Most valuable writing lesson ever. Or so says Steven Pressfield in this blog post on how his first professional job as an advertising copywriter indelibly carved this truth on his psyche:

“Nobody wants to read your shit.

Let me repeat that. Nobody–not even your dog or your mother–has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your Facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and…

...continue to read "Nobody wants to read your sh**!"

Many of our clients are in the business of being Experts. Some are consultants, some are advisors, some highly-skilled professionals within their field. The challenge with using the Web to market one’s expertise is that the online world is full of charlatans, and most people who’ve hired a few “experts” have had at least one of them not live up to their claims and produce poor results.

Selling expertise face-to-face is quite bit easier. The true Expert’s skills come across in their…

...continue to read "Six Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online"

Perhaps I haven’t had enough coffee this morning…you know us Seattleites…

But I just felt I had to call out an example of how poor copywriting and writing for search engine robots can ruin a decent Unique Value Proposition.

I was referred to a site to look at their homepage design (see screenshot, highlighting is mine), and immediately noticed that they had a prominent Unique Value Proposition (UVP) statement, which was promising.

The UVP statement wasn’t the best I’ve read, but at least it…

...continue to read "When We-We and SEO Copy Attack"

Our last conversion rate exercise asked you to perform several very simple exercises to answer the question for your visitor: why she should  do business with you. Did you come up with a good TweetVP and identify the 25 interesting things about your business?

There are dozens of these exercises that you need to do to achieve the proper fitness level for maximum persuasionability.

Today, I’d like you to focus on identifying the value that your visitor needs, while differentiating yourself from…

...continue to read "Conversion Rate Exercise: Communicating Value"

If a pack of Pokemon cards cost under $7 new, how much do you think an unopened pack would go for on e-bay?

What if the seller told an amusing story about that particular pack of Pokemon cards in the product description – would you bid more based on that?  Do you think others might?

Sounds silly, but based on a real-life incident, one mother collected $103.50 from the top bid (out of 44 other bids) on her pack of Pokemon…

...continue to read "Can Copy Create (added) Value On Its Own?"

HE HAD A VOICE NO LIBRARIAN COULD LOVE – CAUSE HE ALWAYS TALKED LIKE THIS.  But look past the booming voice and easily parodied stage persona of the late Billy Mays and you’ll find an extraordinarily gifted pitch-man, worthy of his own TV show.

A pitch-man whose fame and success made him the target of more pitches than he ever gave.  Pitches made by desperate inventors looking for him to save them after they’d already mortgaged the house, spent the…

...continue to read "Billy Mays: If All You Remember is the Voice, You’re Missing Out."

Long and short are linear terms (they refer to length, right?).  So they work fine to categorize or describe copy found in a sales letters or print advertisements.

But (most) websites aren’t linear because hyperlinks break linearity (aka subvert hierarchy).

People don’t read (most) Websites one full page at a time in a numbered order; they read/scan/move from one link that interests them to the next link that interests them, often entering or starting on something other than page #1 (what bad web…

...continue to read "How to Think About Long vs. Short Copy"

Bryan Eisenberg was recently asked the following question via e-mail:

“I know you are very busy, but I would like your help. I have read your blog(s) about Unique Value Proposition over and over (and others too).  I am perplexed.  How do you distinguish between a Unique Value Propostion and tag line. For example Fedex, ‘When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight’ – tagline or UVP? Your site ‘Keep Your Goals On Target: Increase Conversions, Get More…

...continue to read "UVP or Tagline?"

According to copywriting legend Eugene Schwartz, a headline’s main job isn’t to sell; it’s to gain the readers attention and compel them to read the ad.  And this is sound advice, but the Internet also requires one other thing in today’s web 2.0 copy world… Step 1. Scent: Web copy adds the requirement of scent.  Your headlines and sub headlines have to assure visitors that they’re in the right place.  A compelling headline that doesn’t orient readers…

...continue to read "3-Steps for Writing (and testing) Great Headlines"

Remember how, a while back, we talked about the benefits of using active verbs in your copy (Think Active!)? You must have got some benefit from that discussion – it’s one of my most popular articles ever. So I think it’s time we played Fun With Grammar again (if only your 9th grade English class had been so application-oriented).

If you buy that the passive voice is death to persuasive writing (which was the point of that other little piece), then…

...continue to read "Pump Up Your Verbs"