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5 Ways to Avoid Hype in Your Copy | Creative Inspiration

Avoid-Hype-in-Your-Copy-Creative-InspirationCopy is salesmanship in print, but does it have to be that of a greasy used-car salesman? The answer is, “No!” Follow these 5 tips and watch your prospects’ trust level rise.

1. Make it believable.

Face it – we are just smarter nowadays than we were several decades ago. In fact, we’re jaded. We’ve seen it all. Bought the miracle pills (and felt stupid for believing the charlatans). We all know it’s impossible to lose 25 pounds overnight. So why even go there? Once you lose credibility, you’ve lost your prospect’s attention, too. Respect your prospect with honesty and you have a much better chance of doing business together.

(Psst. A great way to build trust is to actually reveal a flaw in your product. We all know nothing is perfect – so show us where it’s not and we believe in you.)

2. Easy on the adjectives.

Great copy is “verb-heavy,” not laden with adjectives. In fact ad man great, Leo Burnet (of Green Giant ad fame, among others) wanted to discover why 62 of his ads failed. So he had his staff analyze them.

Here’s what he found – of the 12,758 words in the 62 failed ads, 24.1% were verbs. His conclusion – if the failed ads had more verbs, they probably would have done better. Take my advice. If you haven’t already, go to Amazon and buy Richard Bayan’s copywriting thesaurus, Words that Sell. And keep it by your desk when writing.

3. Write in your prospect’s language.

Make sure you understand their particular jargon. For example, in general, chiropractors have a bit of a rivalry with medical doctors. But chiropractors are “real” doctors. If you slip up and say otherwise, you have alienated them. But you would only know that by deeply studying your target market.

4. Write to one person with the “tarketing” technique.

To really sound sincere and empathetic, do what I call “tarketing”. That’s taking your target market’s demographics down so far that you’re actually referring to just one person. (See, a target market is a mob or plural while a “tarket” is ONE PERSON or singular.)

Corporations take this approach all the time. For example, Volvo’s tarket is a 35 year old mother of two. (Does that mean men don’t buy Volvo’s? Of course not!) When you use the tarketing technique, not only is your writing more concise, but your reader connects with you on a very deep level. After all, you’re talking directly to him or her.

5. Think from the prospect’s point of view.

You have to do your due diligence if you want to avoid the hype. This is where summoning up a little creativity goes a long way. Once you’ve got your targeting technique in place, really drill it down.

Get deep inside your prospect’s head and ask yourself some of these questions:

What magazines does he or she read?
What restaurants does he or she go to?
Does your prospect take vacations?
Who did your prospect vote for for president?
How would your prospect describe his or her life if they ran into a childhood friend they haven’t seen for 10 years?

Are you beginning to see just how deep you can start to go? The more you think about who your target market is and what this person is like, the more you are able to get into your prospect’s head.

The best way to avoid hype is to genuinely connect with your prospect through prewriting research AND respect. You’ll be rewarded with customer loyalty and many more sales.

Author Resource -> Copywriting guru Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero has been helping entrepreneurs and copywriters get their marketing messages razor sharp since 1999.

Get free access to 5 tips to turn your “blah” sales message into red-hot copy that ROCKS… at  RedHotCopy.com

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How to Set Up a 7 Day E-Course | Business Inspiration

An e-course is a sequence of emails set up to be delivered automatically without any effort on your part after the initial set up. Just set it and forget it. Setting up a free e-course is a great way to keep your services on top of mind and educate people about what you can do for them.

I highly suggest you subscribe to other people’s e-courses in your field and study what information they offer too.

HERE’S HOW TO GET STARTED

STEP ONE: Outline your topics. First you have to figure out what you think people would want to know about. Do a brainstorm exercise where you limit yourself to 5 minutes (use a timer). Write down all the topics you can think of on your area of expertise. Then edit down until what you have left is what you think is most relevant. For example, here’s the basic outline of my free e-course on copywriting.

Day 1: Overview of copywriting
Day 2: Tips on attracting your target market
Day 3: Features/benefits brainstorm exercise
Day 4: Single most important aspect of writing copy — headlines
Day 5: Keep them reading with the inverted pyramid
Day 6: Copywriting tricks the pros use
Day 7: The Cardinal Rule of Copywriting: Expect to Rewrite

STEP TWO: Go deeper in each subject. Really provide some content here.
Make 2-3 points about each topic. Don’t be afraid to do some hardcore research. Find statistics and trends and use them. Your message doesn’t have to be long, just information-packed. You have the attention of people who “asked” to learn from you. So give them something valuable.

STEP THREE: Tease them till next time. After you’ve educated them, let them know that the next lesson will have something even more mouthwatering. The less specific you are, the more tantalizing the copy. Here are some teaser phrases I used in my e-course. Feel free to swipe versions of them for your own use:

“Hang on till tomorrow and I’ll give you some tips to turn the heads of your target market.”

“In Day 3, you’ll learn the secret method I use in getting copy to sell.”

“Tomorrow you’ll learn the SINGLE most important aspect of copywriting.”

“Next I’ll show you how to keep them reading once you’ve snared them with your headline.”

STEP FOUR: Sign off. End your email like a real letter with a closing like “sincerely”, your name, business and some ways to get a hold of you. Add your website and any tagline you use too.

STEP FIVE: P.S. Alert them to your other products or services. You have something to sell, right? But the purpose of your e-course is to educate and develop a relationship, isn’t it? Don’t worry. You can do both. As long as you’re giving good content, people often like to know if you have something else to buy they would be interested in. For a gentle call to action, I recommend putting a product link with very little text in the P.S. (Studies show that people read the headline first THEN the PS. Weird, huh? But it’s true.)

So to recap. Follow-up is one of the biggest problems in doing business. Autoresponders do it effortlessly.

Author Resource -> Copywriting guru Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero has been helping entrepreneurs and copywriters get their marketing messages razor sharp since 1999.

Get free access to 5 tips to turn your “blah” sales message into red-hot copy that ROCKS… at  RedHotCopy.com

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Tips on How to Use the Power of YouTube to Build Traffic | Business Inspiration

By Tom Denton

Use YouTube to Build Traffic Business InspiratioIf you’ve been on the internet for any length of time or even if you’re a complete newbie you should know the importance of traffic to your business. You may also know that it’s not the wisest thing to “buy” traffic, because once the money runs out, so will the traffic. So how do you get traffic that is so integral to your business? Traffic that’s continuous and best of all free? YouTube can help you with this.

YouTube offers many opportunities for promotion and getting traffic to your site as it has the power to increase your rankings considerably. Just take a look at any Google page and you’ll notice that most times the videos are usually ranked at the top of the page.  Here’s why. One, YouTube is owned by Google and they work together. Two, YouTube is the second largest search engine next only to Google. That should be enough motivation to make you want go and create your own YouTube channel and upload videos to it.

But don’t go rushing off to create just yet. Let’s make sure you’re doing this the right way first so you don’t waste your time. Take note of these tips:

Make your profile interesting

YouTube is just like any other social site. So you want to create an interesting profile for networking purposes. People will want to know more about you if they like your videos. This can help build trust among your audience, thus giving you greater traffic. Try to make your profile interesting enough to get across to everyone. Professionally it shouldn’t be too boring or too stuffy. But informally it shouldn’t be too hyped either.

Promote your videos

You won’t get much traffic without viewers. You can’t just post your videos and expect that viewers will automatically find them no matter how good you think they are. You have to promote them. You can put them on your blog or on any of your other social sites.

Use your keyword in the title of your videos

People find your videos when they do searches via the search engines and on Youtube so you should make it as easy as possible for them to find you. I mean you do want to get traffic right? Okay, you should include your major keyword or keyword phrase in the title and in the description. Don’t just put it there though, it should feel natural and make sense.  And don’t forget to put them in the tags either.

 Know when to post your videos

On the internet timing is everything, you need to know when to do what. So with YouTube it’s no different, it has its peak and off-peak times for traffic. Thursday mornings or early afternoons US time is considered the best day and time to post a video of general interest. Wednesdays is said to be another good day. You need to pay attention to the loading times of your videos as well. Start early for those with internet connectivity issues and for large videos if you want them uploaded in the prime time slots.

There’s approximately an hour of video being uploaded to YouTube every second.  This makes it a valuable resource to drive traffic to your site and promote it. However despite the obvious competition, if you consistently produce quality videos with time you’ll reap the benefits of your effort which is to build traffic.

Tom Denton invites you to check out SEO Ninja – where you’ll get more solutions to your SEO problems, delivered in an easy step-by-step action guide.

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How to Tap Into the Woo-Woo Market | Business Inspiration

I tend to attract bright, successful people with strong values and a social consciousness to my business (yes, if you’re reading this, you can consider yourself complimented). But more than that, they tend to be expansive, even spiritual. The typical “woo woo” folks who actually make money.

They are called the “Cultural Creatives” and they represent approximately 50 million Americans. Cultural Creatives fall into the “LOHAS” (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) market – a $228.9 billion growing industry.

Basically Cultural Creatives are the “green” group. They are interested in alternative medicines, personal development, environmentally friendly solutions, and healthy lifestyles. They eat organic foods and drink filtered water. They drive hybrid cars and bike or walk when possible. They want to leave a better world for the next generation, even if the next generation is wrapped up in MySpace.com and video games. They don’t relate to the fast-paced.

While getting to know some of them over the past years at live events and through teleseminars (the Internet marketer’s version of a coffee klatch), I discovered this group represents some new challenges in marketing that haven’t been there before. See, they loathe advertising.

What’s a marketer to do when her bag of tricks doesn’t work on the segment of people who most relates to her? She looks closer at lessons from the past and what DOES work in the present. Here are a few tips you can use to connect with the elusive Cultural Creatives.

  1. Hook ‘em with a story. We all love stories and they make for some pretty compelling marketing. When a reader is taking in a story he actually looks for connections to himself. How cool is that? The reader is grooming a relationship with you without you even trying.
  2. Be authentic. A Cultural Creative can smell a liar. Try the old bait and switch and you will shortly be out of business. Let them in on your weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
  3. Use a conversational tone. Try speaking to them in the first person using language real people use. Don’t be so formal. Cultural Creatives aren’t uptight – just curious. Extra points for making them chuckle.
  4. Long copy still works…as long as you are succinct and interesting. Cultural Creatives don’t mind getting information, as long as they are LEARNING something about a potential purchase or issue. Not impulsive buyers, they like to understand before they buy.

Get used to it. The Cultural Creatives are not some hippie group fad. They are here to stay. The sooner you adapt your marketing to reach them, the better.

Author Resource -> Copywriting guru Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero has been helping entrepreneurs and copywriters get their marketing messages razor sharp since 1999.

Get free access to 5 tips to turn your “blah” sales message into red-hot copy that ROCKS… at RedHotCopy.com