Today’s lesson objective is to continue the process of writing your sales letter.
Skills needed:
· Imagination
· Basic Word Processing
Today’s Lesson:
With your 50 headlines I want you to start identifying which ones are the most powerful.
Sometimes I have my wife look at them and tell me which one really moves her. It has to
be a first glance.
When I have my top 10 or so headlines then I move on to creating the sales letter. I use
the best headline for my headline on top of the site. My second strongest one is usually
the first sentence and then I try to use the other ones throughout the copy as subheads.
Today, we’re going to put together the rest of the sales letter and one of the easiest ways
to teach you how to do this is by looking at an analysis of my site…
My 12-Part “Power Web Copywriting” Formula
(This is how I am able to get approximately 1 out of every 32 visitors to buy my product)
For illustration of the formula - I’ve analyzed my site Instant Sales Letters.
Let’s start…
1. Create Immediate Attention with a Powerful Headline.
You can see I use a ‘prehead’ (this is the small headline above the main headline), a
headline and a subhead. All 3 of these are powerful enough to be the main headline.
Your headline’s job is immediately get your prospect’s attention and stop them dead in
their tracks. (We’ve already covered this on Day 4.)
2. Create Instant Believability with Testimonials.
One of your biggest problems on the Internet (or anywhere) is being believed. The
best way to assure people you are not a scam artist or huckster is by providing
testimonials. As you can see I like to include a testimonial as close to the top of the letter
as possible. I’ve placed these 2 testimonials from prominent Internet marketers above my
headline. This way I get people immediately believing what I say before they read my
sales letter.
3. Build Interest By Discussing a Problem, Expanding on your Headline or
Incorporating a Story.
The first part of your sales letter is critical to your success. Here I expand on the benefits
I got people excited about in the headline. They start imagining the success one sales
letter could bring them.
I also use a story to keep readership high. People love to read stories. It’s nearly
impossible not to read a good story.
4. Whet Reader’s Desire with Hot Benefits and Bullets.
Benefits are the results your prospects are looking for. If you sell a book – people don’t
want to read the book they want the ‘secrets’ and information inside.
You can incorporate benefits into your bullets (which are really “mini headlines”) so use
the same powerful words to build desire and stress benefits or how they can avoid pain.
Bullets are one of the most powerful persuaders in a sales letter. You’ll see companies
like Bottom Line or FC&A actually makes almost their entire sales letter bullets. And
that’s because bullets work!
Bullets are almost like “mini-headlines”. So the same rules apply. Bullets arouse
curiosity. I just love the way bullets compel people to find out more…
And they really drive people’s desire sky high for your product or service. One bullet that
somebody desperately wants to find out is often responsible for them buying a product or
service.
Pay attention to these bullet formulas:
· Stop ____ without expensive _______.
· Five simple ways to _________.
· How to stop ___________.
· The absolute best time to ________.
· End your ____________.
· How to avoid the 12 biggest _______ mistakes.
· How to become a _____ even if you can’t __________.
· No more __________.
· The jealously-guarded secret of ______________.
· The no-lose way to ____________.
· The truth about ___________.
· 6 facts you must know about __________.
· A simple technique for _____________.
· What
· Why almost everyone is wrong about the _____________.
· The correct way to use _______________.
· An easy 3-step system for _______________.
· How to quickly and easily create __________, using _______________.
· What you can learn from _________.
· 18 new ways to get ________________.
· New ways to get more out of ______________.
· What never to believe in any _____________.
· How to make sure you’re not overpaying for _________.
· 9 ways to slash your ________ costs.
5. Intensify Desire with Testimonials Showing Results.
Not only do I start with testimonials – but I’ll put them throughout the letter.
People love reading testimonials because they are much more powerful than anything you
could every say about yourself.
Here’s how I use testimonials to prove my points:
6. Build Value by Comparing Apples to Oranges or ROI.
Establish Why Price is Really a Great Value.
In order to prove that your product or service is a great value you need to show it. I do
this by comparing my letter templates to having to pay me or another copywriter to write
them for you. This way I can prove it’s a great value.
7. Explain Reason-Why.
Explaining to people the reason why you are doing something is one of the most
powerful persuaders you could ever incorporate into your sales letters. I have an entire
article about it that you can read here:
http://instantsalesletters.com/articles/trigger.html
Take a look at how I justify such a great value for buyers in this paragraph:
8. Create ‘Greed’ Desire or ‘Gotta Have It’ Mentality with Free Bonuses.
I like to pile on the bonuses and really get people excited.
Sometimes they buy the main product just because of the bonuses. Do I care? Nope!
Your bonuses should be so good you could sell them on their own.
You can see here the bonuses are worth nearly triple what they’ll pay for the Instant Sales
Letter templates.
That’s what you want! You want people to really get excited about the incredible deal
they’re getting!
9. Unconditional Guarantee to Alleviate Fears (even better-than-risk-free
guarantee).
The more risk-free you can make it for people to take action the better.
There’s no need to worry about offering a strong guarantee if you’ve got a good product.
Here’s how I present it in my letter:
10. Demand Immediate Action Using Scarcity or Time Deadline Stress What
They’ll Lose if They Delay.
Nobody likes to make a decision. That’s why you have to help them along by
incorporating a time deadline and reminding them of what they’ll miss out on if they
don’t take action. Sometimes it can be as easy as this one paragraph:
11. Make it Absolutely Clear What to Do Next.
Here’s where a lot of sales letters wimp out. Don’t make people guess what you want
them to do. Tell them “click here” to get started right away.
12. Power P.S.
I will give prospects another chance to get additional information in the P.S. of the letter.
This link would take them to a page that answers even more questions about the
templates. Then the P.P.S. summarizes the benefits and what they’ll get if they order
now!
There you have it! Just put these 12 elements to work in your sales letter
and you’re all set.
Today’s Assignment:
1. Get the major elements of your sales letter together:
2. Come up with your irresistible offer (see bonus article at the end of this section)
3. Get together your testimonials. If you don’t have any yet – ask people to review
your product/service and get back to you. Ask existing customers if you can use
their comments.
4. Create a list of 20 bullets points for your product or service highlighting benefits.
A simple way to do this is to take every feature and come up with several benefits
for it. Remember a benefit is something your product does (result it produces) for
the customer.
5. Think of a believable and truthful ‘reason why’ you are making this offer.
6. Bonuses. Think of several high perceived but low-cost bonuses. Information
products like reports or ebooks are perfect for this.
7. Craft your guarantee. Try to be as liberal as possible, a lifetime guarantee sure
would sell more than a 30-day guarantee.
Special Notice: Inside the “show-and-tell” 33 Days to
Online Profits Video CD-roms you can see an actual
sales letter from start to finish. You’ll see all the different
editing processes and more. You just pop the CDs into
your computer and watch as right before your eyes each step is
brought to life. Check it out here
HOW TO CREATE POWERFUL OFFERS THAT DRIVE YOUR SALES THROUGH
THE ROOF
By Yanik Silver
What does a mafia boss know about marketing?
Lots. Read on to find out...
Do you remember in the movie "The Godfather" when Don Corleone says, "I’m gonna
make him an offer he can’t refuse"?
And it’s this simple concept that’s the backbone of any successful sales proposition you
make. (However if I were you, I’d probably leave out the threats of violence in your sales
piece.)
From now on, your job is to create such powerful offers that anyone reading it would say
to themselves, "My goodness, I’d have to be a complete idiot not to take them up on this
deal!"
And creating a powerful offer like this is easier than you think.
Let me share with you one of the most compelling offers I’ve seen. It took a dying hotel
on the wrong side of the Vegas 'strip', where you had to watch your wallet at every turn,
and transformed it into a super moneymaker.
This is from a very successful ad that used to run for Bob Stupak's Vegas World hotel.
Listen to this deal and see if you wouldn't act on this even if you were just an occasional
gambler:
"Act now, to receive a virtually free Las Vegas vacation. For $198 per person or $396 per
couple I will:
1) Put you up in a luxurious mini suite in an exciting Las Vegas hotel right on the famous
strip.
2) I will give you free tickets to a show with name entertainers.
3) I will put a chilled bottle of champagne in your room for free.
4) I'll let you drink as much as want for free, whether you're at the gaming tables, playing
slots or in one of the lounges.
5) I'll hand you $1,000 of my money to gamble with for free.
6) I'll let you keep all your winnings.
7) I'll guarantee you'll win a color TV, VCR or a faux diamond ring.
Obviously I'm not going to give this incredible deal to everybody in the whole world.
There can only be (small number) of these vacation packages available. First come, first
served."
If that's not an irresistible offer, I don't what is. The closer you can get to something like
this, the more customers you’ll have falling all over themselves to give you their money.
Does this give you a few ideas?
========================
Using The Bonus Pile On
========================
Vegas World’s offer uses a concept I call "Bonus Pile On". And the way it works is to
keep piling on bonus after bonus until finally you have to say "no mas" and whip out
your charge card.
It was the same thing with the famous Ginsu knife commercials a few years back. They
used this technique perfectly to sell millions of dollars of cutlery. The announcer would
say "And if you act now you’ll also get..." and then about 15 different knives and kitchen
gadgets would pop up on the screen.
It made you think about how much value you were getting for such a little price. That’s
the power of the "bonus pile on".
So what’s the best way to start using this in your business? Well, one of the best ways I
know is using paper and ink. You can give away a series of valuable reports with any
purchase. What’s more, you could even make this information available as a download
from your website so you’d have zero distribution cost.
Or you could make deals with other businesses where they’d let you give away a product
or service from them to your customers. If you really use your imagination here you’ll
come up with lots of ways to create a "bonus pile on".
===============================
Make Prospects Take Action Now!
===============================
There’s no doubt about it - deep down, everyone of us is a lazy procrastinator. That’s
why you need some kind of deadline or scarcity factor to make prospects take action
now. If your prospects believe an offer is going to be around forever, there’s no reason to
take action.
That’s the reason deadlines work so well. In one of my businesses, I’ll stamp a red
deadline on the order form for the last day prospects get over $2,000.00 in free bonuses.
And believe me, it’s not unusual to get people ordering right on the very last day of the
deadline just because of this stamp.
=======================
100% No-Risk Guarantee
=======================
Finally, the last component of a powerful offer is to make your deal as risk-free as
possible. Nobody wants to make a mistake and be stuck with something that doesn’t
deliver as promised. That’s why you should make every effort to lift the risk from the
prospect and place it squarely on your shoulders. Make a bold guarantee and make it for
as long as possible. If you have a quality product, you shouldn’t worry because most
often return rates will drop the longer you extend guarantees for.
Another strategy to try is offering a 30-day "hold-your-check or charge slip" trial. That
means people will send you checks postdated 30 days out or you won’t charge their credit
cards for 30 days. Joe Karbo used this to sell tens of thousands of copies of his book "The
Lazy Man’s Ways to Riches".
Now you have all the keys to creating your own irresistible offer and watching your sales
soar. Just keep adding value and more bonuses until you come up with an offer than
makes your prospect feel guilty for not ordering.
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