The Basics of Effective Website Copywriting Part III: Closing the Sale
Published April 09, 2010 - RSS/XML Feed RSS
 
In “The Basics of Effective Website Copywriting Part I,” you learned how to plan and organize your ideas to prepare for the creation of your sales copy. In Part II, you learned how to create the first four segments of your letter:

       1.       Attention: the sole purpose of this section is to grab the customer’s attention.

       2.       Problem: this is the section where the problem is in which the product is going to solve, often accompanied by emotional language which describes the pain caused by the problem.

       3.       Solution: this section is where the solution of the problem is sold to the customer, but before the actual product details are revealed.

       4.       Product: this section includes just enough details about the product to give the customer idea of what they are purchasing, while still leaving them curious about many of its features.

 In this article, we’ll be covering the remaining three segments:

       5.       Proof: this section consists of product testimonials as well as statistics and facts which support the claims made by the product. This is also where potential objections are dealt with.

       6.       Offer: this section justifies the price of the product and offers limited time bonuses as well as overcoming the customer’s desire to delay the purchase.

       7.       Action: this section tells the customer four things: what to do next, what will happen when they do it, why they need to do it (by reminding them the benefit) and gives an additional PS at the bottom of the letter to remind them of the urgency of the offer.

As we’re covering these, it’s important to remember that these techniques can also be applied to writing sales copy for email marketing, article marketing or any other persuasive writing.

Providing Proof

Considering that we live in one of the most aggressively marketed to societies in the history of the world, it’s easy to understand why your sales copy needs iron clad proof to be persuasive. There are three types of proof that you’re going to need to build a strong sales letter:

       1.       Overcoming Objections

The two things which keep most people from buying online are credibility and security. In addition to this, price is almost always a factor when people decide they don’t want to buy something.

Price objections can be overcome by breaking the overall price into payments over the lifetimes of its usefulness. For example:

”As you order now, you’ll get a six-month supply of “The Muscle Multiplier” rushed to your door for one easy installment of only $99.99. Think about it…that’s only .55 cents a day.”

Keep in mind that you can still collect a full one-time payment of $99.99. But this method can be used to demonstrate how insignificant the price of the product is considered the amount of value the product will provide. When using the above example, you’d only be mentioning the $99.99 once. Every mention of the price after that would be .55 cents a day. This has been used very effectively on infomercials and direct mailings, and works just as well online.

For other types of products, one’s which last for several years or more, you can break the price down on a monthly basis.

       2.       Using Testimonials

You’ll need two kinds of testimonials to make your offer super persuasive: testimonials from customers and testimonials from experts in your industry. For best results, have a list of questions which you can send to the experts and to the customers to make sure the testimonial effectively presents your offer.

For example, have them answer:

       ·         What problem the product solved
 
       ·         What their favorite thing about it was about it
 
       ·         Who they would recommend it to and why
 
For best results, get a picture and their permission for you to use it with the testimonial. When asking for a customer testimonial, refer to it as their “Success Story.” This make them more excited about answering the questions and letting you post their picture. Most experts are okay with just a link to their website.

       3.       Providing Logical Evidence

The above are usually enough to convince people, but presenting some statistics about why your product works is also a great idea. For best results, present statistics which support the benefits of your product for the customer’s physical health, their relationships and the financial life. It’s also important to site the source of the statistic and provide a link to a site which the customer can click on to verify the statistic.

A Strong Offer

A strong offer has one purpose: to get the customer to buy RIGHT NOW. Procrastination is a habit which practically everyone must master and it keeps people from doing things that they want or even need to do. So if you want someone to buy something from you, you’ll need a rock solid offer to crush delayed decision making. There are two things that your offer will need to get people to take action right now:

       1.       Added Value

Added value can be in the form of a discount or a free bonus of some kind, you can also combine both. No matter which you use, it’s important to emphasize that the thing which you’re doing to add value is above and beyond the regular product offer. It’s also crucial that you use language which suggests that the added value component is already theirs.

For example:

”As you order now, you’ll get a six-month supply of “The Muscle Multiplier” rushed to your door for one easy installment of only $99.99. Think about it…that’s only .55 cents a day. But that not all, you’ll also get to claim your free copy of “Mind over Muscle,”’ a breakthrough ebook that teaches you….”

What would follow is a description of the bonus with more references to how it was “theirs right now.” This will position you for the strategy which will get your customer to act now…

       2.       The Take Away

Getting someone to take immediate action is all about making them believe they’re going to lose something if they don’t act now. Fear of loss creates a greater sense of internal pressure than the desire to gain something. So once you’ve created the impression that the added bonus is “theirs,” you threaten to take it away and give it to someone else if they don’t act now:

“But you must act now, otherwise you’ll forfeit your free copy of “Mind over Muscle” and we’ll have give it to the next person in line…”

Most people hate the idea that someone else might take what’s theirs, so the “take away and give it to the next in line,” creates a strong sense of urgency based on jealousy and fear of loss.

And finally…

The Call to Action

As long as all of the previous sections of your sales letter have been created right, your call to action should be very simple to write. There are four things which it will need to get the job done:

       1.       Tell Them What to Do

       2.       Tell Them Why to do it

       3.       Tell Them What Will Happen

For example:

“To begin your journey towards a rock hard, muscular physique, click on the “try now risk free” button right now. You’ll be taken to a secure order form and in less than two minutes you’ll download “Mind over Muscle” and your first six months supply of “The Muscle Multiplier” will be rushed to your door.”

Notice how each of the three components are covered in this call to action:

       1.       Tell Them What to Do

“….click on the “try now risk free” button right now.”

       2.       Tell Them Why to do it

“To begin your journey towards a rock hard, muscular physique,

       3.       Tell Them What Will Happen

“You’ll be taken to a secure order form and in less than two minutes you’ll download “Mind over Muscle” and your first six months supply of “The Muscle Multiplier” will be rushed to your door.”

This way, they know what to do and they have an assurance of how they will receive the benefit as a result of their action.

Conclusion

For best results, it’s also important to have a solid marketing strategy and methods for driving traffic to your site, and of course to practice strategic testing. These and the process in this article series can be used to create emotionally charged and persuasive copy that will greatly increase the chances of making all of your marketing campaigns profitable.

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