Sometimes I get the urge to help people. (Shhhh, don’t let too many people know.)
My latest victim was Helen who runs a training company. And she was having troubles getting people to sign up for her courses.
Now this was posted on a forum which I look at from time to time and most of the responses were typically about the way her website looked. There wasn’t much feedback on what it actually said.
So I pointed out the thing that, to me, seemed obvious. Her website didn’t talk about her prospects at all. It talked about her philosophy. What she does. And a lot about her awards and achievements in 2009.
Hopefully you’re saying ’sheesh’ right now. If you’re not, stay with me…
What she failed to do was talk about her prospects. What do they want from her courses? Do they want them to be delivered quicker? Cheaper? Do they want to learn more? What do they really want out of them? Do they genuinely want to learn, or do they just need the bit of paper for their job?
You see, Helen needs to get her prospect front and centre when she writes her advertising. Unfortunately she only seemed to have a mirror and wrote what SHE wanted to hear…about herself. But your advertising isn’t about you at all. You’re not buying your product. Your prospect is. So you have to spend your time getting inside their mind first. And then talk about what’s frustrating them, and what they really want.
Many of my regular subscribers have worked with me, and have seen my copywriting questionnaire. The main goal of this document is to get me inside your prospect’s head to know what to say in the copy. This gets their emotions, thoughts and frustrations in my mind when I write the copy, and this is what gets results.
As for Helen, I don’t know if she’s read my comments yet. I certainly hope she does and takes action on them because its going to make the difference between the very poor response she’s getting right now and making serious moolah.
All the best,
Hugh Thyer
