If the call to action is underlined copy, visitors realize it’s a text link. If the call to action is a button, it’s obvious that this is click-able. Don’t tell the visitor to “click here” in order to engage them to click. Instead, persuade the visitor to click with the use of keywords or “trigger words” that speak directly to the visitor’s motivations and needs within the link, based on what they came searching for in the first place.

A great link uses an imperative verb that calls the visitor to take action, and it absolutely needs to clearly describe what the visitor will experience when they click.

Here is RelationshipHeadquarters.com’s homepage. Let’s look at some of their calls to action.

There is a big button in the active window of their homepage (the Primary call to action) that says “Are you a woman that men adore? Take free quiz.”  The first portion of this language engages the visitor by speaking to their interests and motivations, and the second portion is the action that you’re recommending they take which is “…take free quiz.”

The links in the active window (the Secondary calls to action) each engage the visitor to help them find solutions to their problems:

• “Understand men”
• “How to get him back”
• “Be the woman men adore”

There are many things you should consider when optimizing and testing your calls to action, but first and foremost, remove all of the “click here” language that might currently exist in your links and buttons.  A quick audit of your site to write better calls to action will provide a great return on your investment in terms of persuading more prospects to take the action you want them to take.  Don’t believe me?  Run some tests and see for yourself

Editor’s Note: No mannequins were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Most valuable writing lesson ever.

“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 Tchopotoulis.

It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy.

Nobody wants to read your shit.

There’s a phenomenon in advertising called Client’s Disease. Every client is in love with his own product. The mistake he makes is believing that, because he loves it, everyone else will too.

They won’t. The market doesn’t know what you’re selling and doesn’t care. Your potential customers are so busy dealing with the rest of their lives, they haven’t got a spare second to give to your product/work of art/business, no matter how worthy or how much you love it.”

Every online copywriter – no scratch that – every writer, marketer, advertiser, business owner, and entrepreneur should go read this post in its entirety.

This very powerfully states what Future Now has long taught: prospective customers are task oriented – they have lives and they are not on your Website because they are interested in you, or your company, or how you’d like to “position” yourselves within the industry.  Your online visitors have a problem and they are really only interested in whether or not you have a viable solution.

Once you understand that, you can move away from we-we copy in order to focus on providing visitors with:

• Ongoing visual and text assurances that they’ve come to the right place to find their solution – i.e., provide good scent.

• Copy that speaks to them about what matters to them.  Establish empathy with WHY they need your solution.  Figure out what has driven them to need your product or service, and make sure you address those felt emotional needs as well as ALL of their lingering, sales-killing questions and doubts.

• Pathways/links that allow each visitor to choose their own path, to either take the express train to grabbing what they need and converting, or to drill down to richer content on those elements where they need to assure themselves that you are, in fact, selling a real solution to their specific problem.

Nobody wants to read your copy.  But if they’ve voluntarily come to your Website in search of a solution, chances are good they will scan, skim, and yes, even read copy that addresses their task at hand.

The difficult part is often the task of separating out “your sh**” from the copy that’s actually needed to address visitors’ concerns.  Hiring outsiders often helps with this.  Personas are also extraordinarily helpful.  And so are the guidelines outlined in Steven Pressfield’s post – go read them!

And then go kick some online marketing a**

P.S.  If the name Steven Pressfield seems familiar, you may have read his (highly recommended) non-fiction book, The War of Art.  Or possibly his extremely popular historical fiction (also recommended).

[Editors Note:  The author of this article is now blogging at jeffsextonwrites.com]

Selling expertise face-to-face is quite bit easier. The true Expert’s skills come across in their body language, their confidence, their humility, and how they carry themselves. Most of this non-verbal communication isn’t accessible online, so how can you use the Web to market and sell your expertise?

Here’s six ways we’ve found, in no particular order:
1. Persuasive Copy – One of the biggest (unspoken) challenges of selling expertise is persuading the prospect that it’s OK for her to give up control. The risk (especially in the B2B market) is that you bring in an Expert, and they do such a good job that you yourself are out of a job! How do you know that the Expert will make you look good to your bosses instead of bad? No one wants to feel stupid, and no one wants to lose face, so overcoming this objection online is very tricky. Persuasive copy is probably the best way to solve it. Look at this copy from Jeff Sexton’s sample fitness/training website from his post.

p.s. Once, a very long time ago, when I had just gotten my license, I was with my father in a rather [expletive] of a snow storm in the mountains of North Carolina in my new car.   The weather was awful and I was scared to death… and I’m not ashamed to admit that.  We were seriously in danger of sliding off the edge of the mountain.   Then, I remembered something he had told me years ago when I was a kid.

He taught me that if you’re ever in a situation where you happen to be traveling in a DANGEROUS situation, give the controls of that vehicle to the person with you who is most skilled at operating a vehicle under those types of conditions.   That means you should not necessarily take control yourself… or to give them to the person that’s been driving the “longest”… or to the person that has the most driving “certifications”…

You should give the wheel to the person who is BEST at navigating that car through that particular dangerous terrain.

So, rather than let my pride possibly take my car away from me:

I gave the controls to my new car in that dangerous situation to my father!

In this situation… ask yourself… “Who should I give the navigational controls to?”

See how the copywriter used a parable to let prospects learn it’s OK to give control to an expert who can handle a particular situation?

2. Video Testimonials – We talk about testimonials all the time on this blog, but text-based testimonials are intrinsically “fake-able,” and some skeptical prospects may dismiss them as less than real or authentic. We’re not sure why more companies aren’t leveraging video testimonials, which are a lot harder to fake. When someone believes in their heart that you’re an Expert, and they’ve placed their trust in you, that emotion should come across in a good video.

3. Search Engine Optimization – Let’s face facts…buying a Pay Per Click ad to tell me you’re an expert isn’t very persuasive. Seeing you (or even your name) a few times on the first page of organic search results is. There aren’t many businesses that don’t need to be working on their SEO, but if you’re selling expertise, you’d better be putting some resources towards showing up organically for your target keywords. NOTE: Proceed with caution–overly-aggressive search optimization practices can hurt your credibility with searchers AND search engines!

4. Have a credible web presence – there’s a whole field of study around online credibility, so I won’t spend much ink on this, but it’s worth mentioning that the credibility of your design, content, and even your social networking accounts will definitely have an impact on your ability to market your expertise.

5. A Good Track Record – Maybe this one goes without saying, but make sure your prospects can find your “track record” — your case studies, before and after comparisons, etc. And please don’t make them submit a lead form to get to them. Put the content out there and if they’re interested, they’ll reach out to you.

6. Publish or Perish – Somewhat related to numbers 3-5, what I mean by “publish or perish” (apologies for jargon from Academia) is that you have to be constantly proving and re-proving your expertise. Especially in the technology space, just because you were an Expert 18 months ago doesn’t mean you are now. So make sure that your case studies stay fresh. Keep updating your website to deal with hot topics in your field, and when you don’t have time to do either one, you’d better be blogging or micro-blogging. If you give out a strong, consistent signal, prospects gravitate towards you. If you get lazy, they’ll flounder around for a bit, then follow the newer, stronger signals.

[Ed.: If you didn't already know, FutureNow is the acknowledged Expert in the conversion optimization space. To prove we take our own advice, check out our website to see how we apply these same six principles to our own online efforts.]

“Brilliant post. We get this all the time, when designing websites for our clients……..But our clients will often use the line “but my customer understands this terminology, these acronyms, my customer is from a particular niche and they all use this terminology”…….It can be hard to argue this point, the client knows their customer better than us…… Yes usability tests would be a good way to prove to a client this problem, however it can be very difficult to find users who fits the persona.”

Thanks for the comment, Hamish, and I’ve run into that situation a few times myself.  So here are a few strategies for dealing with that which have worked well for me:

In working with the client

• Properly frame the discussion: “So what you are telling me is that if prospective clients come to your site and are not as familiar with these acronyms and terms as your “ideal candidate,” your OK with turning those prospects away and losing the sale?” Ultimately, it’s their site, if they want to only speak to “insiders” and the hard core, then that’s a legitimate business decision, just frame the question in business terms so they can acknowledge the bottom-line costs to such a strategy.

• If the client relents when you ask him the “are you willing to lose the sale” question, suggest that you create and link to early-stage and newbie-friendly material. There is certainly no harm in taking an industry term and giving a fresh nuts-and-bolts analysis of it.  At best you’ll get a chance to demonstrate your expertise; at the least, you’ll get some keyword rich and internally linked content.

• Perform a Marketing Copy Autopsy on a piece of their current collateral.  Pull out all the self-applied labels and adjectives to show them how the jargon is really just covering up a lack of substantive content.  That should open up the client’s eyes, and if the autopsy reveals copy with substance, that’s a good sign that maybe the client is correct in their customer-knowledge assessment.

• Do what Seth Godin suggested in the first place: get a flip cam and interview some past or current client customers.  Don’t just test to see if they know the terms, but ask about the implications involved.   Knowing what a graphics card is isn’t the same thing as knowing why it can be critically important to have a powerful one if you’re looking to play hard core video games.

In crafting the clients Web copy

• Spell out acronyms at least once per main landing page, so if, say, COTS was a heavily used acronym, the site would say Commercial Off-the-shelf Technologies, once in a while, as sort of a reminder or lifeline for the reader.

• Insist that no more than 1-2 terms or acronyms appear in any sentence. The problem is often not just that jargon or acronyms are used, but that they are triple and quadruple stacked on top of each other in complex-compound sentences.  That’s when you end up with something like this: “Drawing on our long-term experience as systems integators, solid relationships with our suppliers, and a commitment to the successful execution of the concept of COTS in mission-critical applications, our reputation — and our customer base — has grown.”  Whew!  Even rough familiarity with the industry terms isn’t enough to save most readers from having their brains “go splat” while reading those kind of sentences.  The more complex and technical the material, the more you need simple sentence structures.

• “Aerate” the text with videos, graphs, and photos that provide a sensory experience of the most important technical terms or acronyms.  Imagine a sidebar or box that shows a COTS case study, complete with before and after pictures of the off-the-shelf consumer item and its new military cousin along with a cost comparison showing the savings involved.  As another example, I suggested showing beam shots of the different power LEDs in my product page critique of BalckDiamond’s Headlamp.

An now for a dissenting opinion.

Legendary copywriter Bob Bly has a well known article titled, “Six Things I know for Sure About Marketing to Engineers.”  Point number five plainly states that:

“5. Engineers are not turned off by jargon—in fact, they like it. Consultants teaching business writing seminars tell us to avoid jargon because it interferes with clear communication.

This certainly is true when trying to communicate technical concepts to lay audiences such as the general public or top management. But jargon can actually enhance communication when appealing to engineers, computer specialists, and other technical audiences.

Why is jargon effective? Because it shows the reader that you speak his language. When you write direct response copy, you want the reader to get the impression you’re like him, don’t you? And doesn’t speaking his language accomplish that?

Actually, engineers are not unique in having their “secret language” for professional communication. People in all fields publicly denounce jargon but privately love it. For instance, who aside from direct marketers has any idea of what a “nixie” is? And why use that term, except to make our work seem special and important?”

As I said, if you are narrowing your focus to a special group of insiders – or at least want to appear that you’re doing that – then an unapologetic use of jargon can work great. But I’d still try to test working in a few of my bulleted strategies

And here’s a little desert video on advertising terms – fair warning, though, George Carlin’s language may not be workplace appropriate:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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 was an attempt that could be tested and refined. But the sub-text under the UVP was what irked me enough to write this post.

Someone decided to “we-we” all over the UVP! And it looks like they also tried to write for search engine robots instead of humans with credit cards:

“We specialize in custom ties, custom bow ties, bowtie / cummerbund / handkerchief sets, custom cufflinks, matching gift boxes, women ’s scarves, and much more. We can custom make your neckwear any way you desire. We have both standard ties and clip on ties as well as extra long ties for your custom ties. We even have custom ties for boys as young as 6 months. Our products are great for corporations, organizations, churches, choirs, schools, uniforms, athletic teams, fraternities, formal and special events, and many more.”

Notice that by focusing on SEO only, they end up with copy that will resonate with no one.

Here’s the official tally from our free We We Calculator:

Your Customer Focus Rate: 37.50% (3 customer-focused words)

Your Self Focus Rate: 62.50% (5 self-focused words, and 0 mentions of the Company Name)

You speak about yourself about 2 times as often as you speak about your customers. Might that have an impact on your effectiveness?

I’m not a Search Engine Optimization guru, but I’d wager that any SEO prowess you lost by fixing that kind of copy could be made up by 1 or 2 quality, keyw0rd-rich inbound links from reputable, related sites, don’t you?

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 $103.50 from the top bid (out of 44 other bids) on her pack of Pokemon cards simply because people fell in love with the story she told about how she came to own the cards in the first place.  Nothing changed about this under-7$ pack of cards except for the story.

And now, one of the coolest web projects I’ve seen in a while is attempting to recreate a similar phenomenon with a variety of objects but with a really cool twist – they want the buyer to know that the story behind the object is fake!  Here’s how the project website describes the process:

“The project’s curators purchase objects — for no more than a few dollars — from thrift stores and garage sales.

A participating writer is paired with an object. He or she then writes a fictional story, in any style or voice, about the object. Voila! An unremarkable, castoff thingamajig has suddenly become a “significant” object!

Each significant object is listed for sale on eBay. The s.o. is pictured, but instead of a factual description the s.o.’s newly written fictional story is used. However, care is taken to avoid the impression that the story is a true one; the intent of the project is not to hoax eBay customers. (Doing so would void our test.) The author’s byline will appear with his or her story.

The winning bidder is mailed the significant object, along with a printout of the object’s fictional story. Net proceeds from the sale are given to the respective author. Authors retain all rights to their stories.

The test’s results — photos, original prices and final sale prices, stories — are cataloged on this website. The project’s curators retain the right to use these materials in other venues and media. For example: Maybe we’ll publish a book.”  [emphasis mine]

Go ahead and treat yourself to a few of the objects’ stories, you’ll get sucked in, I promise you.  And what’ll you want to bet that these items end up selling for far more than the “few dollars” paid for them?

How this applies to selling “normal” products online

There is a dangerous assumption that because the public demands more straightforward or honest copy, that the best bet is to simply provide little factoid like bullet points rather than actual, detail-rich product copy. Here’s an example of bullets vs. copy taken from a flip-flop manufacturers website:

So focus in on the first, fourth, and final bullet points, if you would.  What you’ll find are the following facts:

• 1st bullet = 2 piece custom bottom unit mold is an OM exclusive design
• 4th bullet = Super soft Crosslite topsole…
• Last bullet = Croslite is soft, comfortable, lightweight, superior gripping, and odor resistant.

So here’s the question: do you think a little storytelling on the reasoning behind and development of the 2-piece bottom and Crosslite topsole might help increase the perceived value of these flip flops?

Just as an example, here’s what the bottom of the shoe looks like (courtesy of Zappos):

Now, do you think the two piece design might allow the shoe to flex more easily with your foot?  Do you think that might improve the comfort and possibly even eliminate or minimize the annoying flapping sound generated by most flop flops?

What if the company told you that this 2-piece sole was born of extensive gate-testing of 100s of flip-flop designs?

Would you pay more for the flip flop knowing that?

Same thing with Crosslite.  I’m betting a good story about it’s odor fighting properties, especially regarding how and why crosslite can fight foot odor, would also up the sandals perceived value.

As of now, the flip flops go for $35 on the company’s website, and slightly more than that from Zappos.  That’s about $15 cheaper than a pair of Reef Fannings.  Now, I don’t own a pair of Ocean Minded Sea Weeds, but I’d bet they’re roughly comparable to the Reef Fannings in terms of construction, fit, comfort, etc.  And I’d also bet that much of the Fanning’s popularity is tied up in the story behind:

1. Mick Fanning’s input into the design of the flip flop
2. The Fanning-inspired bottle opener embedded into the flip-flop’s sole

Yes, I’m probably simplifying things a bit.  I realize Reef is a bigger brand name than Ocean Minded and that the Fanning flip flops also have Nike-like air cushioning in the heal.  But from where I’m sitting, a good origin’s story just might account for the majority of that 42% increase in asking price.

The difference between increasing an item’s price and increasing its saleability

Will you always be able to charge more because of a good story or great product description?  No.

Sometimes you’ll just sell the item more easily, which usually translates into selling more of that item.  If I’m trying to decide on a pair of flip-flops to buy, there’s a chance that I simply won’t pay the same for a no-name brand than I will for a pair of reefs.  But that I might buy a brand like Ocean Minded’s at a discount as long as I had a reason to trust their quality.  And that’s where the product development stories come in: the stories would increase the sandal’s saleability, if not the actual selling price.

So, rather than only 1 visitor in 50 pulling the trigger on a pair, the right storyline might cause 1 in 5 browsers to buy.  You didn’t increase margins, but you did boost your volume and conversion rate, which is a lot more than industry-standard bullet points can ever claim.

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 kids’ college fund, and invested all their life savings trying to bring some gadget to market.  People who showed up saying, “If only you, Billy Mays, would represent me on TV, I know we’d be able to sell my ________”

So what was the one product quality Billy INSISTED on? The one thing a product absolutely had to have if he was going to take on that kind of responsibility?

Demonstrability.

And Billy talks about the importance of demonstrability within the first 23 seconds of this video – the last interview he ever gave.  Watch:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Billy knew that so many of us forget, is that a conclusion that the audience comes to on their own is a conclusion they’ll believe and act on. No normal advertising claim can achieve that, no matter how much evidence you throw behind it.

SHOW someone an “I can’t freakin’ believe it” demonstration, and they’ll walk away convinced. Try to persuade them with a stack of studies, facts, and figures, and they’ll likely assume you rigged the tests, got your testimonials from all your friends, and “interpreted” the facts with all the abandon of Jim Cramer telling people to hold onto their Bear Stearns stocks 6 days before the bankruptcy filing.

In Web terms, put your Social Security Number on the front page of your website and I’ll be a lot more likely to believe you can also keep me safe from identity theft.  Forgo the demonstration in favor of detailing your 14-step process to keep me safe, and I may not even read it, let alone believe your claim(s).

And, yes, dramatizing the benefit has long been the specialty of the infomercial, whether it was the ginsu knife cutting through the tin can, the sham-wow pulling up spilt coke from a carpet, or, yes, the incredible stain removing feats of oxy-clean.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So the question for you Web copywriters out there is, how can you inject demonstrability into your copy?

And if you can’t fully create demonstrability with copy and static pictures alone, how can you use a little video to bring that info-mercial magic to your sales pages?

And as a warning, this Zappos video is a clear case on how NOT to do it.

Do these guys show the product in action?  No.  Do they show you any parts of the shoe a visitor can’t see from the multiple images Zappos’ site already provides.  No.  So what the hell is the video for again?

How about showing me the guy’s foot in the flip flop, with a close up on the arch support?  How about showing me how flexible (or not) the flip flop is – how much it bends with the foot vs. how hard it slaps up against the heal with each step.  How it fits a narrow/medium/wide foot.  Etc.  Going a few thousand steps further, how about showing me how well the shoe looks after a few months of use?

C’mon, Zappos, why use video if you’re not going to actually SHOW the product in action?  Why use the video if you’re not going to actually help answer more questions than could have been answered with just text and pictures?

Anyway, Billy Mays’s family has my deepest condolences.  And you readers have my sincere wish that you take one of Billy’s last marketing lessons to heart.

This past month, I shared my 10 step process for optimizing copy for websites or landing pages on my Market Motive training call. I was able to convince my friends at Market Motive to let me share the full presentation video with you (normally they only share the first few chapters unless you are a paid member). Unfortunately, it will only be available to be viewed on the blog until June 3rd.

If you don’t know what Market Motive is; Market Motive was started by my good friends John Marshall, Michael Stebbins and Avinash Kaushik. They provide online training and certification in Internet Marketing. There are over 300 videos like this one already in their archives. This is especially critical now that travel and training budgets have been slashed. It features some great instructors who present monthly trainings, answering questions from audience members, as well as a great online forum where you can ask additional questions afterwords.  Market Motive Instructors include:

• Greg Jarboe, Jamie O’Donnell on Online PR
• Alan Rimm-Kaufman on Paid Search / PPC
• Matt Bailey on Social Media
• Avinash Kaushik, John Marshall on Web Analytics
• Todd Malicoat on SEO
• Michael Stebbins on Email Marketing

Enjoy the presentation (it will take less than 20 minutes to watch)! I’ve also included the 10 steps with additional references below.

(If you are having problems displaying the video in your browser
click here to Play Now.)

The 10 Steps to Optimizing Copy

When evaluating and improving copy I work through these 10 steps one at a time.

1. Headlines

Why are headlines first?  They are the critical attention-getters that allow your visitor to determine if the page is relevant to his or her need in just a few seconds. Readers of your pages use headlines and sub headlines (headers and subheaders) to grok the content on a page and decide if they want to read more of your copy. Headlines aid in the visual task of scanning and skimming, which helps your visitors organize the information you present.  Worded appropriately, they encourage your visitors to go deeper into your persuasive copy.

2. First Mental Image

This is usually a combination of your headline and how it ties into your first few sentences of copy along with your first picture (if you have one in the paragraph).  We’ve written several post that illustrate the power of a good first mental image.  You may remember the post about how to convert a visitor in under 8 seconds. A strong mental image is achieved by choosing the best copy perspective for your message.  Did you miss the copy perspective series by copywriter and copywriting instructor extraordinaire Jeff Sexton?

3. WIIFM

Everybody’s favorite radio station – what’s in it for me. Are you speaking to the reader about what matters to them?  And are you speaking their language?  Different personality preferences have different ways of engaging with your content and making decisions.  This is where (and why) using personas to decide your content strategy can be so valuable in improving your conversion rate.

4. Check for We-We

If you use your own name or “we” too many times in your copy you’ll end up sounding self-centered rather than customer focused.  Face it: you’re not Denny Crane.  So use our we-we or customer focus calculator to see how self-centered vs. customer-focused your copy is.  You can also read our post to better understand how to measure your we-we.  I’ve had many people tell me that they boosted their conversion rate by improving their we we score and creating more customer-focused copy.

5. Remove the Black Words

Eliminate the black words. Avoid words that do not contribute toward a more vivid or colorful mental image.

6. Reformatting for Readability

Your online copy must be formatted to make it easy to digest online. You want to maximize skimming and scanning just the way Amazon reformatted their page.

7. Improve Your Verbs

Your copy can always be improved by pumping up your verbs and writing in active not passive voice. You can change a couple of setting in Microsoft Word to check for passive voice for you.

8. Wording in Links and Calls to Action

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen recently wrote about his research about the importance of keywords in your hyperlinks. Jeff Sexton shares how to write more persuasive hyperlinks and calls to action so you don’t sound like a “more-on“.

9. Words Exist in Other Places Than Just Your Copy

Don’t forget to evaluate and test the wording in your images, flash, video and audio content. One client changed the words on the Flash banner on his homepage and reduced abandonment by more than 28%.

10. When All Else Fails – Use the Sucking Wind Checklist

1. Do you offer a clear message and value?
2. Have you established Trust & Credibility?
3. Have you answered all the main objections?
4. Have you addressed the emotional “ownership” of the sale?
5. Have you substantiated your claims?
6. Have you made the next steps clear?
7. Could you have said the same thing in a 1/3 of the words?

Improving your copywriting is just one of the many efforts you need to continually improve your results and keep your goals on target.

P S If you enjoyed this post please consider Tweeting it please.

[Editor's note: the author of this post is now blogging at bryaneisenberg.com]

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 designers notionally understand as the home page).

This means “Long copy” and “short copy” only apply to Websites metaphorically at best, roughly translating to “content rich & substantiated” and “minimalist / pared down,” respectively.

The upside is that hyperlinks make it possible to get the best of both (offline) worlds. Visitors who want more substantiation and richer content can drill down on the links that interest them, and visitors who only want a quick, bottom-line summary and an express path to converting can get that too – all on the same site.

That said, long copy equivalents still tend to out-convert “short copy” alternatives.  Here’s why.

The crucial element: Are you answering their questions & concerns?

Two recent studies, one involving complex B2B sales/Websites and one on e-commerce sites, show that well over 50% of potential leads/customers fail to convert because the Websites studied failed to answer prospects’ questions and provide needed information.

I’ve experienced it myself: if I need to know a wireless card or piece of software will work on my Mac, I’m simply not buying until I get that answered. Similar dynamics exists with concerns rather than absolute requirements, and, yes, this is especially critical for services, complex sales, and lead generation.

Content rich sites typically out-convert minimalist designs because they more completely answer the prospects’ questions.

And as I’ve previously written, question-answering content isn’t just copy. High quality pictures answer questions and concerns. User reviews answer questions and concerns. So do videos, blogs, forums, etc. And, of course, there’s persuasive copy.

Modeling Customer Psychology and Persuasive Online Copywriting

Suppose you’re genuinely interested in buying something, talking to a salesman about it, and in the process of asking how much it costs. How many times can that sales guy dodge or ignore your question before he destroys your trust?

Once? Twice, maybe.

With online copy, visitors ask questions by scanning the page and clicking on links. If your web copy doesn’t facilitate scanning and skimming, and if you don’t provide hyperlinks and content to answer visitors’ questions, your Website will become that used car salesman who won’t give a straight answer to a direct question.

At Future Now, we’re big on Personas simply because we’re big on making sure Websites answer the questions and concerns of their visitors.  We find it essential to model and facilitate the flow of visitor-website sales conversations in order to avoid the “used car salesman” syndrome.

So rather than having any old interaction or conversation with visitors, personas allow one to reverse engineer conversations that lead to conversions. To do this, simply:

• Take a persona’s emotional state, concerns, and informational needs upon entering a Website
• Compare that starting point with what the visitor will have to feel, know, and believe in order to confidently take the action you want them to convert
• And then plan out the conversation your site will need to have with that persona in order to make that persuasive journey from starting point to sale.

Going through this process allows Website designers and copywriters to persona-lize the Website. They can plan messaging and links custom tailored for each buying behavior/motivation.  The visitor can then self-determine just how many rabbit-holes of information/assurance/question-answering she needs to in order to feel comfortable buying, thereby getting the exact “length” of copy that’s right for her.

Fast decision makers and late stage buyers that just need a quick and easy way to buy, get it. And those visitors needing a lot of information, insight, and assurance can get that too.

Think of it as an adult and sales-oriented choose-your-own-adventure novel. Or just think of it as a really sincere sales conversation performed by your best salesman who just happens to be available to talk to (and convert) customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What more could you ask from either long or short copy?

P.S. For a different (but congruent) take on the advantages of Long Copy (and it’s online equivalents), check out Sonia Simone’s excellent article over at CopyBlogger.

So start your headline optimization process with a close look at scent.  These links will help drive home the point:

Bryan Eisenberg gets interviewed on Scent and Landing Page Stickiness:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How lack of scent feels like “bait and switch” to website visitors

Broken scent between e-mails and landing pages accounts for 35% of failed campaigns

Step 2. Angle of Approach: After you understand what it will take to provide continuity of scent, you’ll need to do the research and idea generation to come up with that compelling hook, or angle of approach that will compel readers to stop and scan the article.

Think of it this way, if scent is about matching information, keywords, and look and feel, angle of approach is about matching your copy to visitors’ emotional drives, motivations, hopes, dreams, fears, etc.  Of course, it’s also about introducing a compellingly interesting thought into the reader’s mind.  For some incredibly helpful tools and techniques on Angles of Approach,take a look at the following blog posts:

How to connect with your prospect’s dominant emotion

How to polarize an audience to speak to the prospects you most want

Roy Williams on Choosing Whom to Lose

Why writing to a specific person (or persona) Overcomes the 200 Headlines Myth

The power of Magic Words – and how to find them

Sean D’Souza on the Power of New & Knew

Sean on how specifics beat generalities when it comes to Angles of Approach

Roy Williams on Framing First Mental Images

Compelling the visitor to keep reading

Why your headline may want to refer to an unseen action

I’d recommend you come up with at least a couple of different approaches and test them.  This might cause you to rewrite your first paragraph or two of body copy for each test variant, but it’s well worth the effort.

Step 3. Wordsmithing: Once you have the angle of approach and the “Scent” requirements, then it’s time for some of the traditional wordsmithing normally associated with writing headlines.  Can you sharpen the point?  Can you increase the curiosity factor?  Should it be a statement or a question?  Can you swap out words to create different emotional associations or connotations?  Can you test fractions vs. percentages?  What kind of presuppositions can you bury in And so on.

Here’s a monster list of links containing some of the best stuff I’ve seen on Headlines:

First, go sign up for Sean’s newsletter and get his free PDF report on Why do most headlines fail.

Second, read through Jay Abraham’s list of 100 Greatest Headlines Ever written

Third, listen to Gary Bencivenga’s explanation of why you should build credibility into your headlines

Now feast on Brian Clark’s brilliant headline articles:

5 Simple Ways to Open Your Post With a Bang

10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work

7 More Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work

Warning: Use These 5 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas at Your Own Risk

How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write

And for sheer tonnage of listed techniques, it’s hard to resist Chris Bloczynski’s post:

99 Headline Techniques Revealed

Or SEO Blackhat’s 54 Headline Templates That Sell

Of course, it goes without saying that with all these choices, you’ll want to test and optimize, and the Grok’s own post on Top 10 Ideas for Testing Your Headlines is a great place to start, or you can watch the webinar on testing headlines and calls to action:

If you buy that the passive voice is death to persuasive writing (which was the point of that other little piece), then I’d like you to consider that you pack persuasive punch not with adjectives and adverbs, but with verbs. You want your copy to capture, delight, motivate and excite your visitors, don’t you? You want your copy to be the next best thing to a live person eloquently speaking in their ears, right? Then let me introduce you to the under-used, over-looked but infinitely versatile verb.

The goal of your online endeavor is to get your visitors to take action. One of the cornerstones of your site is your copy (and copy exists not just as text on a page but words in graphics or videos as well) – all the words communicating not only your message but the entire realm of possibility you offer.

Your copy works to persuade and fill the minds of your visitors with images that make them eager for what you offer. Your copy engages, compels and provides momentum so your visitors move through your conversion process to the close and beyond. But screen space is at a premium, and good copy doesn’t come cheap. Every word costs you something, so you want to make the most of every word you use.

My good friend, Professor Chris Maddock, from the Wizard Academy offers the following comparison. The first sample paints its picture with adjectives and adverbs (in red), the second with verbs and verb forms (also in red).

Sample 1

I went slowly along the sandy shore. The small, cold waves lazily came on in long, thin fingers of white foam. The sky was slate-gray and blew a thin, humid wind reticently toward the dark beach. (36 words)

Sample 2

I crept close to the shore. The waves limped in and collapsed in dying fingers of foam. The sky brooded, darkened, then persuaded the reticent wind toward the beach. (29 words)

Now read the two samples aloud. Listen to how your voice sounds as you read them. Feel a difference? Do you think one delivers more punch? I sure do! Sample 1 feels slow, dull and plodding – too many modifiers. Sample 2 is crisper, more compelling, more exciting.

Not only do verbs and their associated forms (gerunds and participles) generate motion, they also convey character: creeping, limping, collapsing, dying – all create a strong mental image and mood – mandatory for effective copy. Sample 1 created its mood with ten adjectives and three adverbs; Sample 2 used only two adjectives (and one of those a verb form) and no adverbs, yet achieved a more powerful result.

“The verb is the heartthrob of a sentence,” says Karen Elizabeth Gordon in The Transitive Vampire, while Strunk and White, in Elements of Style (I’m told it’s the Grammar Gospel) instruct, ” Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place [yours truly adds the same can be said of adverbs for verbs]. – it is nouns and verbs that give to good writing its toughness and character.”

The cool thing about verbs is they can do so much for you and take up less space doing it! Here are some ideas:

Mood

Verbs can help communicate meaning and quality in a sentence without bogging down the language with unnecessary modifiers.

I go to the store.

I trudge to the store.

In both sentences, I’ll arrive at the same place (and in the same number of words), but the second example gives you a much better idea of how I’ll get there and what mood I’m in.

Verbs as Adjectives

Folks have grammar nightmares when someone mentions participles, but a participle is nothing more than a verb used as an adjective (a word that modifies a noun).

Vanquished by his foe, the commander knelt on the ground. (vanquished commander)

Dripping with rain, the mouse scurried under a toadstool. (dripping mouse)

The surrendered document lay on the table. (surrendered document)

Verbs as Nouns

Ditto the nightmare stuff when it comes to gerunds, but gerunds are just verbs with -ing endings that work as nouns.

Giving is better than receiving.

His fear is losing control.

She adores listening to bagpipes.

Verbs, in all their incarnations, breathe essence and vitality into your writing. By their very nature, they are action-oriented and quickly draw your reader into a powerful mental universe of activity, sound and feeling. They also pull your reader through the text. Verbs are like seductresses with come-hither gestures! Use them well, and your reader will stay hooked.

Want more colorful, engaging, concise, persuasive copy? Then, the next time you go to your library of word books, check out a good verb!

Consciously using rhythm techniques helps you generate sight, feeling and, yes, even sound images for your reader.

Rhythm as Visual Mood

People internalize what they read as visual images – that’s one of the great beauties of sitting down with a good book: it gives you the opportunity to create mental worlds. And the pace of your writing reinforces the mood of its visuals, in an almost movie-like way.

To inspire an excited, fast-moving feeling in your reader, punctuate intentionally, and impart motion through the use of action verbs and short, rolling words. If you want to convey a relaxed feeling, a sense of rest or of moodiness, lengthen your sentences, use abundant punctuation and appropriate descriptives, and pay very close attention to detail.

Your pulse races, hands clenching your ticket as she comes flying into the homestretch. Whispering a prayer, you watch her cross the line. A photo finish. Too close to call. Eternal silence. Bated breath. The announcement crackles in your ear. She lost. By a nose.

How do you feel? Breathing just a bit shallower? This example is full of short, incomplete sentences. Lots of periods that bring readers abruptly to the close of a moment, yet leave them hanging, so they want to move on. Visually, it’s choppy, a montage of images that gives you more information than actually appears in the words themselves.

Now read this:

Your pulse races, your hand clenches your ticket, she comes flying into the homestretch. You whisper a prayer, she crosses the line, a photo finish, too close to call, eternal silence, bated breath. The announcement crackles in your ear. She lost by a nose.

Pretty much the same short sentences, but a different scheme of punctuation. Does that change the images the passage creates in your mind? Me, I visualize this event in a softer focus. The montage isn’t as stop-and-go; instead it almost flows with a strange quality of suspended motion that is at odds with the obvious speed of what is happening.

You gotta use a technique like this sparingly – heaven forbid you should create a whole Web page or email of it. It would quickly bore your readers by becoming predictable and would lose its inherent power.

Now let’s set a different mood:

Your fingers finally uncramp and ease their vise grip on damp paper, a palpable weight in your open palm, the embodiment of hope that has become failed dream. You shred precisely, with contempt, then surrender the useless burden, and the tatters flutter like betrayal to the stained concrete at your feet, no longer distinguishable in their promise from crumpled candy wrappers and empty plastic cups.

Now how do you feel? Can you see the palm opening in slow motion, ticket fragments falling like decayed petals? Can you sense the despair?

Rhythm as Verbal Music

One definition of rhythm is: an alternating recurrence of similar elements. Songs have rhythm; jokes have rhythm in their timing and delivery. Good copywriting has rhythm that is revealed in the variation of sentence length – and it is precisely this sort of rhythm that gives your reader a sense the copy “sounds” compelling.

When you consistently write sentences that are all the same length, your writing develops a plodding predictability. To avoid this, mix up your sentence lengths: a short sentence, a long sentence, a long sentence, a medium sentence, then another short sentence. This last sentence will carry some impact, because the reader wasn’t expecting it. Another short sentence might reinforce the impact. Then a long one. Give your reader the experience of rhythm in variety.

Interestingly, there is a “rhythm in three.” When you incorporate a series of things into a sentence, three seems to be the magic number. It has a nice rhythm – we hear it as complete and satisfying. “We leap into the boat, setup the sail and venture out onto the sea.”

So plan your words to create just the right pace, then give it a good beat.

1) The best way to reveal the real substance (or lack thereof) of your message is to strip it down.  Remove all the wordsmithing, jargon, self-applied labels, ad-speak, etc and you’ll get down to the core message.

The process of stripping “Unlike any coffee you’ve ever had before” down to “The Best Coffee” reveals the rather empty content of a slogan that, at first blush, doesn’t sound too bad.

2) If you get down to the core message and it turns out that you’re not saying anything compelling and/or you’re making the same claim everyone else is, you will NOT be able to fix this with copywriting alone.

“Better than Starbucks” is a more powerfully worded claim than “The Best Coffee” because it evokes a definite standard and a concrete mental image.  But it’s still an unsubstantiated and un-persuasive claim.  Copywriting alone can’t fix this.

3) Just because what you’re saying is true doesn’t mean people have to believe you.  You may really have world-changing, you’ll-never-settle-for-anything-less-again coffee.  It may be true that you have “The best coffee,” but that doesn’t mean it’s anymore believable when you say it than when anyone else says it.

4) The best way to substantiate claims like this is often through Action / Signaling Theory.  You really believe that you’ve got the best coffee?  Prove it! Offer a free taste, put a money-back guarantee on the taste of your coffee, hold public taste-offs against all comers, etc.

There’s something very compelling about a company willing to give you a free taste on the conviction that you’ll want more.  Or to allow you to try it on the condition of a full refund.  I’ve seen it work to sell everything from frozen custard, to hamburgers, to sales training.  If you’re stuck for a way to substantiate your claims or differentiate your company, give this some consideration.

Most people don’t want to draw that sharp line of distinction, and it’s why their marketing efforts blend into the clutter.

Discernible edges and silhouettes allow us to visually “grip” an object and separate figure from ground.  Eliminate those edges and you’ll effectively camouflage yourself.

In the picture above, notice how the legs present a solid silhouette and are easily identified, while the man’s upper body camouflage breaks up his silhouette and blurs his edges into the background of trees and snow.  As a result, it’s much harder to make out his his torso and arms.

Like our eyes, our minds also depend on edges and silhouettes.  We define by giving parameters, mentally grasping a concept by its boundaries.  Without the “edges” of contrasting reference points, a concept or term remains ambiguous at best.

That’s why grabbing after an “infinite” market and seeking to be all things to all people ends up camouflaging one’s brand and messaging; without contrast it all just blurs into the background.

Want to stand out?  Sharply define the edges between you and your competitors.

The better you do this, the more strongly you’ll turn-off some customers.  But wouldn’t you rather powerfully persuade some of your market than be overlooked by all of it?

Just follow the example of this doctor:

I found this ad in my local newspaper and was immediately struck by the bold headline:

“You don’t want me to be your family doctor.”

Pretty ballsy headline for a doctor, huh?  Wouldn’t you feel compelled to read more about this doctor with the courage to so brazenly declare what he wasn’t?

Having gained the reader’s attention, the body copy further explains: “Neurosurgery is one of the few medical specialties for which I am well-suited.  I am not warm and fuzzy.  I could never be successful as a pediatrician or in a family practice – no one would come back a second time.  But I am very good at what I do.”

Dr. Goodman then substantiates his claimed expertise with a list of very impressive professional qualifications and accomplishments, rounded off with some examples of his extreme commitment to surgical excellence and his patients’ well-being.

While his professional qualifications are truly outstanding, most readers would never have read them without Dr. Goodman’s use of reverse camouflage in his headline.  Saying what he wasn’t allowed him to stand out amidst the clutter.

So here’s 3 sure-fire ways to reverse-camouflage your messaging.

1.    Get yourself an enemy and/or reject a reasonable alternative position
Nothing fires the blood quite so much as declaring what (or who) you stand against.  But you get no points for tearing down straw men; rejecting a reasonable alternative position puts teeth into your message.

2.    Present a tightly focused perspective
Once you’ve narrowed the group of customers that you’re most interested in attracting, focus your messaging to speak most directly to their felt needs, desires, and frustrations.  People who don’t share those experiences will feel excluded, but your core audience will feel an instant connection.  Both will instantly recognize you.  Tim Miles offers a brilliant example of this on his “About Us” page.

3.    Explain what costs you’re willing to bare and admit the downside to your offer/product.
This one is more about credibility than definition, but amidst a background of ad-speak, solid credibility acts as its own form of reverse camouflage.  Plus, you don’t just want to be seen, right?  You want to be believed as well.

Finally, if all else fails, you can always use your new-found knowledge of camouflage to escape weekend chores (just ditch the boots in favor of camo socks)

• Dutiful George Washington for Sensing-Judging / Methodicals
• Philosophical Thomas Jefferson for iNtuitive-Thinking / Competitives
• Rambunctious Teddy Roosevelt for Sensing-Perceiving / Spontaneous
• Idealistic Abraham Lincoln for iNtuitive-Feeling / Humanistics

Unfortunately, the cover story (though excellent) treated temperament from a Nine Characteristics perspective rather than a Four Temperaments perspective in a way similar to this Slate article or some recent blog posts regarding presidential personality type.

Yet at least the Time cover/article got me looking for and reading those posts, because the authors guessed slightly different temperaments from each other, and I found the differences illuminating.

But before discussing the blog authors’ picks, my personal predictions were SP/Spontaneous for fiery, action-oriented McCain, NF/Humanistic for idealistic and emotionally intelligent Obama, and NT+Judging/Competitive for sharp-minded and power-hungry Hillary Clinton.

So here’s how the experts typing matched up with mine:

• Everyone agreed that McCain has a spontaneous temperament.
• Emily Yoffe felt that Hillary was an SJ, but it turns out that Hillary has actually taken an MBTI test and has tested as an NTJ, which matched up with most blog post guesses.
• Some experts believe that Obama was an NT, while others felt he was more likely an NF

And here’s what you can take away from the misperceptions and disagreements surrounding presidential candidate typing:

1. Myers-Briggs Preferences (and Temperaments) are just that: preferences.

People are adaptable and can develop or use weaker sides of their personalities – and may even prefer to use them in a given situation.  Introverts, for instance, all have an auxiliary personality that they use for social situations or work.  Johnny Carson was a legendary introvert, but hardly came off as one during The Late Show.

So too could an NT politician learn to speak empathically about deep emotional issues and learn to champion inclusive policies.  Or conversely, NF’s are more than capable of adopting an NT mindset when the need for tough-minded leadership decisions arises.  Hence the NT/NF disagreement over an emotionally savvy, but also emotionally flat “no drama” Obama.

And it’s also why Future Now analyzes buying behavior in terms of “buying modes,” rather than assuming that buying mode will line up with temperament preference.  No one buys accounting software spontaneously, and even the most hard-headed and practical of us have been known to make spontaneous purchases on vacation.

2.  Knowing how temperament preferences overlap – and where they differ – is important

Why would one person see an SJ/Methodical when another sees an NT/Competitive?  Well because both temperaments have a strong preference for logical decision-making.  And an NT with a strong Judging preference, like Hillary’s INTJ personality type, can come off as an organizer – reliable and sufficiently detail-oriented to fool you into thinking they have a methodical temperament*

So what does this mean for your Website/copy?

Rather than pushing copy or messaging styles onto visitors, it’s best to cover all the temperaments persuasive needs according to the “fast up top and slow down bottom” layout method.  That way you can let visitors self-select the copy and links that most appeals to them without worrying about improperly typing them. You can get a sense of how these temperaments interact with a page by reading Howard’s analysis of Jakob Nielson’s eyetracking study.

Conclusion: Put Copy for Fast Decision Makers Up Top and Slow Decision Makers Down Bottom

So the default copy organization for most pages will include copy, links, and calls to action intended for competitive and spontaneous temperaments (your fast decision makers who are less likely to scroll and spend the time to examine the entire page) up top, and copy more suited for methodical and humanistic temperaments (slower decision makers who will examine the entire page) below that.

For instance, if you have an NT/competitive who follows a link intended for Methodicals, the page he lands on will still have some bottom-line or big picture copy at the top of the page and a call to action appropriate for his temperament.  And if that particular competitive keeps reading, well, he may just be in a more Methodical Buying Mode.  No big deal – as long as your pages are set up properly.

And that’s what I took away from the recent spate of articles and blog posts on Temperament and MBTI.

P.S. If this stuff interests you, I highly recommend that you check out this free audio book.

* For the record, what probably should have pushed Yoffe away from typing Hillary as an SJ, is that she is very much an ideologue.  Her political stances were sharply radical when she adopted them and required something of a philosophical bent to arrive at.  She didn’t enter politics by being an outstanding administrator; she entered politics because of a commitment to her political theories and ideas.  Plus, her career as a lawyer indicated an NT preference over SJ.

Bet that conjured up some not-so-nice feelings, didn’t it?  Now imagine it just a bit differently this time:

…A large man pops out of an alley and heads towards you.  It’s not just your nerves, he’s clearly coming after you, so you decide to take him out.  In the dim light you see what looks like a club in his hand.  He swings.  You hit his arm so hard you knock the club out of his hand; he stumbles and falls.*

What you’ve just experienced is the difference between a defensive and offensive mindset.  Both scenarios involved the same situation, but on the second time I had you imagine an offensive mindset where you mentally decided to take control of the situation.  And I’ll bet that the second scenario left you with remarkably different emotions, didn’t it?

Now ask yourself this, if you’re writing copy that’s going to force emotionally uncomfortable or downright scary topics onto your readers (because your product or service will help readers deal with or solve those problems), which mindset do you want them in?

Of course, if you have several paragraphs of copy to play with, you’ll want to go back and read my previous material on dealing with pain-based copy and negative mental images.  Basically you’ll want to intentionally dial down the intensity of the initial negative mental image and dial up the intensity of the final, positive mental image.

But if you’ve only got a sentence or two to deal with, as is the case with headlines and e-mail subject lines, then you’ll want to both:

1. Objectify the situation so as not to emotionally overwhelm the reader, AND
2. Put the reader in an offensive mindset

An excellent example of both these techniques in action was recently presented to me by a friend.  She asked me to explain why one headline outperformed another in a multivariate test conducted by a web optimization company.  And she was especially curious because the lesser-performing  headline used one of Sean D’souza’s (truly excellent) headline tactics of preferring question-based to statement-based headlines.  Here are the two headlines in question:

• “Does a sexual offender live in your neighborhood?”
• “Identify registered sex offenders living near you.”

As you can see, the first headline uses vivid Anglo-Saxon prose.  Besides the emotionally intense “sexual offender” the only word with more than one syllable is “neighborhood,” conjuring up a disturbing clash of images where some disarming, Mr. Rogers-like freak lurks next door, looking to harm your kids.  The question-based format grabs your attention for sure, but it’s a way-too-intense negative mental image that, coming at you as a question, knocks you back into a painfully defensive mindset.

Now compare that with the more objective sounding and Latinate “Identify registered sex offenders living near you.”  It’s far less emotional for sure, but more importantly the line itself functions as a call to action that puts the reader on the offensive – you’re going to identify those perverted, child-harming freaks and get control of the situation!  That leaves you with a much better feeling, doesn’t it?  Is it any wonder it outperformed the other headline?

So there you have it: when writing pain-focused headlines, objectify the situation and put the reader into an offensive mindset to keep them confident and eager to take action.

* Example paraphrased from a self defense book written by Jerry Peterson

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson should have attended our course.   According to many analysts, he’s doing a terrible job of selling the bailout package to the American people.

MSN Money blogger Charley Blaine talks about the problem, and how he thinks, of all people, Jim Cramer has it right on how to put the bailout plan into plain English and terms people actually care about and can relate to.

[Jim Cramer says] The Bush administration — especially Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke — are doing a terrible job selling the plan, he says. And he’s right. They’re explaining it in terms only Wall Street bankers, analysts and economists can understand.

How would Cramer do it?

The plan, he said Wednesday, “is about keeping people in their homes. It’s about making sure banks have money to lend “so your kid can go to college.”

Indeed, he said, Paulson should be selling the plan as “Invest in America.”

Paulson talks about “unfreezing the mortgage market,” Cramer said. As an explanation, it’s out of touch with the reality that most of us deal with.

“The next time you hear Hank Paulson or any of the plan’s defenders talking about the plan freeing up commercial paper,” Cramer said, “just insert ‘Being able to buy a new car with a loan.’”

The administration should stop talking about “making banks whole from their own mortgage mistakes.” Rather, he said, “they should start talking about making sure there will be cash in the ATM when you need money next week.”

I say ” touché ” Mr. Cramer (even though you do yell too much for my taste).   Whether you’re a website copywriter or the Treasury Secretary of the United States – if you want to persuade people, you have to avoid the techno-jargon and speak to your customers in their language about what they care about.

Yet as I was compiling these links and re-reading the Memos, a central theme seemed to emerged: many of the Roy’s memos dealt with “The Feel of Real” and how to capture that in your copy – what many of us might call Web 2.0-style copy. With this in mind, I began sorting and grouping those Monday Morning Memos to further highlight this theme.

Read through this collection of Memos and you’ll come away with a sounder idea of the voice of “new marketing” than 95% of the folks hyping that term. And if you want the executive summary, just read the first 2 links in each category – and then let yourself get drawn into the other titles as they spark your interest. Either way, enjoy…

Framing and Understanding the problem:

The Death of Hype

2008 Year of Transition

Hello and Goodbye from John and Jane Doe

Your Customer and You

Tomorrow Has Come

Pricing Value, and Saleability

The Solution – How To’s

Targeting Through Ad Copy

How to Make Your Ads Sparkle

Ready Angle Frame

Actions Speak Louder Than

Facts vs. Value-based statements

Counter-Branding

The Solution – Advanced Techniques & Examples

The Future of Ad Writing

Revealing the vivid unexpected

Refer to an Unseen Action

The Language of Shadow and Silence

Magic WordsCan You Make It Talk?

Mental Images, Emotions, and Word Associations

The Magnetic Power of the Mental Image

Visual Images vs. Mental Images

Magic Words

Are you Normal?

Peter Pan and Superman

Why We Buy

Persona-based Copy

The New Targeting

Choosing Your Magic Words

I hope this bit of reading has left you with a strong sense of what authentic, respectful copy sounds and reads like. Better yet, I hope you came away with some great techniques for producing this style of copy. Please feel free to add your own experiences, comments, and links via the comments section.

“790 Leftover Ulsters At A Big Discount!Dear Sir:In the rush and excitement of selling, in the past two months, of 21,000 “Keep Warm” Winter Ulsters – there was no time to pay attention to exactly how sizes and colors were running.The result is that now, with the season near its end, we find ourselves with 790 coats left over – in all sizes – BUT WITHOUT A COMPLETE RANGE OF SIZES IN ANY ONE COLOR!There are dark grays and blues and beautiful brown heather-mixtures, in Greatcoats that we sold in the past all the way up to $47.00 – really handsome colors, all of them – but we can’t be sure of having your exact size in the color you specify.” 

And for a modern update on that, check out Roy William’s brilliant bit of web copy for vactionlikekings.com:

“You’ve seen the condos in Myrtle Beach that overlook the ocean.Rich people own those. And when they’re not using them, we rent them out to nice families like yours for about the same prices you’ve been paying for hotel rooms.Put yourself in their shoes.The condo is paid for and empty.Why not let it generate a few bucks?Now put yourself in their condo.We’re Condotels. Our job is to welcome you upon your arrival in Myrtle Beach and hand you the keys to your luxury condo. It’s as easy as staying in a hotel. But better. A lot better. VacationLikeKings.com” 

What you’ll find in both excerpts is a skillful use of transparency. The copy very quickly tells the reader WHY the company is able to offer them such a good deal. It’s not enough just to say what’s in it for the reader, because compelling offers will inevitably raise the questions: “Yeah, but how can they do that? What’s in it for them?”


Notice how the first letter also does a fabulous job of raising the downside as a means of lending credibility to the upside. The very fact that not all colors are available in all sizes lends legitimacy to the “left over stock” explanation.*People are rightfully cynical. They want to know all the angles. Provide that to them through a transparent explanation. Once they believe your explanation, they’ll have gained a world of confidence in your offer.


3. Specificity


Specifics force themselves into the reader’s imagination while generalities remain handcuffed to the hard-nosed intellect. Engaging the imagination more easily creates emotions, like confidence. This is called the vividness effect and it’s why specifics are more believable then generalities.


Dan and Chip Heath provide an excellent, specific example of this in their book, Made to Stick. They cite psychological research wherein two groups of jurors where presented with eight arguments fore and against a mother accused of parental neglect.The difference between the two groups was the level of detail in those arguments. One group, heard supporting arguments with vivid detail and arguments against the mother’s fitness that were unadorned with any extra details. The other group heard the opposite combination.


As an example of the kind of vivid details included or left out of the arguments, the book provides the following:

“…An argument against Mrs. Johnson was: ‘The child went to school with a badly scraped arm which Mrs. Johnson had not cleaned or attended to. The school nurse had to clean the scrape.’ The vivid form added the detail that, as the nurse was cleaning the scrape, she spilled Mercurochrome on herself, staining the uniform red.The researchers carefully tested the arguments with and without vivid details to ensure that they had the same perceived importance – the details were designed to be irrelevant to the judgment of Mrs. Johnson’s worthiness. It mattered that Mrs. Johnson didn’t attend to the scraped arm; it didn’t matter that the nurse’s uniform got stained in the process.” 

And the results? On average 1.5 more jurors (out of 10) voted for the arguments with the irrelevant details than the arguments without them. We’re talking about a 15% increase in “conversion” – just from the inclusion of a few irrelevant specifics. Now imagine the impact of relevant, specific details to your copy’s credibility.


4. Proof


Proof overlaps a bit with Transparency and Specifics, but it’s an all-important aspect of confidence-building. In fact, it’s so important, I wrote a series of posts on how to transform un-substantiate claims into confidence-inspiring proof.Here’s a quick summary:

• You say you’re the best ______ on the net – says who? And by what criteria? How are you measuring it? How can I test these claims myself?
• Answer the previous question with fact-based and falsifiable statements.
• When possible, show me through a demonstration. Dramatize the benefit.

5. Readability


We do indeed come from a “fragmented MTV rap video culture,” causing us to flee the mere prospect of having to read dense blocks of text. And that goes double for overly complex or jargon-filled text. This makes the readability of your landing pages crucial. And I’d break that down into two aspects:

• Formatting. Use short paragraphs not to exceed 5 stacked lines. Use headlines, sub-heads, bullets, and bolding. Make sure your page is skimmable and scanable and that your key or trigger words are featured within your headlines, bolded text, and hyperlinks.
• Speaking your customer’s language. Avoid we-we language. Speak about “you,” and in terms of customer’s desired benefits rather than product features. Don’t assume your readers are familiar with your industry’s jargon and technical terms. Don’t use more than one buzz-word per sentence. Keep things as conversational as you can get away with.

So there you have it. Cover those 5 bases and you’ll effectively transfer your confidence to your landing page’s readers – and be able to measure the difference in both your conversion rate and your wallet.


* Of course, the company may not have been truly transparent (they may have had plenty of colors in all sizes and just been itching to sell coats off-season), but the simulation of a full disclosure was enough to inspire confidence. That said, in today’s world of hyper-connectivity, I’d suggest you stick with genuine (vs. simulated) transparency. Editor’s Note: For more tips on increasing your landing page trust and credibility, sign up for our free webinar later today at 12pm EST.

What: Our most popular seminars return to New York City for this exciting two-day training event. Get first-hand advice from FutureNow’s leading experts in online conversion, persuasion and customer focus.

In order to keep things relaxed and ensure that guests have a chance to get all of their questions answered, class size is limited, so act soon!

Choose one seminar and save. Choose both and save big.

Persuasive Online Copywriting is co-led by two of our most popular writers, Holly Buchanan and Jeff Sexton. Learn how to make the words you use online more persuasive and speak to a variety of segments and customer motivations at the same time. Not only for copywriters, past guests for this class have included C-level execs, marketing directors, entrepreneurs, and others who just want to improve their online communication skills. Packed with practical, real-world examples and “how to” exercises, the focus is on giving you simple-yet-effective techniques that you can implement right away to persuade visitors to take action. (Read more about this workshop.)

• Monday, June 2 | 9 am – 5:30 pm EST
  
• Only $695 until May 9th ($795 after)

Call to Action, led by Bryan Eisenberg, best-selling author and co-founder of FutureNow, is based on the Eisenberg brothers’ best-selling book, “Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results.” You don’t need to be an expert in web analytics, web design, usability, social media, and search engine optimization to appreciate this seminar. Bryan will show you how Persuasion Architecture makes sense of these disciplines by merging your business goals with the goals of your visitors. If you want to boost online sales and conversion, this one’s for you. (Read more about this eye-opening course.)

• Tuesday, June 3 | 9 am – 5:30 pm EST
  
• Only $795 until May 9th ($895 after)

As an added bonus, Bryan will discuss themes from his forthcoming book, Always Be Testing.

When: June 2-3, 2008

Where: New York’s Hotel Pennsylvania | 401 Seventh Avenue at 33rd St. | New York, NY 10001

Why: Because you know that in order to get results like these, the words you use, how your website is structured, and knowing what to test is what makes all the difference. Besides, New York in June is a beautiful thing.

Early Bird Discount: Register here by May 9th to receive $100 off admission for each single seminar or $300 off when you register for both!

Group Discount: Want two or more of your staff to attend? No problem. Just register everyone at the same time and save $50 per additional person when you register.

If you look up its definition, copy refers to any “written matter intended to be reproduced in printed form” (e.g., “The text of a news story, advertisement, television commercial, etc., as distinguished from related visual material”). The word was originally used in the context of the printing press, but it essentially means the same thing online.

Since all copy is content, but not all content is copy, some people separate the two. They use “copy” exclusively to mean text that is written to persuade visitors to take action. “Content,” meanwhile, doesn’t imply an intent to persuade. (For example, think of a website that features celebrity news Content, with a page urging visitors, via persuasive Copy, to subscribe.)

So, “web copy” refers to any and all words published on your website. And without it, your site looks something like this.

I don’t know if this is all that helpful for Pearce, but here’s what is important…

Web Copy is different from Offline Copy.

Offline copy (like a billboard) isn’t interactive. Web copy (like what you read on this blog) is. Web copy needs to be formatted in easy-to-read chunks. It’s hard to read a lot of copy online. Break up your copy with headers, subheaders, short paragraphs and bullet points.

Web copy has a powerful advantage over offline copy: Hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks create persuasive momentum. They provide a clear pathway for your visitor to accomplish his or her goals, and your business to accomplish your goals. What actions do you want your visitors to take? Your website should be planned with visitor goals and company goals in mind. Use your web copy to answer your visitors’ questions, address their objections, and provide hyperlinks that move them toward the actions you want them to take.

How do I plan goals for my website?

Pearce’s second question (”"Do you have any ideas on how to come up with goals for college websites?”) helps illustrate where web copy fits into the overall process of planning, building, and optimizing a website.

To find your website’s goals and use copy to support them, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Who is my audience?
2. What actions do I want them to take?
3. What information do they need in order to feel confident taking action?

Pearce should look at all the different types of visitors who might come to a college website (prospective students, current students, faculty, alumni, people in the community), then map out what each of these visitors is trying to accomplish. What questions are they asking? What information are they hoping to find? What information would you most like each of these groups to see?

For Pearce, this involves looking not only at his visitors’ goals, but the goals of the college itself. (Do they have a new program they want to push, a special event, or a special benefit that prospective students would love?) Once he has this information, he can plan pathways and provide information that is relevant for each of these types of visitors.

All pathways should lead toward an action you want your visitors to take. After all, how can you measure success if you haven’t defined what success looks like?

Thanks for the questions, Pearce!

. .

[Editor's Note: Got a question for FutureNow? All you have to do is "Ask the Experts".]

Now’s your chance to ask Jeff Sexton, Holly Buchanan and Bryan Eisenberg anything you want!*

Jeff, Holly and Bryan will respond to your questions in the comments section below. And if you really hit a nerve, we’ll answer you in the form of a blog post.

Priority will be given to first-time commenters, lurkers, and anyone else we don’t get to hear from enough.**

. .

*For best results, try to keep it about copywriting, customer relevance, persuasive web design, online planning, conversion optimization, customer personas, web analytics, split testing, or multichannel marketing in general.

**We know you’re out there, but our web analytics reports are boring conversationalists.

What: Learn from the experts about making your copy more persuasive and speak to all of your market segments. Not only for copywriters, past attendees include C-level execs, marketing directors, entrepreneurs, and others who just want to improve their online communication skills.

This one-day seminar is packed with practical real world examples and “how to” exercises. The focus is on giving you simple yet effective techniques that will improve your ability to sell online. The goal is to show attendees how to implement these techniques the very next day on their own websites.

A few of the Persuasive Online Copywriting topics we’ll cover…

• How writing for the Web is different from other mediums
• How to understand your audience
• Writing for diverse customer segments
• Proper Web layout
• Writing for the screen and formatting for maximum readability
• How to set a voice and tone that engages your visitors and helps them take action
• Writing effective navigational buttons and links to gain persuasive momentum
• How to write more persuasive product descriptions
• How to ensure your content is found via search engines

Where: Embassy Suites San Francisco Airport — San Francisco, CA

When: Friday, March 28 (8:30 – 5:00 PST)

Why: The surest way to improve your website’s conversion rate, average order value, number of leads generated, and even how it reflects your brand, is by improving your choice of words. If you want visitors to take the next step, you must persuade them — and to do that, you must understand how they wish to buy. This course will help you do all that, it’s only one day, and it’s in San Francisco.

More Info: Read more about the seminar and find out how to register today.

Call to Action – March 27, 2008

Persuasive Online Copywriting – March 28, 2008

Take both and get a discount

Want a bigger bang for your buck? Be sure to check out our Early-bird Special (for early registration), the “House Combo Special” (a discount for registering for both classes), and our Group Special (a discount for multiple sign-ups).

Don’t delay! We have to limit the number of participants, so these events sell out quickly!

Call To Action Seminar – March 27, 2008

Early-bird Cost $795.00 (SAVE $100) prior to 2/29/08; $895.00 after.

Improve your conversion to increase your sites revenue potential

Register Now (link takes you to our event registration site)

Persuasive Online Copywriting Seminar – March 28, 2008

Early-bird Cost $695.00 (SAVE $100)prior to 2/29/08; $795.00 after.

Write to your customers needs to drive more results.

Register Now (link takes you to our event registration site)

Sign up for Both Seminars and Get A Discount

Early-bird Cost $1340.00 (SAVE $180) prior to 2/29/08; $1520.00 after.

Maximize the impact of increased conversion and persuasive copy.

Register for Both (link takes you to our event registration site)