Why copywriting will be more important than ever in 2011

OK – as a copywriter, I’m biased. I’m always going to think of copywriting as more important than other parts of the advertising/marketing equation. I have to!

So why did I read on another blog written by a non writer that content and copywriting will be more important than ever?

Let’s step back and take a look at the science. According to Will Swayne, one of my clients, Google Adwords conversion is harder than ever: for one client, the cost per click of pay per click is up 800 per cent in five years. Ouch! Very ouch!

The increase in PPC and the increasing difficulty getting organic search results places added pressure on conversion. If you get someone to your website, it’s vital to increase conversion. And it’s more important than ever in the current economic climate.

Copy on a website is a conversation between the business and a prospective client or customer. Imagine yourself having a sales conversation with a customer that goes something like this…

“This is what we do…we make widgets. They’re really good and they come in red, blue, green, and yellow.”

Any salesperson would be fired for this type of shoddy salesmanship. Yet most copy I read is like the statement above.

Successful, high converting copy on a website is like having the best salesperson on the planet selling for you.

One more thing…make the copy readable. Copy that’s hard to read is the same as having a salesperson who mumbles.

Here’s a great example of a superb sales website…I didn’t write the copy but I help this client with copy for their clients.

Here’s a landing page that’s getting 80 per cent click through. I wrote the copy for this one.

In 2011, make your copy read like a successful sales conversation between a top sales performer and a potential client/customer. How? Use proven direct response copywriting techniques.

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I’m a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, N.C. My website is here.

Copywriter updates website every day

Got my new website up and running and that’s exciting. Before, I made the mistake of simply letting my website sit there. Now, every day, one of my commitments is to update, tweak, and, most importantly, add new content. It might be a quick review of a page to make a few quick changes or it could be creating a new page with a new special report or white paper.

Keeping website content fresh is vital for new visitors and it never hurts for search. It’s also a great excuse to visit the social media sites to say…just added this new content to my site…go look at it now.

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I’m a copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. My website is here. Contact me here.

New copywriting site live

About 10 months ago, David Brooks reorganized my copywriting site and he did a great job. I’ve added to my portfolio and made some changes to my copywriting services so I reorganized my direct response copywriting site.

The new site is here.

Still some tweaking required but I’m happy with it.

Of course, what I think is mostly irrelevant! Will it help me achieve what a website MUST achieve? The site follows as many of the rules of direct marketing as applied to websites.

I’ve written, in this blog among other spots, that if you put a group of the best direct marketers in a room and ask them to critique each other’s work, the marketers will implement the recommended changes. Every serious direct marketer is constantly striving to get more response.

Take a look at my site and if you have tweaks you think you I should make, contact me and, for your time, I’ll send you a new special report I just published…Eight Ways to Keep Visitors Glued to Your Website.

If you’re looking for a great direct marketer, go to Rome

Every copywriter, every direct marketer, can learn something from the young American woman in Rome…

I was fortunate to visit Rome several years ago. On the last day of the visit, I went to the Colesseum then across the road to…well…it’s not really a site like the Colesseum but more of a collection of ruins, rocks, and tourists like me who were wandering around trying to sort through the rubble. It’s essentially the site of ancient Roman politics. It think it was the Parco di Traiano perhaps…anyway…it was a bunch of rocks and pillars to me!

As I was wandering around cluelessly, starting to think about dinner, a young woman came up and said that she would make a 15-minute free presentation explaining what went on here. She gathered quite a group, about 200, in fact.

Speaking eloquently to the group in front of one of the more distinguishable ruins, she brought the place to life, telling us about the ancient Roman politicians and even performing some Shakespeare…Caesar’s speech just before he got done in, I think. This ‘freebie’ was brilliant and you could have heard a pin drop when she was speaking.

Just before the end of the presentation, she said, “Tomorrow, I’m giving a tour of St. Peter’s and I’m going to show you places not on the normal tours and I’m going to tell you about the artists, many of whom were tortured souls who gave everything for their art…and the tour is just $30 and it’s limited to just 20 people. Come see me now. It’s first-come, first-served.”

If I hadn’t been leaving the next day, I would have paid the fee.

Looking back on this, what great marketing!

She went to a target-rich environment…hundreds of clueless tourists wandering around aimlessly wanting to know more…

She provided salient FREE information…what on earth are all these ruins?

Her presentation was totally flawless and she provided great information…it was a SHOW! You definitely wanted more.

And then her sales pitch for the “upsell” was perfect. Good price point. Exclusivity. More great information. Tease…BUY NOW!

It was textbook.

What can we learn?

If you’re not getting a lot of people who want your information (or what you have to offer) to your website, get them through old-fashioned badgering, search, adwords, whatever. Provide some free information to prove what you have to offer is good/great and satisfies a need. Then provide the next step, preferably with some exclusivity.

I don’t know if that young woman is there today but I’d like to take her tour of St. Peter’s.

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My new website, by hook or by crook, goes live tomorrow. For now, go to my Krop portfolio here.

Copywriter stops talking and…writes!

Had the pleasure of speaking today at a direct mail boot camp Scott Concannon of PCI Group put on today here in Charlotte. Instead of simply talking about direct response copywriting, I conducted an experiment, trying to WRITE the copy for a direct response letter in about 20 minutes. I asked for a volunteer from the audience then wrote, or at least started to write, a direct a letter to sell their service.

I spent the first ten minutes asking the volunteer some questions (the research) then wrote a headline, the PS, then some benefits. I think it was a much more useful exercise than simply talking about copy. I was a bit overambitious so next time I speak, I’ll take an existing letter and dissect it but I know actually writing the copy was better than simply babbling on.

My goal was to get the audience members to look into the head of a direct response copywriter. Yes…I know that’s a dangerous place to be but the audience seemed to enjoy the adventure.

Every person who attended got a copy of my personal direct response copywriting checklist. If you’d like it, leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

Some serious direct marketing people were in the room and it was great to see them nodding their heads in agreement with everything I said. There’s little that’s really new in direct response…we all simply do what’s worked before.

Books for the copywriter

I’ve always got books about direct response copywriting and marketing around. Two I’m diving into right now.

2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success: The Pros Tell You Their Time-Proven Secrets. By Denny Hatch and Don Jackson.

One day on The Golf Channel, the powers-that-be decided to have the top 5 golf teachers on the show at the same time. Mistake. They have big egos and were all talking at the same time and all have different approaches. I was worried this book would be a big mish-mash of direct response techniques and thus be confusing.

I could not have been more mistaken.

While there are well over five ways to teach golf, all of them proven, there’s only one way to get direct response right…follow the same proven techniques. So this book buttresses all of these. The copy chapter beginning on page 72 is especially brilliant…a superb digest of techniques from the best.

The book is also good because it provides a good road map for the parts of the direct response universe I rarely visit…lists…sweepstakes…graphic design…back-end marketing…etc.

I’m enjoying this now and I’ll be dipping into it more.

I’m also dipping into Perfect Phrases for Sales and Marketing Copy by Barry Callen. There are some good ideas in this book but I’m not sure I agree with the notion on page 161 that a headline on a sales letter is optional. There’s not a lot of pure direct response in this book. One book always open on my desk is Dan Kennedy’s The Ultimate Sales Letter. It has the ugliest cover of any book I’ve seen but it’s tough to beat the content…especially the headline templates on pages 42-47.

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I’m rebuilding my site to help me sell more. In the interim, here’s my Krop portfolio.

I specialize in the clinical and creative execution of proven direct response copywriting techniques to make the reader pull out their credit card, write a check, hand over hard-earned cash, and happily provide their email address and additional valuable data.

Why a copywriter is a must

I’ve been working with new client…a pure direct response marketing agency. They are great…more about them in a later blog. Something they said in a training video…EVERY WEBSITE PAGE MUST SELL WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER.

It seems obvious but few web sites do this…

Ask a marketing executive or business owner this question…”do you believe every page of your web site should sell what you offer?” I think the answer would be, “DUH…yes!”

But very few companies hire a writer to write pure sales copy (direct response copywriting) for any of their pages. These companies are losing money as I write.

When you want your website to sell what you have to offer, hire a direct response copywriter, who will…

• Keep potential clients and customers on your site
• Make them take the next step in the sales process
• Explain the benefits of your product or service
• Answer the most important question the customer is asking, ‘what’s in it for me?’
• Help you sell more…

The investment is always a good one when you hire a direct response copywriter…

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I’m rebuilding my site to help me sell more. In the interim, here’s my Krop portfolio.

I specialize in the clinical and creative execution of proven direct response copywriting techniques to make the reader pull out their credit card, write a check, hand over hard-earned cash, and happily provide their email address and additional valuable data.

Copywriter listens to advice from fellow direct response professional

This morning, I met with a client to go over some copy. My client also works with Chestin Salisbury who attended my April marketing boot camp and is a direct marketing expert. Earlier in the week, I asked Chestin to take a look at my YouTube video. He liked it but said I was missing something…AN OFFER! It’s such a basic direct marketing ingredient yet I totally forgot it…so I’ll be reorganizing my video to include an irresistible offer.

When someone who really knows what he/she is doing offers advice, are you willing to listen? I am. Are you willing to do what it takes to put the advice into action? I am. It’s what success is all about, especially today.

I was listening to a Dan Kennedy podcast the other day and it reminded me of something extremely important…look at what successful people do then do what they do. It’s easier said than done I know but the road map is always there.

I’m a direct response copywriter. Here’s my current website. Here’s Chestin’s site…one of them!

UPDATE…just got a ton of feedback from a direct response fanatic who contacted me through Elance. I agreed with all his feedback and will start to make the necessary changes…a direct response copywriter MUST have all the boxes checked when it comes to marketing.

Copywriter almost spills coffee…or (the) beans

Periodically I like to spend an afternoon writing in the coffee shop. Today, it was crowded and I was sitting next to a couple of guys around my age (24.5).

Well…you know how it is…you overhear the conversation…they were producing a web page for a seminar and were writing the copy. Some of the conversation…

“Let’s give it some punch.”

“Cute but not too cute.”

“Let’s make it just like the names of the softball teams when I was in law school.”

“I want to make it appealing.”

“It has to jump out at people.”

As a direct response copywriter, I was tempted to join the conversation. I might have earned a cup of coffee. I would have said, “use the type of headline that’s worked before.”

Better still, they should have hired a professional copywriter.

The clinical execution of direct response copywriting techniques is what they needed.

They were running a seminar for lawyers. I imagine the seminar cost around $500. Let’s say they hired a copywriter for the landing page and it helped them get two more people to attend…great copywriting is ALWAYS a great investment.

For my copywriting site, go here. For my portfolio, go here.

Two new copywriting projects

A couple of recent direct response copywriting projects came out well. A squeeze page for a company in Worcester, England. And a local roofing company.

Direct response copy for a local roofing company; click for larger version.

You should have seen what this squeeze page looked like before the total makeover.

For my copywriting site, go here. For my portfolio, go here. To see me on YouTube, go here.