The Golden Thread – The Week in Review
March 2–8, 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 … Why It’s Critical to Let Your Web Visitors Know They’ve Come to the Right Place
People who surf the internet are driven by a purpose and want to know they’ve come to the right place when they first view a web page. That’s why a good headline is so important. - Improve Your Copywriting Skills … Use the “Left-Side” Rule to Make Your Web Copy Easy to Scan
Web copy expert Nick Usborne reveals how to write and design web pages that enable people to find the information they want – and the information YOU want them to find – with a quick glance. - Insider Success Strategy … My Technique for Expressing the Core Value of Your Product
Web copy expert Nick Usborne outlines a strategy he uses to ensure he understands the core value of his client’s product and that the web copy he writes is easy to read. - Industry Spotlight: Health
Find out about trends and statistics in the health writing market. - Prospect-Centric Copy is What the Doctor Ordered
Target Marketing's Hallie Mummert weighs in on how making your copy prospect-centric will get you better results. - Top 15 Mailers in the Health Market
Discover the names and websites of fifteen top mailers in the health industry.
Words of Copywriting Wisdom … Why It’s Critical to Let Your Web Visitors Know They’ve Come to the Right Place
People don’t look at Web pages the same way they look at print pages.
If I pick up People magazine, I look at the photos first and then the captions. That’s not what happens on the Web. On the Web, people don’t look at photos first unless it’s a glamour-related site. On a regular site, they read the headline first.
Why? Because they’re driven by a purpose and they want to know if they’ve come to the right place.
So they read the headline and they will either think, “Oh, okay, this isn’t what I thought it was going to be,” and they’ll leave. Or the headline will say to them, “Yes, you’re in the right place,” and they’ll keep reading.
Improve Your Copywriting Skills … Use the “Left-Side” Rule to Make Your Web Copy Easy to Scan
One of the biggest challenges for an online copywriter is to create a page of copy that can be scanned easily.
More specifically, you need to write and design Web pages that enable people to find the information they want – and the information YOU want them to find – with a quick glance.
What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that people don’t view and read Web pages the same way that they scan printed materials.
First of all, their attitude is different. Web users are goal-oriented. They know what they are looking for. They know what they want. And it’s your job to let people know that they came to the right place.
Also, Web readers are a lot more impatient than print readers. They are in a hurry. They are unforgiving.
Visualize yourself as a typical website visitor – someone interested in, say, kayaking.
Picture yourself picking up a kayaking magazine. You kick back and start flipping through the pages. You are relaxed. You take your time. Some articles will really interest you. Others won’t. That’s okay. The magazine has your complete attention. There’s no urgency. If you put the magazine down on a side table while you answer the door or walk the dog, it will be there waiting for you when you get back.
Now let’s say you read an article about some cool kayak storage racks. Your kayak is taking up way too much room on the floor in the garage, so you want to hang it on the wall.
Suddenly, you have a very specific interest. You want to find out where you can buy a “kayak storage rack.” You also want to check out the different racks available and their prices.
So you head over to your computer and open Google or some other search engine.
You type in the phrase “kayak storage racks.”
Now let’s stop for a moment. You may wonder whether I’m painting an accurate picture here. The short answer is yes. While people don’t always look for stuff online after reading a magazine, they very frequently use the major search engines to find and research things they are interested in buying.
The fact that people use search engines changes everything. Because to use a search engine, you have to enter a search phrase. You have to think about what you are looking for and think of a phrase that will (you hope) take you to a relevant page on a website.
As soon as someone types in the phrase “kayak storage racks,” they have framed the boundaries of their interest and attention.
It is essential that you understand this.
As soon as someone types in a search phrase, that person becomes tightly focused in the way they scan the search results and then scan the pages on the sites they arrive at.
Remember, when you were picking up that magazine about kayaks, your mind was open. You were a passive recipient of information about kayaking. You were in the hands of the magazine’s editors. As a passive observer, you opened the magazine to find out what was inside.
When you go to the Web, the experience is utterly different. As a site visitor, you are not passive, you are active. You are in control. You are the boss. You know exactly what you are looking for. You are task-oriented.
And in this case, your self-assigned task is to find some kayak storage racks.
You read through the titles to the listings on the Google search results page and click on a link that looks promising. In this case, that link will probably include the phrase “kayak storage racks.”
You then arrive at a page within a website. Probably not the home page. Probably some internal page.
And your brain is now programmed for one task only – to find kayak storage racks.
You scan the page for text and images that will confirm you are in the right place. This will take you about 2 seconds. If you don’t see an immediate match for “kayak storage racks,” you will hit the back button.
That may sound brutal. But this is what happens.
Now that you understand that, let’s say you’ve been hired to write a page about kayak storage racks.
But you’re a print copywriter, and you have no experience writing for the Web.
So you might write the first draft of the page headline something like:
“Free up your floor space by hanging your kayak from the walls or ceiling.”
You’re stating the benefit of the racks right at the beginning. Just they way I was taught – and the way you’re learning now.
But that isn’t how I would write the headline for the Web.
I’d write it more like this:
“Kayak Storage Racks – for wall or ceiling. Save 22% + free shipping.”
Why? Because I know that my reader’s brain is tightly focused on a very specific task and phrase. In fact, I have probably written 20 different pages about storage racks, each of them with its headline optimized for a particular search term.
Whatever the term, get it at the beginning of the headline. Because the first three or four words of your headline will get a lot more attention than the last three.
Don’t believe me? Well, thousands of heatmap studies, which track a Web user’s eye movements, have confirmed this time and time again.
In fact, whatever your key message is, make sure you place the words and phrases you use to describe it as close to the left margin of the main column as possible.
When people scan a Web page, their eye movement and the vast majority of their attention is very tightly tied to that left side. And the further people look down a page, the less they will look at anything that is not close to the left side.
What does this mean?
It means that my key phrases and benefits will be written at the beginning of every heading, subhead, and link.
Don’t assume people will read the whole subhead. They will probably just scan the first three or four words.
Don’t waste space with generic terms.
That is to say, if you want to highlight your free shipping offer, don’t write a subhead like this:
“Order your space-saving kayak rack today and get free shipping.”
Write it more like this:
“Free shipping with your kayak rack if you order today.”
Everything that matters should come at the beginning of all your scannable textyou’re your headline, subheads, links, and captions.
(BTW – why did I add the discount and free shipping offer to my headline? Because online shoppers are comparison shoppers. They’ll find what they want on your site, and then see if they can find the same thing cheaper elsewhere. So you want to do all you can to keep them on your page … and get them to buy from your page.)
There is a lot more to say about creating scannable Web copy, but the “left-side” rule should be enough to get you started.
Insider Success Strategy … My Technique for Expressing the Core Value of Your Product
Some time ago, I received an inquiry from an entrepreneur who was planning to launch a new software program.
He had no marketing materials. Nothing. And he was going to need a website as the major sales channel for the program.
But he didn’t ask me to write a home page, or any other part of his site. At least, that wasn’t the first thing on his list.
Instead, he asked me to write the following:
- a 500-word article on the product
- 10 scenarios of how 10 different people might use and benefit from using the software
- and a tagline
I think he was smart to do that. Instead of diving directly into creating his home page, and the rest of the site, he decided to commission pages and pages of written material that would help clarify and crystallize the core product messages and benefits.
By asking for the article, he was asking me to think about all the most important things that can be said about his product and then put them together in an easy-to-read format.
Then, by asking me to write the 10 user scenarios, he was making sure that I thought about and understood how a fairly broad range of people would use his software.
Finally, by requesting a tagline, he was asking me to crystallize all that I had learned by writing the article and 10 user scenarios … and to express the core value of the product in about 10 words or less.
Whether the article or user scenarios would ever be used or published on his site or elsewhere is beside the point.
He knew, I think, that his website home page was going to be absolutely critical to the success of his product.
So he didn’t want me to start writing the home page immediately. He didn’t want his home page to be the place where I did my “homework” on his product.
I’ve since adapted this strategy for all the Web projects I take on. It works for all products. I recommend you try it too.
Before I sign off as your guest editor for this issue of The Golden Thread, let me leave you with this: Always remember that if you fail to communicate an immediate and powerful value proposition on a site’s home page or sales page, you’re going to create a wimpy page.
A Web page is like a Broadway show. You HAVE to grab and wow your audience in the first few seconds. On a website, you don’t do it with song and dance … you do it by getting your audience to read your headline and think, “YES! This is exactly what I want!”
Industry Spotlight: Health
The health industry is vast. The alternative-health sector, especially, is growing. Whether it’s a newsletter talking about the latest in natural remedies, a nutritional supplement, or organic food, a copywriter is creating sales copy for it … and it might as well be you.
- According to The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 36% of all adults use alternative medicine in one form or another.
- According to the American Botanical Council, natural-supplement sales have grown steadily over the past 15 years.
- The natural-foods industry grew 9.7% last year.
- According to a report by MarketResearch, natural pet products will top $1 billion by next year.
- Over 1,300 magazines on Amazon are dedicated to health.
- The Who’s Mailing What! Archive tracked 3,343 health-related mailings last year from 201 different companies.
Prospect-Centric Copy is What the Doctor Ordered
Fear and greed may be the two greatest motivators when it comes to selling anything, but crafting a direct-mail piece for a health-related client – be it treatment, prevention, or insurance – requires connecting with a prospect on a friendly, not scary, level. For five copywriting tips for health clients, read on …
- Increase the info. When it replaced its eight-page letter and color brochure package with a 36-page bookalog, Johns Hopkins White Papers emerged with a new control to sell its white paper series. Each of its 13 titles has its own “chapter.” Writing more in-depth on health issues will not only increase the perception that the mailer is an authority on the subject, it also give prospects much-needed facts for important buying decisions
- Allow readers to choose their path. According to the package’s copywriter, Barbara Harrison, owner of Barbara Harrison Copy and Creative Services in Mount Kisco, NY, including a table of contents helps the prospect quickly find her own health issues and read information on the product that is most relevant to her needs.
- Leave them with something. Writing up a quick takeaway item – such as the wallet-sized “Heart Attack Warning Signs” and CPR how-to informational freemium that was included in a direct-mail package from Inova Health Systems – can help keep a branding message around long after the mailing has been thrown out.
- Make the information accessible. Although for health clients more copy typically is better, that doesn’t mean recipients will respond well to dense blocks of information. To avoid this trap, the Johns Hopkins piece had colored bursts scattered throughout its pages to reiterate the offer. Bullet points as well as highlighted text were used to make the copy easier to comprehend.
- Include credentials. Because the health care industry so heavily relies on building and maintaining a reputation of excellence, facts about how the organization has contributed to public health over its years in operation can go a long way to increase feelings of trust in prospects.
Top 15 Mailers in the Health Market
- Sun Chlorella USA
Health & nutritional supplements
www.sunchlorellausa.com - PacifiCare Health Systems
Healthplan provider
www.pacificare.com - Blue Cross of California
Health care
www.bluecrossca.com - Equinox Fitness Clubs
Upscale fitness clubs
www.equinoxnyc.com - AARP
Non-profit membership organization that provides information, education, and advocacy for seniors
www.aarp.org - Weight Watchers International Inc.
Weight loss & diet programs
www.weightwatchers.com - Forward Nutrition
Health newsletter
www.healthydirections.com - Humana
Health benefits provider
www.humana.com - Miracle-Ear
Manufacturer of hearing aids & hearing instruments
www.miracle-ear.com - Mountain Home Nutritionals
Nutritional health supplements
www.healthydirections.com - ConnectiCare
Independent health maintenance organization
www.connecticare.com - The Fitness Edge
Privately owned fitness chain
www.fitnessedge.net - Aloes International Inc.
Aloe vera products for health
www.aloes.com - Cord Blood Registry
Umbilical/placenta blood storage facility
www.coreblood.com - The Vitamin Shoppe
Vitamin retailer
www.vitaminshoppe.com
[Ed. Note: Top mailers are determined by the number of mailing offers received by the Who’s Mailing What! Archive – the world’s largest swipe file, with access to over 10,000 controls in nearly 200 categories. To learn more about the Archive, and exclusive AWAI member access, click here: http://www.awaionline.com/whosmailing/]
