Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Prove It!

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Your marketing won’t be effective if your potential customers don’t believe the claims in your marketing communications. So how can you prove your claims? 

This is especially important now that the Federal Trade Commission is establishing regulations for claims and reviews posted online. Here are some things to keep in mind when making claims about what your product can do.

Tone it down. Even if it is true, your claim that dieters can lose 50 pounds in a month probably won’t be believed. Make it more realistic and representative of typical results.

Get customer testimonials. Let them see that others have had great results. Testimonials should be specific and include a real name for the most credibility.

Get endorsements from experts. Respected authorities who say that your product or service is good make you look good.

Positive media coverage will make you a star. Media coverage provides an implied endorsement from a respected source.

Show a track record. Have you been in business for 20 years? Customers are more comfortable doing business with someone they believe will be around if there is a problem after the sale.

Make yourself accessible. Give a phone number or email address where customers can contact you (or support staff) directly with questions. Phone numbers are especially valuable in creating the awareness that you are approachable by clients.

Cite statistics from a reputable source to back up your claims. There is a joke that 67.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot! When you use statistics, tell where they came from.

And, never make claims that aren’t true. If you are caught in a lie, it can be difficult or impossible to reclaim the trust of your customers, as well as creating legal headaches for you.

Write Headlines That Get Results

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Headlines are relatively short, but they may be the most important words you write. You have only seconds to get the attention of prospects any time you write marketing materials, such as sales letters, web pages, articles and more. 

The headline gets the reader’s attention and draws them into reading the rest. That means that learning to write powerful headlines is critical to your success. Here is how you can write headlines that grab the attention of readers, and keep them reading.

What Result Do You Want?

Are you trying to get people to buy? To sign up for your newsletter? To respond to a survey? What do you want people to do after they read what you have written?

To Whom Are You Writing?

Imagine your typical customers. What characteristics do they share? What problem to they have and how do you solve their problem? Does your product or service fill a want or a need? (Wants are easier to sell to than needs.)

Don’t talk about how your product works, tell them the result they get from it.

Start Thinking Up Headlines

Do not assume you will write one or two headlines and be done. Write 20, 50 or more. Keep going until you run out of ideas, then write a few more.

Here are some suggested headline formats:

  • Ask a question – One popular headline starts, “Who Else Wants to…” You can fill in the blank with what your product does: Who Else Wants to Lose Weight Effortlessly?
  • Use numbers – 7 Ways to Double Your Income
  • Promise a benefit – Stop Your Cat From Scratching NOW!
  • Suggest secrets – Health Secrets the Drug Companies Don’t Want You to Know
  • Use “hot button” words – Words such as Free, New, How To, Easy, etc.

Talk to YOU

Use “you” when writing to your customers. Do not write in third-person and do not talk about yourself. Talk directly to your customers, as if you were having a face-to-face conversation.

Get Emotional

Use emotions in your writing to further involve the reader.  People tend to make buying decisions emotionally, then justify them logically. Get them emotionally involved and they will rationalize their purchase.

Use Keywords

When writing for the web, use your keywords in the headline. Ideally, the keyword(s) should be as close to the beginning of the headline or title as possible, while still making sense to humans. Good keywords will help the search engines better index your pages.

Test, Test, Test

Small differences in headlines can make big differences in results. Test headlines to see which ones get better results. Keep testing—there is always room for improvement.

Face Slapping the Fishies Will Get You Results

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This is a guest post from Thomas George.

When creating copy, or blog posts or any content you want to grab attention with, you must write as though your audience are as smart as fish. This was the first thing I learnt.

Your title and first few words are your bait. If you haven’t slapped hard enough, you’ll lose. If you make it too long, you’ll lose. If you make it too complex, you’ll lose.

I’m not saying that my audiences are idiots. Never confuse the writing structure with personal opinion.

When I started in marketing, I used big words, complex analogies, structured sentences that would give Jane Austin cause to salivate much like a Pavlovian puppy with irony and wit weaved in more subtly than a deft pickpockets fingers.

And I was told it was all crap and wasted effort.

The art of copywriting is to engage the majority of the audience. You do that by being punchy and quick. People are much more likely to read an article that spans a few paragraphs than a few pages, so get to the point and do it fast. They have fish memories of around 2-3 seconds.

Attention spans are getting shorter, this is one of the sad things about the new technological age and the entire mission here is to get your whole article read. You do that one sentence at a time and each sentences primary purpose is to get the next one read.

Some people can do this easily and without effort. It took me a while to get the hang of it because I utterly despise reducing my vernacular range and lexicon. I’m a smart guy who grew up in an area of Sydney that promotes and celebrates both mediocrity and stupidity so I naturally have issues with it. I always will.

But the key to remember is it’s not about you.

You’ve got to make copy as engaging as possible and your primary tool is language. Adapt to the product or service your promoting and look at it from a fishes eyes.

You have to make the choice of being smart or getting results and when other people are paying for your time, they couldn’t care less about your brilliance.

Controversy always gets the most attention so use titles that cause outrage. Make hyperbole your best friend because if you use him well, you’ll do great. But always do it appropriate to the product your pitching.

For example, I use wild, in-your-face, language with my friends because they “get” me and understand my sense of humor. However, if I ever used that sort of hyperbole for a client, I’d immediately lose the client and damage my reputation as a writer. There is always a line and it moves around, which is something I’ve covered on my own semi-offensive copywriting blog.

So the essence of what has worked for me is to be short, simple and direct. Don’t allude to anything, don’t be overly clever, make the focus the client and audience. Read what other people say, take it all in and filter out what works for you. Remember the fish will come and eat out of your hand, if what you have to offer is tempting enough.

Thomas George

Adventures in Advertising

Short Stories and other Curiosities

Web Content Writing Tips

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This is a guest post from Elizabeth McGee,the owner and editor of Homenotion.com.

Writing content for the web isn’t like writing for most other publications, your web content has to grab the reader’s attention and get specific results. 

Whether selling products or posting the latest information to your personal site, you’ll want to develop web content that grabs attention, is interesting and connects with your reader.

Here are a few web content writing tips that I think you’ll find useful…

– Relate to your reader

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a blog post, an article or a sales page, writing for the web means relating to your reader.  Start by thinking about who your reader is, what they want to know and then relate to their emotions, wants and needs.

One of the things I learned early as a parent was the idea of relating to my kids feelings.  When they had a problem, frustration or even misbehaved I would try to relate to how they were feeling emotionally.  This showed them that I understood their sadness, anger, frustration or whatever it was. Showing them that I understood their feelings gave them a sense of connection and they in turn responded in a much more positive manner; even when they misbehaved and had to be punished.  It worked every time wink

Your readers will respond the same way if you can draw them in by connecting with their emotions and their feelings. 

– Be short and to the point

Readers on the web are looking for useful information that they can find quickly. Most people read off a monitor all day long so they appreciate copy that is short, to the point and won’t waste their time. 

Write short paragraphs that consist of 2-3 sentences and make each sentence a complete thought that is easy to understand.  Don’t be tempted to ramble or lecture on a topic.  You’ll lose your reader’s interest.

– Use bullet points

Bullet points automatically draw your eye to important information as well as capture an idea in just a few words.  They are ideal because they make it easy to find pertinent information fast.  Bullet points can be graphic symbols, numbers or letters. When using bullet keep each point to one line if possible.

– Write conversationally

So many people often say, “I don’t know how to write”. Nonsense!  If you can talk you can write. Picture your audience as one person sitting across the table from you.  Simply write down the things you would say to that specific person.

One of the things that helped me write more conversationally was to record myself and then transcribe what I recorded onto paper.  After writing it down go back and flesh out the copy so that it makes sense and isn’t too wordy. 

Simply going through that exercise just once or twice will help you get accustomed to writing in a conversational tone. 

– Write content that is unique and fresh

Due to all the duplicate content on the web nowadays, demands have been put on writers to develop content that is unique, fresh and interesting. That doesn’t mean you can’t write about a familiar topic, it just has to be written in a style or manner that readers find interesting and isn’t spread everywhere around the web.

Writing about how to train your dog for example, is far less interesting than if you take a unique approach and write about your own personal dog training experiences. You could even take a dog training poll and post the responses, write a rant or analogy or even write ‘what not to do’ training tips.  Readers will find these a lot more interesting and the content won’t be something found everywhere else on the web. 

– Keep your content relevant

Keep your content relevant to its title. Content on how to train your cat should not include ideas about how to train your dog. The more relevant and on topic your content is the better, not only for your readers but it’s also what the search engines look for. 

– Use Text Links

Make use of good text links. This gives your reader the option of getting more detail if desired.  They are also a great web page optimization technique that the search engines love. 

For effective use of text links be sure to use keyword based links meaning that the text link uses the primary keywords associated with the page you are linking to.

– Proofread your work

Running your work through the spell checker takes only a few seconds so make it a consistent practice. Also make sure your content flows smoothly and makes sense logically. If your work confuses your reader they won’t stick around to figure it out, they’ll click off.

Always read through your work 2 or 3 times and then have someone else read through it as well, a second pair of eyes has saved me on many an occasion. 

Internet home business Coach and Marketing Enthusiast Elizabeth McGee, is the owner and editor of Homenotion.com, an internet home business ideas website complemented by her free marketing tips blog.  Grab her free newsletter tips and bonus guides. 

Press Release Writing that Makes Sense

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Your press release will not be effective if it doesn’t make sense to readers. Avoid jargon and get your message across.

A large corporation put out a press release which included the following “quote” from an executive:

“(This acquisition) will enable us to accelerate significantly our existing information technology strategy. It will enhance our capabilities and critical mass in systems integration, widen our IT skills and create revenue synergies in many of our core competencies.”

“Accelerate significantly?” “Create revenue synergies?” Does anybody really talk this way? I hope not.

The “core competency” (sheesh!) of marketing is communication. Often, writers use jargon because they think it sounds more impressive than simple language. But readers won’t be impressed if they can’t understand what you’re talking about. Do you think it makes you seem smarter? Isn’t it more intelligent to make sure your message gets through to its audience?

A professor once published a scholarly paper in a journal in which he proved that the universe does not exist. It was a joke, loaded with a bunch of meaningless buzzwords and overworked phrases. No one noticed that it was a joke. They were so used to seeing page after page of jargon, that apparently no one even read it or tried to figure out what he was saying. They just published it.

Do you want people to read and understand your message? Communicate it in simple language and keep it short.