Each and every one of us that sells anything (and we all do at some level), understands the importance of capturing the attention of our potential customer. For most businesses and consultants, grabbing prospect’s attention is a critical to our success.
Getting the attention of the website visitor gets harder and harder with the enormous amount of noise that distracts and diverts people’s attention. If you want to sell more products or services though, writing persuasive copy is an absolute must.
Let’s examine five proven techniques to capturing people’s attention, and how you can use them to improve your conversions.
Use Storytelling:
Storytelling is the most human, and ancient art form. It taps into our imagination, engages those around us, and inspires amazing achievements. It is one of the most powerful forms of persuasion.
Crafting a compelling story around your personal experience can transmit emotion at a very deep level and will allow you to connect with your audience in a meaningful way. When you engage people with emotion, that bond that is formed transcends many barriers we find when we try to relate to people with facts and figures.
Find a story in your life experiences that people can relate to, tell the story in a open and sincere format. In today’s always connected environment, it is easy for us to find people to tell our story to. Be genuine, connect and make those connections meaningful, your business will be the better for it.
Avoid selling on price.. especially emphasizing “savings”
You will find considerable supporting research that selling on price is a direct route to the poorhouse for you and a disservice to consumers for whom price is not the primary motivator.
We are a society of extremely busy people, so busy we don’t even have time to watch our own children, we outsource that so we can go out and do our job which in most cases pays better than babysitting. It is a hard economic reality. Instead of selling “savings”, offer your customer “time”.
Most of us have experienced financial losses, and with time, work and effort, have recovered those losses. Not a single one of us has lost time and has been able to add that back to our longevity. Time is the irreplaceable resource, it has more meaning to us than money does.
Make use of “Power Words”
Writing persuasive copy requires skill, experience and a good set of tools. An effective writer’s toolbox is filled with words.
Studies have shown that there are certain power words that carry more sway than others over our decision making progress. Warning, do not be fooled by the deceptive simplicity of these words.. one of the qualities that makes them so much more effective.
YOU!
Yes.. you have probably heard this before.. “You” and “your name” will get your attention so quick it will literally make your head spin. Our names make up a considerable part of our identity, they are intrinsically tied to our perception of self. We become more engaged when a particular message displays our name.
It is not always possible to personalize a piece with an individual name but technology sure has made it possible for us to do so more than ever. With the use of permission marketing, you can personalize emails, newsletters and if you really go advanced with the use of PURLs, you can create the impression that you are really singling someone out.. in a positive way.
FREE
We all love freebies..
And it is not necessarily just those that can’t afford to pay for it. I have been a customer of Fletcher Jones in Newport Beach for years.. I get a chuckle every time I go get my free car wash on Saturday morning.. along with hundreds of others who take their expensive cars for the weekly freebie bubble bath. The fact that we spend about an hour and a half for that little perk, clearly defies logic. We can make 5-100 times what the cost of the car wash is by doing what makes us money for that equivalent amount of time. But in marketing and sales, there is little room for logic.. it is all about emotion.
In his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely examined a very unusual “battle” between Hershey Kisses and Lindt Chocolate Truffles. In the study, Lindt truffles, (the richer, superior chocolate) was offered to people at 15 cents, and Hershey Kisses were offered at 1 cent. In this first phase of the study, 73% of the people chose the Lindt truffles over the 1 cent Hershey Kisses.
In the second phase of the study, a startling finding was revealed. The Lindt truffles were offered at 14 cents, and the Hershey Kisses, were offered for free. Both prices had in essence been reduced by an equal amount, 1 cent. In the second study, 31% of the people chose the Lindt Truffles and 69% chose the FREE Hershey Kisses. It was not the difference of 1 cent, it was the difference between paid and free!
Writing engaging, quality content that converts visitors into customers is a fundamental cornerstone of business success. It is an art that takes years of practice and study. For more information on improving your copywriting skills, visit websites such as copyblogger.com and marketingexperiments.com , both great resources. The ultimate copywriter of modern times is Jay Abraham, visit his website at abraham.com for extensive resources on business strategies, specifically on marketing and conversions.
Thanks for reading, feel free to comment below.
