Copywriting That Converts - Microconf 2013 - By Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers
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Check out Joanna Wiebe's 32-slide presentation for Microconf 2013, called Copywriting That Converts: How to Sell Without Selling Your Soul. Targeted at startups who want to sell more and see the value of conversion rate optimization. What did the participants think? Follow their thoughts in these tweets: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23microconf&src=hash
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Copywriting That Converts - Microconf 2013 - By Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers
- 18. The “Even If” Clause • Use the “Even If” Clause • A common objection to buying miracle cures – from weight loss programs to training courses – is that people don’t believe in themselves enough. They think, “I can’t learn to be an artist. I’m not creative enough.” Or they tell themselves, “My husband would look at me funny if I told him I wanted to start my own web business. Forget it!” • • Enter the Even If. It normally follows a claim, and it’s a great way to counter any of the previously mentioned objections about believing in oneself.
- 19. Write High-Converting Copy in 2 Minutes or Less… Even If You Can Barely Spell Your Own Name Get Your iPhone Screen Fixed Today – Even If It’s Smashed to Smithereens
- 20. Gap of Curiosity • Yes, this is another tool about curiosity – but never underestimate the power of curiosity. In his seminal paper “The Psychology of Curiosity”, Dr. George Loewenstein (1994) writes that curiosity can be a driving force stronger than economic gain. Think about Pandora, Eve and Lot’s wife, and you’ll recognize just how intriguing not knowing everything yet – or curiosity – can be for people. • Loewenstein contributed something called Information Gap Theory, which holds that an information gap is formed when we come across something new or something that our existing knowledge and previous experiences can’t explain. The information gap is home to curiosity. People want to bridge that gap. • Very large and very small information gaps are not ideal for piquing curiosity. But a manageable information gap – one where bridging the gap is just challenging enough – can be stimulating for people. In copy hacking, same goes. • Here’s how to use this tool. • Introduce an idea, action or concept, and connect it with an unexpected, seemingly unrelated outcome. For example, in a crosshead preceding a chunk of text about how your mobile app makes it easy for busy moms to order healthy dinners from local cooks, you might write, “Your Career Is Making Your Kids Fat, and You Don’t Even Know It.” • Write a few paragraphs… without yet bridging the gap. • Finally bridge the gap. How? By tying your copy back to the crosshead and explaining it. • To truly pique your readers’ curiosity, be sure that you quash their belief that they know the answer to the ‘riddle’. They need to be suspended in a state of curiosity for a short period for this tool to have any real impact. Don’t give the answer away too soon. • This concept is similar to cognitive dissonance, which you may be familiar with. Cognitive dissonance is all about telling people something that is almost impossible for them to believe… but not entirely impossible. People then think there might be a way what you’re claiming is true, and they keep reading in search of proof.
- 21. Your Wife Is More In Love With Your Business Than With You There’s Only 1 Thing You Need to Do to Double Your Business
- 23. You Can’t Be Expected to Grow Sales Every Month – Not With So Many Hats to Wear
- 24. Use Word Pictures NOT BUT Figure out how Crack the code How to make more sales online 5 steps to skyrocket your online sales There’s no substitute for a stress-free life Make the pampered white Persian next door envy your life Proof from customers that [product name] works The gun’s still smoking for these [product name] masters Thousands have felt rejuvenated with [product name] [Product name] is a hungry leach, sucking up your body’s toxins and swallowing them deep down If your prospects think something is a mystery, position your solution as a way to “crack the code” or as the “decoder ring” they’ve been waiting for. Create an image with your words alone that gets the visitor to picture themselves climbing up the ivory tower in the dark and slipping the admission letter on the top of the pile. Create an image with your words alone that turns your solution into a golden key, releasing America’s best and brightest from the shackles of the traditional admissions process. See what I mean? Starting to see the word pictures? You can only do this on long-form pages! Short copy readers wouldn’t stand for it. But long copy readers are engaged by it. They need striking visuals. Word pictures help sell them.
- 25. Find Out How to Speak to Your Website’s Visitors vs Decode the Secret Language of Your Website’s Visitors
- 26. The 3D Rule • I’m sure there’s someone out there who deserves credit for naming this rule, but I learned it so long ago, I have no idea to whom to attribute it. Anyway, the 3D Rule is simply this: message your incentive in at least 3 different ways. • • So let’s say you’ve decided to offer a bonus baseball cap and a free upgrade to the premium version to people who subscribe to your web design course. You know you need to position each of those incentives in at least 3 compelling ways, so you write a crosshead and body copy like so: • • * * * * * • • The various ways you can position your incentive include: • • The straightforward way: Save $200 Today • Illuminating the hidden benefits of the incentive • Messaging the benefit of silly tchotchke and the name of amazing bonuses • Showing all the components of the incentive (to improve the sense of value) • Twisting it to show it in a new light • Comparing it to what it’s “like” getting
- 27. Does the stress of your student loan wake you at night? …Does your student loan stress give you deep, intense headaches? …Is your student loan one of the biggest worries in your life?
Editor's Notes
- Intro moi – take time Say what talking about: my talk will keep you out of hell. How many people can say that? Start with 2 quotes – the foundation of why you need to care about this convo today… plus one final quote to end [read] Summary: you have a key challenge: lack of sales. You’re not selling things. Why might that be?
- This is why startups go out of business. (In addition to poor product market fit and no USP.)
- So let’s talk today about [read] WHY AM I THE RIGHT ONE TO TALK ABOUT THIS? WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? Reason to talk about it: your biz success – and everything wrapped up in it, plus the dependencies in your life (if this isn’t a vanity project) – all hinges on moving units or getting installs for apps or selling more monthly subscriptions or getting people to stay subscribed or getting them to tell other people Are you actively or passively selling? Do you think selling is what comes out of marketing, so you just need to market in the first place? Today, we need to address the question of whether or not your soul – and integrity – goes straight to pot the second you let yourself actually consciously aggressively SELL
- You’ve been SOLD on an idea of what selling is You’ve been SOLD on the idea that used car salesmen are the epitome of sales… or skeazy Frank Kern infomarketers are the epitome of digital marketers Here are some of the reasons the role of salesperson – though critical to every growing business – is undervalued: No education required Any huckster can do it Aggressive salespeople make you feel bad about wanting to buy what they’re selling Your mom wouldn’t be proud of a salesman son or daughter They’re only necessary for bad products – if your product’s good, it can sell itself
- But who else is using similar sales tactics…?
- …… what can we learn from this?
- … let’s talk about 5 approaches to increasing your sales without feeling like a scam artist. Because you’re not a scam artist. And you ARE allowed to sell your products and services to people who will value what they bring. 5 approaches. 5 tactics. 5 obvious starting points that you may be ready to tackle differently than you’ve tried to before. BUT FIRST! < explain testing we’ve done, performance of my copy >
- BEFORE WE GET INTO TACTICS, explain that I’m NOT interested in telling you how guy in X industry with Y audience made Z change… so you should make Z change, too. There are studies and tests behind all of what’s about to follow, and I may accidentally drop numbers as a force of habit – given that people are so reluctant to take in information without proof (even though the proof is in YOUR test).
- These are the 5 obvious places to start for increasing the number of units you sell. People will look for free – which means you don’t have to lead with it. When you give something away: People devalue it Unlikely to use it Unlikely to recommend it Dropbox had a monetization strategy – so, like a drug lord, they gave away their product Mailchimp charged for 8 years before it introduced a free product Do follow-up emails with customers Build a list and send sales emails to them Send the sales emails Don’t think about unsubscribe rates – an unsub is amazing! It’s people telling you that they don’t want to buy from you. K, fine. Don’t. But get off my list then. Don’t worry about open rates so much Think of your subscribers as $3 Drive sales emails to long-form sales pages Length is strength! For every person who rolls their eyes at a long email or long page, there’s another person who actually reads that page BE SUCCINCT WITH YOUR ANSWER. BE WORDY WITH THEIR QUESTION. If you're asked a question, answer it briefly and then move on. Remember: This isn't about you; it's about whether you're right for them . Test button copy Test headlines
- STOP. BEING. PASSIVE. Stop being passive about sales.
- Apple does this. There’s not a lot that Apple does in copywriting that I think startups can apply… but this is one thing they do very well. The basic rule is this: go through your copy, and pull out all mentions of the word We, Our, I, My, Mine, etc. Those words should not be the words you default to when writing. The advanced rule goes beyond the basics. Instead of just stripping We out, rewrite everything to begin with You or Your. EVERYTHING. You can pull back from there. But, if you start with You, you can be pretty sure you’re talking about something your prospect will READ.
- The idea here is to take 2 seemingly incongruent ideas and combine them in a sentence using the words Even If. Write High-Converting Copy in 2 Minutes or Less… Even If You Can Barely Spell Your Own Name (INCLUDE AUDIENCE: One person takes a slip of paper from one hat. One from the other. I read: “Learn to Program in Ruby on Rails… Even If
- Curiosity is a driving force that’s often stronger than economic gain. Think Pandora’s Box. Think Eve. Think Lot’s wife turning back even with God threatening her. NOT KNOWING EVERYTHING YET is intriguing for people. Which means we can lure them into our sales copy with curiosity. This goes back to George Loewenstein’s Information Gap Theory: a info gap is created when we come across something new / something our existing knowledge and previous experiences can’t explain. This info gap is where curiosity lives. We want to bridge the gap – a manageably-sized one (not too big, not too small). We can’t leave something alone until the gap has been bridged. (And that’s close to the Zeigarnik Effect, where we need to complete tasks we’ve started.) Here’s how to use the Gap of Curosity in your sales writing. Your Career Is Making Your Kids Fat… And You Don’t Even Know It You’re Worried About Money… As If You Don’t Realize You’re Sitting on a Goldmine After a headline like that, you’d continue writing without bridging the gap. Then, finally, bring it together. You don’t want to give the answer away right away. You want to help lure the reader in – and get them to agree with you and want more from you – before you bridge the gap and give the answer away. This is different from the Even If clause in that the second clause here is unexpected and seemingly unrelated. For Even If clauses, the second clause should be related to the first. (BTW, every headline you write should be at least as interesting as that one. It’s a challenge to you – a not insurmountable one.)
- You Can’t Be Expected to Grow Sales Every Month – You Have Far Too Much Work to Do! People keep putting obstacles in your way. You’ve got to worry about traffic and demand gen – which leaves you with no time to optimize your site. Especially since all the good tests require design, and you don’t have the money to outsource another random idea to a designer. Especially not if you want to get your new product out and maybe – just maybe – see your spouse sometime this year. You’re doing everything you can. It’s the world that’s making it hard for. Circumstances well beyond your control. If you’re not getting a lot of copywriting help out of this presentation – don’t worry. It’s not your fault. The world is against you. Once you get people to believe that you get them – and that everything they’re doing is okay – you can convince them off almost anything.
- NOT Find out how to persuade VCs BUT Decode the secret language of VCs Crack the code! Suss out how to speak the secret language of VCs (FOR POSITIONING A PRODUCT) NOT Get a book every week for life (FOR POSITIONING A PRODUCT) BUT “ Dr. Elliott’s Five Foot Shelf of Books”. This was the way Harvard Classics positioned their book collection on a sales page that became one of the most legendary. If you’re having trouble being creative – dreaming up imaginative ways to say something – get out of your head. Stop dreaming things up. You’re not creating; you’re using meaningful word pictures that already exist, but you’re using them to your benefit. So use thematic language you’re already familiar with: choose a theme, like wizardry, and list out some phrases used in the wizard world. Some verbs. Some specific thematic language. Then comb through your copy and replace ho-hum phrases (every so often) with powerful thematic word pictures.
- In your copy, don’t ask one question one time. Ask 1 question three different ways. (This also leverages the momentum of yes.) - Does your student loan stress wake you at night? Does your student loan stress give you headaches? Is your student loan one of the biggest worries in your life? In your copy, don’t position your offer one way. Position it three different ways. - Save 30% before August 26. Get 30% - that’s $40 dollars! – off, but only for a limited time. For the next 5 days only, YOU can KEEP an extra 40 of your hard-earned dollars – and we won’t be offering a deal like this agin anytime this year.
- Test or use these in all your copy efforts for the next 6 months. Do it so much, you get bored of doing it. Get sick of it. Worry that people will start to notice and question your sanity. Overdo it. You won’t be believable unless you believe it yourself Make yourself uncomfortable! You can’t catch the big fish by sitting on the dock. Get out in the rocky waters where your time spent will actually pay off!
- Additionally, a sales lesson I’ve learned with Copy Hackers if no where else: bundle it. Then quantify how much they get and how much it’s worth. Sell things in bulk! Quantify just how much the customer will get, and do so in an unusual, high-impact way, as in the case of Use membership levels! Sell only one level on the page, but talk about the various levels you offer. The more levels there are under the one you’re selling, the more intriguing and valuable the level you’re selling seems. But be careful! Don’t write so much about other levels that you get people thinking they ought to search for your site and downgrade to your entry-level product there. Change your product’s name! Joe Sugarman famously took what was called a “miniature walkie-talkie” and, recognizing the value of CB radios at the time, renamed it “Pocket CB” – and sold over a quarter of a million of ‘em at nearly $40 each. Make a limited number! The more scarce your product is, the more desirable it is. It’s basic economics… and the reasoning behind numbered prints in the art world. So, if you can, limit the number of products you release, and use that in your messaging to drive greater desire to be one of the few who get to buy your product.