The Golden Thread – The Week in Review
February 24 – March 1, 2008
Welcome to The Golden Thread Online, your free e-letter from American Writers & Artists Inc. Every Saturday, you will receive this recap of all the strategies, insights and opportunities we send to you and your fellow AWAIers each week. Whether it’s a message from a fellow writer about how he landed a new client … a technique from a Master copywriter for writing a control … an insight into how to succeed in a new market … news of a brand new writing job or business opportunity for you … you’ll find it here in this easy-to-access and always available “Week in Review.”
In This Issue:
- Words of Copywriting Wisdom … Using Online Pages to Support Offline Efforts …
Rebecca McEldowney explains why it's important to use online efforts to support your direct mail promotions. - Improve Your Copywriting Skills … 7 Ways to Improve the Copy on the Next Web Page You Write
Web copy expert Nick Usborne reveals seven ways to ensure your web copy is the best it can be. - A Concerned AWAIer Asks … “Doesn’t more copywriters mean more competition?!”
AWAI Executive Director Katie Yeakle answers a program member’s question about the demand for copywriters in the direct-response industry. - Getting Clients Tip: Contacting Companies About Their Websites
AWAI “Wall of Fame” copywriter Pam Foster offers a way to get clients for your web copywriting business.
Words of Copywriting Wisdom … Using Online Pages to Support Offline Efforts …
“Offline prospects oftentimes go to the Web to check you out and see if you’re for real. Online prospects don’t go offline to check you out.”
I did a quick survey in the office, and the 10 people I asked all said they check out a company’s website before purchasing just about anything through the mail these days. We know this is the case for people who receive our sales letters. After reading one of our promotions, their next stop is one of our Web pages to get a sense of who we are and to see if we’re “for real.”
So what does this mean for you? More projects from your clients! Every direct-mail letter that gets mailed should have an online Web page counterpart that has been indexed to support the print promotion effort and boost its response. And as an AWAI copywriter, you can create both of these important pieces for your clients.
All you need to know is how to write the most effective Web page possible. And to answer your next question – “How?” – I went to the best expert I know on the subject, Nick Usborne.
Improve Your Copywriting Skills … 7 Ways to Improve the Copy on the Next Web Page You Write
Whenever you sit down to write a Web page – whether it’s a home page, a sales page, a subscription page, or an information page – there are seven steps you can take to ensure that your copy is the best it can be.
Define the purpose of the page.
This may sound obvious, but too few online copywriters and marketers sit down and establish a clear, clean purpose for a Web page.
All too often, Web pages are created as “content dumps.” Some boss somewhere decides he or she wants a page on some topic, the under-boss passes along the request plus some background information from an old brochure, and the writer is asked to write the page.
Not a smart way to do it.
Far better to sit down for 10 minutes with others involved in the project and ask the simple question, “What is the primary purpose of this page?” Or, to put it another way, “What is it we want this page to achieve?”
Is its purpose to …
- close a sale?
- secure a subscription or registration?
- help people find a particular product or service page on your site?
- invite participation?
- pre-sell a product or service and then move the reader forward to a sales page?
- educate the reader and then direct him or her forward to one of your main category pages?
Write down the answer, in 10 words or less, and pin it to the wall in front of you.
Now you know what your page needs to do.
Understand your audience
Who will be coming to this page? Kids? Retired people? Who are they? Where do they live? How much money do they have?
And, broadly speaking, what is their interest in coming to your site? Are they there to learn? Or are they looking for a new car? Insurance? Garden furniture?
Based on their even knowing about your site, you can get a pretty good idea about who is coming there and what their general interest is.
So here’s the question: “Who are these guys?”
Write down your answer on that same sheet of paper.
Get clarity on your visitors’ expectations.
Now we are getting more granular. We want to know why these people are coming to this page specifically. What do they want? What are they hoping for? What are their expectations?
There are clues and trails you can follow when trying to identify the specific purpose someone has in mind when coming to a page.
First, ask yourself where they came from. A link from the home page? So what did the link say? What is the exact wording? That link text will give you a very clear idea as to your page visitor’s expectations. In fact, the link text will largely set that person’s expectations.
The same is true of someone arriving via a search engine. To find your page, they typed a few words into the search engine’s search field. What phrase did they use? Again, those words give you a strong clue as to the visitor’s expectations.
Maybe they came via a link in an email. What expectations did the email build up and set? What was the promise?
Follow these trails and do your best to determine the visitor’s expectations.
This is vital.
You will always maximize the effectiveness of a Web page by getting as close as you can to matching the visitor’s expectations.
Remember, those expectations are set immediately before the visitor arrives on the page.
This means your headline and opening text has to be a direct and immediate match with what that person is hoping to find.
Don’t waste time or words. Match your reader’s expectations immediately.
Get to the meat faster.
The Web is not the place to write clever introductory text. It’s not the place to do some grand scene-setting.
Determine your reader’s expectations and get to the “meat” of your message immediately. No meandering. No fluff. Just get out of the way and let them do what they came there to do.
That action might be to read an article. Or sign up for a newsletter. Or compare three different laptop computers. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that they want, give it to them immediately.
Write only as much as you need to.
As copywriters, we are often told how much copy to write. We need to fit a certain format, fill a page, or write enough text to fit in an 8-page letter.
The Web isn’t like that. A page can have two lines of text or a thousand lines of text. There is no fixed length.
The tendency online is to write more than is really necessary.
Don’t do that.
Go back to your notes, confirm what it is your visitor wants to do, and write only enough to enable them to meet their goal.
Write enough to get the job done, but not a word more.
Tell people what to do.
Again, this sounds obvious. But there are a zillion pages online that are beautifully written, but then sag and sputter at the end.
If your reader takes no action after reading the page, you have failed. You need them to do something.
Hopefully, if you have done a good writing job, the link they click will correspond exactly to the expectations they had before they arrived at your site.
For instance, before arriving at your page, they might have been thinking, “I need an insurance quote for my new home.”
The best outcome for you is when they click on a link on your page that says, “Get an insurance quote for your home.”
It’s only by securing an action that you can succeed in matching their expectations.
Tell them the next step.
Some expectations are more complex. Maybe someone was thinking, “I want a new digital camera, but I would like to check out my options.”
They then arrive on your page, which includes a digital camera comparison chart.
Good job so far.
You have helped them compare cameras. But they aren’t ready to buy. So what’s next?
Well, people who compare cameras are at different stages. Some are almost ready to buy, others are still early on in the research process.
So how do you get them to take an action?
You provide options.
For those who are early on in their search, offer a free downloadable guide to choosing digital cameras.
For those who are ready to buy, provide a link to the sales page for each camera.
Be aware of the options your readers might find attractive, and offer them.
The Place Where People DO Things
All of these points are focused on understanding the visitor and getting him or her to do something.
That’s what the Web is. It’s a place where people DO things.
And you need to write accordingly.
Know your visitors. Know what they want. And help them achieve their goals.
[Ed. Note: Thanks to the web, the demand for freelance copywriters has skyrocketed in the last few years. So all this week we’ll focus on finding the best paying jobs, and writing web copy that sells. Nick Usborne, often referred to as THE expert of online copywriting, will be giving you the inside scoop … so stay tuned!]
A Concerned AWAIer Asks … “Doesn’t more copywriters mean more competition?!”
Among the early submissions for AWAI’s “March Madness” Bullet Challenge was this question from Jim U.:
Hi Katie,
I’m not sure it’s in my best interests to write up bullets for the copywriting program, since more sales will generate more competition for us budding writers!
What do you think?
Best, Jim U., AWAI member since Sept. 2007
Here’s my response to Jim …
Dear Jim,
I completely understand your concern. In fact, many new copywriters have the same one.
It’s a bit counterintuitive, but the truth is that the more copywriters there are writing sales letters for businesses, the more sales these businesses make. The more sales they make, the greater their need for additional sales letters … AND copywriters to write them. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.
As an example, company AllHealth sells supplements. They send out a promotion written by copywriter Dan. It’s a winner … brings in 1,000 customers. Company AllHealth will then go back to copywriter Dan to write another letter for them … plus, they’ll go to copywriter Sue to write a letter to test against Dan’s original letter. (That’s three letters. And this process will most likely be repeated a minimum of four times a year.)
While that’s going on, company AllHealth is going to want to stay in touch with these 1,000 new customers on a regular basis … most likely through an e-letter … which they hire copywriter Louise to write. (50 issues a year.) Plus, they’ll want to let these 1,000 people know about the 20 other great products they offer (another 20 promos) … which they could very well hire copywriters Steve, Joe, and Kim to write for them throughout the year.
So you can see how that one winning letter written by copywriter Dan has now led to 81 additional copy assignments that company AllHealth will be happy to pay six different copywriters for.
Or, put more simply, the more the direct-response industry grows (and it is growing, every single year), the more copywriters will be in demand.
According to the “2007 Salary Guides” from Robert Half International, the demand for skilled copywriters is rising as more companies require compelling content for Web-based promos and print advertising. In fact, 60 percent of advertising and marketing executives who plan to hire new employees said they’ll be adding copywriters.
Plus, there’s the Internet. Over 1 billion people are now online. As more and more businesses go online to sell their wares, the demand for copywriters will continue to increase.
So, Jim, take our Challenge! Write us some powerful bullets so we can get more good copywriters trained. The economy is depending on us!
Getting Clients Tip: Contacting Companies About Their Websites
AWAI Wall of Famer Tells Us How She Regularly Gets Paid $1,800 - $4,000 Writing for the Web
I got my first Web clients by contacting everyone I already knew in business and asking if they were happy with their sites. Most companies are NOT happy, and would love to have some help.
I show my prospective clients how a powerful headline can make a huge difference in their website’s performance. I explain that the home page headline is often the most important factor in determining whether or not a visitor will buy from them.
There are a number of small and medium businesses that don’t know “Welcome” is a terrible headline – and they don’t understand why their site isn’t working for them.
Sometimes I offer to write a few alternative headlines for free, just to show them what I could do to help their business. Here’s how I do it.
- I ask questions about their typical customers, and I ask about their customers’ biggest concerns – concerns that a product or service of the business can uniquely solve. (This helps me get a picture of the prospect and establish the USP.)
- Then I present 1-3 headline options that really hit home with a Big Promise, using the 4 U’s.
When I’ve done this, I’ve almost always landed the entire Web content project. And many businesses are willing to pay $1,800-$4,000 or even more for new Web content, depending on the size of the site.
Thanks to my AWAI headline and leads training, my Web clients think I’m a genius!
Hopefully other AWAI members can use this method to find new business, too.
