"Dramatic Sales Writing -- Use Words to Make the Sale"by Richard Stooker |
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This website is about dramatic sales writing. That is, copywriting and ad writing that sells. Words that make the sale include:
Case studies are in-depth, detailed testimonials that provide concrete, specific and dramatic examples of how your business or client solved a business problem for one of your customers. They are customer success stories. Because case studies do provide prospects with memorable stories that dramatize how you can help them, they help to overcome sales objections and the all too common prospect inertia. Once you give them a tangible result . . . create a vivid image of success in their mind . . . they find it easier to believe that you can help them as well. White papers are similar in a way to case studies, because they don't sell by making promises or talking about benefits. They sell by convincing prospects them that you know what you're doing. White papers work well as lead generators. Every company in any kind of technical business should give away at least one white paper on their web site. Much copywriting involves the writing of brochures, pamphlets, web site content or other marketing communications (often shortened to "marcom") that many company's pass out daily to prospects and customers. However, all too often, this business to business writing is done without making a clear cut distinction between benefits and features -- and focusing on benefits. Or including a call to action. Or a reason for urgency. Annual reports include a company's financial and accounting information for a year, but also are tools to sell the company's vision and future prospects to potential investors and the media. Google Adwords have become the main source of advertising on the Internet. Advertisers bid on keywords relevant to their product or service. Their ad is displayed alongside search results whenever someone searches on Google for that keyword. You are limited to a headline and two lines of text -- a total of 95 characters, so Adwords writers must work hard to attract attention, qualify prospects and yet interest qualified prospects enough to make them click -- preferably in a buying mood. Internet online salesletters are now commonly used to sell products and services. In many ways, they are structured liked direct mail sales letters, except that the web medium does force some format changes -- including doing away with other parts of the package. The focus is on the headline and the body copy. The P.S. is not as important, because not as many people automatically scroll down to the bottom as turn over a paper sales letter to see who signed it. And you must consider how to format the letter for maximum readability. Blogs, emails and name squeeze pages have their own formatting and structural requirements -- as well, of course, of the techniques to make them effective at their purpose of selling your products and services. Press releases are a good way to sell by letting the media know that you have created some news. A lot of companies send out standard press releases that are usually trashed by reporters unless they're an industry publication because they're boring to everybody outside the industry. So the trick to writing press releases that are effective in getting you free publicity is to give media what they want for their customers -- interesting news stories. They don't care that your vice-president was promoted or that you released version 4.2333 of your software. Find an angle that's newsworthy. Financial newsletter direct mail packages sell subscriptions to the many investment letters that are written by various investment gurus giving advice on stock, gold, trading programs, options and many other ways to make money in the financial markets. Health products can include newsletters and food supplements of various kinds and purposes. There're not as many health newsletters as financial newsletters, though the major direct mail newsletter publishers each have at least one. Since these go out by direct mail, they are entire packages in various formats: bookalogs, magalogs, #10 packages, reportalogs, faux newsletter issues and so on. These can include the need for envelope teasers, separate order devices and separate gates included. Nonprofit fundraising or charitable groups also send out a lot of direct mail solicitations. In this case, the product being sold is the right to feel good for helping out someone else or something else or some cause or another. |