All Posts Tagged Tag: ‘Persuasion Architecture’
Marketing to women
Not a new book but it contains some timeless wisdom if you’re trying to appeal to women customers. Here’s the title: “EVEolution – The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women.” The book suggests that women:
influence the purchase of over 80% of consumer goods
influence 80% of health-care decisions
buy 50% of all automobiles sold, and play a role in influencing the purchase of 30% more
40% of households with assets of more that $600,000 are headed by women
start new businesses at twice the rate of men (!)
EVEolution is all about marketing to women. Here’s the book in the nutshell: Women are different and they have money. The book gives 8 Truths of Marketing to Women. Here’s a short summary to help you take advantage of trends in society…
Get customers to buy faster
A good copywriting sales letter is one that builds instant rapport with the right audience. I really think that being able to build rapport is key. Without it you won’t be able to sell your product or service no matter how hard you try.
You won’t be able to build rapport with your reader unless you first learn about their dominant emotions, beliefs and thought patterns. Don’t try to challenge, argue or oppose them. You will probably fail if you do that. Nobody wants to be proved wrong and your clients don’t care about your opinion.
Simply agree. That’s right, just acknowledge their problem. If you do this right you should get instant credibility with your reader because, let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to influence someone IF you can first demonstrate that you totally understand their pain, problems, goals, frustrations.
Read MoreHow to write a winning sales letter
“Tell me quick,
And tell me true;
Otherwise sir,
To hell with you.”
This old marketing axiom can help turn an otherwise mediocre sales letter into a winning sales letter with very little effort.
What it means is that your sales letter needs to get to the point quickly. A winning sales letter gets to the point at once; a losing sales letter is packed with meaningless adjectives, hyperbole and worn-out industry clichés. In other words FLUFF.
If your copywriting sales letters fail to produce incredible results then chances are you need to DE-FLUFF your copywriting.
I show you how below…
Read MoreGive your clients some ‘eye-relief’ …
Here’s a simple way to improve your sales letter conversions… simply spruce up your subheads. It goes without saying that the reason why many people don’t buy from you is because they lose interest and stop reading the sales letter half way through. They click away. Now a good subhead can make people stay on your sales page a little while longer…
In case you’re wondering, subheads are those bolded and oversized sentences you use to break up large blocks of text. Copywriting master Clayton Makepeace explains why you should use them:
“To give the prospect “eye-relief,” because reading large blocks of text without a subhead can be intimidating and straining.”
The problem is that your online clients are impatient with anything they can’t skim. So, many will want to skim right through your copywriting and if nothing hooks their attention then they will probably miss your biggest arguments and maybe even skip your offer. Intriguing and benefit-laden subheads are like little stop signs that will keep more people interested in reading on… and hopefully making a purchase.
Read MoreHow to handle negative press – a secret formula from the White House!
Donald Trump is making the headlines again and it’s not because of his incredible hair, his lavish lifestyle or even his ultra-bright neckties…
Apparently he’s on a mission to uncover President Obama’s birth certificate. Or, to prove that he doesn’t have one!
No kidding. At first I thought it was a joke but if you Google ‘donald trump obama’ or something along those lines you’ll realise that this is no laughing matter.
That got me thinking… Does Obama even have a birth certificate?
Was he born in Hawaii or Kenya or maybe in Afghanistan?
Was he circumcised? OK, let’s not go there…
Personally, I don’t care. I might be just a little suspicious. That’s all. Why hasn’t he produced his birth certificate to put that seemingly ridiculous question to rest? It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out. What’s interesting, I think, is how Obama responds to Trump’s challenge of producing his birth certificate. Nope, he still doesn’t show his birth certificate…
Read MoreControversial rapper pitches ice tea
How do you get a celebrity rapper like Eminem to advertise your brand? Frankly, I have no idea. But somehow Lipton has figured a way. They persuaded the world’s most controversial rapper to star in their Lipton Brisk ad.
Brisk video commercial is receiving rave reviews on YouTube and nearly 400K people on Facebook like the ad. It’s interesting how they got those ‘likes’ … Here’s how. The page says…
“Tell us your Brisk story in 110 characters or less for a chance to win prizes or even have your story animated as a brisk puppet that looks like you.”
All you have to do is click the ‘like’ button to get started! Sounds like an irresistible offer, doesn’t it? Well, nearly four-hundred thousand people got hooked and clicked the like button.
But there’s is more to this commercial as it offers many interesting marketing lessons in connecting with your marketplace using clever story-telling…
Read MoreWhat women like best about online shopping
I take poll and survey results with a grain of salt. They are not always accurate or consistent. Still, they can arm you with some insight if you can read between the lines.
If you’re trying to better understand your online consumer then the following ‘finding’ could shine some light on the matter. Considering that women are behind the majority of buying decision then what BlogHer and Create With Context discovered is something to think about…
Apparently they polled women in 10 big U.S. cities, and found that the top-ranked reasons for what women want when shopping online are as follows…
Let’s consider each one individually…
Read MoreShort vs long copy – the winner is…
It seems that the ‘long vs. short’ copy is more alive than ever. First, we have those who argue they’d never bother reading long copy. Then there are those advertising legends and copywriting masters who swear long copy works best.
Personally, I think your sales copy needs to be able to ‘romance’ your readers long enough for them to trust you and feel confident and excited about taking the action you ask them to take.
Legendary copywriter, Clayton Makepeace, says this: “So long as you’re speaking to the prospect’s self interest … so long as you’re deftly stroking his dominant emotions about the subject at hand … and so long as the copy is clear, concise, even fun to read, he’s going to stay with you.”
Keep in mind that when people read your sales copy they do so because the headline has hooked their interest and attention. The lead has KEPT their interest and what they want to do is find out more to make a decision. It makes sense to give them every possible reason WHY they should buy from you.
Chances are that you won’t be able to do that with a page or two… unless you make a totally irresistible offer nobody else makes for a product everybody wants. But, even then, you’d still need to prove your credibility, claims, and so on. After all, when it comes to spending money people are more careful and sceptical then ever before.
I’m going to give you several insights from some of the most knowledgeable and respected copywriters, combined with my own perspective, so you can once and for all understand the best copy to use to help you maximize sales and improve click throughs and conversions…
Read MoreWhat headlines are likely to work in 2011
Producing headlines that work isn’t easy. Yet, as all copywriting legends agree it is THE most important element of your copywriting. Let me pull out some quotes here for you on the subject…
A legend in advertising, David Ogilvy, said “On average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sell your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.”
Another master copywriter, John Caples (a creator of the classic “They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano”) said: “What decides whether or not you stop a moment and look at an advertisement, or even read a little of it? The headlines”.
In his classic, Breakthrough Advertising, Gene Schwartz says: “You have only one glance of the reader’s eye to stop him. He is preoccupied he is not looking for your product or your message — the span of his attention will admit only one thought to penetrate his indifference during that glance.”
Using powerful headlines is important to your click-throughs, conversions and sales. The question is what headlines are likely to work in 2011 and what ones you should stay away from…
Read MoreHow men and women buy…
Women don’t buy the way us guys do.
Their buying experience ‘voyage’ may in fact look like this:
Why would a female spend over three hours LONGER than a male to arrive at exactly the same destination (and to make things worse…) with a maxed out plastic!?