Category Archives: sales

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How Important Are Reviews to Conversion?

It’s no secret that most people today use their mobile devices to search for the products and services they want. Recommendations from their social media contacts are important, but even more influential are the reviews that accompany product descriptions on Amazon, Yelp!, eBay and other popular sites.

How important are reviews in the online decision making process? One recent poll found that a whopping 85% of people said they were influenced one way or another by an online review before making a purchase.

 

What Customers Are Seeing

The poll, which was conducted by the website Influence Central, also
found that 85% of women said that online reviews were “extremely important” or “very important” when it came time to make a buy or no-buy decision. In contrast, only 1% of people said online reviews were not important at all.

The poll also found that 90% of people believe online reviews are more important than information about the product coming from the seller.

Another 87% said they use reviews regularly when search for both online and brick and mortar businesses. Other findings of the poll included:

– 88% of people said they considered polls very important when buying products from a company they have never done business with before, and 67% said reviews were important when buying a brand they’ve bought before

– 97% of respondents said they can accurately spot a fake review, and 90% said they can tell most or all of the time if the reviewer is exaggerating, with another 86% saying they can detect bias in an online review.

– 89% of people said they don’t trust online reviews that are anonymous, but 77% said they have more trust in a review that includes the author’s name and photo.

 

What This Means for You

What this means is that if you aren’t paying attention to what online reviewers are saying about your products and services, you could be losing sales – especially if you are doing nothing to manage your reviews.

The poll’s statistics indicate that it’s usually not a good idea to try to pad your products with fake reviews you wrote yourself or to pay people to write positive reviews about your products or company. Organic reviews that express genuine opinions will carry the most meaning for your customers. So your goal should be to collect as many organic positive reviews from real life customers as possible.

 

How to Get Positive Reviews

The easiest way to get positive reviews from your satisfied customers is to ask for them. To encourage people to share their good opinions about your products or company, it’s a good idea to include an invitation with every interaction, both online and in person, such as, “If you enjoyed your experience, please share it with your friends and family on social media.”

You also can include plugins on your web pages that make it easy for page visitors to give you positive social media signals such as Facebook “Likes” and Google+ pluses. Or you can include a little box for people to write testimonials or their opinions about your company, the products you sell, or the brands you offer.

This actually is one of the best ways to manage reviews because you get to choose which ones you want to share. There’s nothing that says you are required to publish negative reviews, but they do offer you an opportunity to go back to that customer and try to win them back.

Today more than ever, people are paying attention to what other people are saying about your business online. If you aren’t, you may be missing out on one of your best marketing opportunities.

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Why are People Leaving Websites?

Have you ever wondered what the most popular reasons are that people leave websites? Recently, Kissmetrics put out some very interesting data and numbers that should help every marketer out there understand their viewer behavior just a little bit better.

Poor Navigation and Layout

If your website is poorly designed and difficult to navigate, people will leave it. Quickly. Don’t make this mistake and be sure to use logical and intuitive design when planning your layout. The main navigation links should be across the top or down the left of your screen. All pictures should be clear and related directly to the site, telling a story or providing information. Your text shouldn’t contain confusing links which are vaguely labeled and buried in the main body. Additionally, always add a sitemap.

Overkill Advertising

Have you ever gotten to a site and had pop-up ad after pop-up ad? Or Flash ads or content that fills the entire screen which leaves you searching for dozens of little “X” buttons on the boxes every few seconds? Horrible. This is why people leave sites: too many ads. Never let an ad be the first thing to welcome your visitor to your site. They shouldn’t be obtrusive or cover up a portion of the content as if to say, “You’re only allowed to read that after you pay attention to this ad!” Keep it tasteful, relevant and as always, make sure your ads are much, much smaller than your content, otherwise you look like a spam site.

Horrid Structure of Content

If your site is a jumbled mess of content where nobody can find what they are looking for, watch your bounce rate climb through the roof! There should be a logical flow to your content as it draws visitors deeper into your sales funnel at each step. Keep content that should be together all on one page, not scattered over three or four. Group similar content together to make it easy to navigate deeper into the subject matter. Highlight keywords and don’t forget subheadings in bold.

Automatic Audio and Video

People can find a video on your page if they want to. They don’t need you to auto-play content and possibly blow their eardrums out if they have headphones in, wake up the baby if they forgot to turn the speakers off or slow-down their loading process with ski—pp—ing—spee—ch—pa-tt-er—ns. Give them the option to start the audio or video themselves, or at the very least, start the volume very low and give the user a quick option to exit the audio or video without exiting the website.

Registration Requirements

You’ve been Googling for half an hour, you’re about to lose your mind—finally, you find the product you’re looking for, get on the site and BAM! A registration requirement pops up acting as a physical barrier between you and the pot of gold. You consider signing up but you will not give into this type of bullying! You hop in your car and drive off to the store to buy the product, happy that you defeated the evil internet for at least today. Yeah, don’t be that website. At least offer a little preview or demo first so they can see what you’re offering before you twist their arm.

As you can see, an intelligently designed and well-written and thought-out website can eliminate a lot of high bounce rates that are out there. If your product or service is great, give it a chance to
speak for itself. Don’t lose the war before the battle even begins!

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Is It 2011 All Over Again with Newest Google Update?

Many Internet marketers remember February 2011 very clearly. It was when Google rolled out its Panda update, which instantly changed the way websites were ranked by the Internet search engine giant’s algorithm.

Will Googles latest update – that rolled out starting on April 21 – cause the same amount of angst and teeth-gnashing? Possibly.

 

Mobile-Friendly Algorithm

Google is finally acknowledging that most people are accessing the web via their mobile devices – such as their phones, tablets and new iWatches – rather than on old-school laptops or (gasp!) PCs. It’s new algorithm, which doesn’t yet have a deceptively cute animal name the way Panda and Penguin did, is expected to radically change the way marketers search results by being more mobile-friendly.

A recent survey by the consulting group gShift found that a majority of marketers expect Google’s new algorithm to change their site’s page rankings. And about two-thirds of the online marketers polled said they already have taken steps to make their websites more mobile-friendly in anticipation of the update’s roll out.

 

The Rise of Mobile Web Access

It’s a testament to how quickly technologies can improve that the majority of web users now use mobile devices to access their favorite web pages and apps. Increased bandwidth, exponential expansion of memory and data processing, and near-universal WiFi has made mobile the way to go for most Internet users.

Only a few years ago – perhaps not coincidentally when Google was rolling out its Panda update – it was unthinkable for most people to stream their favorite TV shows or play multi-player games from their phones while on the go. But today, it’s as common as having a cup of coffee in the morning or chatting about “Game of Thrones” over the water cooler.

 

Who the Update Will Effect

About a third of website owners polled by gShift said they get between 11% and 50% of their traffic from mobile devices, and that’s probably on the low site. Another study conducted by the mobile commerce platform Branding Brand found that 43% of all traffic to major retailers comes from smart phones and tablets.

If you have taken steps to make your web page more mobile-friendly in recent months, you’re not alone. An estimated 68% of marketers surveyed by gShift said they have made the move to mobile-centric web pages.

And it makes perfect sense. Digital marketers understand how important it is to provide page visitors with websites that are optimized for the devices they are using to land on them. Having a well-defined mobile strategy today is as important as SEO and link-building were prior to Panda and Penguin: It was simply something that you had to do in order to be successful. Not doing it was unthinkable.

 

Please note that this update aims to show websites that are mobile friendly to people who are browsing on a mobile device – ie cellphone

So far we have been told that it does not effect standard computer browsing – just mobile devices
 
Although this is new factor – it is only one small factor out of hundreds that they take into consideration 
 
You can see more about this at:
 
 
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Top Secret Algorithm Update

While Google, as usual, is remaining tight-lipped about what its new algorithm will look like, there are some clues if you know where to look. For example, in March Zineb Ait Bahajji, a member of Google’s Webmaster Trends team, hinted that the new update will have a more profound impact on search results than either of the previous “Big Two” updates did.

While Panda weeded out websites with poor quality content and Penguin, which came in 2012, penalized sites that used backlinks and other artificial means to boost rankings, the latest Google algorithm update is anticipated to value pages that are most optimized for mobile users.

So if you haven’t already converted your web pages so that they are mobile-friendly, there isn’t much time left. You don’t want to wake up to discover that your top-ranking web pages are now nowhere to be found.

Going forward – it would be worth while looking at a more mobile site, if you think your customers will be searching for you on their mobile devices (ie cell phones)
 
We have a number of responsive templates that you may find suitable 
 
Get in touch with us to find out more

 

 

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Are You Retargeting Your Visitors?

Did you know that only about 20% of all first-time visitors to a website will become a conversion on that visit? That means 80% of your site’s visitors are leaving without converting, even if they want to. With shopping cart abandonment making major waves in the eCommerce industry because of how recoverable these consumers are (studies show that about 68% of all abandoned shopping carts can be recovered), it only makes sense that the people who bounce off your site are recoverable as well, even if you don’t run an eCommerce site.

What is Retargeting?

If you don’t know what retargeting is, it’s a simple concept. You place a code in your site’s footer (typically JavaScript) and that code compiles a list of all your site’s visitors. When someone comes to your website, the code implants a cookie into their browser that acts like an “on” switch for advertisements.

Then, as your visitor browses other sites on the internet, as they come to sites that have ads on them, the cookie you left in their browser activates your site’s ad. This helps do a number of things, including keeping you fresh in their minds, reminding them that they might have wanted to make a purchase with you or simply creates another avenue to your website.

The point here is that you are getting advertised across the web to an extremely targeted audience: people that have already expressed interest in your website. Whether they left to look for better offers, they left the stove on or had to run into a business meeting, you get another crack at them by simply adding some code to your website and running a few ads.

But Won’t People Find this Intrusive?

Of course, some places people absolutely hate targeted ads, such as ads that hit on keywords from people’s emails. This is intrusive and likely to backfire unless you’re a fairly large brand. Nobody wants to think that a penis enlargement cream site is filtering through their emails and placing ads on their Gmail account!

But with retargeting, your ads will actually provide people with a better, more individualized browsing experience since the ads will be tailored to their interests. It’s always important to think about how your ads will be perceived by your audience. There’s a fine line between being intrusive and being customized and the best websites walk this line perfectly.

Retargeted Emails

Of course, not every internet marketer’s site lends itself to retargeting code and ads. Some marketers will do better to retarget their visitors through email campaigns. It’s important that you re-contact people who fell out of your sales funnel so you can bring them back in.

As with the shopping cart abandonment, there’s no telling why the person fell out. They could have simply been distracted by a football score and forgot to go back. The power could have went out, any number of things could have happened so assuming that everyone who bounced from your site did so because they didn’t like what they saw is faulty thinking that leads to zero sales.

What do you have to lose by sending out some emails saying, “Hey, we’ve been thinking about you and we want you to come back! Here’s 10% off your next order” or “Did you forget about us because we didn’t forget about you! We figured you might have some questions so let’s set up a time to chat so I can answer them for you!”

The point is, you miss all of the sales that you don’t reach out and grasp, so retargeting visitors can only result in sales, what’s the worse that can happen, they ignore you? Well, right now if you aren’t retargeting, you’re the one ignoring them!

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Choose the Right Social Media Platform with This Simple Question

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when it comes to social media, you shouldn’t have a problem putting all of your eggs in one basket if you don’t have the time or budget for an extensive social media campaign. There’s nothing worse (in terms of social promotions and brand imaging) than putting social widgets on your website only to lead to malnourished, underwhelming social media sites.

The Importance of Updating Social Media

When a viewer gets to a neglected social media page, a few things happen. First, your lead might think you are out of business. They also might think they are in the wrong place. Third, they might just assume that you don’t care about your customers (or don’t care in general) and just write you off as an option for buying.

The bottom line? If you’re not going to update every one of your social media pages constantly, it’s better to cut your losses and just delete the accounts. Of course, social media is super-important, so a better option would be to delete all but one, but which one?

The One Question that Tells You Which Social Media is Right for You

The best way to figure out which social media platform should be your main focus is to ask yourself the following question: If I only had to use one social media platform for the rest of my life, which would it be? This might seem simplistic, but let’s look deeper into the question.

What is in a social media platform for you? Do you need pictures of your products to get visitors over to your affiliate sites? Is your marketing based on real-time actions? Are you a B2B or B2C marketer? In short: what drives customers to your site?

When you know what your audience is doing, you know what you need to do. For example, if you are an affiliate marketer for Amazon and your only social media presence is to share reviews, having a Facebook account set up where you can share links complete with pictures might be your best bet. On the other hand, if you only deal with flash sales online, Twitter will allow you to stay plugged into the pulse of your audience so you can reach them as it happens. Looking to land higher-ups in the company and sell them software? LinkedIn has the largest amount of professionals so that’s where you will want to be.

The key here is to recognize what each of the social media platforms means for your specific means of promotion. If you only want to pin up items that you are reviewing and then forget about them, Pinterest might be the way to go since you won’ t have to deal with answering questions from posters and commenters.

When You Have It, Run With It

Of course, if you can’t decide on which social media platform you’d choose if you could only choose one for the rest of your life, there’s a very simple option: look at your Google Analytics and see which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your websites. Then, take a serious look at how much time you’ve put into each of those sites.

Are you getting 20% of all your traffic from LinkedIn but only spending 5% of your time there? Then increasing your effort on LinkedIn might be a good strategy over focusing on another platform that brings in 30% of your traffic but takes up 85% of your time.

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Responsive Website vs. Native App – How Far Do You Need to Go Mobile?

With the coming of the mobile revolution being heralded for years, it seems we’re finally here (even though it came in with a whimper, more than a bang). With that said, it’s now critical that every marketer that wants to stay competitive be not only findable, but viewable on mobile devices. Mobile devices make up a greater portion of all searches each and every year, and we’re finally starting to see some viable means in terms of mobile purchasing to warrant the push to either responsive websites, native apps or both.

But what’s the difference?

What is a Responsive Website?

A responsive website (or more accurately, responsive web design) simply means that the site is coded and designed in such a way that the content will adjust to fit on whatever size screen it is being viewed on. So if you’re looking at a site on your 27-inch desktop monitor, it will look great, but if you visit the site on your 3-inch mobile device, it will also display correctly.

Responsive websites eliminate the need to have a dedicated site built for mobile (in addition to your standard website). The coding in the site responds to the device it is being viewed from and tells the browser exactly how the content should be displayed so there are no errors and functionality is preserved. If your audience connects to your site via a number of devices (e.g. computer desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, mobile phone, etc.), a responsive website is a critical investment.

Benefits of responsive web design include:

– Your site is indexed as mobile-friendly by search engines, while still maintaining all of its normal indexing

– All of your updates to your website can be done in one place and show up on any viewing device

– Your site becomes flexible, able to reach all viewers no matter the device they are using

– All of your updates are seen by anyone who views the page and are not limited or restricted by device

What is a Mobile App – or Native Mobile App?

Mobile app and native mobile app are two terms used interchangeably for the same thing. A mobile app is an application designed specifically for use on mobile devices. It is an entirely separate program from your website and instead of being stored on servers, it is downloaded by the user and stored on their smartphone.

What this does is it allows users to connect even when they don’t have internet access. This is due to the fact that the app is stored locally (though some mobile apps will require internet). That means native mobile apps grant faster access for users than mobile (or responsive) websites do.

In addition, mobile apps have permissions that can help your sales such as access to the phone’s camera or speaker. This makes it easier for customers to interact with you. The downside here is that native mobile apps require different operating systems for Android and iOS phones, so it does cost some money to develop them…twice.

There are also a few more downsides and upsides to mobile apps:

– While faster than websites on mobile devices, mobile apps have fixed layouts meaning you must design one for each operating system

– Your audience for mobile apps is limited to people who have smartphones

– Search engines don’t index mobile apps because they aren’t stored on the internet, but rather on the user’s phone

– Updates can be tricky because the user must download them for updates to appear. Not everyone does this, so your newer content might not gain as much traction

– It is both expensive and time-consuming to develop native mobile apps and then get them approved by the app stores (Google Play and the Apple App Store)

Ideally, you would have both, but for now, a responsive website seems like the safer plan for internet marketers until your business demands a mobile app.

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Overcoming the Curse of Knowledge with a Simple Survey

As internet marketers, we have many curses thrown upon us each day, but none so heavy as the one most of us don’t even take into consideration, The Curse of Knowledge. The Curse of Knowledge is a simple theory that makes a whole lot of sense when you finally learn about it, but can lead to serious pitfalls if you don’t. Simply put into marketing terms, when you look at the websites and material you create each and every day, you fail to see it with fresh eyes, thereby falling into the Curse of Knowledge.

 

What is the Curse of Knowledge?

Technically speaking, the Curse of Knowledge is a cognitive bias that makes it difficult for those with a certain level of knowledge to understand how those with a lesser level of knowledge view the problems and situations being discussed.

For example, if I had studied nanotechnology for decades and was asked to give a speech at a local high school, if I didn’t take the curse of knowledge into account, my speech would likely fly right over their heads. I’d be so excited about what is new in the field that I’d fail to have an introduction to basics and a way to make my concepts and terminology universally understandable.

For marketers, this takes place when the content on our sites speaks to an informed consumer, using terms and concepts that we might understand, but the average consumer doesn’t. This can be detrimental to your conversion rates because if someone doesn’t understand what you’re selling, why in the world would they buy from you?

 

Overcoming the Curse and Boosting Conversion Rates

The key then, is to be able to see your website with fresh eyes, that is, a set of eyes similar to your consumers’ and not a professional in the niche. There are a few ways to go about this, one of which is probably going to net you the best results. Let’s take a look at your options:

1. Have Friends Look at Your Website. If you have friends or family that aren’t involved in your niche or the marketing industry, have them take a look at your site. Ask them to go through the site as if they wanted to make a purchase. You can even tell them the product you want them to find and purchase. Make note of where they get hung up, where they get frustrated or how quickly they find the product and make the purchase. In other words, track their movements for any signs of resistance and then work on eliminating them. Be sure to ask them exactly what they thought of the site afterward and recommend any improvements.

2. Set Up a Survey. Quite possibly the easiest and most effective way to find out where your visitors are having trouble is to set up a survey for those leaving the website. Qualaroo is a simple tool that will allow you to generate a survey and place it on the important pages of your website such as your checkout page. Ask why the visitor decided to leave the page and if they have any suggestions on how to improve the page/visitor experience. While you won’t get an answer every time, the ones you do get will be some of the most valuable (and free) marketing research results you’ve ever gotten.

It’s also important to follow the visitor flow charts on your Analytics and metrics tools. Finding out where customers drop or bounce off the page is important, as is the way in which you fix it.

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Making it Hard to Say No Gets More Yeses in Marketing

The last thing we want to hear from our leads is one simple word: No. No is the death of a sale, the end of a funnel, the loss of a lead. So while it might seem pretty obvious that you want to give your leads more chances to say yes, some internet marketers don’t follow through with this. For example, think about the classic website that you land on after a Google search. You read through the content and at the bottom, there’s a link that you can click to learn more, or in reality, make a purchase.

But why is the only option to say “yes” all the way at the bottom? What this essentially means is that every other spot on the page is a chance to say “no.” That’s bad marketing. You never want more chances to opt-out than to opt-in. So what’s the solution? Make it harder to say no by giving more chances to say yes!

 

Increased Calls to Action

First up is the obvious: increase the number of CTAs you have on your site and in your copy. Now, this doesn’t mean simply put links at the top, bottom and middle of your content, get creative with it. Opt-ins and other calls to action can be placed all over your site, in the banner, on the side scroll, in a pop-up. The more chances you give your leads to say yes, the more likely it is that they will. If you make them search for a CTA, chances are you’ve already lost the sale by that point.

Remember, the three tenets of every good website are that the viewer should get there and immediately know:

1. Where they are
2. What they can do there
3. Where and why to do it

The third tenet is the one to be concerned with here, if they don’t know where to click or why, your page has failed. Which brings us directly to our next point, the why.

 

Increased Rewards

Back in the simpler days of online marketing, having one reward would be enough. Give me your email and I’ll send you a free eBook. Sign up for this newsletter and you’ll get 15% off your next purchase. But with so many different avenues of traffic, it only makes sense that you should have multiple levels of rewards. Yes, get the free eBook by joining my mailing list but also get 15% off by liking me on Facebook and get a free website health report by entering your website URL here.

The more points of contact you wish to produce and maintain with your leads, the more rewards you should offer to increase the viability of those contacts. Remember, most people are fairly savvy about what happens when they give a like on Facebook or a follow on Twitter, as savvy as they are about the spam that occurs when they give out their email address. Prove to them that there is value attached to each of these channels by giving them actual value for connecting.

 

Make the Choice Clear

One of the most effective CTAs out there right now include a combination of a pop-up, a reward and making it very difficult to say no. You’ve likely already seen it on QuickSprout or WordStream, when you’re surfing the site, a seemingly random pop-up occurs with a question that has a very pointed answer. You then have the option to say yes or no, with no being a fairly ridiculous choice so that you have to mentally admit that’s your intention.

For instance, a website about money investment might have a pop-up that says, “Do You Want to Learn How to Invest Like a Pro?” The two choices would be:

Yes, I want to retire early

OR

No, I’m fine living paycheck to paycheck

Which would you choose?

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Make Your List Come to You with Recurring Content Events

If we’ve learned one thing as online marketers it’s that perception is everything. This isn’t a ballpoint pen I’m trying to sell you, it’s the tool that will unlock your earning potential when you sign your name in the right place. That isn’t a towel, it’s the solution for all of life’s little messes. The more we can sway our audience’s perception to come into line with our sales goals, the more successful we will be at marketing.

So, is there a way to use this knowledge to our advantage with email marketing and list building? Absolutely. Email marketing is often thought of as a one-sided facet: you create your newsletter or email responders, send them out and hope for opens and click-thrus. If you get them, great! Wash, rinse, repeat. If not, you adjust your campaign and move forward until you find that optimal email formula for your market and niche.

 

Rethinking the Newsletter with Content Events

Instead, let’s change the perception about a newsletter or email by creating a recurring content event. A content event is a simple thing to pull off, you set a date and time, provide a medium, send out invites, get RSVPs, perform and then offer replays. If you’re thinking this sounds like a scheduled webinar, you’re absolutely right, but that’s because you think like a marketer.

As a recurring content event, you’ll be able to draw in more of your audience and have them captive. Why? Because this event goes in the Google Calendar. You have to RSVP to it. It only happens at a specific time and date and if you attend, you get something out of it, a reward. So what does this mean? Well, it turns the newsletter from a dreaded “something I have to delete again” into an event, a happening.

 

How to Set Up Your Content Events

People will attend your content events simply because they seem more special than a newsletter, that’s the perception. Of course, if you actually do make it more special than a newsletter, you’ll have recurring guests at your content events. To get started:

– Set a date that works for both you and your demographic. If your demographic works days, don’t do it at 2pm on a Wednesday. Create a great name for your event that piques your audience’s curiosity, tell them what you’re going to talk about and why they’ll want to attend.

– Pick your medium. Most content events take place on webinar or tele-class software. There are tons of free options out there for hosting free video seminars or free conference calls. You can even resort to Skype, but that’s as low-tech as you should go.

– Focus on your goal before creating content. What’s your endgame with this content event? Do you want emails? Sales? Build authority? When you know your goals, start creating your presentation including slides, main points, outlines, openings, closing, supporting websites, documents, a call in section, etc.

– Start sending out invites and when you get acceptances, put them in a separate email list so you aren’t sending redundant emails. The people who accept, thank them right off the bat and even send a free gift for signing up. This will prompt them to follow through with the RSVP.

– After you host the content event, you’ll want to send out a follow-up email, so it’s a good idea to have that all ready. Put the replay of the event in another follow-up email and send it to those who didn’t RSVP. You can send the replay to those who attended, but make sure that email is focused on closing rather than information.

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Three Enormously Bad Landing Page Copy Techniques

Do you have a landing page that is under-performing or not converting at all? If so, consider the fact that many landing pages out there follow three extremely flawed approaches for content creation. If your landing page falls into one of these three categories, it’s likely that any promotions, ads or other monetary boosters you try will fail as well, sinking more of your hard-earned money into a failing endeavor. Similarly, it’s unlikely that changing the design or aesthetics of your landing page will help.

 

Three Bad Landing Page Copy Strategies

So what are these three horribly horrible approaches to creating landing page copy?

1. Guessing at What Your Lead Wants to Read. This is how many landing pages are done: simply trying out random messages that might or might not have worked on other landing pages, to see the results. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time and ultimately, costs you a lot of money in sales. Sure, guessing right the first time can be extremely easy and lucrative, but what are the odds you’ll guess right? Do you really know what you consumer wants to read, or are you too close to the sales aspect of the product to listen to the true consumer needs? Remember, guesswork is costly and most of the time, flat out wrong. If this is how you created your landing page, it’s time to reevaluate your under-performing copy.

2. Looking to the Competition. Okay, so every online marketer looks at what their competition does in order to keep their finger on pulse of the industry, but some of us use the competition as our basis for research. Figuring that the competition has done their marketing homework, we “borrow” from their landing pages and rewrite copy in the same vein as their copy. We figure, “They must know what they’re doing, so I’ll just do the same, we have the same demographic, after all.” But what if they are just guessing? Or what if they are dead wrong? You just anchored yourself to your competition’s success and furthermore, there’s now nothing to truly differentiate your two landing pages. Why should customers go to you instead?

3. Cliché Ad Copy. Finally, many marketers will turn to tired, old, boring and used cliché messages that they think sound good, they don’t. These messages don’t scream, “Buy me now!” They scream, “Help! I was written by a lazy marketer who might also be extremely corny!” Your message and copy need to mean something. If you aren’t the best-selling product, don’t call yourself that. Empty copy leaves prospects guessing. Be specific in the problems your product solves, it’ll be that much more impressive.

 

What’s the Right Way to Approach Landing Page Copy?

Now that you know the wrong way to approach writing copy for your landing page, what’s the best way? A little technique called Voice of Customer, or VOC. VOC is a marketing technique that relies on knowing your customer demographic in order to create viable copy that speaks directly to them in a language they prefer. VOC writing relies heavily on your understanding of your prospect’s problems and pain points, in other words, what do they need solved and what problems do they have with the solution you’re presenting.

When you know this, you can market the product or service in a manner that speaks directly to the lead, thereby eliminating friction. When you know their wants and needs, you can prioritize them accordingly, deconstructing each bit of friction with every line of copy on your landing page. This brings greater satisfaction to the lead as they read down the landing page and ultimately, all but guarantees the sale.