Sales Letter Shark » Shark Bytes

What’s your product’s biggest benefit? Hmmm, are you SURE?

The Shark — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:19:53 +0000

You might be just a bit too close to your product to see it the way your customers see it. And that means you might actually be blind to your product’s BIGGEST benefit!

You’ve probably seen this problem on other people’s sales letters. You start reading a sales letter. It’s kind of boring. Actually, the product seems kind of mediocre. The benefits are ok, but nothing to write home about.

Then you find this amazing benefit, hidden deep inside the letter. You buy the product based on that one benefit. (Though you can’t believe the product creator and copywriter “hid” this benefit!)

This happens all the time. The copywriter doesn’t even realize what the biggest benefit is, so the benefit that’s most important to the customers gets hidden away like an ugly baby!

In fact, I just ran into this today on a sales letter.

The biggest headline at the top of the page was this:

“Available for Immediate Download.”

No kidding, that’s where my eyes were drawn to first, because that line was in big, bold print. (Let’s not even discuss the fact that the bolded text doesn’t even tell you WHAT is available for download and who would be interested in ‘em!)

You see, this marketer is selling gardening manuals that used to only be available in print. Now they’re available for download.

But guess what? The fact that they’re available for download is NOT the biggest benefit of these manuals. And that means the line about them being available for download should NOT be the biggest headline on the page, AKA the first thing that draws people’s eyes in.

See, the biggest benefit of these gardening manuals is still all about the problems these manuals solve. The gardener wants to know what these manuals will do for her gardens… and for her.

The fact that she gets an instant solution is a bonus. But since this isn’t a very desperate market (you can’t grow a garden overnight any way), the “instant download” is a nice benefit, but not the biggest benefit.

Make sense?

Ok, so here’s what I suggest…

If you’re about to tweak an existing sales letter, talk to your customers first. Ask them what they liked best about your product. Ask them what they think is the “best thing” or biggest benefit of your product.

You might be surprised to learn that you and your customers have different ideas about your product’s biggest benefits!

Now, this doesn’t mean you should take these reviews as gospel. But certainly you should take them into consideration when crafting your sales letter.

Your prospect doesn’t know squat about your product!

The Shark — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:20:23 +0000

You’re close to your product. You’ve been working on it for weeks or even months. And so when you sit down to write the sales letter, it’s pretty easy to assume that your prospects know what you know about your product.

Guess what? They don’t. And if you keep making this assumption, your prospects are going to get confused… and leave. Without ordering.

Let me give you an example that I see all the time…

Let’s say your product is called the Whiz Bang Traffic Crusher. Over the past few weeks you’ve started abbreviating it to WBTC. In fact, you’ve used that abbreviation so much that “Whiz Bang Traffic Crusher” and “WBTC” are synonymous in your mind.

Now listen…

If you have a fresh prospect hitting your page, he’s never heard of the Whiz Bang Traffic Crusher. And for sure he’s never heard of the WBTC. So if you use this abbreviation without defining it, he’ll have no idea what you’re talking about.

Imagine a headline like this: “Here’s why so many people use the WBTC – and why you should too.”

Your prospect is going to look at that line and think, “what the…?”

For starters, that line gives no clue who this sales page is for. “People” could refer to dog trainer, nudists or those who like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Secondly, the prospect has no idea what “WBTC” stands for. More confusion. More wondering who this sales page is for.

At this point your prospect’s head hurts. He doesn’t want to waste time figuring out what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to. Unless he’s the super-curious type and he has a lot of extra time on his hands, he’s going to hit that back button.

Bottom line…

Remember, your prospects don’t know a thing about your product. So don’t start abbreviating its name… especially before you’ve even introduced the full name of the product!

Why you need to become the Jane Goodall of Marketing…

The Shark — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:15:59 +0000

So you’re starting to get the hang of this copywriting thing, right? And you have all these little bits and pieces you know you need to snap into your letter, such as:

An attention-getting headline.
An emotional button-pushing opener.
Subheadlines sprinkled throughout the copy that snap, crackle and pop.
Curiosity-arousing benefit statements.
Proof of those bold claims.
A strong call to action.

…And all the other ingredients you need to create a sizzling sales letter.

You’re pumped. You can’t wait to crank out this sales letter cause you know it’ll dazzle people. So you open up a new word processing document and…

WAIT! Hang on…

Before you write a single word, there’s one very important thing you need to do – namely, get inside your prospect’s head.

You see, a lot of new copywriters act like zombies when they write sales letters. The copy is… dead. Flat. Lifeless. Limp.

Oh sure, at first glance the sales letter looks dazzling and pretty and bright. And usually that’s because the copywriter has sprinkled in all the words that sound right, like “secrets” and “discover” and “how to.”

Like this…

Announcing the Amazing Whiz-Bang Revolutionary All New Guaranteed-To-Knock-Your-Socks-Off Secret That Shows You How to…

Uff.

That’s a sloppy word salad.

And it’s the mark of an amateur copywriter.

You see, fancy words alone don’t make a good sales letter. Instead, scrap the fancy talk and instead talk to your prospect. Get inside his head. See the world through his eyes. Find out what makes his heart ache, what excites him, and what scares the bediddles out of him.

Now, maybe you’ve heard about “profiling” your target market. That means writing down everything you know about them, from their age to what they ate for breakfast this morning.

Here’s the big problem with profiling…

Most new copywriters just guess.

That’s a big mistake.

You see, you can’t crawl into your prospect’s head by guessing what he’s thinking. And you can’t crawl into your prospects head by creating a profile of what you’d like your perfect prospect to look like.

No, if you want to create a sales letter to resonate with the prospect, then you better make damn sure that you KNOW everything about your prospect. No guessing.

So how do you know for certain?

Easy – you become a part of the target market. You enter your prospect’s world. You wear his clothes, talk his talk and walk his walk. You break into his inner circle.

You see…

The only way to truly understand a person’s emotional hot buttons, hopes, fears and desires is to become the Jane Goodall of marketing…

And That means living among your market for a while to study ‘em up close.

Once you really understand your prospects, THEN you can write your letter. But don’t even think of writing one word before you get to that point. Otherwise, you’re just another amateur creating a sloppy word salad.

Please, no more “dear friend” greetings!

The Shark — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:13:58 +0000

You’ve seen it – the typical “dear friend” openers at the top of many a sales letter. And maybe you’re thinking, I don’t even know you! I’m for sure not your friend!

That’s not a bad knee-jerk reaction. And I bet a lot of other prospects cringe just slightly when they see the “dear friend” salutation.

So let’s drop that tired practice (unless it’s absolutely necessary).

Instead, use your salutation to further grab your prospect’s attention and qualify him. You want him to read the opener and say, “Hey! He’s talking about me!”

For example:

Dear Football Fan

Better than “dear friend.” But we can do better.

Let’s further qualify the reader by narrowing in our niche. Let’s suppose we’re selling to people who love NFL football. Then we might say:

Dear NFL Football Fan

And if we’re selling something to just one team, like the Vikings, then of course we could narrow it further by saying:

Dear Vikings Football Fan

Are we done?

Not quite. Just one more thing. Namely, let’s now build rapport with our reader. Let’s tell the reader, “I’m just like you!”

You’ll do this rapport-building all through your letter. But it starts right here in your salutation greeting by adding one small word: “fellow.” Like this:

Dear Fellow Vikings Football Fan

Now that’s about 100 times better than the ghastly “dear friend.”