A Little Under The Weather…
I’ve got the flu. Bummer:(
My wife was sick the entire month and I thought I escaped getting it…
Nope.
I’m going to make this a quick post because I’m cautious and delirious. Did I spell cautious right?
Anyway. Linking!
I jump at every opportunity I get to explain this to people. It is very important to understand.
Forget submitting to search engines. It’s not necessary. You can get spidered by the search engines faster than submitting to them. In fact, way faster and more often!
How?
By submitting to directories. Or getting any inbound links from websites that already get spidered regularly.
Anytime a spider visits a website, it will follow all the new links off of it. So if your links there, POW you get a visit.
There are many free directories to submit to. Many.
Here is an article I published last week. It has some links to some directory lists that will keep you busy, get you inbounds, get spidered and it will help increase your PR in the process…
10 Good Reasons For Submitting Articles To Ezines
The fastest way for a new website to get indexed. Just do it!
Positioning Yourself With Eemail.mp3
Creating an Avatar of Your Typical Customer
If I had to answer what one of the biggest problems most people have with their copy is, I’d have to answer that most are way off base when it comes to what their customers actually want and need. Actually, this reaches all the way across to product creation as well.
People think they know what their audience wants– often, they don’t. Do you? That’s what we’re going to focus on. With some course correction, you can make sure you’re always on top of what your audience wants out of your product. And it will follow that you can figure out what they want from your copy.
Sometimes, even when a copywriter does know their audience pretty well, that doesn’t really come across in their copy. They’ll sit there stunned at their dismal conversions with no idea what happened. When this happens, it’s a matter of not matching the message to the market. What I’ll share with you will help you with this problem.
Who Is Your Typical Customer?
Let’s start where it really counts– your customer. Who are they, really? If you could create a composite of your typical customer or target customer, what would that look like?
You can’t do a very good job of writing copy if you can’t answer this question. No worries- you can quickly find the answers you need.
You can read reviews of other products on the web to learn more about your customers. That might not be intuitive, but you can learn a whole lot by reading and observing how your customers respond to the products your competitors put out.
Are there competing or similar products to yours on Amazon? If so, that’s a great spot to start. Read the reviews of the most popular products. Pay attention to the enthusiastically positive and enthusiastically negative reviews. What can you learn from these?
You can learn what your audience likes and doesn’t like as far as products are concerned. But you can also learn more about what their passions are. You can learn more about the benefits these people want– these are great things to focus on in your copy.
Mostly focus on the problems of the people in your niche. Problems and benefits will help you in major ways with your copy. Know what these people struggle with and what they’re desperate for. How does your product help with these things? How does your product help with these things better than any other product?
You can also get to know your audience by reading posts on niche forums. What are the hot topics and threads? These are the things people are paying attention to and care the most about.
Read blog posts and the comments within these posts. Know what people care about, what problems they have, and what the benefits and solutions they seek are.
Fill yourself with knowledge about the people of your niche. Do this at least a little bit each day. You’ll want to spend extra time with this before writing a sales letter, of course.
Zero in on your exact topic and compound that with the niche audience knowledge you’ll have gained over time. That will give you a great running start when it comes to writing your sales page.
Interact With Those in Your Niche
Reading is helpful– studying is helpful. But what will probably be most helpful to you over time and really stick with you is interacting with the people of your niche. Those relationships and interactions will put you in a whole different league when it comes to making sales.
How do you interact with the people of your niche? Just jump right in. Make yourself an important part of the daily conversation of your niche.
You can do that on social media. Join social sites under your related brand. Follow brands and businesses in your niche. Follow those who are already in the middle of the conversation of your niche.
Really talk to people. Join relevant niche groups and get to know those who are most active. Learn what makes them tick and what really matters to them. Let them get to know you, too. That will help your conversions as well, as a side note.
Interact on your own niche blog and on others’ niche blogs. Jump right into the comments.
Again, do this a little each day and it will pay off for you. You will have a very solid idea of who your customer is and how you should write your copy to make the most sales.
Take Notes
Remember to take notes on what you find. It’s important to study the data you find– use sites like Quantcast to access the data and demographic information. I think you’ll find this information both helpful and interesting.
When you take notes as you go along, you’ll be able to piece together trends over time. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t work. You’ll see which problems, concerns, and topics are more evergreen for the people of your niche and which concerns are more ‘trendy.’
Also, it can help you to study already-successful marketers and copywriters in your niche. What works for them? What do they do with their sales letters? You never want to steal their ideas. But you can get inspiration from what you find.
If you know what’s selling well, and HOW those things are being sold, that can give you some great clues. Take notes on those things. Save swipe files of those things. These are ideas you can pull from when it’s time to write your copy.
Create a Customer Composite or Avatar
One of the most helpful things you can do comes right as you sit to write your copy, believe it or not. You can do all of this preparation and it will really help you out. But there’s one thing you can do that will push you over the edge and help you write out-of-this-world copy that absolutely connects with your desired audience.
You can create a customer composite or avatar that you put in your mind as you sit to write your copy. This is based on the research you’ve done and the interactions you’ve had with those in your niche.
This is the ‘average’ of your ideal customer. Put them in your mind. What do they look like? What is their salary? What is their family life like? What’s in their mind as they’re reading your copy? What is their pain like? What could take their pain away right now?
Find a picture of a model on Fotolia or a similar site that you can buy to store in a folder. Keep this by you as you write your copy. Literally create a character to keep by you as you write your copy.
Write your ‘sales letter’ as a literal letter to THIS person.
When you do it this way, your sales copy will have that human element that so many are missing.
Do you see how that works? This is the result of the studying you’ve done and the interactions you’ve had. This is the reminder you need that there are real people reading the sales letters you’re writing.
Creating a customer avatar like this will absolutely help you write better copy and get better results.
Write Better Copy Now That You Know Your Customer Better
Follow these tips and I promise that you’ll get better results. You’ll put yourself in a class with the best copywriters out there. Others will want to know your secrets… and this really isn’t that difficult at all to implement. I hope you’re feeling excited, because putting the ‘people’ back in your copy will make it more fun to write, will help you connect better, and will help you get more sales.