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.

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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.

Copywriter on Content. Part 4. The Case Study.

The case study is one of the most underutilized tactics in the battle for new business. It's extremely rare to see case studies on websites yet the case study provides proof that everything you say on your website is true. I have testimonials on my site and the next step: case studies.

A case study is a hybrid: part journalism, part copywriting. If you're going to write case studies, or hire a copywriter to organize them for you, start with the problems/desires your clients express. In most B2B settings, case studies are relatively straightforward.

1. State the problem.
2. Show how you solved the problem.
3. Detail the end result.

In some B2C settings, the case study is a little trickier. You have to disguise it as people enjoying themselves. For example--golfers having a wonderful time on a superb golf course. Here's where your blog comes in. If you're a golf course, you can't really have a case studies page or section. However, in your blog you can write about a group from out of town that enjoyed the golf course. If you provide an outings section, you can have case studies. If you hold weddings, you can have a 'Bridal Album' that shows photos of wonderful weddings held at your club.

A case study can be a straight description of the 'case' or it can be an interview with a satisfied client. You can also use audio and video.

If you think about it, an infomercial or a short direct response TV commercial is a type of case study. You see the problem, then the product provides the solution.

Sometimes, a client will not want to be named and that's understandable. In lieu, you can say, 'we worked with an accounting firm to increase their business.'

Case studies require some effort and time but they provide the absolute best way to provide proof that your services and products work.

Specificity is also important. "We helped this client increase revenue by 45% in 96 days" is a lot better than "We helped this company do better with their marketing."

If you've seen some case studies you think are especially brilliant leave a link in the comment box.

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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.

Copywriter on Content. Part 3. Problem Solving? Or Entertainment?

Or both?

I often hear from potential clients: "Can you write B2B copy?" The answer is "Yes. I write B2B copy." The answer is also, "In direct response, there's not much difference between B2B and B2C." However, there can be a slight difference when it comes to content.

• In B2B, companies are often solving a problem. "My air conditioning costs have skyrocketed."
• In B2C, the product might be a luxury--providing fun. A cruise ship vacation.

Content comes in two flavors:

1. Entertainment.
2. Problem solving.

Content for problem solving companies needs to be educational and informational. Case studies work especially well. If you want to see a website with superb case studies, go here. Testimonials are fine, but case studies are exponentially better. If you're in a problem solving business, crank up your case studies immediately.

I like to ski and I used to climb mountains. Aspen Skiing Company has four blogs and they're all good but one is particularly excellent. A local skier writes it and it's superbly entertaining. Take a look here. This blog alone makes me want to visit Aspen for skiing. The author has an attitude and the attitude is "I'm here and you're not. You SHOULD be here." The content makes me want to get in my car and drive the 1700 miles from my front door to the gondola at the base of Aspen Mountain.

Part of me would like to spend every day in the mountains. Ted Mahon, one of America's most accomplished mountaineers, writes a blog and while Ted isn't trying to sell anything, it's another great example of excellent content. Ted takes the trip of a lifetime every weekend and I'm always along for the ride.

If you're selling entertainment or a luxury, organize your content around selling happiness.

If you're in the problem solving business, organize your content around how you solve problems and how good you are at solving the problems you solve--using proof in the form of case studies.

In the next content blog, I'm going to detail how to put together case studies and in part 5 of this blog series, I'll show you how to sell happiness through content.

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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.

Copywriter on Content. Part 2. What's Important to Your Targets?

Where to Start

Before writing, before shooting a video, before recording a podcast, before publishing that book—ditch the computer, shut the smart phone down and find a quiet spot where you can answer this question:

"What’s really, really important to the people I’m trying to reach?"

This next vital step is difficult. You have to kick out what’s really important to you and focus on what’s really important to your customers/clients.

Who Cares about Tomatoes?

I remember reading an article a few years ago by a restaurant owner/chef. He spent two pages obsessing about tomatoes. Specifically how he didn’t refrigerate his tomatoes. Now, to the chef, not refrigerating a plump Roma tomato might be really important but to me, the person looking at the restaurant, I’m more interested in having a good meal with friends in a spot where it's relatively quiet.

In 1992, I started to publish one of three successful magazines. I quickly discovered what was important to readers.

“Micro” news about the area: anything from Eagle Scout awards to a new manager at a local restaurant. I also wrote frequently about education and included long interviews with important and well-known people in the area.

I’d throw in some recipes, some directory copy, plus an aerial photograph, mix it altogether and I’d shift upwards of 40,000 magazines off the racks each quarter.

Something I discovered early: when people are genuinely interested in what you have to offer, you cannot provide them with enough information.

For example, I can’t get enough information about direct response copywriting and direct marketing. If I didn’t have to write, I’d spend all day every day reading about copywriting. So when Bob Bly’s emails arrive in my email box (and he sends about three a week), I stop everything and read.

Bob Bly is a copywriter who has published close to 80 books and sells his own information. He’s been extremely successful and I’m more than just a little interested in what he has to say—his content hits my ‘sweet spot’ every time.

Content Checklist

Here’s a short checklist to help you determine what’s important to your targets.

1. What motivates your clients? Money? Fear? Ease? Spiritual fulfillment?
2. What’s important now?
3. What’s the one piece of information your clients would pay for?
4. Who are the ‘rock stars’ of the business and can you include them in your content?
5. Ask for some testimonials—you’ll find out what's important to your customers.
6. Ask your current clients what’s especially important to them. The answers will surprise you.

Once you know what’s especially important to your current and prospective clients, you can start to build your content.

If you have any questions about the content that will appeal to your target market, leave a comment and I’ll answer.

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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.

Copywriter on Content. Part 1. Content is King.

With this blog, I'm beginning a series about content—primarily content for the marketing environment.

Bill Gates wrote "Content is King" in early 1996. From the article...

Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting. Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products—a marketplace of content.

If you're a radio executive, your content comprises disk jockeys, announcers, the music, and the shows. If you're in the news business, content comprises stories, photos, columnists.

In marketing, content is just as vital but many marketers pay little, if any, attention to content. In marketing, content provides the following benefits.

• You build trust with prospects.
• You generate repeat visits to your website.
• You keep visitors on your site longer and they go deeper into your website.
• SEO improves.
• Conversion improves.
• You generate highly qualified leads.
• Augment your brand.

YOU MAKE MORE MONEY!

There's a massive opportunity in marketing for companies who start generating quality content. And bigger companies are starting to allocate resources to content creation. I know at least two big companies in the Charlotte area that are hiring content creators.

These companies micro analyze their results and they wouldn't be investing in content if content wasn't a good investment.

I'm in the market for a new furnace and I've been cruising around some websites. It's astonishing to me how many companies are failing to provide me with information about what's going to be an important purchase. I'm hungry for furnace information yet none of the websites I'm visiting are feeding me.

Of course, any company of any size can invest in content. In the direct marketing environment content can be: 

• White papers/special reports
• Video
• Podcasts
• Books
• Blogs
• Autoresponders
• Webinars/seminars

While landing pages and squeeze pages are the 'moment of truth' in marketing, content is the 'soft sell' and is proof that direct marketing doesn't have to be obnoxious or INSANE or really loud.

You can sell content or you can use it to build your database—or both.

In the past year, I've worked on several websites that use a simple but astoundingly effective technique: build a database of leads by providing a free special report or white paper. The report will include information that's important to website visitors. 

For example, if a furnace supply company would offer me a special report titled "10 Tips for Buying a Furnace" I would be inclined to hand over my name and email address and provide a furnace company with a lead.

In this series, now that I've introduced a couple of concepts, I'm going to:

• Detail how to create compelling content.
• Provide examples of superb content.
• Go through the various types of content you might use.
• Totally unsolicited advice for companies I've chosen at random.
• Detail the dangers of 'user generated' content.
• And more...

Send me some great examples of content in the comments.

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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.