Copywriting Dean

Probably one of my largest online business mistakes is trusting my web host to provide reliable email services.

At one time, I used PHPMail to deliver copywriting applications to my inbox. And only after a long period without receiving an application did I discover that my web host turned off PHPMail without telling me.

Thanks!

Just last week I woke up to 3 emails in my inbox. And if you’ve ran an Internet business for long, you know that number is remarkably low.

I started poking around the ‘net and realized I could count for several emails that SHOULD have been delivered but weren’t! (Payment notifications, auto-response messages and the like.)

I contacted my web host who set up a “test” and discovered my email was working “just fine.” (And miraculously, it did start working after I complained.)

But as was confirmed today, potential clients did email me and, of course, received no response back from me.

Overall, I like my web host and I’d be very hesitant to move. But it’s becoming very clear that I need to stop using their email.

GMail, The Reliable Free Mail

It used to be that a free email address was a big no-no for business. But that’s changed since Gmail came along.

Gmail REALLY IS that much better than paid alternatives. There’s little excuse not to use them as your primary email address, and many of the IM GURU’s do.

Needless to say, I hope to quickly move away from my web hosts email and rely solely on Gmail for the foreseeable future.

Recently I’ve seen a few copywriters guarantee a specific conversion rate, without knowing ANYTHING about the project in advance.

Hmm… To me this shows the copywriter is a novice. It’s just impossible to do. Look what the famous copywriter, Bob Bly had to say about it…

“4-Do not promise your copy will generate a specific result. It is unethical and not true: no one can guarantee a particular response rate.” ~ Bob Bly

One BIG reason why talking conversion rates before you know about the project is the traffic source. This sole factor can have the BIGGEST impact on your conversions.

Because some sources of traffic convert MUCH better than other sources of traffic. Here’s a list of traffic sources, from the best converting to the least.

Product Announcement Lists

People who have opted-in to be TOLD when your product is ready… will be the most likely to buy by far. Here’s where you can hit REALLY high conversion rates. 30% might be average.

Your Customer List

People who have bought from you before… are VERY likely to buy from you again.

Your Subscriber List

It depends on the list, of course. If you haven’t built a responsive list, you may not get a good response.

But, in general. Emailing people who already subscribe to YOUR list and KNOW YOU is a great way to get 10%-20% response rates.

Other Business’ Lists

Having someone else promote your sales page to a list who knows THEM is almost as powerful as mailing your own list. They’re giving an endorsement to a crowd of people who trust them.

Signature Links From Articles/Forum Posts

A signature link from an article or forum post can be more valuable than other advertisements or links because the reader has gotten to know and trust you a bit by reading your content. Then when they hit your sales letter, you are positioned as an authority.

Paid Advertising: Text Ads, Banner Ads and So Forth

Then FINALLY we get to paid advertising. You can obviously still get great conversion rates from Google Adwords and other forms of paid advertising. But you’re probably not going to hit the 10%-50% conversion rates that you might from some of the traffic sources above.

This is good information to know when hiring a copywriter. If they promise a 2% conversion rate and hit 3%, you might think that’s great.

But if the traffic came from your customer list… the copy may not be nearly as great as you thought.

One purpose of buying the domain “CopywritingDean.com” was that it’d be easier to rank in the top 10 for the term “Copywriting.”

I’d reached the 2nd page of Google results for “copywriting” with Stephensblog.com, but I wanted to leave that domain for a number of reasons I won’t go into here.

Well a month or so ago when I checked the ranking of “CopywritingDean.com” for the term “copywriting,” I was shocked to find myself ranked 450th. YIKES. So I started making some changes.

Fixing a mistake

A major mistake when switching domains was copying the posts from StephensBlog.com over to CopywritingDean.com. We’ve all heard about the duplicate content penalty… well l got it.

After I went through and deleted a few dozen posts from CopywritingDean.com that were also on StephensBlog.com, I jumped from #450 to #119.

Still a long way to go, but that’s a start.

Sticking with what works

At Stephensblog.com I was able to jump from about #75 to mid twenties by having posts submitted to Blog Carnivals.

You can do this yourself here: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit.php

Just look for blog carnivals that fit your blogs topic, and submit individual blog posts to the carnival.

I’ve found software that automates the process for you before, but it seems to have stopped working. I assume the site doesn’t want you to submit via software, so now I just do it by hand. It doesn’t take too long and it’s a mindless activity, so I just do it while chatting on the phone to the GF.

Blog Friends

I’m also on the lookout for people who want to trade links in their blog rolls. I have 164 pages listed in google from CopywritingDean.com and each one will have a link to your page if you’ll put my blog in your blogroll.

Of course, if you don’t care for my blog then there’s no reason for you to add me to your sidebar. But if you do enjoy my blog, adding me to your blogroll has an extra benefit.

Just leave a comment to this post letting me know that you added me and I’ll make sure to add you to my sidebar. (Assuming your site isn’t objectional… you know, like illegal stuff and the like.)

Just about any money-makin’ plan you might pick online requires that you start a web site. And if you’re like me, you’re starting new sites all the time.

So I wanted to share with you how I, as a copywriter, find the perfect domain name.

Pretty much every word in the dictionary is taken. There are plenty of two word combinations available… but the most obvious ones are usually taken. A lot of what’s left over doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense without good marketing.

MySpace.com, FaceBook.com and YouTube.com might seem like self explanatory domains to you now… but if you didn’t know what the sites were. They’d be a mystery.

Those two domains are a good example of what’s left.

BUT… those domain names aren’t bad at all. I just helped a client find the perfect domain name for his new product. It’s two words. Easy to remember. Easy to spell…

Well, why don’t I just go ahead and tell you my rules for selecting domain names.

1. They must be extremely easy to spell. Short words like… cat, hat, free are great. Stuff like “genius” isn’t good. You may think it’s easy to spell, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to mess up.

2. I like to avoid double vowels between words, and sometimes double consonants. For example, giveeasy.com is a domain name that I once considered, but that double “e” in the middle. It’s a little confusing. This can happen with consonants when double l’s or t’s get involved.

3. Less than 3 words. You can get away with breaking this rule every now and then. But in general, keep working ’til you find something that doesn’t take an hour to type in.

4. Benefit-laden. IF POSSIBLE, it’s great to have a domain name that states the benefit of your product or service. Why? Because the domain name can act like an ad for your site. It’s almost like a headline!

I bought a domain name a while back called snackawaypounds.com. Check out that benefit. Putting a benefit in the domain ALSO helps people remember the name.

Ok, those are my 4 biggest tips for selecting domain names. I could have said, always go for a .com. But you should know that.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever come up with a product that was a dud…

People who are just beginning their business pursuits often forget to check if there’s a market for their “hot idea” before they create the product. This can lead to a waste of time, energy and a lot of money.

While there are more thorough ways of checking if your product has an audience, here are 3 quick ways to get a general idea of the demand.

1. Spyfu.com. This site lets you analyze pay-per-click data similar to what the old Overture tools used to do. Just type in your keyword and you’ll instantly see how many people are placing ads for that keyword, how many clicks they’re getting on average, and what it costs to run an ad.

If you see a website is running ads for a few months at a $1.00 click, you can be relatively sure they’re making a profit from that market.

2. Amazon.com’s Magazine Section If you can find a magazine that’s focused on your market, chances are there’s enough people out there to support a product for this business. After all, there’s enough to support the magazine…

3. http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm. The Clickbank marketplace lists tons and tons of information products. Search for your keyword and look at the results.

If you see products similar to your idea, check out the “Gravity” number. The higher the number, the better the product is selling. Compare the number to other known hot sellers and you’ll get a decent idea of how popular that market is.

Step 3 of 7 Steps To A Successful Squeeze Page is adding an animated video that starts automatically.

You can create this at SitePal, but you need to write your own audio script.

What should your audio script say? I’ll be testing different strategies in the future, but this script helped balloon the conversion rate (2x-3x higher) and is extremely easy to put together.

Here’s a winning squeeze page audio script in 6 pieces.

Piece 1: Say, “Attention!” or a similar phrase to alert the visitor. This works well for cheap traffic.
Piece 2: Read the headline of your squeeze page. (And maybe the subhead if you have one.)
Piece 3: State the “Reason Why” they should give an email address.
Piece 4: Tease them with information they’ll discover after giving their email address. (This might be simply reading the bullet points of your squeeze page.)
Piece 5: Call To Action: Specifically tell them to enter their email address in to the form now and restate the “Reason Why.”
Piece 6: Tell them what will happen if they don’t. What will they miss out on? What will they be too late for?

And that’s that. You may see an instant increase in squeeze page conversions.

Of course, then you’ll need to send them to a killer sales page. To get one, fill out an application at CopyProductions.com.

At CopyProductions.com you’ll find I can create your squeeze page, thank-you page, sales page and more. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, fill out an application now.

Many copywriters advise that you keep a swipe file. Meaning that you keep a collection of high quality advertisements to study and get ideas from when writing your own copy.

There are ways to collect an awesome set of offline advertisments… and one way is to BUY products from successful offline mailers. But frankly I’ve never gone this route.

I primarily write copy online and I look for online copy to put in my swipe file.

In the past when I found copy I liked I’d bookmark it or add it to my favorites. This worked OK… until the site disappeared, the offer was taken down or the copy changed.

Then I tried saving the webpage with the copy to my computer. This works OK still. But it can be messy with all the extra files attached to the webpage. Especially if all I want to keep is a headline.

So now I’ve discovered my favorite method for keeping a collection of swiped ads.

Windows Vista, Windows 7 and some versions of Windows XP have a “Snipping Tool” that allows you to highlight a portion of your screen and save it as an image.

Now it’s easy and painless to save a simple headline. Take for example this quick swipe of the headline from my Copywriting Services page. (Which of course was based on a swiped headline

I’ve set up a folder on my PC’s “Desktop” called appropriately, “Swipe File.” And another folder inside there is named “Headlines.” I save all swiped headlines in here.

Then when it’s time to look at successful headlines, I can open up any image inside this folder. Windows opens the image inside of it’s photo viewer and allows me to hit “Next” over and over again browsing my swiped headlines.

Fantastic! So much cleaner than paper or saved web pages.

Of course, most of the images you are creating involve copyrighted material. So you shouldn’t be sharing or selling your swipe file with anyone.

But creating a swipe file this way for your personal use is no problem. (At least that’s what I believe. I’m no lawyer, so do your own research.)

In any case, you have permission to swipe any of my sales copy for your personal use in this way.

And if you’re looking for more copy to swipe, you might start here:

Productivity Engineering

Good luck hunting and swiping!

Some traffic sources convert better than others. You might get a 10% conversion rate from JV partner traffic and 1% from banner ad traffic. That’s normal, but…

…Recently I made an interesting discovery about two wildly different conversion rates from the SAME source, Twitter.

I’ve been experimenting with a Twitter traffic system with some success. I’ve been able to get hundreds of clicks in a day without too much effort.

I’m excited about that. But it’s also important to monitor the conversion rates of that traffic.

Right now there are two ways I get traffic from Twitter: 1) links within tweets themselves and 2) a link in the bio of my profile.

Both links go to the same squeeze page, but the two links have wildly different conversion rates.

When people click on the link in my bio, the conversion rate is DOUBLE that of clicks from promotional tweets.

Why? I’m always careful when making assumptions. But I can offer a guess.

My guess is similar to a post I just read on the Internet Business Box blog titled “Sales Letters vs. Blogs.”

Their theory is that people resist being sold to. Copywriters are taught this as well.

The author believes that when people are allowed to click around and control the shopping experience, they are more likely to buy. It’s an interesting experiment and I look forward to seeing how it works out.

So what’s the difference between the two conversions coming from Twitter?

Links that appear in Tweets come off as advertisements that the reader responds too. They’re being sold to and they know it.

But when a visitor clicks a link in the bio, they may feel like THEY’RE initiating the shopping experience. They may feel more in control and feel less resistance to the offer.

It’s just a guess, but I think a good one.

What do you think, is there a better explanation for the difference in conversion rates from nearly the same source?

Leave a comment if you have a theory.

Recently I discovered a traffic source that can send thousands of visitors to your site for a penny each.

It’s from a site called ClixSense. And that’s an affiliate link, because I highly recommend this service.

Penny traffic is known for being POOR QUALITY and can kill a conversion rate. But because it’s so cheap it can still be profitable.

For $12 (which included a $2 processing fee) I sent around 1000 visitors to a squeeze page. The squeeze page wasn’t too polished, although it did contain 6 of the 7 traits of a successful squeeze.

Even with a mediocre squeeze page I got 28 opt-ins. That’s 43 cents per targeted lead.

If you have a $100 product that converts at 1%, then each visitor is worth $1. If it only costs you 43 cents to get a visitor, then you’re profiting 57 cents per visitor.

If I add the 7th element of a successful squeeze page and polish it up a bit, I believe I could easily double the squeeze page’s conversion rate. That’d bring the cost per targeted lead to 20-some cents. Very nice!

I highly recommend giving ClixSense at least one shot. I ran my ad 3 times and noticed the subsequent visitor-buys got me repeat visitors that didn’t convert. In future tests I’ll be looking for a way to avoid this repeat traffic and I’ll share my results.

And a hint on setting up your campaign.

ClixSense allows you to narrow down the traffic you’ll receive in to a smaller demographic.

If your market’s customer base is heavily female or male, then make sure your ad only is displayed to that gender.

You can choose to only display your ad to premium members, meaning people who have paid money, and that’s a very good idea.

And you can also restrict the ad to English speaking countries, which can help for obvious reasons.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

If you’re going to sell a product online, it’s often smart to get your visitor’s email address before sending them to the sales letter.

This gives you the benefit of emailing the visitor in the future with links to the sales letter, alternate sales letters, and maybe to someone else’s sales page through an affiliate link.

It also means more people will drop off at the squeeze page and never see the sales letter. So at times it can be more important to maximize the conversion of the squeeze page than the actual sales copy!

I’ve had squeeze pages convert at over 50% of visitors to relatively targeted visitors. (The same squeeze page will convert at around 2-5% with untargeted traffic.)

These are the 7 elements I use to get these high conversion rates.

1. Give A “Reason Why” They Should Give Their Email Address

Take a step back and look at your business from an outsider’s perspective. No one wants to give you their email address just because you exist.

There must be a reason why.

Most people use a freebie as their reason why. I’ve given away ebooks, videos and software free with great success.

But some freebies are better than others! Ryan Deiss stresses testing your freebie to see which leads to the most new customers. (And that’s CUSTOMERS, not simply subscribers.)

I suspect I’m giving away an ebook right now that’s hurting sales. Either because it’s too long, takes away from the sales process or some other reason. So I’ll be testing it against another squeeze page offer.

And that offer may not be a freebie at all!

One of my favorite squeeze pages converted at more than 50% and didn’t give anything away. It simply built curiousity and suspense in a few sentences, then asked for your name and email to discover the resolution.

PERFECT!

Curiousity is a GREAT tool for squeeze pages.

I’ll analyze this type of squeeze page on the blog in the future.

2. A Great Headline

I don’t use much copy on the squeeze page at all. For me, the headline carries the weight. I’ve added more copy only to see my testing software determine it wasn’t helping sales.

A great headline will satisfy Michael Masterson’s 4 U’s. That means writing something that’s…

Urgent
Ultra-Specific
Unique
Useful

Add a strong dose of curiousity to the 4 U’s and you’ll have a strong headline to take center stage.

3. Get An Animated Video That Starts Automatically

An animated “talking head” video (see http://www.sitepal.com/) that starts automatically can do amazing things for your conversion rate.

ESPECIALLY for low-quality traffic. I’ve seen conversion rates jump from barely recordable to 2-5% just by adding an animated “talking head” video.

Ryan Deiss found an “animated” video actually outperformed live-action videos!

SitePal is fairly easy to set up, so I highly recommed giving it a try. (They have a free trial.)

4. Keep Your Opt-In Form Above The Fold

In the past I’ve noticed that adding several blank lines before your headline can increase conversion. But I’ve noticed the exact opposite for squeeze pages.

I’m assuming the reason for that is it can push your opt-in form down the page so the visitor can’t see it without scrolling. That’s called “below the fold.”

From memory, all of my highest converting squeeze pages had the opt-in form “above the fold” so the visitor didn’t have to scroll.

5. Put A Box Around The Opt-In Form

A great way to draw attention to your opt-in form is to put it inside of a colored table. The code below won against no table at all. Just insert your opt-in form code between the two lines.

<table cellpadding=10 bgcolor=#EEEEEE> <tr> <td>
</td> </tr> </table>

6. Use Arrows To Draw Attention To Your Opt-In Form.

Another way to draw attention to your opt-in form that has won in tests is to point at the opt-in form with red arrows.

You can usually find graphics like these at stock photography websites.

7. Ask For An Email Address Only

Yup, simply asking for an email address beats asking for name and email. My test results show this, and so do to tests by numerous other marketers.

And that’s that, 7 steps to a successful squeeze page.

From there, of course, you need a successful sales letter and email follow-up campaign.

If you’d like a stellar squeeze page, sales letter and email sequence you can fill out an application here.