Direct Response Copywriter On A Marketing Fundamental

Want More Revenue? Remember The Basics.

A Focus on Direct Marketing Fundamentals. Part 1.

I recently watched a video from a conference where a group of CMOs were talking about AI. Maybe you love this whole AI thing. Maybe it gives you a whopping headache.

Either way, these "high-powered" CMOs never once talked about what really matters when it comes to driving revenue, which, last time I checked, is our job as marketers. The CMOs talked about "new team structures" and so on.

In this AI fog, it's time for a series about marketing basics that drive revenue.

Basic #1. People Want to Feel Better About Themselves ... Or Just Better ...

Golfers have their pain points. Golfers get stressed about everything from how they look to making a four-foot putt. Golfers, just like everyone else, want feel better about their game and themselves.

I was watching a tournament last year and, on a straightforward hole, I watched Scottie Scheffler pump his tee shot OB. And, last time I checked, he's the best golfer on the planet. Nobody masters our game and everyone wants to get better. It's the driving force in our business.

When you position your product or service as something that will help golfers feel better about their game, short-term or long-term, you're on your way to making a sale and starting a long and profitable relationship with that customer.

To get started, focus on the most important benefit ... the #1 reason golfers love your product or service. Then build everything around that #1 benefit. It's a strategy that's helped me help my golf clients generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Copywriter on Content. Part 6. Content and Sales Tactics.

One of my clients emphatically states: EVERY WEB PAGE IS A SALES PAGE. And I agree. Even the pages that don't look like sales pages…these MUST be sales pages.

Here’s where the marriage between content and sales strategy is so vital. People buy for two reasons.

1. Solve a problem.
2. Emotional reasons backed by logic.

These two are often related.

Try to organize all your content around one of these two—depending on your marketing strategy. For example, if you solve a problem like tires being too expensive, show plenty of case studies where you help people save money on tires. And then you can show people buying other tires—tires that are more expensive but ‘make sense’ to the buyer based on logic.

And spread this content around…in the blog…social media…your email or printed newsletter. And, of course, the case studies on your website.

Here’s where a direct response copywriter becomes important. A direct response copywriter wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘sell…sell…sell…’ So, when you hire a direct response copywriter to create content, the content will be oriented around sales—either direct or generating a lead.

That’s because every page is a sales page…at least in my world.

Even when writing content, I'm using a standard copywriting technique like AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action). And there's always a call to action, always a next step. The Holy Grail of content is not awards or nice comments...but ACTION!

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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.

Of Dogs and Victoria's Secret...and a Copywriter

Last week, I met the local president of the Humane Society. They rescue dogs and cats...noble work. I told her I write direct response copy for direct mail and the web. She told me their most profitable fundraising comes from direct mail.

I'm always extremely curious about people's approach--especially when they're successful--so I asked, 'where do you get your list?'

1. People who have donated before.
2. Local Victoria's Secret shoppers.

Turns out that young women who shop for underwear also like dogs and cats. THAT, my friends, is creativity. People win awards for creativity--usually for funny/clever ads with no way to measure ROI. Real creativity produces results--like increased donations to the Humane Society. They mail just nine times a year so each mailing HAS to work.

I start every direct response copywriting project by finding out who's in the database. Direct response copywriting is a highly targeted conversation between seller and prospect.

When choosing your mailing list--can you find an 'out of the box' idea like my friends at the Humane Society?

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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.

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.

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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.

An interesting and powerful page on Google's site (part 5)

In this series of five blogs, I'm going through the excellent content advice on this page on Google's site. In this final part of this series I'm looking at the paragraph that begins...

Learn what is interesting to your visitors

One of the keys to content is discovering precisely what's important to your readers. You probably have a hunch but, with analytics, you can discover which content fires up your readers. Once you discover the content that works, keep feeding them similar content. From the article...

Try to improve your content mix using what you learn from these reports. By keeping an eye on what the analytics are telling you, you'll learn more about your visitors and be able to provide just the information they are looking for.

That's one of the true beauties of a blog--it's an easy way to test content. A lot of the people in the analytics game use Google Analytics, there are plenty of other tools available. Pay close attention to email unsubscribes when you send out your emails. If you're keeping people on board then your content is useful.

Controversy for the Sake of Controversy

I'm not a fighter or an argumentative type. Very few of my blogs include fighting words. But my friend, Andrew Wood, loves to get people stirred up and some of his most popular blogs have been controversial ones. Controversy is a powerful weapon in content but use it periodically. I'm going to start using it a bit more--and get controversial. I'll find out if it's interesting to visitors.

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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.