Tactical Execution

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If you’ve spent any time in internet marketing circles, you know the importance of killer sales copy.  You’ve received the emails describing some incredible product and telling you how much better your life will be once you’ve purchased it.  On a few occasions, you’ve probably clicked through to the website where the process starts all over again, explaining the superiority of the product, listing all the valuable features and offering dozens of glowing testimonials.

The objective, of course, is to sell the product and the art of writing killer sales copy has become a science.  In fact, every aspect of this process has been tested and optimized by seasoned internet marketers and a clear process has emerged as the leader.  It’s a motivating sales sequence that has consistently tested higher than other approaches.  And the best part is that even if you’re not a great writer, you can follow the sequence and see real results just by following the sequence.  Let’s take a look.

Step 1: Get their attention.

The beginning of your copy needs to capture the attention of your audience.  There are a variety of ways you can do this but here are a few ideas.  You could ask a provocative question.  You could make a shocking statement that appears unbelievable at first glance.  Or you could simply make a very specific statement.  People love specifics.  Quite often, including a specific number (like a percentage of statistic of some kind) will dramatically improve the conversion.

Step 2: Identify the problem or need.

Now, don’t just talk about the problem in isolation.  Talk about it as it relates to the person.  Always address the prospect, not your product.  Describe the problem and how it affects a person’s life.  If your readers experience those problems themselves, they’ll keep reading.  They’ll identify with what you’re writing.  The more detail, the better.  Present the problem front and center, so you can almost touch it.  You might even magnify the problem by describing what might happen if the problem isn’t corrected.

Step 3: Position your product as the solution.

This is where the selling begins.  Explain how your product solves the problem.  Specifically.  Tell them exactly what your product does to alleviate their pain.  Stress the benefits they receive by having your product at hand.  Don’t focus on your product’s features.  No.  Focus on the benefits.  Even go a step further and describe the emotions your readers will feel when they have your product and have a way to eliminate the problem from their lives.

Step 4: Differentiate yourself from the competition.

What makes you better?  What makes you different?  This is where you need to present your unique selling proposition (USP) and explain the importance of your differentiating features.  Don’t be shy – about your product OR your competitors.  Address them by name.  Be specific.  Tell your readers exactly who your competitors are and why your product is a better choice.  A lot of people don’t want to name their competitors by name.  Don’t worry about it.  Your readers are thinking about them anyway so you might as well step up and address the issue head-on.

Step 5: Establish credibility and build value.

This is where you justify yourself.  Tell them about your experience and describe all your guarantees.  Build value into your product by describing other products that do the same thing but are priced higher.  Talk about the financial impact of the product; how much money it could save the reader.  If a product could save your thousands but only costs $149, that’s a good deal.  If you offer a no-questions-asked 100% guarantee, that lowers the risk for the buyer.  And if you’ve been doing this for 16 years, you must know what you’re doing.

Step 6: Provide proof (statistics & testimonials).

Bring out the big guns!  Tell them about the awards you’ve won.  Give them statistics of how your product has preformed.  Get as specific as possible, describing your product’s advantages in tested mathematical terms.  That all represents factual proof.  But human proof is often even more powerful.  List a bunch of testimonials.  Include photos of the people if possible.  Photos dramatically increase the trust factor for readers.  Even include links to the websites of those same people.  For many, it’s the testimonials that end up closing the sale.

Step 7: Close with a call-to-action.

Tell them what to do.  Your readers are in the submissive position.  They are receiving your information.  That’s not an empowering place to be.  Give them direction.  Tell them how to take action.  They will rarely do so on their own.  They’re looking for direction.  That’s why they’ve read through your entire sales sequence.  They’re still reading.  That means they’re interested.  So step up and tell them what to do next.  You’re doing them a favor.  If they’re interested, that means they have the problem your product solves.  So give them the direction they need to take that last step.  Without those final instructions, all your efforts are wasted.

Effective sales copy is at the center of internet marketing.  In most cases, your readers are by themselves when they receive your email or visit your website.  That means they’re making the purchase decision all by themselves.  Your sales copy has to lead them through that process.  It has to give them the information they need to justify the purchase.  And if you’re truly confident in your product, your customers will be thrilled once they receive it.

Anyone who follows their own website traffic statistics is probably aware of their “bounce rate”, the number of people who land on their website and then promptly bounce right back off again.  That’s NOT what you want.  You want people to stick around for a while.  You want people to browse.  You want people to get to know you and learn to trust you.  That’s the objective.

Let’s back up and look at Internet Marketing in general.  At the highest level, all you’re really trying to do is (1) get people to your website and (2) impress them once they get there.  That’s it.  Two steps.  That’s Internet Marketing in a nutshell. I have a whole model devoted to this concept and you can see it by clicking here.

Breaking it down a bit further, you can take the second step and divide it into two pieces.  First, you have to build trust by providing value.  And then you have to monetize that trust.  Now, I’m assuming you’re building a website as part of your business.  I’m assuming you’re trying to make money.  If you’re not, that’s fine.  But for everyone else, there’s no point having a website unless it’s contributing to your business.

Back to the bounce rate.  If your bounce rate is high and most of your visitors are leaving your website shortly after they arrived, you have no way of building trust.  The only way they’ll learn to trust you is if they find value on your site; things that will make their lives better.  So you want a low bounce rate.  And that’s another way of saying that you want a “sticky” website.

The first thing to understand is that people who visit your website are in the submissive position.  They are in a receiving mode.  They have no control over what they see.  You do.  You have the control.  And that’s a huge opportunity that most webmasters never take advantage of.  You can present whatever reality you want and I have a whole blog post devoted at that topic.  It’s called Expand the Frame so check it out.

If someone is in a submissive mode, do you think he or she is likely to make their own proactive decisions?  No.  No, they’re not.  They’re in the receiving mode.  That means you have to tell them what to do at every turn.  Tell them what to do.  Always tell them what to do!  Every single page on your website needs to have options at the bottom, giving the reader ideas of where to go next.

Picture a large tree in the fall; a tree with no leaves on it.  Your homepage is the thick trunk.  Then, it splits off into 4 or 5 big branches.  These are the pages that your homepage directs visitors to.  From there, each branch splits into further branches and further branches, each becoming more narrow than the last.  These are the pages that link off your secondary pages and beyond.

The job of your homepage is to get people into the bowells of your website; into an area that provides value for them.  The job of the secondary pages is to qualify your visitors further and get them into a page that addresses their needs directly.  So the primary options on these various pages should be designed to quickly and easily funnel your website visitors to the pages that speak to them.

But at the end of the branches, on a typical tree, you end up with all the ends of each branch, hanging out in the middle of the air with nowhere to go.  Problem.  Absolutely none of your pages should hang out in the air with nowhere to go.  None.  Each page needs to circle back around to the bowells of the website again.  Read another article.  Schedule an appointment.  Visit our resource center.  Review advanced products.  What ever it is, it has to give your visitors an obvious direction of where to go next.

Tell your visitors where to go.  Tell them what to do.  Tell them where the path is; the path that you designed to introduce them to your business.  Whether you realize it or not, your website is having a conversation with your visitors and you need to think about that conversation and how you want it to unfold.  Then, at the end of every single page, include a link to something you think would follow logically from what they just read.

At the bottom of this post, you’ll see a link where you can subscribe to our free 1-year e-course.  You’ll also see related posts.  Both are designed to keep you on the site; keep you browsing.  The e-course is a free and content-rich program and most of our subscribers link to the page from a blog post.  And the related posts give you an option to keep reading and learn more.  Either way, you’re getting to know the way we do business and with any luck, learning to trust us too.

Take a look at your website.  See where the loose ends are.  Make sure that each page links to somewhere else and funnels your visitors towards what they are looking for.  Done properly, you’ll see your bounce rate go down and your average time on the site go up.  You’ll also see your pages per visit go up.  And sooner or later, you’ll see your revenue go up as well.