If copywriting provokes the image of a hypey sales letter splashed with yellow highlighter, then this post is right up your alley…
As a blogger and a niche copywriter, I’ve noticed that almost every successful blogger uses many of the proven staples of good copywriting. Whether they know it or not, most of them are great salesman and copywriters.
Here’s 5 ways you can become a better blogger and increase your profits in the process by using copywriting and direct marketing principles…
1. Up your prices for your products or services
Most people shutter when they think about upping their prices.
It’s a natural reaction, and one that’s more about overcoming your own internal “blocks” than about overcoming market problems. Over the long haul you can’t win when you try to be the lowest priced option (besides maybe WalMart and even they’re having major problems).
And if you think everyone buys based on price…think again.
How can Starbucks charge $4 for a cup of coffee when McDonald’s coffee is .50 cents? How can Mercedes charge $45k for a car, when a Toyota will serve the same purpose (get you from point A to point B)? How can an internet marketer charge $77 for an ebook when you can get a simliar book on Amazon for $15?
It’s because their story connects with you… Creating a compelling story for yourself in your blog posts is an easy way to connect with your readers which will make it easier to sell to them.
If you have a product or service, there are two main benefits to upping your prices.
- You attract better clients and users – Think of the difference between people who shop at WalMart vs. Target. Both of the stores are somewhat similar – they sell food, clothes, electronics, housewares etc… Yet Target attracts a more affluent customer who has more money to spend.
- You have more money to get new customers – The person who charges $9 for an ebook, has a much bigger hill to climb than his competition who sells theirs for $39. If you’re making 4x the profits, you have 4x the money to spend to go out and get new customers. The guy making $9 per sale will have to slowly grow, while the high priced guy can grow much more quickly because he can go out and get new customers much more easily.
So why can internet marketers like Joel Comm and John Reese charge $997 for an info product when others are charging $47? They add tons of value to the package by making it a DVD instead of an ebook. They also add audios and other content that ups the value of the product.
Does their product cost 20x more to make than one that sells for $47? No. It might cost them $30 to produce those DVD’s but they’re able to charge $997 for it because they’ve increased the value and made the offer more appealing to people like us.
I also use this principle for my copywriting jobs. If youwere to hire me, Im not very cheap but I’m very good at writing for specific industries like fitness and making money online. For a normal long page sales letter my prices start at $3950 and I also get a piece of the gross profits.
Of course there are copywriter’s out there who charge $300 for something like this, but I don’t want a client who doesn’t understand that a good sales letter is worth a lot of money to them.
Clients that only care about price are usually the worst clients and they’ll be a bigger hassle than someone for whom price does not matter.
Ok so besides upping the value and increasing your profits, you also need another crucial element if you want to start making more money with your blog…
2. Be a good storyteller
Every one of the big bloggers has a great story to tell…
Shoe was overweight and indebt over $50,000 – now he has a multimillion dollar business with a sweet house, a snazzy pool and a lifestyle that a lot of people would love to have.
My partner Vic on GymJunkies.com was a former lawyer who was sick of all the B.S. fitness advice out there. Vic’s story connects with tons of 25-50 year old men and women who have been mislead and just want something that produces results… As a result our fat loss workouts have sold incredibly well in just a few months time.
One of the main things I suggest people have on their blog is a “My Story” tab (example here). Chris Winfield brought this up to me last year, and since then I’ve seen it grow and many bloggers are using it to help connect with new visitors to their blog…You want to give readers a chance to see your story so that they can connect with you and empathize with the problems you went through.
If you’re overweight and you’ve struggled with people ridiculing you and not ever getting any dates through high school , then reading a story about someone else that has been in that situation AND OVERCAME it will really hit home with you.
This is a major mistake most new bloggers make. They think their audience only cares about information. Your blog posts need to not only be educational but also entertaining as well. Talk about your life, talk about experiences you have.
As an example look at the posts that do well here on Shoemoney.com. Shoe writes about his family, his successes and failures in business and all sorts of things that are entertaining…
If he only wrote PPC guides or SEO advice with no personality in it, his readership wouldn’t be 50,000+ people.
So find a story that resonates with your reader and talk about it on your blog and in you posts as much as you can…
3. Write your posts as if you were talking to just 1 person
In direct response marketing one of the biggest mistakes I see writers make is the tone of their writing is directed at a group instead of a single user.
The person who is reading your blog wants to FEEL that you’re talking directly to them. They want to know that you understand their problem and that you have advice or a solution to help them out.
One of the single most important feelings that anyone can have is the feeling of being truly understood. It’s a feeling most people never have in their life so if you can resonate with them and make them think you really understand their situation, then you can influence their buying decisions pretty easily.
4. Focus on your headlines, call to action and layout
David Ogilvy says that headlines are read by 5x as many people as the body copy. Guess what this means?
Your headlines have to be MONEY if you want them to read the post.
The biggest mistake I see people make with headlines is they try to get cute and clever with their headlines. Your headline’s main focus should be to get your reader to read the rest of your blog post. That’s it.
And the best way to get someone to read your headline is by promising a benefit that your reader wants info on. Headlines that promise specific benefits will ALWAYS do better than a vague headline.
For example…
GOOD – How To Lose 17 Lbs Of Fat In Just 90 Days (With No Bogus Drugs Or Fat Loss Pills)
BAD – How You Can Have A Healthy Looking Body
So make sure your headline is specific and promises a benefit…
Once you have the headline down you need your post to be laid out in a way that makes it easy to read. You should start by staying away from HUGE blocks of text and instead use short sentences and subheadlines to break up the text in your post.
This makes your post easier to read as big blocks of text intimidate people and they’ll just exit the page.
And my last suggestion to get the most out of your posts is to have a clear call to action at the bottom. Whether you want to send them to an affiliate offer, your own product page, an optin page or you just want them to subscribe by RSS you MUST ask them to do it.
No one is going to see your link for your product and assume they should click on it. You need a call to action… Here’s a good example…
“If you liked this post and want to get more like it for FREE, subscribe to my newsletter and I’ll send you an email update each time I make a new post.”
Then you can link that statement (or just a few words in it) to your newsletter optin page…
Every post or article you publish should have a call to action in it.
5. Smack your readers in the face with TONS of social proof
If you watch an infomercial or read a good sales letter, you’ll notice they always have 1 thing in common… testimonials.
What someone else says about your business is 1000x more valuable than anything you can say about it. You need real success stories and testimonials from people just like your readers who have had success with your product or who like your blog.
You can use this with your blog in a number of ways…
- Success stories – for my fitness site whenever we get a good success story emailed to us, we usually post it on the blog and feature that person as a “star”. They’re an everyday normal person who got good results with our workouts so we want our readers to see that. You can do this for literally ANY niche… And our readers love to see these stories. It gives them a lot of motivation to read these.
- Media appearances – Aaron Wall does a great job at this with his blog… The right hand nav bar has tons and tons of respected media outlets that he has appeared in. A new reader on his blog will instantly realize this guy knows what he’s talking about and immediately trust him. When I get inquiries about consulting, most people instantly trust me when they hear I’ve written copy for companies on the Inc Magazine 500 and some of the best selling products on Clickbank. Those are instant trust builders.
- Association with industry leaders – If you came to my personal blog and had no clue who I was but you saw pictures of me with Shoe, Frank Kern, Brian Clark and Darren Rowse you would immediately think I’m a big time internet marketer. If you have ANY relationship with respected leaders, make sure your readers know it.
Social proof and testimonials are the most effective but underused marketing strategy online.
Wrap up
Being a successful blogger won’t happen overnight. If you follow some of the principles I outlined above you’ll be ahead of 95% of the crowd. If you’re just getting your blog started my last guest post on here will be helpful to you… It’s the story of how I went from 0-350 visitors per day in just one month on my blog.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments I’ll be around to answer them. If you’d like to hire me for a copywriting project shoot me an email justingoff {at}gmail.com or check out my personal blog
