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Category: The Google Cash System

Writing killer sales copy, Getting Started

Before you begin preparing your sales letter, you need to have a thorough understanding of the product that you’re promoting. This is VERY important. Since you’re not the author of the product, I seriously advise that you buy the product (if you haven’t already) and test it out completely. You have to know your product to sell it. Only then will you be able to represent it accurately on your landing page.

The next step is to determine what the product ultimately does for the consumer. How exactly does your visitor ultimately benefit from buying it? The answer to that question is the unique selling point of the product or service.

Call it whatever you want: unique selling point, customer value proposition, biggest benefit etc. But the fact is, this ultimate benefit is what you’re going to use as the flagship of your landing page. This is going to be stressed all over your copy to the effect of “this is how you benefit from buying this product.”

Features and Benefits

Start off by distinguishing the actual benefits of the product from its features. The job of your landing page is obviously to persuade (or coerce) your reader into buying the product. But the only real way to achieve massive success with this effort is to base your copy on the benefits and not on the features of the product.

I’m sure you’re pretty savvy as to what a benefit is, as opposed to a feature but just in case you need a general guideline, use this: A benefit is the specific result of a feature. A feature is what the product or service already has built in. Here’s an example: A refrigerator has defrosting facilities. This is a unique feature. If that technology helps a customer get rid of annoying icicles, and helps keep his or her greens fresh and healthy, then this is the benefit of the original feature.

Your potential buyer

Alright, now you know how your prospects benefit from the product you’re promoting. But who exactly is this prospect of yours? Why do they benefit from your product? What stimulates this person to buy the item? Ideally, you should write down a paragraph about your ideal customer.
Something like “Rachel Penn is a divorced single mom of two children. Her bills are piling up; she has just been laid off, and needs to make money fast. She has heard of money making opportunities online but has little savvy when it comes to computers. She’s also pretty reluctant about investing on the Internet because there have been so many stories of rip-offs and scams online….” should do.

Actually it’s much better if you can go into more detail than that and derive as much information about your ideal target prospect as you can. What this allows you to do is gear your copy towards your most profitable visitor demographic and ignore all others. All of this might have sounded unimportant, but let me assure you: you should never, ever, start writing copy before you decide exactly who the copy is targeted at.

Following the A.I.D.A. Model

The AIDA model stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. What it represents is the process that goes on in your visitor’s head as he reads your landing page.

Your ultimate goal here is to make your visitor take action. But to do that, you’ve got to make him or her truly desire your product. For him to desire your product, he should first be interested in whatever you’re saying. And to get him or her interested in you, you first need your visitor’s attention, right?

So that’s how it goes: you first grab your visitors’ attention; then arouse interest; drive that interest to create desire, and finally persuade them to take the action that you want them to.

Step 1: Grab Your Visitor’s Attention:

Grabbing the visitor’s attention is the very first job of any landing page. Let’s face it – your potential buyer isn’t thinking about you. He’s thinking about himself; he’s thinking about his job; he’s thinking about what his wife’s cooking for dinner; he’s thinking about his upcoming weekend, etc.

So, when he reads your landing page, the question is “Is it strong enough to break through the conversations in his head and shift his attention to the conversation in your landing page?”

This is what you will be focusing on when you’re crafting the uppermost elements of the page; the sub-headline, headline, first paragraph of the copy etc. Once you grab the visitor’s attention, your job is…

Step 2: Pique Interest:

Okay, so now you have your visitor’s attention. Does that guarantee they’re going to read your entire landing page and make the purchase? Not necessarily. When it comes to internet marketing, a visitor’s attention hardly lasts longer than 5-10 seconds. This is the time they will spend reading the first few lines of your landing page’s body, and then skim the rest of it to see if this is what they’re looking for.

And while the body of your sales letter has many components, it has one overall purpose: to make your case. In other words, this is where the selling takes place – where you prove that the product you’re promoting is indeed the perfect solution to your prospect’s problem.

To gain your visitor’s attention, you would’ve likely made a very bold claim about the product in the headline; it’s in the body that you prove the claim. This is the right way to pique their interest and fully immerse them in your copy. So, how do you do it?

You describe the benefits and features of the product, and put them in an emotional state. It’s in the body of your copy that you provide testimonials (further proof), include guarantees, and address any objections the prospect may have.

We’ll talk about all these and more in the coming pages but for now, keep this in mind:
Your landing page will look a lot like a conversation you have with a friend at a coffee shop. When your prospect reads it, they should be able to feel the warm, conversational tone of your copy.

What this does is make sure that the prospect is actually involved in the page copy and reads through to the end of the page, absorbing your most important messages. In the end, their interest will have piqued to the maximum and they will actually be very desirous of whatever you’re promoting.

So really, inducing a desire in your reader’s mind comes naturally as you keep them hooked to your copy. Interest transitions into desire provided you do your job right.

Step 3: Capitalize on their desire:

You’ve sparked the interest of your reader and held this interest all the way through your copy. You’ve made your case, and you’ve even proven it. Your reader has completely fallen in love with your landing page and is almost ready to take action.

Now what? Simple: ask for the order.

This step, asking for the order, is simple and obvious, yet amazingly enough, many affiliates fail to take this crucial step.

I’ll be going into detail about how to craft effective calls-to-action later on in the next chapter. But know this: if you want them to order online, tell them exactly how to order (ex: “click the “buy” button below right now for instant access…”)

I’ve been tracking conversion rates for years. Know what I’ve found with calls-to-action? Landing pages that have a direct and specific call to action greatly outperform those without one. That means you don’t just say “order now,” but you tell them exactly how to order.

Done effectively, this will practically lock down the sale. Mission accomplished.

Summary

There are many elements of the landing page that come together to create a really compelling sales piece. However, we can boil down these multiple elements to three simple steps:

  1. Grab attention.
  2. Pique interest.
  3. Ask for the order.

Simply put, if your sales letter doesn’t do all three of these things, you lose the sale. And of course, the better you are at doing these things, the higher your conversion rate. That’s another reason for you to track and test different elements of your sales letter, so you know what works and what doesn’t work for your target market.

Does the prospect of writing salescopy depress you and want to make you want to jump off a cliff ?

You’re not alone… but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Writing for the Web (especially when it comes to writing salescopy) doesn’t have to be hard work, because you can forget about all those nit-picky grammar rules from school !
Instead, there’s only one rule: Write the way you talk!
Imagine you’re actually talking face-to-face with your reader when you write your salescopy and you’ll find the words just begin to flow.
Tip #1: Make sure your headline communicates a clear, compelling benefit.
Your headline should be the first thing your readers see when they arrive at your website.
So it MUST grab them by the eyeballs and compel them to keep reading.
And the best way to do this is to tell them exactly how they will benefit from reading on.

  • What’s in it for them?
  • How are you going to make their life better?
  • How will you solve their biggest problem?

Tip #2: Keep your sentence structure simple.
On the Web, you’ve got an audience with a very limited attention span. So don’t try and feed them a thesis. Your readers’ time is in short supply so they’re not going to stick around for long. They want information – and they want it fast!
Short sentences are always easier to read than long sentences. Help your readers digest your information quickly – and get them to take action.
Tip #3: Use punctuation to suit YOUR needs.
Punctuation is one of your best friends when it comes to making your salescopy readable… so use it wisely!
Again, you don’t have to follow the rules you were taught in school. Rather, you should use punctuation to:

  • Make your salescopy flow…
  • Help ease your readers’ eyes down the page…
  • Make your content clear.

These kind of bulleted lists are very easy to read.
Dashes – like these – break up longer sentences and make important phrases leap off the page.
All caps can be used (sparingly) to add some STRONG emphasis when you need it… and ellipses are great for keeping your copy flowing from one point to the next.


Tip #4:
Format using SCUIB!
SCUIB stand for:

  • Size
  • Color
  • Italics
  • Underline
  • Bold

You should use each of these formatting tools strategically – and sparingly – throughout your salescopy.
They can be used for many purposes, such as…

  • Adding emphasis to your keywords
  • Make your benefits leap out from the page
  • Highlighting important points
  • Keeping your readers’ eyes moving down the page

Tip #5: Read your work out loud after you’ve written it.
The BEST way to see if your salescopy reads well is to read it… out loud!
Make a note of any words or sentences you stumble over and then re-write them. If YOU stumble over anything that you’ve written yourself, you can GUARANTEE your visitors will also have trouble reading it. Reading your salescopy out loud also helps you check the flow, build-up of excitement, and drive towards your call to action.

Maybe you need to learn more about internet affiliate marketing, click here

Putting Visitors in the Mood to Buy

Here’s one of the biggest secrets to create compelling copy: people buy because of their emotions, and then justify their purchase based on logic. Read that sentence again. Get it really embedded in your mind; trust me, this is really worth your time.

Do you suppose that people buy Rolex watches because they keep exceptionally good time? Don’t think so! They buy Rolex watches because of the prestige that comes with wearing it.

A person who buys a Rolex isn’t pouring over the mechanical features of it to see what makes it a better watch than, say, a regular watch you can pick up in a department store for less than $100.

Instead, he’s imagining what his friends will say when they see that shiny Rolex on his wrist. He’s imagining how women will flirt with him when he’s wearing that watch (which might be an exaggeration). Maybe he’s even imagining himself feeling an air of superiority over some of his business colleagues because this Rolex is a status symbol that comes with his massive success.

It is that emotion that makes him buy this watch… and he clicks that order button.

But then, his logical left brain kicks in.

His left brain, the one that does his budget for him, has no use for something that impresses women or business colleagues. In fact, if the guy really sat down and thought about WHY he wants the watch, he might feel pretty uncomfortable about the whole purchase. Let’s face it, buying something to make others feel inferior isn’t something we like to admit.

So, his left brain looks to justify the purchase. Things like “What a great warranty!” “Look at the quality craftsmanship!” “And, oh my! These watches do keep exceptionally good time!” pop up in his head and assure him that he’s making a good decision. But this happens ONLY when your copy specifically provides these logical road-signs.

So, later on when this guy sees the bill for his watch on the credit card statement, he can justify the expenditure since he’s had so many watches that quit on him over the years. However, secretly in the depths of his mind, he knows he really bought the watch for all those emotional reasons.

And so it is with every one of your prospects no matter what you’re selling. You need to put your reader in the right emotional state. Make them get emotional as they envision using your product.

And then, mention the more technical features of the product too, so that their logical brain can justify the purchase.

Let’s take a cookbook as another example. Logically you’d buy a cookbook so that you have a variety of meals to serve your family. However, emotionally, there’s a part of the prospect that enjoys the praise she imagines receiving after cooking a particular delicious dish.

Keep this in mind as you craft your letter. Your goal is to get the prospect to imagine her receiving the promised benefits of using your product… and whatever emotions she’ll feel as she does so. As you make your case and put your prospect into this emotional buying mood, be sure to give the prospect enough information so she can back her buying decision up with logic. “Huge variety of recopies,” “Healthy meals,” “Children like them,” etc.

How to write a sales document, headlines and power words

If there is a logo or a design that you’ve been using for your website, use it in the landing page only if it is really pertinent to what you are offering. You are not selling your logo; you are selling benefits that the buyer will realize if he buys the product you’re promoting. Use a specific image that is inherent to your headline, content, and theme, or do not use one at all. When it comes to opening your landing page, stick to words as far as possible.

The Sub-headline:

The sub-headline or pre-headline is a line or two in smaller font above the main headline. It can be used effectively to gain the attention of your visitor. The subhead is like an extension of the headline.

Basically, the subhead doesn’t have to be as bold as the headline, but should still grab the reader’s attention. You goal here is to make the subhead as catchy as possible. You can use it as highlighted, a note that gives a hint that there is much more to come if the reader just keeps reading.

To write a good sub-headline, think of it as a headline with a very specific point. Your headline is basically introducing the whole, general copy. Your sub-headline, on the other hand, is introducing a specific part of your copy.

Where headlines can be very generic and broad in scope, a subhead cannot. It needs to be specific and very focused. It should be relevant to the market that you’re targeting.

For example, if your target market consists of people who own poodles, your sub-headline may simply be: “Attention Poodle Owners!”

If you own a poodle, I bet you’d at least read the headline if you saw a pre-head that called out to poodle owners. So, the more specific you can be the better. Try to narrow down the target market further then address them in your pre-headline. In the previous example, you can drill down father and come up with, say, “Attention Toy Poodle Owners!”

Piece of cake, isn’t it? So that’s all there is to it: narrow down your target market and reach out to your visitor.

The Headline:

Your headline is the most important part of your entire sales letter.

After all, if it doesn’t do its job (which is to capture attention), the rest of your landing page is worthless because IT WON’T BE READ. Always keep this in mind: Your headline isn’t meant to sell the reader the product or service. That’s what the rest of the page is for. The headline is simply what you use to grab your reader and pull them into the rest of your copy

Think of it this way: the goal of your headline is to get the potential buyer to start reading the sales letter.

The headline is usually less than 30 words long. It should be catchy and it should grab the reader’s attention and tell him what the landing page is all about. Ideally, the job of the headline is to list the product’s most important benefit, and make an assurance.

Here’s a caveat though: your headline needs to be completely relevant to the rest of the copy. Grabbing your reader’s attention with the headline is cool but you can’t put out a shocking headline like “The President Has Been Assassinated!” just to get attention, and then go on to try to sell vitamins to the readers. I won’t get into what’ll happen if you do such a thing but let’s just say it’ll involve the top right hand corner of the browser window, and a mouse click.

With the headline, you need to speak to your reader directly about something that’s important to him or her. You already know what’s important to them because by know, you should’ve already done enough research into your market. But whatever you do, it absolutely must be relevant to the visitor and to the sales copy that follows.

A Killer Headline

If you can create a headline that does two things: promise a huge benefit, and arouse curiosity, you’ll have a winner.

Now, I understand that there may be many different benefits associated with using the product or service you’re promoting. What you want to do now is identify the biggest benefit associated with your product, and promise this benefit to readers if they keep reading.

In order to know what your biggest benefit is, you also need to be aware of what is important to your target market. For example, if you’re targeting wealthy women to sell them expensive jewelry, I can bet that touting it as providing “good value” in the headline isn’t going to capture their attention. The lead benefit of your product here is prestige. If I were a rich woman out buying a necklace, I’d be looking for the one that would garner the most jealous stares from other rich women. Get my drift?

In addition to figuring out what’s important to your prospects, you’ll also want to consider some more “universal” wants of people. For example, people want quick and easy solutions. They want to feel better, be more attractive, be wealthier and look younger (among other things).

If you can give your prospects a quick and easy way to look younger, mention that in the headline! If you can give them a quick and easy way to get richer, then by all means let them know.

Also keep in mind some of the “power words” that you can use to stop people in their tracks. The word “you” is one of the most powerful words you can use in your headline and elsewhere in your copy, so use it generously (without stuffing).

After all, people are only interested in how your products benefit them. Remember, it’s all about them not you. As they read your copy, they’re thinking, “What’s in it for me?” If you orient the copy towards this end, your copy is already taking a big step towards locking down the sale.

Are there other “power words” to use in my copy?
Of course there are; here are some of the examples:

People also like new things: words like “new,” “introducing,” and “break-through” tend to capture plenty of attention.

People like knowing things that others don’t know: using words like “secrets, “revealed” and “discover” are really powerful words to use in your copy.

And as I’ve already mentioned, since people like their solutions quick and easy: use words that convey the message where applicable (quick, easy, fast etc).

In the jargon of advertising, the following are a few other commonly used power words:

1.Breakthrough
2.Discover
3.Discovery
4.Easy
5.Free
6.Guaranteed
7.Hidden
8.Incredible
9.Love
10.Master
11.Money
12.New
13.Powerful
14.Profits
15.Proven
16.Results
17.Revealed
18.Scientific
19.Secret
20.Shocked
21.Shocking
22.Ultimate
23.Uncovered
24.You
25.Your

Alright, now that you know what’s important to your prospects, and what kind of “power words” to use to capture attention, you can start writing your headlines. Notice that I said “headlines” and not the singular “headline.” Since this is the most important part of your landing page, it only makes sense to spend a good amount of time crafting the very best headline you can.

Ground rule: You should draft dozens of headlines for your landing page. Don’t stop when you think you’ve got a good one on your hands. Keep going, and you’ll likely come up with an even better one. This is what the professionals do — some copywriting experts regularly write 50 to 100 headlines! If nothing else, these headlines can all be variations that you can use in your testing cycles.

Now, let’s look at a specific example of how to transform an average headline into something much more compelling…

Let’s suppose you’re promoting a wrinkle cream that helps users smooth out laugh lines, eliminate crow’s feet wrinkles, etc. Perhaps you’d start out with a headline like:

“Here’s How to Eliminate Crow’s Feet and Laugh Lines.”

It isn’t the best you can do, but everyone’s got to start somewhere. So the problem with this headline is that eliminating crow’s feet and laugh line wrinkles is a feature associated with using the cream. Do you remember how we talked about using benefits as the lead selling point of your landing pages? Sure, many people will make the logical jump between the features (eliminating wrinkles) and the benefits of using the cream.

However, your job is to make it easy on the reader and lay out the benefits clearly, so the prospects don’t have to spend time thinking about how the product will benefit them.

Okay, what are the benefits associated with these features of the cream you’re selling? Overall, smoothing-out and eliminating wrinkles makes you look younger. And a person who looks younger is “obviously” more attractive, happier, wins more dates, etc.

Using these benefits, we can tweak the example headline into this: “Here’s How to Eliminate Crow’s Feet and Laugh Lines to Make You Look Younger.”

OK, that’s a little better but still isn’t the killer we’re looking for. So let’s get a bit more specific. Instead of simply saying “younger,” let’s say “Ten Years Younger”:

“Here’s How to Eliminate Crow’s Feet and Laugh Lines Quick and Easy to Make You Look Ten Years Younger.”

Do you see how this is way better than the original headline? But you’re not done yet. From here you should start tweaking this to make it go from “average” to downright compelling.

For example, you may start crafting variations of this headline such as:

“Discover the Secret of Looking Ten Years Younger… in Just 5 Minutes a Day!”

“Here’s an Anti-Aging Cream that Makes You Look So Young and Beautiful that Your Husband will Call You his Trophy Wife!”

“In Just 21 Days from Now, You’ll look so Young that People Will Mistake Your Teenage Daughter for Your Sister!”

And so on. Keep tweaking and crafting new headlines until you have several strong ones. After you roll out your copy, you can start testing headlines to see which ones convert best.

Types of headlines:

So we’ve looked at the core process of writing a good headline. But did you know that there are, in fact, different types of headlines? I’m going to describe the most common of these below; you can use any of these in your copy regardless of what market you’re in or what you’re promoting.

  • Direct headlines. This type of headline is blunt and straight to the point. The reader should clearly know what is being sold and what the great offer in just by reading the headline. This is the type of headline we’ve been discussing about throughout this section.
  • Indirect headlines. Unlike a direct headline, this type of headline uses a subtle manner of communication. Its main goal is to make the reader curious about what’s in the rest of the landing page as opposed to what’s in the product itself. These headlines often use double-speak and contextual humor to pique interest.
  • News headlines. This type of headline is basically an announcement. It is something newsworthy. For example: “Attention: Toy Poodle Owners! Groundbreaking New E-Book on House Training Promises To Discipline Your Dog in Just 2 Weeks or Less!”
  • ‘How-to’ headlines. This type of headline is very popular. It works well at selling almost any type of infoproduct. Basically, the headline starts with the words ‘how to’ and goes on from there.
  • Question headlines. Since you’re making landing pages, most of the people land on them after clicking on an ad of yours. This clearly means they have a burning problem or a question that they’re looking to have solved. A question headline attempts to reflect that exact same question that is going through the reader’s mind. Ex: “Who Else Wants to Make $834.27 Every Week, Working Right from Home with Zero Investment?” This creates an “intuitive” feel and intrigues your visitors to read further.
  • Command headlines. This type of headline basically tells the reader to do something. The trick to this type of headline is to use strong words that will trigger action in the reader. Ex: “Quick! Sign up to my “Poodle Master” list right now and get free Instant Access to over $1999 worth of poodle-training material absolutely free! Only 4 slots left!” Be careful, though, that you don’t sound like some dictator and turn people off right at the start.
  • Numbered headlines. This is, by far, the type of headline you can come up with the fastest. It is basically meant to highlight a certain number of things the reader will learn or benefit if they read on, for example: ‘Here Are 5 Top Secret Ways to Lose 10 lbs of Belly Fat In 2 Month Or Less!’

No matter which style of headline you choose, make sure you don’t get too carried away with it. If a headline is too wordy, then your visitor may avoid reading it at all. In general, headlines should stick to a maximum of two to two and a half lines using large font.

This should help you find those Killer titles and headlines and increase your affiliate marketing writing skills. Don’t forget to leave a comment, have a click about, there are more free hints and tips all over my blog.

Jonathan Mitchell

How to write a Sales Document – Greeting and Body

Below the headline, most copywriters let readers know who is writing the letter. You’ll see notations like “from the desk of Alex Smith.” Sometimes the marketer will display their picture here as well. This is a very worthwhile technique, and I highly recommend it.

The next component is the salutation or greeting. You’ll see openings like “Dear Friend.” While that’s pretty standard, it’s also somewhat boring and can even put off those who are thinking, “Dude, you don’t know me! How can I be your friend?”

A better bet is to again qualify your prospect by addressing them directly. Naturally if you’re sending personalized landing pages to your mailing list, you should address them directly by name. If not, use a salutation that identifies them as part of a specific group and captures their attention, such as “Dear Internet Marketer” or “Dear Soccer Fan.”

  • The Body:This is where all the selling takes place. The headline, as you know, is a primer to the body of your landing page copy. No matter how much interest your headline generates, all that interest will wane into nothing if your body fails to deliver.
  • Essentially, the body copy has the following objectives:Use the same tone as, and endure with, the theme of the headline.Persist highlighting, detail the benefits of the product, and offer proof of the claims made in the headline.Provide details about the features of the product.Build credibility.Create a craving for the product being promoted and make the visitor buy it.
  • The opening paragraph:The first part of the body copy is your opening paragraph. Ideally this should be short and concise. You don’t want to make it seem like work to read your first sentence and paragraph. In fact, all your sentences and paragraphs should be short and easy-to-read.

If you haven’t used a direct headline with a big benefit in it (also known as the “big promise”), do so in your opening paragraph – preferably your first sentence. This is where you will begin to make the reader see why he or she must read the rest of the copy and ultimately accept your offer.

Your starting paragraph is going to present the deal. It is going to bring the focus to the benefits of the product and why the reader needs the product. Anything you say in your starting paragraph will later be backed up by other areas of your copy. In many ways, it’s like a more detailed headline.

You should also aim to build a rapport between yourself and your reader in the lead paragraph. Here are some basic rules to keep in mind as you begin to write it:

  1. Keep it conversational, focused and simple.
  2. Make it a one-paragraph story if you can. People relate well to stories. Stories have a way of drawing people in and making them feel “at home.”
  3. You should be able to evoke some reaction in them that makes them nod in agreement. It is a key sales tactic to get the customer agreeing because once they start agreeing it is easier to get the sale in the end.
  4. Keep it very relevant. It should have a basic point to it that is clear. Don’t ramble on and confuse your visitor.
  5. You can also try answering a question. If your headline asked a question, your starting paragraph needs to provide the answer to that question. You can explain the situation, ask further questions and then explain how the product you are promoting can help.

There is no rigid formula to a lead-in paragraph, and a think-out-of-the-box approach can work, but your landing pages will produce better responses if you follow, rather than break, the rules.

The rest of the body

After your visitor is done reading the lead paragraph, he will be very curious and interested about the rest of the copy. This is what you’re going to capitalize on with a series of messages that are easy to grasp and understand. This is your sales pitch that’s backed by things like bullets which emphasize the features and benefits of your product, testimonials from satisfied users and other forms of proof, subheadings that emphasize other big benefits, a guarantee policy, a call to action, and an order button. We’ll talk about these components in more detail shortly.

The aim of the body is to leverage your visitors’ interest (already grabbed by your headline), pull them into your letter and keep them reading right down to the bottom where they click on the order button.

Sending Your Readers Down the Slippery Slide

Okay, so the headline’s job is to get your reader interested and read the lead-in paragraph. Then the lead-in gets the reader to read the second paragraph. And the second paragraph gets your reader to read the third… and so on, right?

This means every word and every sentence in your landing page is important. If you let your reader’s attention stray even for a moment, they will lose interest – and that means you lose the sale. You need to hold their interest continuously while making your case for the product or service you’re promoting.

One good way to do this is by starting off with an exciting story that ties directly into the product’s benefits. If you’re doing this, I recommend that the protagonist of the story be you and not some “friend of yours” or “lots of people from around the world.”

For example, if you’re promoting an acne cream, think of what your target visitor’s life might be like. She might be a teenager who never gets much attention because of her acne problem; maybe some of her friends constantly make fun of her etc. It might not be a good idea to bill yourself as a teenager but there’s no reason you can’t be Martha Wilson, a businesswoman in her twenties who had the exact same problem three years ago and vowed to come up with a perfect solution to it, for the benefit of everyone like herself.

Here, you would be giving extra focus to the problems associated with acne. Basically, you’re aiming to agitate their pain by discussing how embarrassing acne is, how it dampens their social lives, and more. Then of course you reveal the solution to the reader (which is to use your product).

Keep in mind that as you write, you aren’t selling a product; rather a benefit or set of benefits to the buyer. For example, no one is interested in buying “face cream.” However, they are interested in more youthful-looking or clearer skin.

Likewise, people buy prestige and not transportation when they buy an expensive car like a Rolls Royce. They don’t buy “tooth whitener” – they’re buying the benefit of whiter teeth so they can look more attractive.

In short, people are BUYING benefits and NOT features. They’re buying OUTCOMES and NOT products.

Keep the focus of your letter on how the product will benefit the reader. What’s in it for her? How will his life change when he uses your product? How do you make their lives easier? How do you save them money, make them younger, more beautiful, healthier, happier, thinner, or wealthier?

Oh no! But what about those infamous “Skimmers?”

While we hope that all prospects will read every word of our letter, we also know that it doesn’t always happen that way. Do you ever read a sales letter completely from the first to the last line? Most of your visitors merely skim a letter before deciding whether or not to read further and/or order. Your letter must cater to these “skimmers” as well… and you must get them going down your landing page as well.

How? It’s pretty simple: as they skim your landing page, draw their attention to specific parts of it whenever possible. You can do this by sprinkling subheadings (bigger font, different color scheme, etc.) throughout your copy, plus emphasizing phrases with bold lettering, bigger font, coloring, and highlighting.

However, ensure that you don’t overuse these elements. If you emphasize too much of your copy, not only does it look like some kindergarten coloring book, but the emphasis is actually lost.

What you want to accomplish through subheading and emphasis is to give those page skimmers  a good feel for what your product can do for them.

When you are finished with your copy, look at it from the viewpoint of someone who skims it.

Do you have bold words, text in “break away” boxes, and subheadings that convey benefits to the reader? Can you both convey benefits and arouse curiosity to bring the skimmer further into your copy?

If not, tweak your subheading until they tell their own story about your product, and arouse enough interest to bring the reader in.

Hope these pointers help you to write better sales copy, and good luck in your affiliate marketing business. Don’t forget to leave a comment, thanks….

Jonathan Mitchell

Using Bullets in Sales Copy

Bullets are amazing because they cater to just about any type of audience that you want to target. Emphasized benefits for skimmers with short attention spans? Check. Easy-to-read content for people who’re reading the entire landing page? Oh yeah.

Nearly every sales letter you come across will include bullets which highlight the features and benefits of the product or service. The reason bullets are so ubiquitous is because every real copywriter knows how powerful they can be.
If you just listed the main features and benefits within regular paragraphs, only those few who’re reading every word of your page, that is, from the headline right down to the order button, will catch them.

However, those who skim would see the headline, subheads, a few bold words, and the P.S. They are likely to miss the benefits of your product if they’re hidden in a paragraph. Therefore, it is a good idea to put them in an easy-to-read list, especially bullets.

Much of the selling in your body copy happens within your bulleted lists of benefits.

This is the part of the landing page where you are really able to stir desire in your prospect as he can really see what your product will do for him. The bullets are so important that you should spend a great deal of time crafting this list of benefits. Indeed, you can consider each bullet a mini-headline where you use your “power words” (remember the ones we talked about?) and promise a benefit in each bullet. If you list a feature of your product, try to weave in a corresponding benefit.

For example, a feature of a computer might be that it includes two gigs of RAM (memory). The benefit of this RAM is that you can be sure all your software will run smoothly on your computer.

Another example: if you’re promoting an ebook or report, one feature is that the report might be short, perhaps only 40 pages or so. The benefit is that it’s a quick and easy read for busy people – no fluff!

In addition to weaving together benefits and features in your bulleted list, you’ll also want to arouse curiosity whenever possible. You can have a bullet that looks something like this:

See Page 87 to Discover Which Diet Aid Doctors Everywhere are Calling the ‘Miracle Fat Burner!’

The reason the above bullet works is because it’s specific (see page 87); it uses power words (“discover”); it’s backed by an authority figure (doctors); it uses social proof (“doctors everywhere”); and it arouses curiosity.

If you were looking to lose weight quickly, chances are a bullet like this would certainly arouse your curiosity and push you to buy the report. Now think about the product you’re promoting and how you can create benefit-packed statements and bullets that create desire and arouse curiosity.

Essentially, you should write a lot of bullets and then choose the best ones. Here are some more tips for writing great bullet points:

  1. Each bullet point should highlight only one thing about the product.
  2. Keep the bullet points short. You do not want to do a long drawn explanation. That is the job of the rest of your text. Just keep it simple.
  3. You do not have to write perfect sentences. You can use fragments to say what you need to. Just make sure the general grammar is correct, like using appropriate tenses and pronouns.

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When you’re looking for a suitable niche, first look at your market and decide who you’re going to market to. To do this, see if you can identify the following customer types within your audience:

1. People who face serious problems and want a quick way out.
These are the type of people who’re so desperate with their situation, they’ll do absolutely anything for a solution.

While it makes sense that you would want to market to them, you have to make sure that you provide them the answer that they’re looking for. No gimmicks; no unnecessary up-selling. If these people buy your product and don’t find anything of use, you can expect a severe bashing of your site all over the internet.

2. People looking for self-help information.
Note that I don’t just mean self-improvement. Self-help products sell like hot cakes in any market. For example, if you’re in the automobile repair niche, you can adopt a marketing angle that targets people looking to do all their repairs themselves (i.e. self-help).

A prospect of this type can be highly profitable, although not as profitable as a desperate one. Then again, there isn’t as much risk involved; however, you still want to provide quality information because when you do, you will lock yourself into position as an expert in your industry, and build a whole brand around yourself.

3. People who want to solve someone else’s problems.
Examples of this kind include friends or relatives who want to help someone out of an addiction; gift someone a self-help product to improve their quality of life etc. These people aren’t extremely profitable, but you can get a few sales off of them if you do things right. I wouldn’t recommend focusing on them exclusively but you can target them for a few extra sales.

When you identify these audience types within your market, you should research into what they’re looking for, and how your product can be marketed to them.

Many people think that the key to drawing visitors to their websites is some occult secret that only the “elites” know about. If there was such a secret, it would read: Content. Period. This is the single most important detail that you must pay attention to in building your affiliate website. There are, of course, several other factors that contribute to your success but high-quality content always tops the list.

If users choose to enter your site, it’s not because they want to be marketed to; it’s because they want to be communicated with. They want information and so when they don’t find it, they’re definitely going to go elsewhere. For example, writing interesting articles related to your niche is a sure-fire way to capture your visitors.

Also, it is a must that you create separate pages for each product that you are endorsing.

Creating Product Pages That Sell

Your product pages are your first opportunity to expose your visitors to the products you’re promoting. Bear in mind, though, that these shouldn’t be blatant sales letters. Your best strategy is to explore both the pros and the cons, but give an overall positive tilt to your review. This sets you apart from the common affiliate and establishes your site as a trustworthy review hub.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when you write up your product pages:

#1: Build on the sales letter.

The first thing you should do as an affiliate is study the sales letter and other details on the merchant’s website. By doing so, you will identify loose ends that have gone unnoticed. For example, if the product is a set of instructional videos, and the sales letter has missed any interesting features that you’ve noticed in the product, you should include these in your review with a reference to the sales page.

Also, some parts of the sales copy might sound ambiguous and tend to confuse prospects. You should address these in your review.

#2: Sound very unbiased.

Like I said already, it’s a must that you explore both positive and negative aspects of the product but insist that the pros largely outweigh the cons. Another clever strategy is to mostly review (and criticize) other competing products on the market. You can bash them (within limits) and recommend the product that you’re promoting as being superior to everything else. It’s a dirty tactic but it sells.

#3: Include quotes from the product.

This is a huge selling point. Essentially what you should do is pick out really good stuff from within the product and quote these in your review. For example, you can say something like “On page 53, Dan explores two high-intensity conditioning drills…” etc. This shows people that the product is exactly what they’re looking for, and prompts them to take action right away.

#4: Incentives.

We’re going to get into bonus creation in a later section but this is something that no affiliate website should be without. This is especially true if you’re in an industry where people can recognize you as an affiliate marketer. What you’re essentially doing is offering people incentives for buying the product through your affiliate link.

In case you don’t want, or can’t afford, to create your own bonuses right now, you can scour the web and find lots of PLR articles, videos etc related to your niche. While there are decent products available for free, I suggest joining paid membership sites if you’re going to offer PLR products as bonuses on your site.

Follow these steps, and you will soon master the art of creating killer product reviews that sell themselves. Remember, though, that you’ve only just started and there’s a long way to go. In an other sections, I’ll be outlining a few tips to optimize your website for search engines, so you can get some free traffic to your website. But search engine or no search engine, the best strategy of all is to update your site regularly with fresh and useful content. This is why you need to consider Blogging.

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