The Only Thing You Need to Know About Copywriting and Conversions
Recently, my husband was emailing with a reader and he received a refreshingly honest email that included this line:
“She claims that she is an excellent copywriter, yet nothing on the IttyBiz site seems to showcase this talent.”
I give the writer of this email credit for his honesty. Once your blog reaches a certain point everybody just sucks up to you because they want you to whore them out. Good for this dude.
My mother always said to me that when it comes to big business, if one person writes to you with an opinion, ten thousand people share that opinion but say nothing. Same thing applies to home business, just on a smaller scale. I have a feeling there aren’t ten thousand of you out there thinking what this guy thinks, but I’ll venture to guess he’s not the only one. I’d like to address that.
The definition of good copywriting:
Good copywriting compels your reader to do what you want them to do.
That’s it.
If you’re doing what I want you to do because of what I’ve been writing, my copy is good. If your readers are doing what you want them to do because of what you’ve been writing, your copy is good. That’s it.
What is compelling to one demographic is repulsive to others. If you know your demographic well and effectively target your copy to them, your product or service has to suck pretty badly before you’ll fail.
The objective of all copywriting is conversion.
Conversion means different things to different business models. Conversion for you might mean a new subscriber, the capture of an email address, a lead on a sale, an actual sale, whatever. What conversion means to the individual business is irrelevant.
Your copy is good if it converts. That’s it.
Not all copy is created equal.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples…
Tim Brownson is a Florida life coach. He does funky things like neuro-linguistic programming and hypnotherapy. He’s been known to write a book or two in his time and he sells those books on his site.
Pron Wear makes shirts. Really offensive shirts. These shirts are glorious in their vulgarity. Frankly, even I wouldn’t wear these shirts, and that’s saying something.
Now imagine they both have purchase buttons on their sites.
One button says, “Buy a fucking [insert product here] already.”
The other button says, “A better life is one click away.”
Now I haven’t exactly invested a lot of thought in these two lines of copy, but I have a pretty good feeling one would convert reasonably well on Tim Brownson’s site and the other on Pron Wear. If you were to switch them, they would convert badly. Reasonably good conversions indicate reasonably good copy. Bad conversions indicate bad copy.
The copy doesn’t change. The context and demographic are the differentiating factors.
It isn’t about the length of your sales letter. It isn’t about where you sit on the great yellow highlighter continuum. It doesn’t matter if your button says “Buy Now!” instead of “Sign Up!”
Good copy converts. That is all that matters. The end.
Next Post: IttyBiz: The Big Ones
Terrific article that delivers the goods on several levels, you cleverly disguised a short, potent, respect-earning sales letter as a clarification on persuasive copy — brava!
If it took an honest email (sent in-directly to Jamie) to prod your brain-share, power to it, you walked the talk. THAT earns our respect. Well done.
Yay, marketing school is back!
You are handling this remark better than I would. I think it would have sent me into at least four days curled up in a ball in my closet. Instead, you write something very useful.
Plus, prospect of Ittybiz stuff: very good thing.
“O’Malley, what does this look like to you?”
“Well, sir, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that information products were involved.”
“I just hope they used protection.”
“God help us all.”
I am so glad to read that you won’t be using one of those ugly sales pages. I hate hate hate them!!! I ALWAYS click off.
Well done on the comeback, I wouldn’t have been as nice about the remark in the first place but I love your answer.
Info products? Crap. More stuff I want to buy. Can’t wait.
One: Very succinct point re: copywriting. I like that.
Which means, two: I’m also very happy you won’t be running long sales pages with lots of “shit thrown in it.” That just makes my eyes glaze over.
And three: respect rules!
Hi Naomi, love your blog, it’s inspiring me to be a little more “real” about my work and in my blog to attract clients who are the right fit for me.
I specialize in working with musicians. The music business is getting very internet, I’m sure you all know.
When a blogger I respect asked me to affiliate with his new program and I went to his “sale page” – that huge long tacky thing full of outrageous promises and cheesy pics of “fulfilled” people – even though I knew it was a quality product – just couldn’t do it.
I guess those tacky long-ass sales pages must work with some audiences, because they are everywhere!
But I’m with you (see how I’m sucking up?). When I do my own info products in the future I just want to keep it real too. If I’ve gained my readers trust and respect, then hopefully they’ll buy…without all the yellow hi-lighted copy and 27 bonuses ‘enticing’ them.
Though I’d be curious to see what the ‘IttyBizBonusez’ would be. Hmm…so…many…nasty…ideas…
Good article. Your two clients cited in the post sound like polar opposites (which is why you chose them – for contrast); but as a result I’m left curious about how you would define your own business demographic and how your writing style (which I enjoy reading) fits with your conversion goals.
It’s all about knowing your audience. The “sucker born every minute” design style just wouldn’t fit.
Perhaps that e-mailer should have been directed to the post “What’s Your Small Business”. That seemed to generate quite a conversion, in terms of the number of your readers who took you up on it and wrote a post of their own. (Click my name to see my contribution)
Spot on. I am loving this. I hear Aretha in the background baby.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care, TCB
Tell you what it means to mean….conversions.
Slam dunk.
Naomi, you got it babe.
We can slap someone in the face to wake them up, but we have to pay the consequences. If you slap someone around with a long sales pages you disrespect them. Yes they may buy something, but they aren’t as happy if you give them the respect they deserve and buy something because they think you have a good product. They are more likely to be repeat customers and those people are the foundation of a company.
I love this article, it’s so right on. I’m with many of the commenters here, I HATE long sales copy. I NEVER respond to it. I NEVER click through. Really. I brought it up once on a copywriter’s list I belong to, and the consensus is that long copy still works. I find that contrary to what most people say about the web – short and sweet, keep it on one screen, don’t make people scroll, etc. In the end, it does come down to audience I guess. I just personally don’t happen to know anyone who enjoys reading that stuff. No matter how good the product is, I always think – if it’s so good why do you have to keep saying it over and over as if to brainwash me? If it’s so good, how come you have to give me five hundred “free gifts” (another term I hate – redundancy rules) in order to buy it? If it’s so great, why can’t it just stand on it’s own?
Christie’s post makes me think that those “hypnotic writing” super-long-sales-letters have something in common with the other thing we all hate: spam. But the almighty dollar seems to indicate that, like the idiots that are buying from junk flyers stuck on our doorknobs, or the must-have infomercial 3 am pitch: SOMEONE out there is buying this gunk. With costs so low to keep banging it out, even if they only get one dope per 100 who buys, the ROI works for them — ugh.
Thanks for reminding us that we don’t want those drunken-one-night-stands of ‘push’ sales; we want the long-term respectability of repeated ‘attracted’ sales… or, if not sales, then whatever your personal conversion perversion might be!
Can’t wait to learn more from you Naomi! Non-sleezy sales copy sounds GREAT!
I guess Im ass kissing ass becausee I agree with ya….I hate long sales copy…it make me feel as if Im being talked down to, taken advantage of and as if I have had a large chunk of my valuable time stolen from me…I have never felt pressed to buy from these sites. I click away and never come again
When I created my site(still very much in creation mode) I avoided the long sales copy and have had moms ( my target) thank me for the fact that I got to the point
I think your copy is very good..I feel as if Im having a converstation with a good friend that I could be completly honest with
Keep up the good work
Blessing
I know what you’re working on:
“IttyPron: 100 Fucking Great Marketing Tips”
Am I right? Am I, people?
[...] I moved into writing and editing for businesses. (Hint to writers: this is called “copywriting” and “copyediting” and pays about five times more than garden variety “writing” or [...]
[...] The Only Thing You Need to Know about Copywritign and Conversions at IttyBiz. [...]
What is an information product? (Remember that there are no stupid questions, lol)
The guy who made that comment obviously hasn’t actually read your posts here, because when I read, that’s all I think: Damn, she’s a fine copywriter. Doesn’t matter what you’re writing; you always sell me. You’re confident, you know what the hell you’re talking about, you’re professional (yes, you can still be professional and swear, in my opinion!), concise, grammatically correct; you write very well in general and you are most of all convincing. What more could this dude want?
The guy who made that comment obviously hasn’t actually read your posts here, because when I read, that’s all I think: Damn, she’s a fine copywriter. Doesn’t matter what you’re writing; you always sell me. You’re confident, you know what the hell you’re talking about, you’re professional (yes, you can swear and still be professional, in my opinion!), concise, grammatically correct; you write very well in general and you are most of all convincing. What more could this dude want?
Darlin’, you may or may not be a good copywriter just as I may or may not be a good copywriter.
It depends on the day, the weather, the trends, the person’s mood, your mood, the color of the sky, whether there was traffic that morning, whether the coffee is hot, the graphics on your site, the lack of graphics on your site, how annoying a toddler is being for the reader, how annoying your toddler is being…
My point? Writing – ANY writing – is so fucking subjective that it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re a good writer. You *can* write. So can I. Our copywriting skills are both probably well above average.
But it doesn’t matter – because someone will always hate what we write. Someone will always think we suck. And that’s part of the job. And that’s okay.
Those people go to our competition, and the world is a happy place.
PS. Creating a buzz sells can be way more effective than long copy.
Reminder to self: Monikers don’t change unless you make them change. I love when I look like a fool carrying over a moniker from a previous post…
You have the stats to prove that your copy works – because we are all here – commenting or lurking – you know we’re here, he doesn’t see your stats. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have made that comment….or maybe he just doesn’t really understand what blogging is all about? or maybe he’s a relative and wants you to fail!!!
You hit the nail on the head – it’s about relationships – building them and creating something of value for people. Those direct sales guys with that old school crap for copy shite never understood that…..and apparently still don’t.
Direct Marketer here.
I smile when I read the “I hate long copy” comments. I expect it’s true, you do hate long copy, but the fact is long copy sells. Not to you perhaps, or at least not right now, but providing an interested prospect with all the information they need to make an informed decision, information relative to their needs and situation, is an efficient use of real estate in many circumstances. Good copywriting compels your reader to do what you want them to do. Long or short, it depends on what you are selling and the needs of the customer.
Badly written long copy doesn’t sell. And a lot of long copy I see on the web is badly written. Crafting good long copy is a skill honed over time and, sadly, it seems few are willing to take the time to master it. When it is mastered long copy reads like short copy. This post for example.
I agree that bullying a customer into a sale isn’t likely to build a long-term customer. Another axiom of direct marketing is, “The most important sales isn’t the first sale, it’s the second.” You want long-term customers. But “extremely persuasive” doesn’t equal “Bullying.” Providing just enough information to generate a confident conversion is the way to go.
Hell yea. Respect is a key factor in conversion if you want repeat customers.
By the way, in NLP this is called “ecology.” By bullying someone into buying, you have negative side-effects in the business-customer system, like toxic waste in a river. By cleaning up your processes, you gain the customer without the waste.
The net is already full of too much toxic copywaste as it is. If I read one more long-form letter I’m gonna puke.
Thanks for giving me all this info so late at night… I’ll be up reciting marketing 101.
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
http://www.grammology.com
[...] Naomi said in her post on copywriting and conversion, “The context and demographic are the differentiating factors” when it comes to writing [...]
OK, so I have to say this because I’m a Libra and believe in balance and all that stuff. The person who sent that e-mail made this comment in what I thought was a pretty constructive way. The point they made was a good one: write for your audience. I think they just didn’t realize what audience we were going for. It inspired this post because if one person says it, a lot are probably thinking it.
Can we *please* stop calling things “information products”? WTF does that even mean? Books? Software?
If you’re selling bananas, don’t call them a hydrocarbon based food products.
[...] IttyBiz – The Only Thing You Need to Know About Copywriting and Conversions. Of course, if that was literally true, you’d never have to read my blog again. I don’t suggest you stop reading my blog. I do suggest you start reading IttyBiz. [...]
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[...] The Only Thing You Need to Know about Copywriting and Conversions [...]
[...] The Only Thing You Need to Know about Copywriting and Conversions [...]