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Well hello there you!
I always love it when someone asks me to get involved in sharing my knowledge. Call it my altruistic nature, or call it ego (they always ask you for a headshot 🙂 ) but I like being part of “live” teaching events and this Internet thing is so dang clever you can do it by Skype, Webinar, Teleseminar or even, as this event took place, via a tweet chat.
Karl Staib over at Party biz connect has a weekly marketing chat over on Twitter where he gets people to answer questions that others might have about a marketing conundrum.
Last week it was about copywriting – and that just happens to be one of my favourite subjects to talk about… I should get a job in it or something…
During the chat-filled hour, I tweeted like never before but wanted to expand and share the questions and answers so that if you missed the chat, you won’t have missed the vital info.
So let’s dive in…
Q1: What is the hardest part about copywriting?
Most people said they were having trouble with:
Good questions there!
My summary answers were…
@_ChelleShock had further questions (it was a bright and inquisitive bunch!)
And I responded with…
Let’s delve further shall we?
Karim mentioned he struggles to focus on the BEST benefits for his client or prospect. Outlining benefits is a common struggle when people are writing copy about their business.Even though you know what you do rocks, it can feel like you’ve just been asked to sell a chocolate teapot on a half hour QVC special – where do you start? Why would your customer want what you have?!
The problem most people have is they begin with the product and look for the benefits there. The benefits you’re looking for actually come from your customer.
For example, I’ve been writing copy for a performance course for leaders and executives. As I research this target market, I see common threads of ambition, pride, hard work, love of recognition, and the love of self-improvement and getting results in their career. That’s just scratching the surface but already I’m looking to then see what parts of my product matches up to those parts of their personality.
So I know I’m going to focus on what results they can achieve, how they can stand out above their peers and how this product can advance their careers, open up new opportunities and give them more control in their working life.
Oh, and you also need to know WHY your customer is looking for you. You need to understand their frame of mind when they arrive at your page.
So when thinking about picking the benefits for your sales copy:
- Start with the personality of your customer
- Understand the problem that is bothering them
- See which benefits best match those traits and solves the problem
Now @_ChelleShock had struggles with being specific and with structure and flow. You can see a longer blog post about how long your sales page should be here.
In terms of the order, and flow, and an outline, well you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled because in a couple of weeks I’ll be covering this in more detail!
Q2: How does a blogger / writer improve their copywriting?
Again – great question, but I’m afraid you might not like the answer…
There are some great shortcuts and study pieces that can really help you write your sales copy. I’ve written about a couple of my favourites here. Of course, if you’re really serious, you’ll just buy “How To Get Your Sales Page Done!”. It’s awesome, and no I’m not just saying that because I wrote it. 🙂
Q3: What are the top mistakes you see in landing pages?
Then, by Jove, the lovely Ali Hale from Aliventures popped by to say help and offer some of her top tips!
Q4: What makes a great headline?
Now, there is a lot more that can be said about headlines, and some of it is quite surprising. Here you can read why boring headlines can outperform sexier ones, and here you can get 30 free templates to create your own instant headlines.
Q5: Who do you think is doing a good job of creating landing pages today?
I gave a shout out to 2 people I’ve noticed are creating lovely looking (and well converting) landing pages – so keep your eyes on them for a bit of inspiration!
Do you have any questions I didn’t cover today? I’d love to respond in the comments!
The call to action is the hardest part for me. I think everyone should want what I create. I’m still working on creating a call to action that fits my ideal client. This chat helped me understand internal clarity is the most powerful part of creating a clear call to action.
Thanks for joining in. You were amazing!
Thanks Karl – always great haning out and doing stuff with you! You’re so good at getting the tweetchats and twitter parties going and getting people involved. And yep, teh call toa ction has to come from knowing what you want (and who). Can’t wait for the next #supermktg chat!