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
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