One of the things most marketers do not accomplish effectively is building value in their product/service.  They just name the price of the product and then go right into the call to action.

This is NOT the way to go! To Illustrate this, let me tell you a story:

I enjoy playing golf. I am always looking to improve my swing and get lower scores.

Let’s say you’re selling a DVD that is going to lower my golf scores and you’re selling it for $97. Immediately I am going to to think that’s too expensive because I’m used to buying DVD movies for $10-$20 at Target.

So I have already decided on what I’m going to pay for a DVD.

However, if you show me that DVD is going to save me thousands of dollars on golf pro lessons and tons of time hacking away at the driving range, that $97 is going to sound like a drop in the bucket.

I am going to be willing to pay that $97 to potentially save thousands.

And if you tell me within 15 minutes I’ll be able to hit 300-yard drives, that’s going to build my desire even more.  That 97 dollars is going to seem like more of a “no-brainer” every day.

Now let’s talk about what you can include in your copy to boost the value of your product/service in your prospect’s mind so you’ll get more sales:

1) Compare other ways they can get the “Big Promise” you’re selling and show them why your solution is better when it comes to cost.

In the golf example above, you can talk about how much money you could spend on going to a golf pro, or the bucks you’ll be throwing down the toilet on the driving range trying to improve your game.

And tell them how your solution is better and cheaper. They will get the desire “Big Promise” (lower golf scores) and they will be able to do it cheaper.

2) Compare what they are paying to frivolous things they spend money on every day…and show them why using that money to buy your product is the best choice.

Do you remember Sally Struthers? She was the woman on all those “Save The Children” commercials?

She would always say (paraphrasing), “Just one cup of coffee a day could feed this child for a month!” in order to convince you that sponsoring a child would not cost that much.

You can do the same for your product.

For example, our hypothetical golf DVD goes for $97. Here is how I would make this price a no-brainer using this strategy:

That’s only a months worth of Starbucks lattes or a month of satellite television. Why not use that money to spend it on hitting laser-targeted drives that are going to split the fairway…and lower your scores?

Keep in mind you are not convincing them to quit their Starbucks habit or quit their Direct TV subscription. You’re just making the connection in the prospect’s mind that they are already spending that kind of money on other things that aren’t giving them the same amount of value.

So go and implement these 2 value-building secrets in your copy.  You can melt price objections instantly!

Unti next time,

Kevin Hill

“The Professor of High Response”

One of the best website copywriting tips I give to clients is how to make the copy on their websites more “readable” to their prospects.

Very often they have the “sales points” in a piece of copy correct, but they do not do a very good job of making sure the copy is written in a way that is easy to read and conversational to their prospects.

So here are 5 copywriting tips you can implement right away to make sure your web copy is conversational to your prospects. Remember, a piece of copy is a sales pitch in writing–so implementing these tips could boost your conversions.

1) Read the piece of copy out loud to yourself and edit accordingly.

Most beginner copywriters have what I call “Ernest Hemingway Disease”. They learned how to write English papers in high school and learned how to write with perfect grammar.

However, when it comes to writing for sales, you have to throw out all those grammar rules you learned in high school. Because people do not talk in perfect grammar!

When it comes to excellent web copy, you have to write like people talk. And people talk in incomplete sentences and even start some sentences with, “And…”.

…things that your English teacher would have a fit over while grading your paper!

One way to determine if your sales copy is written in a conversational manner is to read it out loud to yourself. You will notice parts of the copy that are not very conversational, and parts that read like they are from a William Faulkner novel.

When you notice these parts, you have to edit to make them more conversational. To the point that you can read that section over and over again and feel like you are talking to someone in person.

Which leads me to my next point:

2) Pretend you are talking to someone in a bar or restaurant when writing your web copy.

This tip is very important. When I write a piece of web copy, I pretend my prospect is sitting in front of me in a bar or restaurant. I pretend I am taking to that person and selling them on my product or service.

Imagining this will improve your writing immensely. It will shock you out of your “English term paper” mindset and allow you to write like people talk. And this is what is going to give you more sales!

3) Keep sentences short.

Many people do not talk in long sentences. So you have to make sure you keep sentences short when writing your web copy.

If you have a run-on sentence, or a sentence that is separated with a comma, just split that long sentence with a period and leave it at that. This will make your copy easy to read and more conversational.

Also don’t be afraid to write paragraphs that are only one sentence. Speaking of paragraphs:

4) Stick to one idea per paragraph.

The best way to make your copy more conversational is to make sure you stick to one idea per paragraph. This is another website copywriting tip most people do not implement and it leads to a piece of copy that reads like a Ernest Hemingway novel.

Further make sure your paragraphs are short. One of the things that keeps people from reading a piece of web copy is seeing large paragraphs. It makes the copy appear extremely intimidating to the reader and, as a result, they might move on to another site.

5) Don’t use big words.

Most people online read at a sixth-grade level. So you do not want to use big words when writing your web copy.

Large words your target audience will not understand will serve as a “speed bump” in the copy where your prospect will hit the brakes wondering what the word means. And when they do this, the chances of not getting the sale go up.

People online are distracted all the time with pop-ups, email notifications, and other modalities that only serves to distract the prospect from your copy. And any word that serves as a speed bump will boost the chances your copy will not get read.

Until next time,

Kevin Hill

“The Professor Of High Response”

One of the things I see a lot when I critique copy is it doesn’t have a very good “flow”. The sentences are too long, there aren’t any breaks in paragraphs, and it’s written like an English professor wrote it.

This is very common. We have been taught to be grammatically correct and to write like Ernest Hemingway and other authors we read in high school.  If we started a sentence with “And…” we would get “minus 5 points” on our term papers.

You have to throw out all those rules when it comes to copywriting. You have to write like people talk…in a conversational manner.

And people do not talk in complete sentences and with perfect grammar.

One thing I tell people to do is to read the copy out loud to yourself. Pretend you are talking to your prospect at a bar or restaurant.

What will happen is you will notice parts of the copy that does not “flow” correctly. It will not sound very conversational and it will sound like you are reading from an English term paper.

If possible, try to read the copy to someone in your target market. Someone that will actually buy from you.

Here’s the secret: if they tell you:

“(insert your name), this is written very well! Nice job!”

…then you need to rewrite the letter.

But if they tell you:

“(insert your name), where can I get this product?”

…then you know you have a winner!

So after you write a piece of copy, read it out loud to yourself, or to someone else preferably in your own market.  If there are sections of the sales letter you stumble on when reading, then that section needs to be rewritten.

Until next time,

Kevin

“The Professor Of High Response”

There are a lot of copywriters out there who like to put in a lot of “hype” in their sales letters. They will use 3-4 adjectives in each sentence, a lot of exclamation points, and make a lot of “over-the-top” promises.

This is mostly in the “make money online” and “internet marketing” niches, but it’s prevalent everywhere.

As a professional copywriter, I have learned that using hype in sales copy usually ends up falling flat. Yes, there are a lot of A-list copywriters using it but here are 3 considerations you have to take into account before writing copy:

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We are living in an extremely over-advertised world. Billboards and television blares advertisements at us on a daily basis.  As marketers, it’s hard to cut through all this noise to reach our prospects.

Because of this advertising burnout, prospects are becoming more and more skeptical and transparent of advertising every day.  In other words, today’s prospect doesn’t want to believe you when they receive a promotion from you!

Think about it: nobody wakes up thinking to themselves: “I want to read some ads today!” Except for copywriters, of course. 🙂

Here are 5 things you can put in your promotions to boost credibility–and conversions.  Some of these are external of your actual promotion so make sure you include them as well.

1) Include More Testimonials In Your Promotions.

I gave some specific guidelines for testimonials in this blog post.  Proof is the #1 reason why promotions fail because prospects do not believe what you’re saying, and the best way to include this is testimonials.

2) Bolster Your Case Studies.

Case studies are basically longer testimonials.  If you’ve had a lot of people get the desired benefit from your product/service, it makes sense to get their FULL story and include that in your promotion.

People love stories and reading a customer’s story of how your product solved their problem can boost readership of your promotion and boost your conversions.

3) Insert Clear Contact Information.

Don’t be like one of those businesses with no contact information! Put your address and phone number on your site.

If you’re vary of putting your home address on your site, just get a P.O. box or (better yet) find a mailing store like the UPS Store that allows you to use a real street address.

Regarding phone numbers, I have a Skype number I pay $4/month to operate and $15 every 4 months to maintain and I can make unlimited calls in the US.  You can see it on my site here: http://www.kevinhillcopy.com/hire.  Very few people call me but having a phone number on your site is a huge credibility booster.

4) Put Your Face On The Promotion As Much As Possible.

If you’re the face of the company, you should put your face out there as much as possible. This is something I hesitated with for a long time, but I felt people would connect with me better if they put a face with a name.

Now you’ll see me on all my promotional materials. It simply tells people you’re a REAL person…and not a person hiding behind a computer screen with a fake name.

5) Start A Blog And Social Media Properties like Twitter and Facebook.

When people type in your name and your profession into Google, does your name show up on the first page of the search engines?  It’s extremely easy to Google anyone up these days, so now is probably time to get rid of the drunk pictures you might have posted on your Facebook profile.

What you need to do is create a blog with your name in the URL.  If www.name.com, try, www.therealyourname.com or register a .co domain…like I did.  Then start blogging 2-3 times a week.

You should also set up a Linkedin.com, Twitter, and Facebook profile.  Linkedin is huge because they get ranked high in the search engines and you could easily rank first in Google for your name.

(Unless your name is the same name as a television show that ran only 1 season…like yours truly).

I don’t know how many times I get an email promotion promoting an ebook, course, membership, etc. and Googling them up to find out who they are.  It’s so easy to do…and you better believe your prospects are checking you out online before they yank out their wallet to buy from you.

I hope you go out and implement these credibility boosters in your promotions and marketing.

Until next time,

Kevin Hill

“The Professor of High Response”

If you’ve ever been in a relationship, you know there are certain stages.

On the first date you’re just trying to get to know each other. You know, what they like to watch on TV, their hobbies, and where they work.

And as the relationship progresses and you’ve built a certain level of trust, you start to talk about other topics such as religion and politics.

In other words, you’ve already covered the “basics” and have built some trust with that other person…and now are attempting to deepen the relationship.

Now imagine how the relationship would progress if every conversation was like the first date?

…where you ask her basic questions like where she worked and what she liked to do for fun.  Things you’ve already discussed earlier on the first and second date?

Chances are she would think you’re a little strange. And she will let her phone roll to voicemail the next time you ask her on a date.

You see, that’s what a lot of marketers do when they write their upsell copy.  They go into the story of the product, their history, and “sell” prospects on why they should buy from them…

…the exact same thing they did with their first product!

Now in case you’re wondering what an “upsell” is…let me clue you in.

An upsell is a product offering either immediately after the first sale.  It is usually a product that is more expensive and related to the original offering.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you bought a copywriting course for $27. An upsell could be a more comprehensive course on copywriting…or perhaps one-on-one help from the copywriter herself.

In other words, the upsell is related to the original product. And skilled marketers use it over and over again since it is super-easy to get more sales right after the initial sale.

And, after writing sales copy for many upsells, I can tell you that the pitch is a little different for one reason:

Customer who see your upsells already trust you since, after all, they’ve just BOUGHT from you!

In other words, there is no need to go into your story or why people should buy from you again, since you did a good job of this on the original sales letter.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bought!

So the key is to get right to the point when it comes to writing your upsells.

Now let me share with you my 2-step formula for starting every single upsell letter. I have used this many times and it works like a charm.

1) Thank them for purchasing the previous product and tell them they are going to really get the benefits they desire from that product

2) …Then tell them you want to give them a rare chance to get even MORE benefits than they have ever dreamed about!

So let’s see this in action. Let’s pretend we just sold a “make money online” ebook and we are going to offer a more comprehensive course on internet marketing with our upsell.

Here’s an example of this copy in action:

Thank you for purchasing my ebook, “How To Make Money Online”.

I know you’re going to get a lot out of it and I look forward to hearing your success story when the cash is rolling into your bank account!

But if you are looking to take your money-making skills even further, then you’ll want to read every single word of this message.

Because I want to show you how you can accelerate your income without going through the regular “trial and error” everyone else has to go through…insert rest of pitch.

That’s it. No need to go into your story or why you are great…like you did in your initial pitch.

You see, when it comes to writing great copy, you need to tap into the brain of your customer and enter the conversation going on in their mind at that moment.

In the case of upsell, the customer just bought from you and trusts you. And they are probably hot to buy from you again.

That’s why you need to cut to the chase with your upsell copy. Get right to the point and you can get more sales.

Continuing the dating analogy I used earlier, you’ve progressed onto the second date. There is no need to use the same conversation you used on the first date since you’ve gained some level of trust at this point.

In my next post I am going to share with you a very important word you should always use in your upsells. This word could be more important than the actual headline (ouch…did I just say that?) so stay tuned!

Until next time,

Kevin  Hill

“The Professor Of High Response”