Calls-To-Action: Making Them Fit Makes All the Difference
January 31, 2007
It was going so well, so what happened? Many copywriters get off to a wonderful start: The headline is compelling, the body copy is benefit-filled, but then comes the call-to-action and the whole thing falls apart. Why? It could be a dozen different reasons, but one of the most common I’ve seen is that the call-to-action doesn’t fit the target audience.
Call-to-action statements (those final words that inspire your customers to take an action - usually to make a purchase) are not universal. Just like your headline, your sub-heads, and your body copy, calls-to-action need to be as specific as possible. They need to "match" the style of your audience.
To me, an effective call-to-action is more than just the simple "order today" or "click here now" phrase. Yes, those play a part, but it takes more than that to motivate buyers.
Let’s look at an example or two of powerful calls-to-action and see what makes them tick.
Langtry Manor (http://www.langtrymanor.co.uk/weddings.htm)
This site represents an old English manor that is available for (among other things) weddings and receptions. Their branding positions them as a very upscale, exclusive, highly sought after location for brides around the world to be married.
Writing Made Them Rich #4: Paulo Coelho
January 31, 2007
Paulo Coelho was born on August 24th 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
At age 17 he announced his intention to be a writer. It was a decision bitterly opposed by his parents, partly because Brazil at that time was under a military junta that persecuted writers and intellectuals.
Coelho’s rebellious behaviour led his parents to have him confined to a mental hospital in Rio de Janeiro where he received shock treatment. He escaped - and was returned - three times.
With the arrival of the 1960’s Coelho threw himself energetically into the counterculture of drugs and rock-and-roll.
In his 20’s he fulfilled his ambition to be a writer and worked as a playwright, a theatre director, a journalist, and a song-writer for Brazilian pop music stars such as Elis Regina and Raul Seixas.
In 1974, says Coelho “my life collapsed”.
That year he was arrested three times, the first time as an innocent bystander at a bank robbery, the second time for speaking out against the establishment at a pop concert. After being released by the police he was arrested a third time by paramilitaries who tortured him for a week.
To Tell If You Are A Literary Snob
January 31, 2007
“I don’t know if I should put ‘writer’ on my business card,” I murmured.
“Then don’t,” my wife said in her infinite wisdom. “Put ‘author’ on it.”
“But if I put ‘author’ on, none of those big companies with overflowing coffers will want to hire me as a writer,” I said, wondering if George Bush needed a speechwriter or if General Motors wanted someone to write the owner’s manual for next year’s Oldsmobile.
“Fine. Put ‘writer’ on your card then, and all those fancy people you give it to will know you can write for them.”
“But writer looks so small,” I pointed out. “I also want Fortune 500 companies to hire me as a speaker, and nobody important hires a writer to speak. They hire authors.”
“OK, why don’t you put both?” she offered.
“Ho, right. That’ll impress them. A writer who can’t even write his own business card with duplicating his redundancies,” I said. “I might as well shoot myself with my own sword.”
Get An Attitude About Your Writing
January 30, 2007
(This excerpt is taken from my new writing workshop Writing To Sell In the Internet Age.)
Writer John Clausen, in his excellent book about freelance writing: Too Lazy To Work, Too Nervous To Steal, recommends that you get an attitude about your work. And he’s right.
Many writers are submissive. This attitude brings out the worst in others. It leads to people in a position to pay you for your work taking massive advantage of you, because they figure that you’re not going to do anything about it.
Heck, it leads to business people — editors, publishers and anyone who hires writers — taking advantage of writers in general. So, while you’re standing up for yourself, tell yourself that you’re standing up for writers everywhere. Because you are.
Getting an attitude doesn’t mean that you are rude or aggressive. You should be completely polite and professional at all times. However, you do need to be assertive. And to believe in yourself.
As Clausen rightly points out, whenever someone hires you to write something, or buys from you, they want to believe that they’re hiring and buying the best they can afford. Who will believe that you’re good if you don’t?
20 Ways Posting Unique Articles Online will Bring You Fame and Fortune
January 30, 2007
You’re Invited… Visualize your article going out like a party invitation
The implied message: “If you like this, come on back to my website to see what else I’ve got to show you.”
People who read articles online scan for information of interest. Articles with a fun or warm person-to-person approach have an edge that a purely mental message can’t match. Novelty, humor, and wit are hard resist. Intangibles (novel point of view, personality, depth of knowledge) are more appealing than the information itself.
Readers who follow your link are willing to give your website a chance. They wonder if they’ll find lots more of whatever they liked about your article. Success with article marketing depends on how consistently your personality shows through.
Anyone who’s spent time online knows there are a zillion places to buy any product or service. An enterprise stands out by being unique and relevant. When the website navigation and copy are carefully designed, the article reader could become a repeat visitor or buyer.
Article marketing is a five-step process to get your message out
1. What can you say that’s interesting, original, and uniquely yours?
5 Easy Steps To Writing Your Appealing Letter
January 30, 2007
You must write a hypnotic persuasion letter to help you achieve all your goals! Get the boss to give your a raise, induce that beautiful blue-eyed girl to be your lover and persuade your mother to buy a BMW Z3 for you this summer.
Give me twenty minutes and I’ll teach you step-by-step my secret writing your own success system. If you follow this 5 steps formula of writing, you’ll never fail in this age of persuasion. Keep reading!
My 5-step formula consists of
Let me explain it to you step by step!
1. Find Your Goal and Purpose for Writing
Every success begins with a simple goal which includes hypnotic writing. You should come up with your main goal for writing. SUCCESS=GOAL+DEADLINE. Once you set your writing goal in your mind, you’ll know the path to success. You must hold that point when you want to really achieve something valuable. Please see the example below.
Bad: I just write.
Good: I want to write this letter to persuade Joe to give me a book for free!
Publish Articles Online: Start With Your Own ezine
January 29, 2007
So, you want to publish articles online? It’s really quite simple, and it’s a great way to promote yourself or your product. But where do you begin? This is actually quite simple too. I started in the online publishing business about a year and a half ago. I read about how a person could make pretty good money by selling information on the Internet, and I had some good information to share.
So, I wrote an eBook, Winning the Mortgage Game, put up a website, and I was ready to sell my book. With my product in place and my website up, I expected orders to come rolling in. It didn’t happen. The problem was no one other than me and a few friends knew my website and product existed. I needed visitors to my site — traffic, and I needed it fast. So, a little more research and a key service acquisition solved my problems. I got myself an autoresponder, an e-mail service that automatically sends e-mails, on dates that you program. It sounds more difficult than it really is.
Article Marketing 202 — Creating a Viral Lead-Generating Machine
January 29, 2007
There is a simple system for creating a viral lead-generating machine. You can follow this system whether you have been marketing for years or for one day.
The simple system that will create a viral lead-generating machine has only three steps:
Step 1: Write and publish articles
Step 2: Distribute articles
Step 3: Articles continue to be distributed virally
This really is the best way for you to promote your business. I promote my business exclusively through article writing and publishing.
The secret of this system is to write a useful, high-content article and send it to your ezine or marketing list and publish it on your website.
You increase readership and traffic by sending your articles to article distribution lists and ezine directories. These directories exist for ezine owners and website owners to pick up free reprintable content to use in their ezine or on their website.
This helps you, because if your article is picked up and distributed by 10 ezine owners who each have 1000 people in their list, your article will be sent to 10 000 people!
3 Steps To Better Sales Copywriting
January 29, 2007
Whether you’re wet-behind-the-ears or a seasoned copywriter, your craft will benefit by remembering one thing:
You’re nothing more than a salesperson.
There’s an old saying in the "business" that, "a copywriter is a salesperson sitting in front of a typewriter." True, few of us are using typewriters these days. The principal, however, remains unchanged.
We’re in sales. I know this. You know this. We all know this. Yet why does much of the copy out there, especially ads produced by expensive agencies, seem to miss the point?
If all we’re doing is sales, albeit transmitted through a written or broadcast medium, then we’d better know what we’re doing.
Starting the process
While studying creative writing, I learned this storytelling maxim: every character has a motive for being in a scene. The same is true in a sales situation.
The salesperson’s motive is simple. He wants to make the sale and get his commission. But what does the potential customer want?
First, what type of customer are they? Are they ready to make an immediate buy? Are they information shopping, looking for a great deal? Are they even looking for our product or service?
Writing for Local Veterinary Hospitals
January 28, 2007
Freelance writer STANLEY BURKHARDT has a passion for animals. He loves animals so much, he crafted himself a new career. For the last eight years, Stanley has made a career out of writing for local veterinary hospitals — and getting paid for it.
Burkhardt admits, “I am probably the first writer you have met who has written for veterinary hospitals. My opinion is that many writers don’t see the profit or work potential in writing for vet hospitals, and don’t attempt to secure work from this industry. The other reason is that writers try many approaches to secure work in this industry and fail.”
Burkhardt has overcome these obstacles, and many more. Now he’s ready to spill his secrets. He has penned an ebook, “Profiting on Puppy Love & Cat Care: A Freelance Writer’s Guide to Writing for Local Veterinary Hospitals & Practices,” in which he shows writers how they can craft a career out of writing for local veterinary hospitals, just like he has done.
Burkhardt says, “I think it’s important to know that I had no experience or knowledge writing for the vet industry, when I first started out.” If you harbor a deep love for animals and enjoy writing and researching, Burkhardt says you are already "halfway there to breaking into this industry."
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