Posts Tagged ‘prospects’
Is Your Web Copy Plain Talk?
It’s true, we were all taught in school to express ourselves differently on paper, than the way we speak. To follow rules of grammar, and inject an artificial air of formality.
Forgetting about this training when you write web copy is one of the best thing you can possibly do, unless you’re selling to the academic community. And forgetting about it may not be as easy as you think.
Do you write like you’re speaking to a friend across the table?
Maybe even use a little slang, now & then?
Or do you worry about your high school English teacher committing suicide, if he or she were to ever stumble across your stuff?
If so, do yourself a favor. Get over it.
Marketing Communications should never be about trying to impress. Prospects should never have to think about what the heck you’re trying to say.
So keep your sentences short.
Avoid big words.
Keep plenty of free space around your copy, so it looks easy.
The mind can only really think of one thing at a time. If you want your prospect to concentrate on something, make sure your points don’t require more than a split second to understand.
Look at the below example, taken from an ad for a special day care course for kids. It’s put on by a government agency that promotes apple agriculture in their region.
The point of the text is this. “Bring your kids here, because we’ll teach them something, instead of just baby-sitting them”.
Read the example, and then the revision in plain talk.
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EXAMPLE
This program encourages students to conduct simple investigations of apples. Students experiment, observe, and keep records as they become ‘immersed” in a multi-sensory study of apples. Students will make notes in learning logs as they investigate and discuss the activities. In the learning logs the students simply record what happened during the activities and their reactions to what happened.
Students may later use their notes as the basis for language arts activities, such as writing poems. Writing first serves as a tool for learning and later becomes one of the possible end-products of the lessons.
PLAIN TALK REVISION
Hey Mom and Dad, kids love to learn about apples. They’re naturally curious, and learn best by tasting, smelling, squeezing, rolling, & tossing.
It’s so much fun.
They love sharing the experience with their classmates, and can’t wait to write home about what happened. And the feelings they express in the special diaries we give them are priceless.
You’ll be giving your kids a head start at putting their thoughts down on paper. One of life’s most important skills.
And what better way to get them out of your hair for a while?
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Can you dig the difference?
I do a lot of work in the computer networking field, and often need to read product specs & documentation. And it drives me nuts!
Why is this stuff so full of techno babble, hyperbole, and long-winded bafflegab? Is all of the rocket science talk supposed to impress me into wanting to do something with their gadgetry?
Almost every product or service imaginable has a technical side, and you can never over educate. But it shouldn’t feel like school.
Maybe you think you’re selling a commodity, and there’s not much to the customer’s decision, but price. Think again. There is always a technical differentiator.
One of the greatest skills you can acquire is to be able to boil the froth off complex concepts, so that they become easy to understand.
Customers crave facts, and proof, even logic in order to feel comfortable with their decisions, once you’ve stirred up their emotional desire.
Inject them painlessly with web copy that comes across as “plain talk”!
Copyright 2005 Daniel Levis
Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto Canada. Recently, Daniel & world-renowned publicist & copywriter Joe Vitale teamed up to co author “Million Dollar Online Advertising Strategies ? From The Greatest Letter Writer Of The 20th Century!”, a tribute to the late, great Robert Collier. Let the legendary Robert Collier show you how to write words that sell…Visit the below site & get 3 FREE Chapters! http://www.Advertising-Online-Strategies.com/ad-strategies.html
Five Profitable Ways To Use Your Follow Up Autoresponder
What? You are not using a Follow up Autoresponder? Then better be. If you are SERIOUS about increasing your subscriber database, you need Follow up autoresponders.
Web site promotion should start with search engines. Next comes your opt-in list. To maintain your opt-in list you need a mailing list manager or an autoresponder. You can publish your ezine or offer a free email course through your autoresponders.
What are Follow up autoresponders?
Follow up autoresponders send a series of emails to your prospects that goes at specified intervals. You have complete control on this interval period.
Some of the Follow up Autoresponders: (These are follow up autoresponders with mailing list manager features like broadcast emails)
http://www.autoresponseplus.com/
http://www.scripts4webmasters.com/arpproadv/index.shtml
What you can do with your Follow up autoresponder:
1. Offer free email courses:
Load your autoresponder with a series of emails as a free course. Name it as ‘Mini course that doubles Your profits in 7 days’ or something like that. User should really get temptation to subscribe for your course.
Once they subscribe, emails will go at the set up intervals.
Remember these tips before offering an email course: =Name your email course something attractive =Don’t keep too much gap between your emails =If possible refresh the previous topic in every next email =Keep short URLs =Try to use short courses like 7 – 10 days. It would be interesting for your reader. They should’t feel like a classroom =Check the URLs before loading them in to your autoresponder
2. Follow up your customer:
After your buyer purchase your product they will be landed on your subscription form. They will enter their name and email address. They will be redirected to your download page. You can set a follow up emails at an interval of 15 or 30 days. Offer some discount in this follow up emails on your other products. Selling a product to your present customer is easier than searching for a new prospect. In this method, you have to keep one form for each of your product.
3. Conduct quizzes, polls:
Yes. You can fill your follow up autoresponder with 10 quizz questions and can set up to send it one per day. People that answer all questions correct will get a discount on your product or free product or free membership etc. DON’T forget to keep your product links in each of your emails. This is a kind of advertisement for you.
4. Benefit from your Ezine articles:
You write ezine articles. Don’t you? Good…
Then load your Follow up autoresponder with 5 – 10 ezine articles and put a subscribe link on your web pages or in your signature file. Send the link to publishers who are willing to receive your articles. Your articles will be delivered to the subscribers and publishers at an interval of 30 days or what ever time you set up there.
I like to send the articles every 1 – 2 months to my publishers list. Good publishers always file articles they receive. So if you send them too frequently, it will be little annoying. So better to keep minimum interval of one month.
5. You can also use your follow up autoresponder to send:
About The Author
Radhika Venkata – Subscribe to ‘EbookBiz Magazine’ which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!
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