Copywriting for geeks

An introduction to the science of selling with words

by Marc-Andr Cournoyer http://macournoyer.com

A few years ago, I remember being more than doubtful about long copy and various sales techniques. I used to think being funny and making cool things was all it took to persuade people to use my stuff. I was right about the latter, but wrong about not believing in sales techniques that have been used for years. The most common argument geeks have against copywriting is that its deceptive. Weve all seen diet pills and get rich quick scams. Those have given copywriting a pretty bad name. But the core problem with geeks is that we are geeks. We are used to nding information for free and diving deeply into problems. So, comparing sales speech to our standards of knowledge, can be sometimes deceptive. My perception towards copywriting started to change after I sold a few copies of my rst ebook. Although I saw quite a few complaints about my sales page from geeks, I sold a lot more copies than I expected. I started A/B testing elements on my sales page and noticed that what most sales experts recommended worked and stuff geeks told me about sales, didnt. I knew there was a giant gap in my knowledge. I studied everything I could nd about sales, copywriting, advertising, marketing and started to apply what I was learning. A year later, I quit my job as a programmer and Im now making a living selling my own products online. I know for a fact that my copywriting skills have something to do with this.

This book is based on the eight principles of persuasion as described in Inuence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini. Those principles have been extracted from psychological experiments and used (and abused) in various sales and marketing departments. Later in this book you will also see various tips Ive compiled and successfully used in my own copy.

Warning: powerful words ahead

There is one rule that you must follow when using the knowledge in this book. You must honour every promise you make in your copy. If you promise your product is the best in his category, work your ass off and make it so. If you promise it solves a need in an incredible way, test it and make sure it does. Selling is building a relationship with your customers, and starting that relationship with a lie is a sure way to fail. Not all of the eight principles of persuasion presented in the following pages should be used in your copy. Some can be downright evil. But you must be aware of them all to understand how people will react and how much copywriting can be powerful. If you believe you have an incredible product and are solving a real need, then you are doing a disservice to the world by not promoting it properly, nothing less! Lets x that.

 Every sale has ve basic obstacles:

-

no need no money no hurry no desire no trust

- Zig Ziglar

The Eight Principles

of Persuasion
Derived from the excellent book Inuence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

 Offer your most expensive

Contrast
Principle of

product rst, your following product will look less expensive. more expensive alternative. Also known as price anchoring.

Compare your product with a

That 16GB WiFi iPad looks a lot less expensive now, doesnt it?

http://www.mint.com/blog/how-to/price-anchoring/

 Combined with contrast

Concession
Principle of

principle: request-then-retreat technique. (request), then a less expensive one (retreat) to make the last one look less expensive (contrast) and force concession from the buyer.

Offer more expensive item rst

By contrasting the more expensive plan with the two other ones, they make them look less expensive. $99 is a lot of money, but not as much compared to $149. Additionally, using the request-then-retreat technique, they promote the Premium, mid-price plan (request) then force a concession by suggesting the Plus plan (retreat).

http://basecamphq.com/signup

 Give a gift (even unwanted), the

Reciprocity
Principle of

receiver will feel pressure to give back.

Give something for free.

EE FR

Like this book

:)

 foot-in-the-door technique: sell

any small item to turn a prospect into a customer. use pressure to be consistent to build up to bigger commitments. effective.

Make a small commitment and

Consistency
Principle of

Written commitments are more Offer small rewards so receiver

feels responsible for it.

Small

Commitment

Pressure to be consistent with commitment

Bigger
People feel social pressure to be consistent with the image other people have of them. Making a commitment is a form of social afrmation, taking a stand, expressing who you are. Once that sort of commitment is made, people will feel pressure to stay consistent with that commitment, to be true to the image they feel they are projecting. A common use of this principle if the free trial. Whenever a product has a free aspect to it, it is based on this principle. The idea is to get prospects to commit to using your product. The more they use it, the more pressure theyll feel to use it more and use you other products. This is why its hard to get people to switch from your competitors to you.

 The more people believe

Social Proof
Principle of

something, the more likely we are to believe it. is a lot of uncertainty.

Even more important when there

Highlighted in red are the elements of social proof. Customer showcase, number of people using your product, testimonials, are all proofs that other people are using and liking your product.

http://basecamphq.com/

Social Proof
Social Proof is the most important thing to add to your copy. But it is a chicken-or-the-egg type of problem. When youre launching, you could need some social proof, but since you just launched and nobody actually used your product, you cant get anyone to testify for it. Here are a few tricks: - Get testimonials for something else you did. - Get testimonials from current customers about how awesome you are. - Collect nice things people have said about you on the web. - Send emails to people you interacted with to get a short testimonial. Youd be surprised how far simply asking for a testimonial can get you. Once you start selling. Make sure to gather social proof wherever you can. As soon as someone mentions your product (positively) put it on your sales page. Anything that proves other people are using your product, put it on your sales page. A sales page can never have too much social proof.

 Bring bad news, people will

dislike you.

Association

Principle of

Associate your product with

things people like, to make people like your product.

Combined with social proof:

show companies people like that use your product.

Go Daddy has nothing to do with nice looking girls. But since quite a few people like nice looking girls, the principle of association will make some people like Go Daddy. This principle has been abused in beer ads too for quite some time.
http://www.godaddy.com/default.aspx

 Opportunities seem more

Scarcity
Principle of

valuable when their availability is limited. instead of how much could be saved.

Show how much would be lost

Scarcity Principle: Show what is lost without your product instead of how much could be saved.

http://sendgrid.com/

 Force people to take action now

Urgency
Principle of

instead of deferring and forgetting about your product. one week sale.

Make a time-based offer, eg.: a Combine with scarcity principle

by limiting quantities.

Limit quantity Limit time

http://owningrails.com/

 The most important decision:

Eg.: Position Schweppes as a soft drink or a mixer?

how to position your product?

A few tips from

David Ogilvy
David Ogilvy was known as "The Father of Advertising." In 1962, Time called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry.

Promise one large, unique and

competitive benet.

Build on big ideas. Long copy sells.

Headline: 8-12 words. Body: 50-500 words or more.

Take customers out of their indifference.

Dont be a bore.
Source: http://todaysadvisor.com/images/david_ogilvy_how_to_create_advertising_that_sells_big.jpg

A few more tips ...

 Do not present features of your

not
Features

Benets

products. Present the benets those features offer.

Answer: whats in it for me? Present the benets as if the

person already had them. Make them see the end result.

 Make your copy stand out by

making it remarkable.

Remarkability

Remarkable: Something worth Add personality and break the

rules.

making a remark about - Seth Godin.

 Eliminate any risk the person

could see when buying.

Risk reversal

Present a generous refund policy:

100% money back guarantee.

Offer a trial period. Answer all objections a buyer

might have.

Remove All Risks

Remember the quote from Zig Ziglar at the beginning of the book? Every sale has ve basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. Those are risks to your customer. Your job is to eliminate those risks. Think about the person that lands on your sales page for the rst time, never heard about you or your product, but has the need youre fullling. How can you eliminate any risk for that person in buying your product? The obvious answer is to offer a guarantee. 100% money back guarantee is starting to sound like an old song. But it works. The idea that anyone can ask for his money back can be quite scary too. What if everyone asks for it? From my experience, every product Ive launched has a 2% refund rate, and that seems to be pretty standard. I used to be upset and concerned each time someone asked for a refund. But the more products I sold the more I started to understand that this was inevitable.

Offering a refund can be quite powerful when doing customer support. Each time Ive had people complain about my products, simply offering a refund turned them into a happy customers. Most people dont like to get their money back. List all the risks any prospect could see in taking your offer, and then try to remove all those risks. I guarantee youll have a killer offer... or Ill give you your money back!

Dene need

Answer Objection

{ Master headlines after reading this page } or I write yours for free {

Unique proposition

Designing a headline is a good exercise in dening what needs your product is solving. To write a good headline you must understand what your customers want. There are several techniques to structure a headline, heres one that worked for me and is derived from the now famous Dominos campaign: You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less - or it's free. Probably the best headline in history. This single sentence allowed Dominos to enter and dominate the already crowded space of pizza delivery.

The headline is divided into three parts. First, dene the need your product is solving. What do people want to achieve when buying your product? Then, make a unique and bold proposition. For example in the Dominos tagline, nobody was delivering in 30 minutes at that time. Your proposition must be unique, you must be the only one saying this and it must be bold. So bold it will make people doubt. Yes! Finally, and here is the magic trick, you conclude your headline by answering the doubts youve just put in their heads. Using Dominos again: delivered in 30 minutes? Yeah right or its free? Holy burrito, count me in!.

Swipe le
A swipe le is a collection of tested and proven advertising and sales letters. Keeping a swipe le (templates) is a common practice used by advertising copywriters and creative directors as a ready reference of ideas for projects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swipe_le

Keeping a swipe le is a good way to improve your copywriting skills. Whenever you see a sales page that convinces you, looks nice and is successful, take note! Here are the best examples I could nd in my own swipe le, also a few of my own pages. Annotated with my comments.

http://basecamphq.com/

http://basecamphq.com/

http://createyourproglang.com/

http://createyourproglang.com/

http://www.freshbooks.com/

Urgency

Contrast

Product position

Large promise

http://www.appsumo.com/startup-copywriting/

The secret to copywriting

There you go, I've told you all of my copywriting secrets. That's all there is to know to get started, really. But there is one last tip that will not only make you trust and learn copywriting but will also make you earn more money, and it's A/B testing. Youve probably heard about A/B testing too many times already. Everybody is talking about it. But so very few people actually do it. When I was originally doubtful about the techniques Ive showed you, a few A/B tests convinced me while putting a few more dollars in my pocket. Although copywriting can be backed by some psychological facts, it is also an art. You have to develop your own style and adapt it to your market. The only secret is to practice. And it wont cost you a dime, it will actually make you some.

A/B Testing
A/B testing is a method which allows you to test several versions of a web page or email. You measure which version performs best by tracking actions performed.

Reciprocity
Now Im applying the Reciprocity principle and asking you a favor :) If you enjoyed this book please spread the word. Perhaps write a small tweet about it.

Click here to Tweet about this book.

(clicking this link will not send the tweet, it will prell one)

Thank you!
- M-A