Sales Come First

Lets jump straight into this week’s topic. Its a more advanced strategy for writing sales copy but its easy to do and can have a big impact on your sales.

Its called the ‘double readership path’ and it takes advantage of the way people generally read a sales letter.

You see, some people will read a sales letter from top to bottom, but not everyone. A lot of people will scan your letter, whether its online or on paper. They might flip forward a few pages, or glance over the main page. And that’s where you’ve got to sell to them. RIght there, when they’re scanning.

They’ve got to get enough of a reason to read your whole letter from what they pick up on that initial scan. And to do this you exploit the double readership path, which means your reader can pick up your basic sales message just by scanning your sales letter.

Make sure your subheadings and highlights tell your story. They shouldnt just be relevant to the sales copy around them. Your subheadings should make sense to a reader on their own. And if you read nothing but the subheadings then your basic story should be clear.

For example, lets say you’re writing about a stove/cooktop you’re selling. Your subheadings and highlights alone could read something like this:
…………………………….
“Revolutionary new stove concept helps you”
“Cook like a professional”
“Your friends will accuse you of buying in bakery cooked cakes” (and)
“Your family will love you”
“Not only that, but you’ll pay less than a normal, run of the mill stove”
“and its fully guaranteed for 10 years”
“If it breaks, someone will come to your house and fix it straight away”
…………………………….

What about a product to help people make money online?
…………………………….
“Could easily be described as the biggest recession buster of all time”
“Can make you thousands a week”
“Its so simple to do”
“Can you follow straight forward instructions? If you can, you can make easy money from home”
“An 80 year old grandmother made $15,225 in a single month alone”
“You barely need to lift a finger”
“Make money while you’re on holiday”
“I personally guarantee if you dont make 10 times your investment back in one month I’ll refund your every cent”
“$2,498 of value for only $67″
…………………………….

See how simple it is? Someone just reading the subheadings alone can pick up your basic story, and if just one of them hits a nerve, then your reader will read that section, and if they’re interested they’ll go back and read the whole lot.

Of course, to make it even MORE effective, use relevant pictures and graphics, like pictures of cash where you talk about money, a grandmother where you talk about the 80 year old grandmother and a warm sunny beach where you talk about making money on holidays.

Here are a few more tips:

TIP #1:
The other thing people will do when they read your letter is look at your order form first, so it also needs to tell your story. Especially if they’re looking for the price first. For new subscribers and non-subscribers, I wrote about that here: http://salescomefirst.com/writing-order-forms/

TIP #2:
As I just mentioned, some people go straight to the end to see the price, so don’t put it there. Hide it a bit higher up and make your prospect read parts of your letter to find it.

TIP #3:
People will read your PSs first, so you should put some effort into them. But that’s a story for another week. In fact, that’s a story for NEXT week!

All the best,

Hugh Thyer

www.salescomefirst.com

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>

Hi there

Last week I spoke at length about marketing funnels. This week I want to just straight back into the nuts and bolts of writing sales copy.

You see, getting your prospect at the beginning is only part of the battle. There are heaps of places you can lose them along the way.

For example, they might not like your offer. They might not be convinced you’re the ‘real deal’. Perhaps you haven’t done enough to justify your price or your close just fails to move them from a ‘Maybe’ to a ‘Yes’.

But even if they get to the very end and make their decision to order, you can still lose them at the final hurdle…the order form.

OK, look. An order form isnt just a place to put a place for payment details. Its actually a mini-sales letter in its own right. And while this is more important to offline marketers its still very relevant to those of you online. Actually, people often read the order form first, before they read your letter so its critical to tell your story on your order form. This way they’ll be encouraged to go back and read your letter.

So, an order form should contain a number of key elements:
1. A summary of the benefit your prospect will get from your product
2. A reminder of the guarantee
3. A reminder of everything in the offer WITH what each item is valued at, all listed out.
4. A figure of the total value at the bottom.
5. A couple of testimonials
6. The price should be clearly stated, and compared to the total value. For example “That’s $1497 worth of value for only $197″
7. Urgency. Remind them why they should order NOW. For example, a time limited offer or limited stock.

For example, the first paragraph could be something like this…
‘YES! I want to learn how to dress like a movie star! Please rush me xyz for the discounted price of $x. I understand I’ll receive (xyz) and if I’m not absolutely thrilled I can get a full, no questions asked refund straight away’

Next, make sure it stands out. The best colour for an order form is bright yellow.

And the biggest tip I can give you here is to make it simple. I’m not kidding here. You’ve got to tell your prospect EXACTLY what to do, right down to where to fill in their payment details, who to send a cheque to, where to fax it, or to press the ‘Complete Order’ button. There must be NO confusion here, or you will lose orders. In fact, this is a good point to remind you about keeping your offers simple to understand too, and if you’ve got one offering, limit it to two (three at the most) different options.

The funny thing is, writing this post has reminded me I need to talk about the Double Readership Path in long sales letters. Its one of those concepts that can make a big difference to your response rates. Unfortunately a lot of people writing copy are either too lazy to do it, or just dont understand it, but its easy to do and if it helps you get more sales then its really money for nothing. My favourite kind!

All the best,

Hugh Thyer
www.salescomefirst.com

Are you REALLY getting the response you deserve?

I’m sure you’d appreciate it if I’m blunt. You see, I bet you’re NOT getting anywhere near the response from your advertising that you SHOULD be.

OK, I’m sure people DO respond to your ads, but whenever you place an ad somewhere, I reckon its probably seen by thousands of people. And yet if you’re lucky, only 1 or 2 will actually respond.

Do you have a yellow pages ad? It’s a good example. Every time somebody goes to the section where your ad is, your ad is right there in front of them. But of the thousands that see it, how many call?

I bet you only get a few calls out of the many thousands that see your ad. Yes, I’ll concede that you DO get calls. But only because of the shotgun approach, where if enough people see your ad, someone’s BOUND to call at some time. Problem is, what happened to all the other people who saw your ad and decided NOT to call?

You see, to get your phone ringing red-hot, you need a full system for getting your prospect from looking for someone to do business with, to getting them as a full customer.

OK, now most people run yellow pages ads with their business name, logo and contact details. But what that ad is asking is that people make the decision there and then that your business is the one they want to do business with (or at least on a shortlist).

That’s a big ask. So, here’s a different alternative.

Why not just offer them something for free. No obligation, nothing. Just something for free. A good example for an accountant might be a free report on the “7 Ways To Rip Off The Tax Department…Legally”. So, while you’re not asking your prospect to become a client, you’ve offered them good free information….
…and so they take up the offer. The nice thing here is they’ve got something of value, and you’ve done it in a way that wont make them feel threatened.

In the report (or should I say content-rich sales letter) you offer them an audit of their last year’s tax return absolutely free. And they can take your results and get the tax department to give you even more back. So, there’s some incentive there!

Once you’ve done the audit, your audit contains another offer, this time to get the prospect to commit to using your services. It might be a free consultation, or a percentage off their next tax return. And because you’ve proven your ability with the audit, they’d be mad NOT to take your offer up and become a client.

Sounding better so far?

Well, we can bolt on a few more things here, because we can pick up clients through newspaper ads, or your website.

And then, we should be sending out follow up letters as well.

So now we’ve got a simple yet effective marketing funnel.

Here it is, drawn out.

Of course it gets bigger than this. You could have lots more steps in it to include referrals, pay-per-click campaigns, up-sells into different services and so on. I’ve seen marketing plans with over 30 different steps including phone calls and faxes, and especially emails, depending on where people come in to your business. I put together a basic one the other week which could grow to include upsells to different products, boxes of products, affiliate programs and so on.

Hang on, did I say ‘affiliate program’? Sure did. This applies to the online world as well. In fact, you can use any number of tools to automate this whole thing for an online business, so depending on where your prospect first comes in contact with your business, you can roll out an entire marketing funnel to them over weeks, without lifting a finger.

Look, even as a tradesperson you can use a marketing funnel to do the exact same thing. It might start with leads coming from various sources such as the yellow pages, local newspapers, the internet, direct mail, referrals and so on. Then leads to free information, or a free audit of their needs, to writing up a proposal (giving you the chance to sell other services) and once you’re done, you can offer cleaning products or matching decor, depending on what business you’re in. And dont forget to promote your referral service, and give your customer an incentive to refer other people on.

Give it a go with your own business. Grab a whiteboard and go nuts. You’ll be amazed at how many ideas you can come up with to get heaps of new customers, and how to lead them through the process to becoming a buyer.

One last though here…the value of a business is in its systems. A business with a solid, PROVEN method for getting customers and getting more out of your relationship with them is worth MUCH more than the business without any of this.

OK, next week its we’re going to fast forward to the very end of any piece of marketing…the Order Form. If you think they’re just a few boxes to fill in to get payment details then think again. They’re a real artform in themselves.

All the best,

Hugh
www.salescomefirst.com

Wow folks,

I’ve been writing these articles now since the end of September in 2008. I remember that date because I was at Alan Forrest Smith’s MasterClass that weekend, and it was the weekend Hawthorn beat Geelong in the AFL Grand Final. And I didnt really care, because I don’t even barrack for Geelong (even though I live there!)

But I think in that time I’ve delivered some pretty hard hitting topics and unlike MOST blogs and articles on the internet, I’ve filled these ones up with useable content and solid examples YOU can use in your business.

Anyway, I get emails from time to time but hey, I’d love to hear from my readers more often. If you want to agree with me…let me know! And if you want to argue then let me know that too. In fact, if you’ve got more questions about an article, let me know your question. In fact, if you’ve got any burning questions, or you’d just like to know more about something you’re trying to do in your business then get in touch with me.

Just shoot me an email at hugh@salescomefirst.com.

OK, now onto the REAL topic for today.

And that is how newsletters can play an important role in your business.

OK. Now, lets get one thing straight. A lot of people think marketing is all about getting new customers. But that thinking is a bit wide of the mark. The most important thing in your marketing system is customer retention. That’s because its much easier to retain customers and clients than to get new ones.

Any business gets some level of churn, ie customers leaving and customers coming. But because its so much easier to retain customers, you’re far better off concentrating on keeping your existing customer base rather than having them leave while you pursue NEW customers. Imagine if you could get your churn rate down so low that the only people leaving you were the ones that died, retired or closed down.

And then imagine if you could charge them much more.

You’d hardly need any new customers at all. In fact, if you do everything right you can easily grow your business just by retaining your customer base and having a good referral system in place.

And that’s where newsletters come in. If you’re in the service business, such as a mortgage broker, financial planner, gardener etc then newsletters have a really important place in your marketing. You see, newsletters let you keep in touch with your client, so they’re an essential part of your customer retention strategy.

One of the most basic human needs is the need to belong. So newsletters keep people feeling as though they’re important to you. Not only that, but you get to showcase your knowledge and results over and over again. And this re-enforces what your business is all about to your customers.

If you’re in a business where you regularly work for your client, then your newsletter will stop them considering another provider. If you’re giving them what they want each month then the wont want to give this up.

But even if you’re in a business where you work for them infrequently, newsletters are still critical. And that’s because when they want your services again, your business will be their #1 choice.
Accountants, mortgage brokers and financial planners are great examples of this.

Just think, you can print a newsletter and post it for as little as $1. So for $12 a year you can be your client’s #1 choice every single time. And for every client you retain by doing this, you save a lot of time and money NOT having to acquire a replacement.

The most important thing to remember about writing a newsletter is to get MAXIMUM readership. So make sure you keep it light and conversational in tone, and make sure people want to read it.

With that in mind let me give you the most important components of ANY newsletter.

- From the editor – your thoughts and opinions. Keep it personal and conversational, not formal.
- Some articles – keep them short and easy to understand, and make sure you convey benefits for your reader.
- Tips – People love these!
- Joke Corner – Again, remember its all about keeping readership
- Inspirational quotes – same as with jokes, its all about giving people something they’ll appreciate.
- Success stories – basically testimonials, but you can use them as little articles
- Q&A – let people ask you questions. People just love reading the answers.
- Special offers – these can be in the form of a competition as well.

And dont forget to remind them about your referral system. If you dont have one…GET ONE!

I recently did a sample newsletter for a large financial planning firm. They already had a newsletter but quite frankly it was very dry and I imagine it would have been a tough read. So make sure you keep it simple and enjoyable for people. After all, what use is it if people dont want to read it?

Next week I want to go through something that people dont often write about. But I think its very important to understand in a formal sense. So next week I’ll be looking at marketing funnels.

If you’ve got any questions about newsletters, or any feedback feel free to add a comment or email me.

All the best

Hugh Thyer

PS I recently did a sample  newsletter for a client and that client will be incorporating a lot of my suggestions to make their newsletter really work for them! If you’d like a makeover done on your newsletter, or a sample drawn up from scratch, please contact me at hugh@salescomefirst.com to discuss it.