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Landing Page Makeover

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

Is it hot in here or just me?

Diana Daffner and her husband want to help people find a renewed sense of joy and connection in their intimate relationships through tantra. Their business, IntimacyRetreats.com, offers couples retreats throughout the year, but realizing not everyone can attend a retreat, they also want to promote their books and media products.

The URL referenced above is actually the “/shop page” off their main site. Diana would like to use the page as an independent landing page, as well. So let’s take a look and see what we can do to warm up product sales for this tantra-loving business couple.

The Goal: Increase sales of all products. (Some current sales may be being diverted to their Amazon listing.)
The Problem: Good traffic flow, email list of several thousand prospects, less than 2% actually buy.
The Current Landing Page:http://TantricSexforBusy Couples.com
Value: $45.00 for the set:

Click image for larger view

The Maven’s 10-Point Critique

#1 — Treat this page as a standalone from the get-go.

If you want this page to be able to do its job properly, you need to think of it as a discrete entity — not just as an extension of your retreat offerings. It has to have all the usual landing page elements: a strong, emotionally-resonant headline, benefit-rich copy, attractive images, sweeteners like testimonials and purchase guarantees — and a clear call to action.

#2 — If you want to sell tantric-sex info products, your banner and messaging have to speak to tantric sex and not intimacy retreats.

You have too many taglines in the banner. I do like, however, “Transform your relationship into a love affair” and would highlight it, perhaps moving it into a pre-head position. I suggest you make the banner a little shorter to allow for more copy below. And yes, you have to say “Tantric Sex for Busy Couples” upfront. I like the product image and might use it in the banner rather than the one you’re using now.

#3 — Copy needs to reflect the original mindset of the visitor.

If visitors are coming to your home page looking for “couples workshop” then they’re not thinking DIY tantra at home. They may decide after they arrive that a workshop isn’t what they want right now and may look at other information, but it wasn’t top of mind originally.

Therefore your landing page copy has to acknowledge that in some way and position the products as a “If you can’t come to us, we’ll come to you” alternative.

#4 — If you want to sell information products, think about testing a pay-per-click campaign.

As noted above, your organic search visitors are knocking at your door looking for workshops. I’d strongly suggest testing a pay-per-click campaign based on the relevant keywords and phrases folks might use to find tantric sex info products for couples. Although I’d probably recommend testing different landing pages per male and female campaigns, one solid landing page that hits all the core points would be a good place to start.

#5 — Articulate the “big idea” behind your product offerings.

Tantra is a sort of “out there” practice to many people. Maybe they’ve heard about the supposed multi-hour tantric sessions between Sting and his wife, Trudy Styler, or that it requires lots of strange, uncomfortable positions — and what’s up with all the breathing and staring?

So what’s the big idea behind your tantric-sex info products? Probably something like this:

Tantric sex isn’t weird — it’s as easy as gazing into each other’s eyes and breathing. Everyone can do it, no matter how old or out of shape. Every relationship — from newlyweds to couples celebrating their golden anniversaries — can benefit from it. And we’re going to show you how to use it to regain your passion for your partner.

That’s the conceptual “big idea” umbrella under which all your specific products reside.

#6 - Consider the different personas — the different needs — of your visitors when crafting your copy.

My guess is your main site gets roughly three kinds of visitors:

Happy couples who view a retreat as a special gift or vacation for themselves;
Relatively happy couples who want to spice up their sexual relationship; and
Unhappy couples who are looking for a way of fixing things.

Your product buyers are coming from groups #2 and #3, especially #3. Since pain relief is more of a motivator for action than pleasure-seeking, my guess is that most of these visitors are coming from the “fix” mindset. Men want to fix the sex and women want to fix the relationship, and maybe tantra is a solution to their mutual problem. (Thinking broadly, of course, because that’s what I do. Pun intended.)

Your headline/intro copy needs to promote your products as a smart, thoughtful, and effective first-step to solving intimacy issues. Copy needs to highlight ?pain points? that both men and women would relate to and resonate with through their respective desire/gender lenses.

#7 — Ratchet up the sense of urgency.

Why does your prospective customer need this now? What is happening (or not) in their lives that they’re brought to searching for information to help them connect more passionately, genuinely with each other — and why get it from you?

Your intro and individual sales copy has to stay on point that what you’re offering will help relieve, solve, heal and help couples reconnect with each other. Make sure all copy is written in the ‘you’, the second person, to underscore your connection with the prospective buyer.

Click image for larger view

#8 — Trim the product copy to its scannable essence. Don’t use links to send visitors to other pages.

Your bulleted copy is good, it’s the paragraphs that are wordy and a little too “woo-woo,” especially for those whose relationships might be a little shaky and who might be unsure about tantra in general. Speak to your visitors in clear, clean prose that instills hope and confidence that you have what they need.

#9 — Redesign the page from the ground up.

Actually, I’d strongly suggest redesigning your entire site from the ground up. It looks amateurish and when it comes to folks spending, especially when every dollar counts, a polished and professional look will serve all your interests well.

Regarding the landing page, all the same good advice I generally offer applies here, too.

Get rid of all unnecessary distractions. If using a content management system for your site platform, then think about creating a static landing page that incorporates all the best practices. I’d suggest a two-column format — left wide, right narrow. Use the right column for testimonials, order details, and satisfaction guarantees, etc. The wider column handles the big marketing load. Use Verdana or Georgia for your font, black as your main font color, and use color for accent only. Clean up your product images. Make sure your images/content elements are balanced for a pleasing appearance.

You want to get the bulk of the key content in the first screen. Push your product shots left and add order buttons to the right with pricing and sale info. (You want a call to action in every screen.) Do get rid of the awful red highlighting. Also, for the main product and the CD, put the audio player either under the cover image or above the order button. Provide a meaningful caption to encourage folks to click and listen.

#10 ? Use pop-up windows to provide additional information and still keep visitors on the page.

Right now you have “learn-more” links for each product that take them off the page to another longer product page. I don’t think this does you any more good than the shorter, more concise copy you have here. So if you want to add more info without making the copy longer, use the link to a pop-up window with whatever you think will aid the visitor’s ability to say yes to tantra and to a purchase.

I’d also think about using an exit pop-up to offer a sweetener — free shipping, perhaps — or to ask them for their name and email address in exchange for a free chapter, free music, or some other taste of your products. I’d create a second prospect list of potential product buyers (as opposed to just adding these names to your current list) and market accordingly.

My thanks to Diana Daffner for her patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in approximately 4 weeks.

Want to get a future Copywriting Maven landing page makeover?

Got a landing page that?s more poop than pop? Willing to share with Copyblogger readers? Prepared to put a little of your own ?skin in the game? for a Maven Makeover? Then follow your click to Maven?s Landing Page Makeover page for all the details.

I’m booked for gratis “Heifer” critiques until 01/16/2010. If you’re interested in a private critique/makeover or other services, please email me directly.

About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc. Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.

image of man sleeping at his laptop

Before you get too impressed, hear this: I did it all in self-defense.

Let me give you some quick background.

I have extreme Tourette?s Syndrome, as Sonia noticed recently. Tourette?s makes people move or vocalize involuntarily and occasionally results in unspeakable awesomeness. My motor tics range from eye blinking to punching myself in the face to even stranger things. My phonic tics range from clearing my throat to hooting and yowling and snarling and slobbering and screaming like the Tasmanian Devil.

Did I mention that I work in a quiet library?

There are only a couple of things that help when it gets bad. Guitar, kettlebells, talking, and writing — they are all forms of distraction that force the itch out of my brain for a while.

But sometimes none of them work. In September I was having a horrible time and couldn?t shake it. I needed a project to focus on. A big fat distraction.

Enter the guest post ultra marathon.

Come one, come all!

I wanted everyone to know they could ask for a guest post, but I still got a lot of ?My blog?s probably too small, but . . .? I have a lot of readers with big blogs, and a lot of readers with tiny, new blogs that are still swaddled in onesies. All were fair game.

The criteria

I asked everyone who wanted a post to provide:

A URL and blog title
A topic
A word count
An interesting angle to approach it from

I said I wouldn?t write about anything I felt was unethical, morally reprehensible, or obvious spam. I didn?t want this bio floating around the web:

About the author: Josh Hanagarne is the author of Cialis Rules! He enjoys popping a few Vicodin in the morning and a dozen Viagra for lunch. His hobbies include MAKE CRA-Z MONEY FROM HOME! and topless tell-all webcam romps.

Luckily, I didn?t get any of those solicitations. Well — not many of those.

The response

Uh oh.

I published my post, subtitled ?Let?s Get Stupid,? at about seven in the morning in the United States. By one o?clock my teeth were chattering with fear as I looked at my inbox: over 70 submissions.

Refresh. 75.

Refresh. 80.

Uh oh.

Who were these people? I was going to be writing guest posts for blogs about stock options, personal development, computer programmers, home schooling, study skills mentoring, blogging, advice for women, fussy academics, chemists, Capoeria buffs, kettlebell nuts, corporations in the process of building websites and trying to make everyone get along, and so on . . . .

A smarter man, a man whose brain was less of an apocalypse, might have scaled things down or extended the deadline. But this was exactly what I needed.

To work, then.

The first week and onward

I wrote 15 guest posts in week one. They all published within a few days. When the dust cleared, RSS numbers had jumped by 200 during those seven days.

The remaining six weeks were similar. Sometimes I wrote more. Sometimes less. Sometimes I wrote guest posts that I never saw again. My posts appeared with different titles, different pictures, different fonts, and the traffic just kept coming.

After about 10 days, my tics had subsided, but I was committed to the project. I was having a blast.

Lessons learned, surprises, and observations for anyone who wants to try this

By November 1 I had written over 50 posts. 42 of them had aired on other blogs. Here is what I learned:

A lot of bloggers seem to have a fear of guest posting. Get over it or be happy with your current rate of growth.
You will meet awesome people.
Those people will act like you are doing them a favor by borrowing their traffic.
You are doing them a favor, provided you give them something they can use. I love to have guests!
This marathon approach is not for everyone. Do not try to write more than you are capable of. Test yourself but don?t flame out. I have a masochist work capacity and I still wound up with more than I could handle. I thought I would get the 80+ posts written before November 1. Life, sleep, the flu, a book proposal, and kettlebells all conspired against me.
Don?t commit to anything that will prevent you from taking care of business at home(page). There?s nothing more pointless than writing a killer guest post and having all those new visitors land on a dancing Hello Kitty graphic that?s a year old.
Don?t pretend you know things you don?t. If you can?t talk about stocks, either find another approach or turn it down. Don?t be a poser.
Don?t be afraid to say no when people pitch ideas to you. You made the rules, right?

I don?t regret doing the marathon, but I won?t do it again if I don?t have to. I still have nearly 40 posts to get through before I?ve knocked out that initial batch. I?m going to honor them all. In the meantime, if you?d like to be added to the queue, you know where to find me.

I can handle it.

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne is the twitchy giant behind World?s Strongest Librarian, a blog about living with Tourette?s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, buying pants when you?re 6?8?, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh?s RSS Updates to stay in touch.

image of boxer taking a punch

Last Friday I was in Atlanta, where I gave a talk on social media marketing at Dan Kennedy?s InfoSUMMIT conference.

I?m something of a fish out of water at a Glazer-Kennedy event. For example, unlike at Blogworld, I?m the only person in a room of 800 who has pink hair.

I wasn?t sure they?d be too receptive to what I had to say, but they surprised me.

They were warm, welcoming, and extremely interested in my no-shortcuts, no-magic-beans answers to their questions about how to use social media for marketing and business.

So in honor of Dan Kennedy, who sometimes styles himself as the ?Professor of Harsh Reality,? I thought I?d talk today about some of the not-so-kumbaya aspects of social media marketing.

Harsh Reality #1: No one is reading your blog

As far as anyone can figure, there are about 200 million blogs around the world. Technorati tells us there are about 900,000 blog posts made every 24 hours.

The world is not waiting breathlessly to hear what you have to say about losing weight with acai berries, making big money as an affiliate marketer, or how to join your Secrets of the Breakthrough Millionaire Insider Guru Mastermind Platinum Club.

Me-too content gets ignored. Scraped and remixed junk won?t cut it. There?s too much good content that you need to compete with. And there?s no magic system that can replace sitting in front of your keyboard and producing something that somebody wants to read. (Or partnering with someone who can.)

If you don?t have a great answer to the question ?Why should anyone read your blog?? you?re going to be pretty unhappy with your results. That?s why we spend so much time teaching you how to produce better, smarter, more effective content.

Harsh Reality #2: You?ve got to give (some of) your best stuff away

It?s very natural to expect to get paid for what you do. And you should have a business model that leads to exactly that.

But first, you?ve got some dues to pay.

Commenter Corree Silvera mentioned her favorite Brian Clark quote from this year?s Blogworld Expo:

Don?t sacrifice a lot of money later for a little money now.

The answer to the question in Harsh Reality #1, ?why should anyone read your blog? is that you?re going to give away some of your best, most valuable, most life-improving material away for free, within a well-defined content marketing plan.

Just remember Sean d?Souza?s bikini concept. You can give 90% of it away, but there will always be people who will happily pay to see that last 10%.

Harsh Reality #3: It will eat your life (if you let it)

Social media marketing would be pretty easy if we never had to eat, sleep, shower, or hang out with our kids.

But if doing those things is important to you, you?re going to have to set some boundaries.

Know what you want to do with social media, keep yourself focused, and set a timer if you have to. The tools are amazing, but so is their power to distract you from what you?re trying to accomplish.

Harsh Reality #4: Social media hates selling

Is there anything more pitiful than that guy who gets on Twitter and won?t shut up about how he can put you in a condo today with no money down despite your lousy credit rating? Even the spammers are blocking this dude.

It?s really hard to sell products and services in social media, mostly because this audience hates salespeople worse than they hate Microsoft. You may be able to get some limited success out of it, but more likely you?ll be banned, blocked, shunned, and abused.

Instead of promoting a product or service, promote fantastic content. Promote a great special report or an amazingly valuable email course. Promote wonderful stuff that you?re giving away.

Use excellent free stuff to build authority and trust. Then you have the right to make an offer and possibly do some business. Not before.

Harsh Reality #5: What they say is a million times more important than what you say

Your marketing might be beautifully executed. You might have a special report that goes more viral than H1N1, a great-looking blog that hits Digg twice a day, and an email marketing sequence that copywriting genius Gene Schwartz would have been proud to write.

If your reputation sucks, none of it matters.

People with lousy products, crummy business practices, and shady backgrounds get found out. And word spreads with frightening speed.

Treat people right, because if you don?t, you will be exposed. And it will not be pretty.

Harsh Reality #6: A blog is not a marketing plan

Blogs are cool, but a single useful tool isn?t the same thing as a solid business and marketing plan.

Blogs are just one way to get your best content out there, and they work best when you pair them up with email autoresponders, special reports, Twitter, and any of a dozen other powerful tools.

Just hanging out and being cool isn?t enough. If you?re in social media to do business, you have to develop a strategy for taking mildly interested strangers and turning them into raving fans . . . and customers.

Harsh Reality #7: You don?t get to opt out

Businesses that think they can ignore all this ?Twitter stupidity? tend to get painfully rude awakenings.

The conversation will happen with or without you. You definitely don’t need to respond to every chucklehead with a Facebook account (and you shouldn?t), but you need to keep your ear to the ground, and you need a clue.

OK, enough about harsh reality already! If you want our best advice about what to do to create a great online business, subscribe to Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter. It?s some of our best stuff, no junk, no fluff. And of course we will never, ever spam you or share your information with anyone.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

Thesis Theme for WordPress

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.

Purple Rain

Ever had an idea that couldn?t miss?

You took immediate action, created the perfect warm-up content, the best launch strategy, and the perfect offer . . . .

And then it totally failed.

So yeah, the film Purple Rain contains the consummate lesson on this one.

No, really.

The Lesson of Lake Minnetonka

Upon mature reflection, the album Purple Rain is a work of genius, while the film . . . not so much. But any true Prince fan loves it anyway.

And as a teenage boy in 1985, the fact that a diminutive man sporting a jerry curl and a ruffled shirt could score with gorgeous women was rather encouraging, you know?

One memorable scene involves Prince giving bombshell Appolonia Kotero a motorcycle ride through rural Minnesota. As he pulls up to the shoreline, Prince lets her know she has to prove herself.

?You have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka,? Prince says mysteriously. Then he says it again.

Next, fulfilling every teenage boy?s as yet unimagined wish, Appolonia strips down to her thong and jumps in the lake.

The freezing water provides an immediate shock. But the cruel surprise comes from a half-apologetic Prince.

?That ain?t Lake Minnetonka.?

Did You Jump in the Wrong Lake?

Often, you do everything right, except for the first thing.

You start with an otherwise great product and mistakenly try to sell it to the wrong people.

This isn?t always fatal, but it?s definitely frustrating. And it?s because you focused on what you want rather than who you?re trying to serve. You jumped right in without understanding all the critical facts.

While it may sound a bit kumbaya, understanding who you can help helps you. It?s the key to the kind of outstanding success that alludes those who don?t understand why the take, take, take strategy doesn?t work.

It?s really give, give, give to win. But only if you give the right things to the right people.

Missing the true needs and desires of your market is like jumping in the wrong lake.

You simply end up like Appolonia — cold, wet, and disappointed.

Start With the People, Not the Product

So where do online marketers go wrong?

There’s an old saying . . . start with the prospect, not the product. It keeps you from trying to sell stuff to the wrong people.

Even better, it keeps you from selling stuff nobody wants.

That truly unfortunate event happens when someone has an idea they think, for example, every small business owner should embrace. But it isn’t something the small business market wants to embrace.

It’s like trying to sell asparagus to kids because it’s good for them. If you’re competing against the jingle of the ice cream truck down the street, you?re not likely to get the results you want, because there’s simply no market for your offer.

In this sad case, the analogy is more Matrix than Purple Rain:

Do not think that the lake is cold . . . that?s impossible.

The truth is, there is no lake.

Ouch.

It?s About Them, Silly

You?ve heard it all before. But do you get it?

Wealthy entrepreneurs are essentially highly-compensated servants to their chosen market. And yet the benefits are way better than the numerable perks Alfred gets from the bat cave.

Wow, three film references in one post . . . did it work?

If you’re trying to make a match between your market and the right offer, subscribe to Copyblogger’s free newsletter on Internet Marketing. It starts with a 20-lesson tutorial on the four keys to building a sustainable business (one of which is finding the right product or service for your people).