The Underdog Millionaire Blog » email marketing

5 Reasons Why Your Copywriting Isn’t Working

Joshua Black — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:42:50 +0000

(If you came here from my post at Procopytips.com, welcome aboard! Feel free to look around and don’t forget to sign up for the Underdog Millionaire Tip Sheet in the upper left hand corner of the screen)

Today I want to talk a little bit about your sales letters, your advertising, your website, or anywhere else that you may be attempting to use copywriting to persuade your customer to take the leap and buy some stuff from you.

If you have been reading my stuff for any length of time, you know that I like to talk about the power of copywriting and have given you a few tips along the way.

However, there are a few “newbie” mistakes that many people make, me included. Before YOU fall into that category, I figured I would save you the trouble and list them off right here, so you can learn from my mistakes.

Here are 5 reasons why your copywriting is not working:

1. You are using too much hype- Long gone are the days when you can just yell at people with your writing. Sounding like a used car salesman from the 80′s with hyped-up claims and too-goo-to-be-true promises, is a thing of the past.

You to need to build excitement in your writing, don’t get me wrong, but you have to do it in a way that is sounds like you are talking to the person over a cup of coffee instead of screaming at them from 2 inches away, using a megaphone.

2. You make it hard for the customer to buy- Make the purchase process stupid-easy for your customer. If they have to fill out a huge form, or bring in a coupon with a sales receipt, a copy of their tax returns, and two forms of ID, they just won’t show up. Have one-click purchasing. Use an ’800 number.

Try to get your buying process down to the simplest activity or you could be making it too difficult for your customer to be motivated to do business with you.

3. You forgot to ask for the sale- This is a classic marketing fumble that is seen around the world. You have to ask your customer to take some kind of action. If you don’t, you aren’t going to get them to do it on their own. Tell them to pick up the phone. Tell them to press the order button. Tell them to click here.

4. You are not contacting your customer frequently- If you send your sales letters, coupons, or other advertising out only once, it’s going to go straight in the trash. People have a natural marketing filter and need to be in contact with your message about 5-7 times before they will even think about making a purchase decision. Some of your straggling customers could take up to a year to decide, but they will eventually say yes.

If you have to pick between sending to many people once, or a few people a lot of times, pick the second one.

There are only 4 ways that a customer should be removed from your list- They die, they move, they no longer want what you’re selling, they are a total pain in your arse.

5. You are not marketing in the right place- You might be sending your sales letters to people that don’t want what you are selling. By carefully carving out who your target market is, by using plenty of research and pre-qualifying your prospects, you will have a much better chance of closing the deal.

What’s number 6? What copywriting tips do you like to use to make sure that your sales letters are successful? Add a comment below.

If you want to be able to create a sales letter really quickly that closes the sale and brings in tons of money for your business, then check out the Ultimate Sales Letter System.

Until tomorrow,

Joshua Black

www.sales-letter-system.com

Click the image to get the FREE Underdog Millionaire wealth Pack!

*******************************************
Copyright 2010, Outer Limit Productions LLC.
All rights reserved.

Download these other great products to help
your business earn huge piles of moolah:

http://www.product-pricing-strategy.com
http://www.how-to-business-network.com
http://www.ranking-higher-seo.com
http://www.UnderdogMillionaire.com/blog
http://www.sales-letter-system.com
http://www.closing-the-sale.com
http://www.information-product-report.com
http://www.UltimateUSPcreator.com
http://www.underdog-success-formula.com

_________________________________________

Fear Marketing- How to Get Your Emails Opened

Joshua Black — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:19:51 +0000

If you own any kind of business that has at least a tiny web presence, then you are probably sending out emails to your customers.

Whether you are contacting them on a frequent basis (just like us at the Underdog Millionaire) or you are occasionally sending them something to remind them you are alive, you want your customer to open the darn thing first, right?

Just like getting your customer to open your direct mail, there is a nice tactic that you can use to have your customers flock to open your emails as if their lives depended on it…

…and actually that is EXACTLY how you are going to position it.

We are talking about fear marketing…

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Now before you get your brain in a tizzy over this, we are not about to do ANYTHING illegal or unethical, so keep your itchy finger off of the “unsubscribe” button for just a second and hear me out.

Fear based marketing is a positioning tactic that you are going to take with your product. It’s all about removing a pain in the customer’s life.

People will bend over backwards to get some sort of pain out of their lives, spending almost anything necessary to IMPROVE their situation, but they will delay adding pleasure for all kinds of different reasons.

When you add fear marketing to mix, you are showing your customer that they will face some kind of a loss if they don’t purchase your product, or their quality of life could be worse without you in their lives.

You are not going to terrify your prospect, although that sometimes works.

You are just going to give them a little nudge over the cliff to get them to start thinking about “what if” situations, where something bad could be happening to them if they don’t purchase your product.

For example:

Let’s say that you own a car repair shop that specialized in brakes. The headline of your customer email might read “Did you know that the number one cause of traffic fatalities is brake failure? Protect your family today”

Maybe you own a landscaping company and you are pushing mulch this month- “Did you know that without mulch, you could lose thousands of dollars in landscaping in a single, hot day?”

…or maybe you have a professional consulting business of some kind that sell intangible products- “How the average business owner can get sued if they avoid doing this one thing”

It’s all about getting that email opened. Remember, you can write the best mail possible, but if there are no eyeballs looking at it, then you have wasted your time.

Fear marketing is just another tool in your small business toolbox. It’s not something that you will use every day, but when you do, it can have a BIG impact on your open rate.

If you want to learn even more about copywriting and you want the simplest way to develop a sales letter, advertisement, or even an email that sells like golden hotcakes, then click on over to the Underdog Sales Letter System.

NOW it’s your turn. Give me an example of when you were influenced, or have influenced your customers with fear-based marketing.

Until tomorrow,

Joshua Black

www.sales-letter-system.com

*******************************************
Copyright 2010, Outer Limit Productions LLC.
All rights reserved.

Download these other great products to help
your business earn huge piles of moolah:

_________________________________________

What You Don’t Know About Copywriting Could Kill You…

Joshua Black — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:10:47 +0000

Today’s Tip Sheet will be of vital importance to your small business. It’s all about how to create mouth watering copy that will draw in your customers like a bunch of parched elephants to a watering hole.

…ok so the things you don’t know about copy
won’t actually kill you, but they could be
silently killing your potential revenue.

There is a right way and a wrong way to sell a
person in print and I hope to decode some of that
with you today.

Copywriting is selling in print, one thing to
one person at a time.

ONE THING TO ONE PERSON- Remember that.

Don’t try to sell a whole catalog of stuff and
then expect the person to make a decision. They
will pick NOTHING.

Ok.

Now that you have decided on that one thing you
are going to sell, you need to find an EMOTIONAL
way (not a logical way) to deliver that product
to your customer.

It all begins with the HEADLINE. This is where
you should spend almost 50% of your writing time.

Just like my ridiculous example in this post
(got your attention didn’t it), you want to
grab your prospect by the proverbial throat and
not let go until they make a decision to buy or
not.

Don’t EVER lie in your headline, like I just did.
I was trying to make a point.

If you lie in your headline, you will INSTANTLY
lose the fragile trust of your prospect and you
won’t sell a penny’s worth of anything.

Get their attention and get them to keep reading.

Now you write a LEAD, which is a short sentence
that sparks even more curiosity than the headline
did, getting the prospect to read even further,
trying to get the answer to the question you posed
in the headline.

Then you need to stir up even more emotions by
putting the product in the reader’s world with
a compelling story.

Think about rags to riches if you are selling
something that might make the person money.

Think about showing a person’s pain and then
showing how your product cures it. This is
not for physical pain only, this can be any
pain in a person’s life.

For example, a messy closet is a customer’s
pain. Your ACME Mighty Closet Blaster will
get rid of that customer’s pain.

Then you need to CLOSE the customer.

Show them that they really want your product.

After the close you need to create a CALL TO
ACTION and get the customer to do something,
check a box, place an order, call a number.

After the close, you should have a GUARANTEE.

The guarantee helps the customer drop their
guard of skepticism. You want them to feel as
confident with the purchase as possible, because
they are doing business with someone they
don’t necessarily know.

That’s all their is to it. Let’s recap.

Here is the Underdog Millionaire Copywriting
Formula:
1. Headline
2. Lead
3. Story
4. Close
5. Call to action
6. Guarantee

Now, if you are really serious about writing
your own sales letters for your product or
service, then you should definitely click
here and learn how to write your own sales
letter in as little as 8 hours.

http://www.sales-letter-system.com

Until Tomorrow,
Joshua Black
http://www.sales-letter-system.com

http://www.underdogmillionaire.com/blog

P.S. Sales letters can be used for all kinds of things, just direct selling. You can use them for events, lead generation, grand openings and much more.

Click the image to get the FREE Underdog Millionaire wealth Pack!
*******************************************
Copyright 2010, Outer Limit Productions LLC.
All rights reserved.

_________________________________________

The Single Teenie Secret That Will Make or Break Your Marketing

Joshua Black — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:21:37 +0000

Today’s Underdog Millionaire Tip Sheet
is going to be short and to the point.

It’s Monday. You have a ton of stuff
on your plate, I’m sure, and I no I do
so let’s get going.

-You can have the most perfect advertisement.

-You can have the most perfect sales letter.

-You may have written the most well-thought-
out email to your customer list.

-Perhaps you spent hours developing a flyer
to pass out, describing your business to
the T.

-Maybe you got your sales message scripted
perfectly on your voicemail.

-Your radio advertisement is locked down
and you have never recorded anything you are
more proud of.

…but none of that REALLY matters.

If you don’t have this one thing right, all
of those hundreds of hours of effort will
be all for naught.

If you don’t get this one thing right, your
customer will never see that letter, read
that flyer, open that email, or leave a
voicemail.

What the heck am I talking about?

It’s all about the headlines, baby. Your
headlines could make or break your whole
business model.

I love headlines. Headlines to me are like
gold, because if you aren’t captivated by
the headlines that I am writing in your
email subject line, or my next blog post
title, then all of that work is invisible
and I don’t get paid.

I’m sure you want to get paid too.

That’s what it’s all about, right? Well if
you want to be a total rock star with your
next set of headlines then you need to
have the tools to write an amazing sales
letter.

The sales letter is how we sell in print.
Whether it’s an ad on the internet, an email
to your customers, a sign in the front
window of your shop, or the graphics on the
side of your vehicle.

If you want to REALLY separate yourself from
all of the other noise out there and you
want to grab your customer’s attention so
that they will read the rest of your marketing
message, then you need the Ultimate Sales
Letter System.

Click here to download your own copy now:

http://www.sales-letter-system.com

You can go from “ho-hum” to “oh wow!” in
just a few hours by using the techniques found
in this valuable report.

Click here to take your small business to the
next level in sales, no matter what business
you are in:

http://www.sales-letter-system.com

Until tomorrow,

Joshua Black
*******************************************
Copyright 2010, Outer Limit Productions LLC.
All rights reserved.

Download these other great products to help
your business earn huge piles of moolah:

_________________________________________

3 Tips to Sell More Stuff- Scare Your Customers Before Halloween

Joshua Black — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:40:45 +0000

One of the biggest motivators for closing
a sale is fear.

Now, I’m not talking about horror movie-
type fear. I’m talking about fear of loss.

Today’s tip needs to be used with care
and if you abuse it, you will see a huge
decrease in it’s effectiveness.

However, it is one powerful way to get
your customer out of their La-Z-Boy Recliner
and into your business.

…sometimes you just need to scare the
living crap out of your customer in order
to get them to make a purchase decision.

Fear-based marketing bombards us everyday
from seatbelt ads to shampoo commercials, to
the one that really makes my stomach turn…

nail fungus ads- blahhhhhh.
So, how can you make your next little piece
of advertising just as powerful as a nail
fungus ad?

Well, you need to find a hot button for your
customer. What is something that keeps them
up at night with worry?

Here are 3 tips that you can use to add a
little fear in your sales letters
http://www.sales-letter-system.com
and marketing material:

1. Does the product offer protection for the
customer’s family in any way? Even if you sell
shampoo, this can be a very powerful angle to
take.

People will walk in front of a train for their
families, so they will definitely be willing
to buy the right products to protect them.

2. Does the product offer protection for the
customer’s image/health/sanity/or success?

If you go after the well-being of an individual
this can also be a very powerful motivator for
closing the deal.

3. Does the product offer protection for
the person’s money or possessions?

Here is where you really turn up the
heat on the fear of loss.

This can be used for everything from consulting,
to weed control for lawns, to insurance and legal,
to burglar alarms.

Fear-based marketing is a powerful tool
and if you put it in your sales letters
correctly, you can bring in a lot more
customers that you were before.

If you really want to know how to write a
powerful sales letter, fly your broom on
over to: http://www.sales-letter-system.com

Until tomorrow,

Joshua Black

P.S. 4 out of 5 bogus doctors recommend that
if you don’t use a sales letter in your
business it could kill you… think about it.

http://www.sales-letter-system.com

Download these other great products to help
your business earn huge piles of moolah:

_________________________________________

Make Your Broccoli Taste Like Hotdogs

Joshua Black — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:13:35 +0000

I’m about to go on an 11 hour road trip to
Nebraska for another black belt test in
Karate, so before I leave my humble abode
I wanted to give you a great tip I learned
from copywriter Ben Settle.

Here goes…

If you have an email list (and I am just as
guilty of this from time to time) try not
to just give your customers a bunch of boring
facts.

Try not to teach, instead, give them FUN.

The teaching is the broccoli.

People don’t really have time for broccoli in
their lives.

They just want FUN. They want hot dogs all the
time.

The next time you feel the need to teach your
list about some fact you think they should know,
try telling it as a story.

Maybe it’s a made up story, maybe it’s a permanent
story.

Either way, if you can turn the broccoli into a
something that seems like a hot dog, but the
customer is still getting the nutrients from the
information they need (broccoli), you just
disguised it with FUN.

Let’s say you needed to give a marketing lesson,
for example:

You needed to tell people that they need to create
a call to action in every sales letter they create.

Instead of just saying that, you can paint a silly
image of a huge sloth-like customer stuck to their
couch and you need to convince them to get up.

Show your customers that in order to move this
creature over to the phone, your copy has to be
so convincing that they will feel like their life
depends on it.

Got it?

Hot dogs, not broccoli. Ok gotta go drive a million
miles.

Until tomorrow,
Joshua Black

http://www.Facebook.com/underdogmillionaire
http://www.UnderdogMillionaire.com/blog
http://www.sales-letter-system.com
http://www.closing-the-sale.com
http://www.information-product-report.com
http://www.UltimateUSPcreator.com
http://www.Underdog-success-formula.com

(note: any replies to these tip sheets may be
used in future promotional material by
Outer Limit Productions LLC and by sending
a reply, you are giving your consent)

You Can’t Wipe Your Feet on a Format

Joshua Black — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:35:16 +0000

So as you may have guessed I belong to a
bunch of email lists from various gurus
all over the web.

Mostly I use them for education and
amusement, but many times it turns into
a training exercise…

…for what NOT to do.

You see, these guys are at the top of
their game, the height of their careers,
making hundreds of thousands, even millions
of dollars on-line.

Last night I had to do something very
painful. I unsubscribed from one of the
most famous men alive in copywriting
today.

He has tens of thousands invested in his
web site, which is operated by a team of
people.

…but you know what?

His emails suck.

No, not the content, but the FORMAT.

He uses a trend that way too many big
shots use in their emails.

His copywriting is top-notch and he sucks
you in with a great headline.

But once you’re inside, he only gives
you a few sentences and makes you click
on a link that goes to his blog for
the rest.

…but it gets even worse than that.

Once you get to his blog, they shorten
the story on the home page so you have
to click another link to read the whole
thing.

It’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve
ever seen. They think they are tracking
open rates and they think they are
creating a multi-phase approach so that
people will be more accepting of an offer.

Why make someone jump through that many
hoops to read a free email?

Oh well.

I know that you can count on this guy to
keep giving you the whole enchilada every
day.

No stupid formatting here.

I suggest you do the same with your email
lists.

Another word about formatting.

You might wonder why my emails are formatted
to be so skinny too.

Well, my friend, I will let out another
little secret.

I do that so the people that read the emails
on mobile devices like Blackberries can
read them easily.

You always want to make it EASY for your
customers to digest your marketing message.

No matter what tool they are using to digest
it, make it easy for THEM, not you.

Down with half emails and clicks to blogs!

…and they say writing an email every day
to your list is insane and they will all
leave.

Well, you’re still here and more join every
day so I must be doing something right.

I guess it goes to show that the gurus don’t
have it all figured out either.

Sometimes you just gotta take off your fuzzy
slippers and climb down from the ivory tower
every once in awhile.

To your success,
Joshua Black

http://www.UnderdogMillionaire.com/blog
http://www.sales-letter-system.com
http://www.closing-the-sale.com
http://www.information-product-report.com
http://www.UltimateUSPcreator.com
http://www.Underdog-success-formula.com