1. Let’s say you run a little 10 cm x 3 column ad each week. It’ll be costing you around $2000 a month.  That’s around two grand a month, to hopefully reach the 120 or 200 people who might be looking for your carpet products and services that week.
2. Your ad this week won’t reach people who decide to do their carpet in three month’s time, or next year, so you have to run your ad every week to make sure you have all your bases covered.
3. How about if you cut the size of your ad in half? I can hear the cries:?You won’t be able to fit all your advertising in an ad half the size, right?

Wrong. You only need a smart headline to get their attention, maybe a photo, your logo and contact details . . . invite them to call you if they want to speak with you personally, and most importantly of all – invite them to your website.

Your 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week website. In full colour. With all the bells and whistles. And with interactivity.

You can actually serve your customers while you’re asleep. You can show them your wares. Or they can check you out from the comfort of their own home, when it suits them.

With your advertising now cut to only $1000, you can really afford a great website. Grab your share of Top 10 in Google and get more business through your door.

No matter what’s the size of your advertising spend, I guarantee I can work out a solution for you and your business.

Hey, and don’t think I’ve got a dirty on weekly newspapers. I don’t. I owned the Byron News for years, before the internet was invented, and back then it was the best value advertising anyone could get for miles around.

But things have changed. The web has it all now, for much, much less money that print advertising costs.

I have a young mate, typical of today’s under 35 generation, who claims, and I quote,  “The only time I ever look at a newspaper is when I pay for my petrol at the servo. And that’s only the cover!”

Speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

Need to find out more about cutting your advertising to get more customers? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

Most readers won’t read your entire web page. Most will bail well before the end.

How come? Because something you write will make them feel that you are not taking them directly towards finding what they want.

Follow these three guidelines and you will significantly increase the number of people who read all the copy on your page and, of course, you will increase the number of people who take action at the end of that page.

Before you start writing, determine the objective of the page. What is its purpose?

And if you’re thinking, "Well, there are a few things I want to achieve with this page," be very careful. Because by writing to a few different objectives, you are giving your readers a few different reasons to bail on you.

You’ll achieve far higher conversion rates by sticking to a single topic or message per page.

In fact, that’s why landing pages were invented. Marketers understood that their general web pages were not converting very well. So they started creating stand-alone pages, or landing pages, which were created with a single objective in mind.

The need for landing pages tells us we are not very good at creating and writing regular site pages that are focused on a single, clear objective.

In other words, let your readers see where they are going.

For instance, if you want to sell me a vacation in Greenland, let me see the road ahead.

A typical way of doing this would be to write a headline that says something like, "5 reasons why Greenland has become the #1 travel destination for adventure lovers."

When you write a headline like that, the reader knows where you’re taking them, and they know you are trying to sell them a vacation. They even know there are exactly five steps between the beginning and end.

But if the headline were to say, "Greenland grabs hearts of outdoor adventurers," then I don’t really know where you’re taking me. Is this a general description of the country? Is this about travel, or about conservation? Are you trying to inform me? Or sell a vacation package?

When you make the purpose and objective of the page clear from the beginning, the reader doesn’t have to be distracted by these questions.

When writing editorial there are some excellent reasons for taking the scenic route.

You can add character and depth to a story with a paragraph that begins with the words, "Which reminds me…" Or, "By the way…"

These scenic diversions make editorial content all the more interesting.

But when you are writing to sell, you would do better to take the direct route.

When people come to the web to make a purchase, they are task oriented, impatient and anxious to find what they want and get the task completed quickly.

This means readers want their sales information given to them straight. No meandering. No side trips. Get to the meat of the message quickly, and tell them why your product and service will deliver exactly what they want and are looking for.

The reason behind the need to build your sales argument in a straight line can be found in that last section.

Compared to print or other offline media, users of the web are impatient and generally have a specific goal in mind before they even arrive at your page. If they want to buy something, then they want to find what they want quickly.

No side shows. No diversions.

Keep your sales pages direct, straight and uncomplicated.

Need to find out more about writing hot sales copy that sells? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

• Landing page headlines — the large words that appear at the top of a landing page,
• Webpage titles — the hyperlinked words displayed in search engine results,
• Pay-per-click (PPC) ads — the first line in a Google AdWords ad, and

Subject lines for e-mail promotions.

With thousands of marketing messages being shoved in front of your prospects, they’ll ignore all but those few headlines that pop out enough attract their attention. And if they get to your landing page, they will leave in a flash unless your headline grabs them by the collar and compels them to read further. Excellent headlines are vital.

The best copywriter in history was John Caples (1900-1990), best known for his classic book Tested Advertising Methods (5th edition; Prentice Hall, 1997, ISBN 0130957011) and his famous ad, "They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano, but When I Started to Play!"

Caples taught generations of copywriters how to write a headline. I can’t do justice to headline writing in a brief article — it took Caples four chapters — but perhaps I can whet your appetite.

Basis of Appeal

Headlines that work nearly always center around:

1. Self-interest, that is, reader benefits.
2. News, something that the reader didn’t know.
3. Curiosity, something that piques the reader’s inquisitive nature.

Of these, self-interest has by far the strongest appeal. A closely related element to self-interest is "quick and easy." Curiosity by itself, without help from one of the first two elements, probably won’t produce a strong enough headline. A winning headline nearly always includes at least one of these three factors.

The Purpose of Headlines

Headlines, according to Robert Bly in The Copywriter’s Handbook (Owl Books; Henry Holt, 1985, ISBN 0805011943), have four functions:

1. Get attention,
2. Select the audience,
3. Deliver a complete message, and
4. Draw the reader into the body copy.

Overly cute headlines may titillate the copywriter’s desire to be clever, but without conveying a full message, such headlines seldom work. The copywriter’s chief job is not to be creative, but to sell.

Three Key Questions

How should you go about writing a headline? Bly suggests asking yourself three questions:

1. Who is the customer at which this ad is aimed?
2. What are the most important features of the product or service?
3. Why will the customer want to purchase this product or service — which feature is likely to be most important?

When you’re able to answer question 3, you have arrived at your key selling proposition. Now the task is to state it in the most clear, compelling, and interesting way possible. The copywriting books suggested above provide a number of additional suggestions to help in the process.

Customer Focus

Remember that you are in the business of selling to customers, not to yourself. The title that appeals to you — or the person who pays your salary — is not likely to be the one that appeals most strongly to your customer. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Find trusted people you can run ideas by who will help you sharpen them.

Try writing a dozen or two headlines. Then put them aside overnight. The next day, select the strongest headlines and develop them further. Don’t throw the others away. Rejected headlines may well become subheads in your sales copy.

Test, Test, Test

Test your final headlines. Google AdWords has a built-in way of testing several ads to see which one gets the best click-through rate and conversion rate. Take full advantage of this. Google Website Optimizer (www.google.com/websiteoptimizer) also provides a way to do A/B split-tests on landing pages. Marketers have found that testing various headlines is the most important way to improve landing page conversion rates. Yes, it’s work, but it will pay rich dividends in getting sales.

Need to find out more about writing effective, throat-grabbing headlines? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

I like to use this guy’s home-spun yarns because he mixes them up well with very real applicable tactics you can apply yourself. And who of us can’t use a few tips on making a sale? — John

YOU’VE GOT JUST EIGHT SHORT SECONDS to grab your prospect’s attention and land an executive sales appointment. This story by Personal Sales Guru Tony Parinello shows you how.

PARINELLO BEGINS:

Before you pick up the phone to make a sales call to an executive, I’d like to suggest you remember the following true story: A few months ago, one of my salespeople, Daniel, had some car problems, so I offered to give him a ride to work.

Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to do a little one-on-one role-playing, I suggested we go over some appointment-setting phone skills. I’ve had a long-standing, well-proven statistic that you have just eight seconds to grab an executive’s attention whenever they pick up their phone.

Daniel was a bit skeptical about my eight-second standard. He looked at me and said, "Boss, eight seconds is too short a period of time! That’s hardly enough time to take a deep breath, let alone make a meaningful opening statement."

We happened to be waiting at a red light when he said this. As the light turned green, I kept my foot on the brake and started counting: "One thousand one, one thousand two…." People started honking. By the time I got to "one thousand four," Daniel was begging me to get moving.

By the time we hit the sixth second, the guy behind us was starting to get out of his car, and Daniel was looking for a place under the floorboards to hide. When I finally hit eight, the intersection was a symphony of honking horns, "pointing fingers" and shouting mouths.

I hit the gas. Daniel’s never questioned me again on how long eight seconds really is or whether you can make an impact in that length of time. Let’s say now that you understand what motivates people to buy; you know the relevant specifics about your product, service or solution; and you have a good idea about the strategies at your disposal for contacting people who may give you new business.

When you find yourself getting ready to pick up the phone to call an executive, what do you say? I’m going to assume that your goal for picking up the phone is to develop new business. I’m also going to assume that:

1. You’ve decided to use the phone to do this, either by means of a follow-up call on a written communication (see my prior article on this topic), or as your first contact with the target business.
2. Your aim is to get an appointment or create the next step with a top executive who is the person who can actually buy whatever it is you’re selling.

You have three big goals when it comes to developing an opening statement that works. You want to:

1. Make it sound conversational.
2. Deliver it with confidence.
3. Get a favourable interruption–one that will put your prospect in control as soon as possible.

Five Key Opening Statement Components

You’re picking up the phone to call your prospect. For right now, let’s assume you actually do get through to the executive. Here are the five key ingredients your opening statement needs to contain:

1. An Introduction Usually, when an executive (or anyone else) picks up a direct line, they say their name: "This is Jane Smith," or "Jane Smith speaking." Your first step will be to repeat this person’s name. Keep things formal for now – use Mr. or Ms., then the contact’s last name.

Prospect: This is Jane Smith.

You: Ms. Smith?

Prospect: Yes.

This first step will earn you Ms. Smith’s undivided attention. Whatever she was doing prior to you saying her name, she’s now stopped doing. She’s paying attention to you, and that’s a good thing!

What most salespeople do now – despite ample and endlessly repeated evidence that they shouldn’t – is say something like this: "Hi, Ms Smith. This is Will Perish, with the ABC Insurance Company."

Unless your name is, say, James Bond, or your company affiliation is, say, the Prize Disbursement Division of OzLotto, I can tell you exactly what’s going to happen next in the vast majority of such calls: The prospect will respond to this self-defeating "verbal handshake" by tuning out, asking you to send written information, pretending the building just caught fire, or otherwise disengaging from the call. In other words, you’ll have only been on the line about a second and a half, and you’ll be done.

2. The Pleasantry

Here’s an alternative plan. What I’m about to tell you will probably contradict what you’ve been taught. Do it anyway. When Jane Smith says "Yes," you’re going to respond with something positive and enthusiastic, something that doesn’t directly identify you, your company or the product or service you eventually want to discuss. It’s too early in the relationship for you to pass along that kind of information. Instead, you’re going to use a pleasantry, such as one of these:

1. "It’s an honour to finally speak with you!"
2. "Thanks for picking up the phone!"
3. "Thanks for taking my call."
4. "Your time is important. Let me cut to the chase."

Get the idea? Each and every one of these pleasantries will do a far better job for you than simply volunteering your name and company affiliation at the outset of the conversation. Or saying something totally lame like "How are you today?" or "Do you have a minute?"

3. The Hook

Immediately after your pleasantry, you’re going to catch the person’s attention by using a hook that’s keyed directly to something likely to be of interest to this prospect.

"We’ve helped (three of the top five widget corporations reduce overhead costs by twelve percent this quarter–and they did it without laying off staff or sacrificing product quality)."

Now there’s a tangible benefit if ever there was one! Keep your hook focused and just one or two sentences long, and you can’t go wrong. The Interruption. More often than not, here’s where you’ll get interrupted if your hook is doing its job. Your prospect is likely to cut in and say something along the lines of one of these statements:

1. "This sounds interesting – tell me all about it."
2. "I haven’t heard of this before, but I must admit it sounds vaguely interesting."
3. "I have absolutely no interest."

As I said, you’ll almost certainly get interrupted by this point. For the sake of completeness, though, you need to finish developing your opening statement. You need to know what to say in those cases where you don’t get interrupted at this point.

4. Naming Names

Once you’ve shared your hook, the other person knows the reason for your call – the cat’s out of the bag. This is the perfect time to identify yourself and, if you like, your organisation. If you choose to identify the name of your business, give it a brief "commercial." What you say will fit in one sentence. It should sound like this: "This is Will, Will Prosper, with ABC Insurance Company – the hardest-working company in the insurance industry today."

5. Your Ending Question

If you don’t get interrupted by this point, you’re going to conclude your opening statement with an ending question that incorporates some element of time. Try one of these:

1. "Ms. Smith, does this touch on issues that are of concern to you this (month/year/quarter)?"
2. "Are you wanting to accomplish something like this by the end of this (quarter/year)?"
3. "Is this something you’d like to explore further?"
4. "Who on your team would you like for me to continue this conversation with between now and the end of this business (day/week)?"

Again, you shouldn’t try simply to insert your company specifics into the script you see above. You should use all the ideas in this article to craft an opening statement that is uniquely yours and that best fits the business you’re pitching.

Need to find out more about selling by phone? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

1. If you want to make sales and/or generate inquiries on your website, you must have persuasive and passionate sales text. Strong sales text is the number 1 most important aspect of a successful e-commerce website.
2. I see so many websites that have either no sales text or very brief sales text and then they wonder why they cannot make a sale.You have to excite people into wanting to buy what you are selling, and to do that you need to write exciting sales text that explains the most important benefits of your product or service. To write great sales text put yourself in the situation of what would you say to a prospective customer if you were in a face-to-face sales meeting with them. Think of what questions they would have about your product or service and create answers to those questions. If you are not sure how to do this, ask a friend or a colleague what would make them want to buy your product or service. What questions would they have about your product or service? If you are still uncomfortable about writing sales text for your website, hire a sales copywriter.
3. Include your telephone number and a link to your contact form on every page of your website. Never make people search to find out how to contact you.Another reason why this is so important is that when you make it easy for people to contact you, they will trust you more. They know you are not hiding from them. How many times have you gone to a website and you were interested in buying something but there was no way to contact the company? When I am interested in buying something online and the website does not include the company’s contact information, especially a telephone number, I do not buy.
4. If you sell products on your website, make it easy for people to buy with a credit card. Both Google and Paypal have made it extremely easy and incredibly inexpensive to add credit card payment processing to your website.
5. Add customer testimonials throughout your website. Few things in marketing work as well as customer testimonials.If you do not have any testimonials, one of the easiest ways to get them is to simply call your customers and ask them what they like most about your product or service. When they tell you, immediately write it down and say, “That was great! May I use that as a testimonial?” Nearly every person will say yes. It works like magic.
6. Offer a money-back guarantee. One of the biggest concerns people have about making a purchase, particularly online, is what happens if the product I buy is junk?Will I get my money back or am I stuck with it? To immediately put your customer’s minds at ease, state your guarantee policy. Let customers know that they have no risk in doing business with you and that you stand behind your product or service. By adding money-back guarantees you will immediately see an increase in sales.

By implementing these 5 simple marketing tips, you will immediately see an increase in sales.

Need to find out more about increasing your internet sales? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743