Online Copywriting
Buying online is a consumer?s paradise, right?One can compare competing offers ?til the heart?s content, all with simple clicks of a mouse.Well, it?s not that great if you happen to sell online.And what if I told you it?s not really that great for consumers, either?Sound crazy? Read on.
Preface: Start with a killer product or service
This should go without saying in our age of global competition and reduced barriers to entry. But so often merchants are looking for a magic bullet to widely distribute something that the market simply finds inferior.The problem is, there are plenty of people out there with exceptional products and services who are losing out to others with lesser offerings and higher prices.What?s going on with that?Superior marketing and sales techniques, that?s what. Here are 3 ways to level the playing field (or even tip the scales in your favor).
1. Eliminate competition with artful positioning
Wouldn?t selling online be wonderful without competition? Well, it?s possible, if only to the extent that a certain type of person considers you the absolute only option. Yes, it?s our friend positioning again, and we?ll keep talking about it because it?s so vital to success.The traditional approach to positioning involves offering a benefit your competition cannot or will not offer, thereby making your offer the only choice for those who value that benefit. It still works too ? look at the insane level of customer service that Zappos offers, and you?ll understand why throngs of people wouldn?t dream of buying shoes elsewhere.For small and micro-businesses, positioning (a/k/a your unique selling proposition) can be as simple as creating a unique bond with enough people to build a thriving business. Whether by creating a hybrid business at the intersection of disciplines, crafting a better metaphor that communicates what people need to hear, or creating an emotional bond and huge trust based on your own personality, modern online positioning has come down to connections that resonate authentically and generate loyalty.Remember, it?s not about where you rank in a hierarchy against others. It?s about carving out your unique territory and owning it outright.
2. Confront your competitors proactively
Let?s face it, in some markets, positioning alone might not get it done. When you?re selling retail items such as consumer electronics or commodity goods, shoppers are more focused on overall value for the buck.The most common merchant response to the threat of online comparison shopping is not very effective. ?Hey, let?s pretend they?re not there!? is nice as wishful thinking, but let?s be realistic.You?ll hear time and again that the initial objectives of copy in a call-to-action environment is to 1) attract attention; 2) express benefits; and 3) overcome objections. The fact that your prospect thinks you have legitimate competition is really just an objection to buying from you right now.Instead of sticking your head in the ground, why not proactively address why your offer is better than the other guy?s? Don?t assume that your prospect ?gets? that your offer is superior; ?show? her it?s better by doing a head-to-head comparison with charts, checklists, or even an interactive apples-to-apples demonstration.People examining your offer want you to be the solution to their desire or problem. It?s your job to eliminate the lingering doubt that exists in the form of objections, and like it or not, your competition is one of those objections.
3. Emotional benefits make everyone happy
We tell you over and over (and over) to focus first on benefits rather than features, because people decide to buy based on lightening-fast emotional responses, and justify that decision with logic. But what if it turned out that making purchase decisions via emotion (instead of by overly-rational research and price shopping) actually made us happier?Recent psychological resaerch indicates just that. The study focused on using proven methods to impede logical decision-making, thereby forcing people to go with emotional, intuitive choices instead.The results?Those who used primarily emotion rather than primarily logic made more consistent choices. And consistency is one of the hallmarks of a ?rational actor.? In other words, the ?emotional? people made more ?rational? choices than those who focused on rationality!What does that mean? From the study:
For the consumers, contrary to lay perceptions, attending to one’s emotional responses may prove to be very valuable in understanding one’s preferences. It is possible consumers would be much happier with choices based more on their emotional reaction. For example, if one buys a house and relies on very cognitive attributes such as resale value, one may not be as happy actually living in it, as opposed to a person who attends to his or her emotional reaction to the house prior to purchasing it.
Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide, thinks that online price shopping might actually make us unhappy. He notes that the study speculates that the Internet leads consumers to engage in more rational deliberation, which in turn produces an outcome that contradicts our assumptions about the ?online shopping paradise.?Remember, when introduced to an emotional benefit in an offer, neurology shows that our brains react as if we were already experiencing the actual benefit. In essence, employing emotional benefits not only begins the customer satisfaction experience before the sale, this latest research indicates that initial satisfaction maintains after the sale.
Isn?t bonding with prospects and customers better for everyone?
It?s amazing how many of the initial assumptions sparked by the Internet continue to be dead wrong. E-commerce was supposed to benefit the consumer by providing limitless options, and yet the counterintuitive paradox of choice shows that too many options make us anxious and unhappy.Instead, we now have an entire movement devoted to voluntary simple living. We don?t necessarily want more choice; we want something that does what we need it to do when we desire a solution.In an ultra-competitive environment, a quality product or service is an indisputable market obligation (and I?d say an ethical obligation as well). But given how we actually operate as human beings in the face of overwhelming choice, isn?t a communication approach that bonds emotionally with our prospective customers also a market obligation? Perhaps even an ethical one?What do you think? Let me know in the comments.About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
In my view, social media represents the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity of a lifetime. But there seems to be a mindset that holds people back from making the most of it.One is thinking of yourself as a blogger, or an affiliate marketer, or whatever other small box you come up with, instead of thinking of yourself [.]
I keep running into this little conundrum. One of the most important goals of copywriting is persuasion. In fact, it’s kind of the most important goal, because if you’re not trying to get your readers to do something, you’re probably going to stop calling yourself a “copywriter” and just go for “writer.” Writers can write [.]
There?s a new version of Thesis out that has our customers excited, thanks to some really cool new features. And it occurred to me that there are a lot of new Copyblogger subscribers who might use WordPress, and yet not really ?get? what this Thesis thing is all about.
So in this post I?ll tell you what?s brand new in Thesis 1.6, and also bring everyone up to speed on why Thesis makes WordPress way better.
What is the Thesis Theme for WordPress?
Thesis is the flagship product of DIY Themes, a partnership between Chris Pearson and I. It?s the theme framework that powers Copyblogger and many other high-traffic sites.
In a nutshell, Thesis is software that delivers rock-solid SEO website code, plus unprecedented design flexibility for WordPress — without requiring the novice user to code anything.
For sophisticated users, Thesis is a search-optimized development framework that allows designers and web developers to build sites better and faster than ever before.
* SEO
Search legend Danny Sullivan, Google?s Matt Cutts, and Microsoft search engineer Jeremiah Andrick all use Thesis for their sites. So does search and affiliate marketing entrepreneur Rae Hoffman, SEO guru Michael Gray, top bloggers Darren Rowse and Robert Scoble, web-hosting entrepreneur Scott Beale, social media darling Chris Brogan, and thousands of others.
To find out why the Thesis approach to site code results in maximum search engine crawlibility, watch this quick video I put together.
* Design Flexibility
With most WordPress themes, you?re stuck with the basic look and feel that the theme designer decided on. With Thesis, you can choose between one, two, or three column layouts (and the size of each column), change font types and sizes, create a magazine-style layout, and lots more. Again, watch this video for an overview, and then dive into the three demo videos listed below the general video to see what Thesis can do.
* Support
Even with everything that Thesis makes easier, we know that people don?t want to be hung out to dry. Our support forums have evolved into a truly supportive community of over 10,000 of your fellow webmasters and bloggers. You?ll have help from DIY Themes support professionals, Thesis Certified Designers, and tons of your peers who simply enjoy lending a helping hand.
What?s New in Thesis 1.6?
Now, here?s the new goodness. Thesis 1.6 offers a lot of improvements throughout, plus two major innovative capabilities ? you can now change colors throughout the theme without getting into the CSS markup, and you can create drop-down interactive navigation menus right from the control panel in the WordPress dashboard.
* Change Colors Throughout the Theme Without Code
This is huge for someone like me, who would never mess with CSS in order to change background colors, column colors, etc. I only know enough code to be dangerous, but now if I want to throw up a new site with a varied color scheme, I can do it without bugging Chris or Tony.
Watch this video to see how to build a site with Thesis 1.6.
* Create Killer Navigation Menus
This is another awesome feature for people who don?t code. Now you can create interactive navigation menus with drop-down subpages for each choice, all point-and-click from the Thesis design panel. It was cool the other day when Mark McGuiness proudly emailed me to check out his new interactive navigation menu (Mark?s a poet and a creativity consultant, not a coder).
Watch this quick video that shows how to work the navigation options.
What About Thesis 2.0?
The buzz is already building about the highly-anticipated Thesis 2.0 ? a complete next generation approach to an already innovative theme. From what I?ve seen so far, it?s hard to believe this is the natural evolution from what we started with a year-and-a-half ago.
But don?t think you have to wait. Our current model and pricing provides all Thesis customers with every future update and unlimited access to support? so you can get started with Thesis today and never miss out on what?s coming next.
(And if you caught the hint by my use of the word ?current,? you understand that this will change in the near future. Come join the Thesis community today).
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
Now that you have time to online copywriting , visit our website and get all of the Rich Schefren and internet coaching advice to help you along the way. We have up-to-date information and tips from professionals as well as links to other great online copywriting websites.
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