I don’t believe you.

That’s your second biggest enemy beyond having your message heard… It’s convincing your customer to believe your what you’re saying is true.

People are skeptical. They need to be skeptical.

And that’s your next biggest obstacle, convincing them to believe a word you say. Because you’re just some random website on the internet, and there are thousands of sites just like yours who make the same grand promises.

So what can you do?

PROVE IT.

Proof is the key.

And I’m not just talking about testimonials. Everyone has testimonials… Testimonials can be manufactured or “encouraged” and buyers know this.

Screenshots are another “iffy” form of proof.

I’m not saying don’t use them… I’m saying they’re not enough. And in many cases this type of proof isn’t even necessary.

Let’s look at a few different ways to offer real proof.

Be An Authority.

Gary Halbert was the greatest copywriter who ever lived… It says so right on his website.

A lot of great copywriters would agree, but he would have never been known as the “best” unless he believed he was the best, acted like the best, and told people that he was the best.

You can’t do that if you can’t back it up, but if you can, no one else is going to appoint you as “the best” at anything until you take that position for yourself.

In relation to your marketing, you need to be an authority… I used to sell pianos. I could barely play a lick, but aside from playing them I knew everything about them.

I knew the bright sounding pianos from the mellow pianos. I could tell prospects about where they’re manufactured, why one soundboard is superior to another, every little detail.

I could answer anything people wanted to know about purchasing a piano. I’d rarely touch a keyboard when selling a piano, but I sold a lot of them.

Because I knew what I was talking about. And it doesn’t matter what your niche is… Anything from traffic generation to investments to gardening…

If you can speak as an authority on the subject, people will listen. And if you really know what you’re talking about, people can tell.

Just being an authority on a subject can give you a huge amount of credibility in any market.

Use Indirect Proof.

This is something that can be tricky, so you have to be careful.

For the purposes of this post, I’m making up statistics for examples… Don’t assume these are true. You obviously want to use real statistics and facts for your own products…

Say you’re selling an SEO product… Indirect proof may be…

There are over 6 billion searches on Google every month, and there are still millions of profitable search terms out there that are simple to rank for…  Just one of those long tail keywords can easily be worth thousands of dollars a month for your business…

Or an Adwords product…

95% Of Adwords users ultimately lose money and give up… However for the 5% who DO turn a profit it can be life changing income. We’ve interviewed dozens of successful Adwords advertisers, and we’ll show you exactly what it takes to drive cheap targeted traffic to your website AND how to convert that traffic into a profitable Adwords campaign…

Or an investment newsletter…

“Warren Buffet once said “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” And we believe this type of thinking has been critical to his success… At XYZ newsletter we know that past performance never guarantees future success, and because we always keep our eyes on the road ahead, our subscribers have made a consistent 24% ROI over the last 12 months, even during the recession.”

This type of proof can be applied to anything… And while it’s not a testament to the quality of your product you are backing up claims you make with real, verifiable data.

The Amazon Effect.

How many books have you bought on Amazon based solely on the reviews? If you’re anything like me, probably a lot.

But Amazon reviews are MUCH more powerful than testimonials… Because anyone can post their opinion. If a book is great, it’ll get a ton of positive feedback. If it’s not, it’ll get bad reviews.

But that’s REAL social proof. There’s no screening. The author can’t hand pick testimonials. For some products or services, this can be applied to your marketing as well.

As a copywriter, most of my work comes from word of mouth. A satisfied client recommends me to a friend, and that’s the best social proof I can get.

When I was starting out, I’d post on forums… I still do. I remember when I posted one of my first offers. At first, it was a little slow. Then I got a taker. I did the copy, the client tested it, and posted feedback in the thread…

Then it was a snowball effect. Before long I had quite a few clients all posting in my thread, commenting on the quality of work, my work ethic, etc… And once I had that social proof built in, I started getting a lot more inquiries.

This can be applied to most products online… If you promote in forums, or run a forum, or a blog, and you provide real value to people and give them the opportunity to post feedback, they’ll do it. And that’s extremely powerful, much more than handpicked testimonials.

Get Creative…

Why was Billy Mays so successful? Because he proved the claims he made about every product through outrageous demonstrations…

Why is the Prius so popular? Because they took advantage of a trend (environmental awareness, high gas prices) and proved that they provided a solution.

This post is just a few ideas, there are hundreds of ways to get your message across and prove it in the process. So far we’ve talked about getting your sales message read and providing undeniable proof about your product… Keep an eye out for the next post within a week or so.

Are you proving every promise you make in your sales copy?

Proof is critical to your success… If you have any ideas on how to provide proof, please leave a comment.

Peace,

-Scott Murdaugh

P.S. If you need help with your project, leave a comment or check out more atResultsCopywriting.com and I’ll let you know if I can help.

What’s most important in sales copy, above all else?

Getting your message read.

In the information age, every single one of us is exposed to thousands of advertisements per day.

And we’re all conditioned to tune them out… Even if you’re OCD about marketing like I am and actually enjoy reading copy, I still tune out 99% of advertisements that I’m exposed to.

We have to. If we listened to every pitch that came at us, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else. So your very first job as a marketer is to “break through the noise”… To make absolutely sure that you get your message read…

So here’s the trick…

Make Your Advertising Itself So Valuable That People Can’t Help But Read It.

In the offline direct response world, we have megalogs, newsletters, advertorials, 2-step lead generation and other ways to get the job done.

So what about online?

Let’s start with this blog… I hope there’s some valuable content here, I hope most people that visit do walk away with some valuable information… I do enjoy writing it and I know that 99% of people who read this aren’t potential customers, but it’s mostly a pre-sell.

Right now, it’s a pre-sell for clients who may be interested in hiring me. Eventually, it’ll be a pre-sell for additional products and services that I roll out.

So, we’ve got blogs and newsletters… Two great ways to reach out to your target market and give them plenty of valuable information.

If you watch any major product launch there are usually tons of freebies, from reports to videos…  Pre-sell emails and blog posts, and this all kicks off long before they ask for a sell.

This part of the equation is nothing new. We’ve all heard about giving away valuable content, moving the “free line”, all of that good stuff.

But the trick is to be a valuable source of information… You want to be the guy who has people drooling in anticipation waiting to see your next email, blog post or other content.

And if you think about everything you do with your potential customers interest in mind, that’s not  too hard to do.

What About The Sales Copy Itself?

If you’ve done your pre-selling the right way, your visitors will see you as a source of valuable information for whatever product or service you’re offering. If you’ve already helped them, for free, the chances of them even considering taking the time to just look at your sales copy goes up exponentially…

So they’re warmed up, and you’ve got their attention.  Perfect.

Now your job, starting with your headline and every other element of your copy, is to keep them reading…

Before you worry about making an offer or telling them about your great whatever you’re selling you want them involved in the sales copy.

So address their problems, arouse curiosity, and make your sales letter itself informational and interesting enough to read on its own.

Joe Sugarman calls it the “slippery slide”… But if you can get your prospect interested enough to read the first few paragraphs of your copy, you stand a very good chance of getting them to read until the end…

And until you capture that attention, you can’t sell them anything.

Make Your Copy “Scannable”…

On the internet especially, people scan. If they see you’re offering something that they may be interested in, you want to use subheads and bullets to your advantage…

Tell them the story and create the irresistible offer in a way where if they were to just scan the entire letter, they’d get the idea of what you’re offering and why they need it.

You want it to be as easy to read as possible. You want it to be engaging to the reader, and only after you’ve got them reading do you worry about structuring your offer and making a sell.

Always Write To Be Read…

No one cares that you’re selling anything.

Convincing someone to fork over their hard earned cash in print isn’t easy… And if you can’t get your sales message read it’s impossible.

So everything, from your headline to your P.S.’s to making your offer needs to be interesting and engaging enough to make people want to read it…

Because the FIRST sell your making is the trickiest… You’ve got to sell people on giving you their most precious asset, their time, before you can ask them for the money.

Always keep that in mind… And there’s waaay more to this topic than I can fit in a single blog post. In the next post we’ll get into actually writing the copy.

Peace,

-Scott Murdaugh

P.S.  If you haven’t already you should check out the interview I did with Craig Garber, the “King Of Copy”… If you’re into marketing or copywriting, Craig really does offer some GREAT insights, and it’s free, click here to listen.

P.P.S.  I’ve put a few projects on hold for December, and I’ve got a little bit of time available this month as of right now… Whether you want an entire marketing campaign or an hour of consulting, contact me at ResultsCopywriting.com.