Online Home Business - Use Direct Selling Principles
Online Home Business
I hear it all the time, “I want my web site to look extremely professional.”
My response is always, “So you don’t mind being broke?”
People have different reasons for building a web site. Some want to have a
pat on the back and to be told what a good job they did. Others may want to
have their friends look at the site and be impressed. Others may just want
respect in the marketplace and to be looked at as an expert.
All of those reasons are OK. My customers and I want to make money from
our web sites. So we follow a strategy designed to help us do that.
I’m not against good looking web sites. I have nice graphics on my web
sites. I spend between $100 and $200 on each one to get professional
graphics done. The focus of the sites though is on SELLING.
Your web site either makes the sale or you stay broke.
If you have a professional writer, an English professor, or a web designer
create the words for your site, then you might as well quit now while you’re
ahead.
All of the above could of course do a very good job IF they have
copywriting and ad writing experience. If they haven’t written successful
ads before, then fire them…and do it quickly before you waste any more
money.
A good web site is intended to SELL something. If you want people to buy
your product, then you have to SELL it to them. If you want people to give
you their email and contact information, then you have to SELL them on the benefits of doing that.
If you hire someone to write the words for your web site, then they must be
an experienced ad copywriter. They should be able to show you other ads
they’ve written and tell you the kinds of conversion numbers those sites
have received.
The best person on the planet to write the words for your web site is YOU.
You may say, “I’m not a writer.” My response is GOOD. Then you’re
qualified (or can become qualified quickly). Creating words for your web
site is all about being personal and simply following a simple common sense conversation.
You grab the visitor’s attention, tell them the benefits of your offer, show
them how other people have liked it, and make it risk free to try out. If you
were to sit down and tell me why I should buy your product, that would be
90% of your web site copy right there.
Hint: Top copywriters (who earn $15,000 or more per ad + royalties) will
often interview the best sales person at a company…and a word-for-word
transcript of that salesperson’s pitch becomes the rough draft for their web
site piece.
I can’t cover all the principles of ad writing in this report (we have our
copywriting course for that), but I want to cover the most common mistakes
right here.
When I do a web site review for someone (for $250) or an hour long phone
consultation (for $1,000), these are often the very same mistakes I find on
their web pages. So save yourself some cash and fix these now…
Direct Response Mistake #1 – No Headline
I’ve seen, “Welcome to My Web Page,” so many times that the very sight of it makes me sick. Most web sites (over 80%) don’t have any clearly visible headline, not to mention a good one.
The very first thing someone should see when they visit your web site is
NOT your graphics. It’s NOT a flash presentation. It’s a headline. Your
headline should be at the very top of the page and it should be in a larger
font than the rest of the web site. In most cases it should be in a different
color than the rest of the text.
Sidenote: Your main text color should be black on a white background.
You can have other colors on your site, but the background behind the text
should be white. The color of your main text font should be black. No
exceptions. This is the easiest format to read.
Your headline is the ad for your web site. It has to immediately make a
surfer STOP dead in their tracks and start reading your first sentence of the
ad copy. It should be giving them the BIG benefit up front. Visit my web
sites listed in the beginning of this report and you’ll see a dozen examples of this. If you headline doesn’t make people stop and read more, then the whole web site is worthless. No one will even read it.
Direct Response Mistake #2 – No Benefits
This is a basic copywriting principle. Your web site should cover both
features and benefits. The features of your product are it’s description and
what it is. Benefits are what it does for your customer.
You should always combine both into your sales presentation. If your offer
is for an ebook, then the fact that it’s in Adobe Acrobat format is a feature.
The benefit is that anyone can open it using the free reader and they get it
instantly when they order.
If your product is a tax course and it comes with easy fill-in-the-blanks
forms, that is a feature. The benefit to that would be that it saves time and
reduces IRS worries as they get to use your forms to document everything.
In other words, everything I’m doing on my web site is appealing to both the emotional side and the logical side of my customer. People buy based on emotion, and then justify their decision to others based on logic.
Think about a Mercedes. People buy a Mercedes because of how important
it makes them feel…and it’s status symbol power. The reason they tell you
they bought the Mercedes is because of it’s impressive reliability. That’s the emotion and the logic combined.
Visit some of my web sites. Print out the sales letters. Pay special attention
to reading through the bullet points. In almost all of them, you’ll see both
the feature and the benefit mentioned.
Direct Response Mistake #3 – No Personality
You don’t write your web site to come from “we.” Way too many
webmasters are trying to make their web site appear like a large faceless
corporation. And that’s a big mistake.
Your web site should appear to be a letter written from one person. In many
cases it is even a good idea to put your picture on the web site. Sign the website at the bottom with a graphic which looks like your signature (don’t use areal signature as someone may copy it).
Talk about yourself as I. Talk to your customer as You. If you use figures
of speech when you talk, then put them on your web site (as long as most of
your customers would understand them). Write the copy for the web site
like you were writing a letter to a friend selling your product.
Be friendly. Be approachable. Your web site copy is not coming from your
company. It’s coming from you. You stand behind your guarantee. You
stand behind your promises. So always tell them who you are …and why
they should trust you.
Direct Response Mistake #4 – No Testimonials
Everybody wants to know what kind of results other customers have
received from your products and services. So use testimonials from
customers on your web site.
The more testimonials you have, the better your sales numbers will be.
The best testimonials are ones which state specific results.
“Using your information I made $4,453 in just 7 days.”
“I lose 23 pounds in only 2 months on your program.”
“My golf score went down by 8 strokes the first time I played.”
“I save $8,434 off my 2002 tax bill with your help.”
Testimonials which say you’re a great person or are non-specific are not
nearly as effective…although they can be used until you get more specific
ones.
Your testimonials should say the person’s full name and city/state if at all
possible (on my web sites you’ll notice I use web site addresses since my
customers are web businesses).
If you have them available, you can even use pictures. A picture of the
customer beside their testimonial increases the credibility. Before and after
pictures are especially effective for weight loss type of offers.
If you have recorded testimonials, you can turn those into Real Audio files.
Post them to your web site and put a link beside the written testimonials that visitors can click and hear the testimonial in your customer’s own words.
Direct Response Mistake #5 – No Guarantee
Buying anything is risky. Buying online is even more risky. You’re buying
a product unseen and you probably don’t know much about the person or
company you’re buying from.
So take out as much of the risk as possible for your customers. Offer them a
full money back guarantee for as long of a period as possible…90 days, 180
days, one year, etc.
You take all the risk. In most cases I even call this a “trial.” If for any
reason they try out the product and don’t like it, they can return it for a full
refund. No questions asked. They don’t have to decide today. Purchase it,
test out the techniques, and then decide if it’s right for you or not.
You should be taking all the risk for your customers and offering a full
money back guarantee.
Yes, sometimes you will get burned. People will buy your product and copy
it. Or they may buy a digital product from you, copy it, and then ask for
their money back. That kind of jerk is out there. They are only a very small
portion of your business, and the increased sales from the guarantee more
than makes up for them.
I hear it all the time, “I want my web site to look extremely professional.”
My response is always, “So you don’t mind being broke?”
People have different reasons for building a web site. Some want to have a
pat on the back and to be told what a good job they did. Others may want to
have their friends look at the site and be impressed. Others may just want
respect in the marketplace and to be looked at as an expert.
All of those reasons are OK. My customers and I want to make money from
our web sites. So we follow a strategy designed to help us do that.
I’m not against good looking web sites. I have nice graphics on my web
sites. I spend between $100 and $200 on each one to get professional
graphics done. The focus of the sites though is on SELLING.
Your web site either makes the sale or you stay broke.
If you have a professional writer, an English professor, or a web designer
create the words for your site, then you might as well quit now while you’re
ahead.
All of the above could of course do a very good job IF they have
copywriting and ad writing experience. If they haven’t written successful
ads before, then fire them…and do it quickly before you waste any more
money.
A good web site is intended to SELL something. If you want people to buy
your product, then you have to SELL it to them. If you want people to give
you their email and contact information, then you have to SELL them on the benefits of doing that.
If you hire someone to write the words for your web site, then they must be
an experienced ad copywriter. They should be able to show you other ads
they’ve written and tell you the kinds of conversion numbers those sites
have received.
The best person on the planet to write the words for your web site is YOU.
You may say, “I’m not a writer.” My response is GOOD. Then you’re
qualified (or can become qualified quickly). Creating words for your web
site is all about being personal and simply following a simple common sense conversation.
You grab the visitor’s attention, tell them the benefits of your offer, show
them how other people have liked it, and make it risk free to try out. If you
were to sit down and tell me why I should buy your product, that would be
90% of your web site copy right there.
Hint: Top copywriters (who earn $15,000 or more per ad + royalties) will
often interview the best sales person at a company…and a word-for-word
transcript of that salesperson’s pitch becomes the rough draft for their web
site piece.
I can’t cover all the principles of ad writing in this report (we have our
copywriting course for that), but I want to cover the most common mistakes
right here.
When I do a web site review for someone (for $250) or an hour long phone
consultation (for $1,000), these are often the very same mistakes I find on
their web pages. So save yourself some cash and fix these now…
Direct Response Mistake #1 – No Headline
I’ve seen, “Welcome to My Web Page,” so many times that the very sight of it makes me sick. Most web sites (over 80%) don’t have any clearly visible headline, not to mention a good one.
The very first thing someone should see when they visit your web site is
NOT your graphics. It’s NOT a flash presentation. It’s a headline. Your
headline should be at the very top of the page and it should be in a larger
font than the rest of the web site. In most cases it should be in a different
color than the rest of the text.
Sidenote: Your main text color should be black on a white background.
You can have other colors on your site, but the background behind the text
should be white. The color of your main text font should be black. No
exceptions. This is the easiest format to read.
Your headline is the ad for your web site. It has to immediately make a
surfer STOP dead in their tracks and start reading your first sentence of the
ad copy. It should be giving them the BIG benefit up front. Visit my web
sites listed in the beginning of this report and you’ll see a dozen examples of this. If you headline doesn’t make people stop and read more, then the whole web site is worthless. No one will even read it.
Direct Response Mistake #2 – No Benefits
This is a basic copywriting principle. Your web site should cover both
features and benefits. The features of your product are it’s description and
what it is. Benefits are what it does for your customer.
You should always combine both into your sales presentation. If your offer
is for an ebook, then the fact that it’s in Adobe Acrobat format is a feature.
The benefit is that anyone can open it using the free reader and they get it
instantly when they order.
If your product is a tax course and it comes with easy fill-in-the-blanks
forms, that is a feature. The benefit to that would be that it saves time and
reduces IRS worries as they get to use your forms to document everything.
In other words, everything I’m doing on my web site is appealing to both the emotional side and the logical side of my customer. People buy based on emotion, and then justify their decision to others based on logic.
Think about a Mercedes. People buy a Mercedes because of how important
it makes them feel…and it’s status symbol power. The reason they tell you
they bought the Mercedes is because of it’s impressive reliability. That’s the emotion and the logic combined.
Visit some of my web sites. Print out the sales letters. Pay special attention
to reading through the bullet points. In almost all of them, you’ll see both
the feature and the benefit mentioned.
Direct Response Mistake #3 – No Personality
You don’t write your web site to come from “we.” Way too many
webmasters are trying to make their web site appear like a large faceless
corporation. And that’s a big mistake.
Your web site should appear to be a letter written from one person. In many
cases it is even a good idea to put your picture on the web site. Sign the website at the bottom with a graphic which looks like your signature (don’t use areal signature as someone may copy it).
Talk about yourself as I. Talk to your customer as You. If you use figures
of speech when you talk, then put them on your web site (as long as most of
your customers would understand them). Write the copy for the web site
like you were writing a letter to a friend selling your product.
Be friendly. Be approachable. Your web site copy is not coming from your
company. It’s coming from you. You stand behind your guarantee. You
stand behind your promises. So always tell them who you are …and why
they should trust you.
Direct Response Mistake #4 – No Testimonials
Everybody wants to know what kind of results other customers have
received from your products and services. So use testimonials from
customers on your web site.
The more testimonials you have, the better your sales numbers will be.
The best testimonials are ones which state specific results.
“Using your information I made $4,453 in just 7 days.”
“I lose 23 pounds in only 2 months on your program.”
“My golf score went down by 8 strokes the first time I played.”
“I save $8,434 off my 2002 tax bill with your help.”
Testimonials which say you’re a great person or are non-specific are not
nearly as effective…although they can be used until you get more specific
ones.
Your testimonials should say the person’s full name and city/state if at all
possible (on my web sites you’ll notice I use web site addresses since my
customers are web businesses).
If you have them available, you can even use pictures. A picture of the
customer beside their testimonial increases the credibility. Before and after
pictures are especially effective for weight loss type of offers.
If you have recorded testimonials, you can turn those into Real Audio files.
Post them to your web site and put a link beside the written testimonials that visitors can click and hear the testimonial in your customer’s own words.
Direct Response Mistake #5 – No Guarantee
Buying anything is risky. Buying online is even more risky. You’re buying
a product unseen and you probably don’t know much about the person or
company you’re buying from.
So take out as much of the risk as possible for your customers. Offer them a
full money back guarantee for as long of a period as possible…90 days, 180
days, one year, etc.
You take all the risk. In most cases I even call this a “trial.” If for any
reason they try out the product and don’t like it, they can return it for a full
refund. No questions asked. They don’t have to decide today. Purchase it,
test out the techniques, and then decide if it’s right for you or not.
You should be taking all the risk for your customers and offering a full
money back guarantee.
Yes, sometimes you will get burned. People will buy your product and copy
it. Or they may buy a digital product from you, copy it, and then ask for
their money back. That kind of jerk is out there. They are only a very small
portion of your business, and the increased sales from the guarantee more
than makes up for them.
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