Copywriter on Content. Part 5. Selling Happiness.

/
What do people really want? In his excellent book, 2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success, Denny Hatch writes about motivators and lists two pages of them. Two of the most important are happiness and ease. Hatch breaks these down into 100 motivators and I won't go into all of them here and there's no need for most businesses to worry about precise motivators--leave this up to us direct response copywriters.
However, if you make a big effort to base your content on happiness and ease, you'll be way ahead of most of the competition.
Six steps to selling happiness through content.
  1. Find out what makes your clients and customers really happy. Then show how you deliver.
  2. Ease is always huge. Make everyone's life a lot easier.
  3. Tell stories about just how happy clients and customers have become since making the decision to do business with you.
  4. Show happy people in photos and videos (this may seem obvious but there's a lot of morosity on websites).
  5. Make sure testimonials are teeming with happiness.
  6. Your special report and free content should be organized around making people so happy they have to buy what you have to offer.

Also...try to organize your content so the happiness is digestible.

 

  • Captions under photos.
  • Pull quotes.
  • Subheads.
  • Bullets.
  • Copy doodles.

 

Let's take a look at some websites and pages that really sell happiness with their content.

I'm not a huge flash fan and there's a lot of flash on this site but it's selling happiness throughout. Think it's hard for a dentist to sell happiness? Think again by clicking here. And I think Jim McLean, the golf instructor, is really good at showing results on his site.

Take a look at your site and your content. If you think you're selling happiness really well, leave a comment with a link.

*

I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment for clients around the world. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here for a direct response copywriting quote.

Copywriter asks, "do you want people to read your website?"

/

My first job was for a department store, now part of the Dillard's chain; I wrote ads for household items. It was a crazy job with lot of crazy people. And you could smoke. At least 80 per cent of the people in the department lit their new cigarette with the butt of the last one. But I learned how to typeset--copywriters had to set type as well as write powerful and compelling copy about toasters and luggage, etc..

I studied typsetting and learned some basic rules. In print--use serif fonts. Always set body copy with black type on a white background. Now, online, sans serif fonts are more readable.

I can't tell you how often I go to websites where the copy is totally unreadable. Rookie mistakes...

  1. White type on a black background.
  2. The type is too small to read.
  3. Or both.

Here's a classic example of a wesbite that's totally unreadable. Guys, you might as well not have a website. By making your type too small, you're throwing money out the window.

I'm always happy to help clients with typesetting--print or web.

Tell me about some websites you think are perfect when it comes to readability.

*

I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.

The Power of Testimonials

/

I just visited the websites of six prominent public golf courses here in Charlotte, where I live. These courses are desperate for business. Their websites are terrible. One of them got a dismal 39/100 on HubSpot's Website Grader (www.websitegrader.com).

There are ZERO testimonials. Shocking. Testimonials are vital for two reasons.

  1. Proof you keep your promises.
  2. You find out what's really important to your clients/customers.

Some tips for testimonials.

  • The more the merrier. Testimonials are like snow at a ski resort--you can never have enough.
  • Get someone to harvest them; a copywriter can help--I've often put them together.
  • Make them stand out graphically. Either with a photo or some type of graphical element.
  • Ask the testimonial giver if it's OK to tidy up grammar, spelling. A testimonial that reads, "their grate at Charlotte Golf club because its they're service which are ALWAYS awesime" is like Miss World with zits.
  • Yes--if you have 100 testimonials, readers will not necessarily read all of them but the sheer volume can be impressive.
  • Audio and video testimonials--YES!

I'm rebuilding my website so the testimonials page needs some work but it's there and Squarespace makes it easy to make them stand out. I'll add more and also add some photos.

Case studies are 'advanced testimonials' and these are even more powerful. Yes--they take work to put together but, if you can't put case studies together right away, make a point to get at least three testimonials a week. With photos.

*

I'm a direct response copywriter based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in providing copy and content for the direct marketing environment. Enter your info to the right for my free series: Seven Steps to High Converting Copy. Or contact me here.