Realizing there are several more ways to tell that your sales copy sucks, here Heather addresses three more characteristics that mark bad sales copy – and then shares on how to go about fixing them so that your sales content pops off the page.

Tune in to learn how refining your website’s tone and feel, sharing specific benefits with your readers, and using keyphrases deftly can transform your sales copy from sucky into conversions-driving, reader-focused gold!

1. The tone and feel is off base

While this is an issue that mostly affects B2B sites, any website can suffer from this malady.

• Think about your reader when you’re writing your copy – what would you say if you spoke with them in person?

There’s something about sitting down and writing something – especially Web copy – that flashes some folks back to high school English class.

They then create this very formal-sounding document that would stand up really well in an English class, but when it comes to communicating and connecting online it falls short.

• A more “formal” tone and feel does not make you sound smarter.

In another scenario, there are some companies that believe that a formal tone and feel makes them sound smarter, and automatically conveys that they are an “expert” in their field.

• Newsflash! Formal tone and feel does not an expert make.

So instead of flashing back to that high school or college English class, or thinking that a formal tone and feel is what you need (which, in some cases it could be, depending on your audience and subject matter), again try to think about how you would communicate with folks if they called you directly.

Then, try to translate that to what you are writing online so that some warmth and personality shine through.

• If you’re not sure if you’re connecting in this fluid and natural way online, consider sharing your sales copy with someone who knows you, as well as your company.

Ask them: “Does this sound like me?” and “When I talk to folks online, is it the way I usually sound, or am I making myself sound different somehow?”

A trusted colleague or editor can give you some valuable feedback about how you can loosen up and warm up your copy with personalized content, but still manage to convey a solid and credible business tone and feel.

2. You don’t provide any real information because “you want people to call you.”

Sharing just a hint of your helpful information that doesn’t give away too much may seem savvy. Wrong!

Yes, it may sound edgy, it may sound interesting, but at the end of the day it doesn’t convey the benefits your company can provide prospects.

• Guess what? People probably won’t call you.

If you’re going down this path as a marketing strategy, the very real possibility is that folks probably won’t bother to call you. After all, your competition is only a back-click away.

It’s so easy for folks to realize that “Given company X isn’t providing me with any helpful information, let’s check out what company Y has to offer.”

• Always showcase your value, expertise and benefits.

So be sure to track what your competitors are doing (and not doing) and make sure that you provide substantive information that addresses what your audience cares about.

Giving your readers solid information is a fantastic way to showcase your expertise and value, as well as inform them about exactly what you can do for them.

3. You add a bunch of keyphrases “just in case.”

• It won’t help.
• It will turn off your readers.
• Did I mention that it won’t help?

It’s somewhat (darkly) funny that Google Analytics demi-god Matt Cutts has come out with a video discussing the myth of keyphrase density, and the myths surrounding the myth – only to hear folks say “Well, I know what he said, but I still have this feeling that if I add a few more keyphrases to my content that’s going to make all the difference – I’m going to make all sorts of money and my life is going to be grand!”

Ah, if only it were so. But it’s not real or realistic, so please: Don’t do this.

Instead, focus on your readers and do those things that will best help them.

Remember: focus on your reader, not SEO for SEO’s sake

• Yes, you do want to add keyphrases to your content.
• Yes, you want to make sure that you have those SEO copywriting bases covered.
• But adding random keyphrases or repeating keyphrases or doing anything that detracts from valuable content is not going to help you and it’s gonna turn off your readers, so DON’T DO IT!

Thanks for joining us for this week’s SEO copywriting how-to video! If you have a question for Heather, you can tweet it to her @heatherlloyd or email her via heather@seocopywriting.com. And be sure to check back next Monday for another hot Web-writing tip – it may well answer your question. See you then!

Learn the latest SEO copywriting and direct response skills while realizing your full freelancing career’s income potential: check out the only industry-recognized and highly proclaimed SEO Copywriting Certification training program today!

It’s true, writing sales copy is really difficult if you’ve never done it before. There are several ways you can inadvertently go wrong, and many DIY folks don’t know how to go about checking their sales copy to see if they’ve done it right.

So without your knowledge, much less your intention, your sales copy might suck!

Don’t despair. Tune in as Heather addresses the most common sales copywriting mistakes, and how to check your sales copy to ensure you’re not making them…

Your writing focuses on the product/service – not the reader.

• How many times did you include your company name and the words “we” and “our”?
• Readers want to know what’s in it for them.

http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm

When you’re brand new to sales writing – or even when you’re experienced, but things just aren’t clicking when you sit down to write – it’s all too easy to focus your copy on your company, and/or your product or service. You’ll use the words “we” and “our” a lot, and mention your company name over and over.

• What you want to do is change the focus of the sales content from features to benefits, telling your readers how your product/service helps them.

One of the things you can do when double-checking the focus of your sales copy is to go through and count how many times you’ve used the words “we” and “our,” as well as your company name.

• Or, you can try this cute little tool called the “wewe” monitor. Simply put your sales page URL into the “wewe” tool and it will give you a score that reflects how many times you have focused on the company rather than on the reader. It’s a fun tool worth checking out!

You’re repeating yourself. Repeatedly.

• Repeating yourself = sloppy writing.
• Tighten up the copy and delete any repetitive content.

Repetitive copy is not a mistake reserved for brand new sales writers – it can mar the content of experienced writers who just haven’t quite got the flow of a new writing project yet.

With repetitive copy, the writer might mention a concept or a benefit statement in one paragraph, and then again in the next paragraph – maybe in a slightly different way – and yet again further down the page…

• That is sloppy writing, because it stretches the sales page out longer than it needs to be. Also, repeating a benefit statement may preempt the inclusion of another – possibly even more powerful – benefit statement while cluttering your copy.

So check your sales copy for repetition, tightening it up and deleting any repetitive content.

• If you’re having difficulty seeing where that repetitive content is, then it might be a good idea to give your sales page to an editor, or a trusted someone who can check your work and give you honest feedback.

Your copy is TDL (too damn long)

• Long-form sales letters/Web pages work – if you know what you’re doing.
• Don’t make your readers scroll through useless information.
• Try splitting your information up on multiple pages instead.

Often, a sales page will run too long if the person is new to sales writing, or if they’re experienced but haven’t quite gotten into the flow of the project.

In either case, the writer is throwing everything s/he can think of into the sales page to see what sticks. Besides ending up with a really long sales page, chances are the copy has repetitive content.

• You want your sales page to be as long as it needs to be to convey the information you want it to convey.

While there’s no hard and fast rule for sales page length, the “sweet spot” is usually around 250 to 500 words…BUT that depends completely on your target audience!

You want to avoid writing a long-form sales letter unless you really know what you’re doing. People who know how to write lengthy sales copy online have tested a lot of approaches – it’s what they do, they’re experts. Anybody else who tries it is not likely to see the same results.

What most likely will happen is you’ll end up with 10 pages of copy that your readers will have to scroll through to find out how to take action. You don’t want to do that.

• If you find that your page is getting TDL, but you have so much that you want to say and it’s important information that you what on your site somewhere, try splitting the content up on multiple pages. That way, your readers won’t be overwhelmed with this long, 15,000-word essay!

Thanks for joining us for this week’s SEO copywriting how-to video! If you have a question for Heather, you can tweet it to her @heatherlloyd or email  heather@seocopywriting.com. And be sure to check back next Monday for another hot Web-writing tip – it may well answer your question. See you then!

Want to learn more about sales writing and SEO? Check out SuccessWorks’  SEO copywriting training options to see what program suits you best!

photo credit to josef.stuefer

For many of us, writing a sales page can be challenging. You may be a really great blogger, able to write about anything, or you may be a small business owner wanting to write your own sales copy for your website…in any case, if you’ve never written persuasive copy before, it can prove to be very difficult.

Fortunately, there is a rich resource you can tap for crafting convincing sales copy: tune in and learn how you can draw on your happy customers’ testimonials for the specific content you need to write a killer sales page…

Sales writing can be challenging…

• You need to tell your prospects ”what’s in it for them.”

All of the content that you write needs to be customer-focused: your prospects want to know what’s in it for them.

• But if you’re new to sales writing, it’s easy to write about features and forget about benefits.

If you’re brand new to sales writing, or if you don’t’ do it all that often, it’s easy to lapse into a discussion about the great features of your product – its color, shape, and dimensions – rather than how those features can actually benefit or otherwise help your prospect.

In the case of a service, you may say “we offer a, b, and c” but fail to say how these offerings can improve your prospects’ bottom line.

Testimonials provide valuable insight…

Here’s an easy way to work around the features vs. benefits conundrum and jump-start the process of writing a kick-butt sales page: rather than starting the sales writing process first, instead have the first step be gathering customer testimonials about your product or service.

• Why not discover what your customers love about your product or service?

By discovering what it is your customers love about your product or service, you’re spared trying to guess or make a judgment call about what the most important benefit statement should be. You can simply gather customer testimonials and find out for yourself!

• When you write your content, you can refer to the testimonials and create better benefit statements.

In crafting your sales copy, you can refer to your customer testimonials to provide content rich with tangible, specific benefit statements.

For example, maybe you own a pilates studio and have helped a lot of people with back problems. If you see that specific benefit mentioned time and again in your customer testimonials, then you might weave it into your sales copy: “We help people with back problems,” and then add a sample testimonial.

Or, it might be that you own a company that helps other companies with their accounting. Perhaps you can say that you helped company X streamline their accounting process, and even made it fun…If that’s the feedback from your clients – that they enjoy working with you and find it fun to work with you – then by all means use it in your sales copy!

Consider asking questions like…

Using client testimonials is a different way to slant how you write the sales page.

When you’re getting ready to send out those requests for testimonials, rather than say “ Hey Bob, you’re a great customer and I’m wondering if you would write a brief testimonial for me” – which might strike Bob as headlights strike deer, or elicit something that doesn’t work the way you’d hoped – instead refine your request, such as:

• How has my product/service helped you? Please be specific.

The hope here is that folks will talk about how they saved or made money working with you – something that speaks to how working with you helped improve their bottom line.

• What were your challenges before finding my business?

In this way you can take your customer’s story and weave into your sales copy.

• Why did you decide to work with my company over my competitors?

The answer to this can enlighten you as to your U.S.P. (Unique Sales Proposition) and provide specific insights to include in your sales copy.

You can simply put these questions in an email, taking care not to overwhelm – maybe limit them to five.

Once you’ve gathered your customer testimonials, you will have a fantastic platform to write that sales page!

This approach provides four benefits…

• The writing process will go much faster. You don’t have to “guess” at benefits.
• If a testimonial is really good, you can expand it into a case study, interview, or blog post.
• You’ll have powerful “specifics” that you can weave into your Web copy.
• You’ll have testimonials!

And as a final note: remember to sprinkle your testimonials throughout your site – you’ll wow your prospects even more!

Thanks for tuning in to this week’s SEO copywriting video! If you have a question for Heather, you can tweet it to her @heatherlloyd or email  heather@seocopywriting.com. And be sure to check back next Monday for another hot Web-writing tip – it may well answer your question. See you then!

Want to learn more about sales writing and SEO? Check out SuccessWorks’  SEO copywriting training options to see what program suits you best!

photo credit: Mathyld

If you have a price list on your website, or if you’re a small business owner and produce a printed price list for your clients, then you’ll find this pricing strategy how-to especially useful. And it’s a fun tip, besides!

How many times have you seen a page like this?

The first screen shot is of a web page that describes the pricing for project management software. As you can see, there are a lot of different product packages listed, with checkmarks to help people understand what product features come with each package.

What about this…?

Now, compare the first project management software price list with the second example from Basecamp. Here, you have three choices: the most expensive plan on the left, the least expensive on the right, and the middle option.

The middle plan is even called “the sweet spot”: it is clearly highlighted and catches your eye.

So the folks at Basecamp have drilled it down to three choices. What is interesting is that beneath the graphic, in regular text, they ask “Looking for something else?” and list a couple of more choices.

• What they’re doing with the pricing graphic is streamlining the experience and essentially saying “here are your three options”: it makes it much easier to make a buy decision.

The reasoning behind this price list strategy is based on “compromise choice.” Compromise choice reflects how people think when they are researching and buying a product or service.

How “compromise choices” work

• People compromise between what they need at a minimum and the high end of what they’ll pay.
• If there are three choices, the “middle choice” is often chosen.

Sometimes the compromise choice is essentially based on price, as with the left to right pricing graphic from the Basecamp example. In this instance, the middle choice represents the compromise middle ground in dollars.

See how the middle choice is highlighted?

In the next screenshot of ice cream makers, the compromise choice strategy is applied a bit differently. Here, the least expensive of the three products listed is highlighted as the middle choice, and in italicized, red font it reads “Exclusive.”

Perhaps the retailer needed to move a lot of that particular product quickly, and used compromise (middle) choice and the eye-catching highlights to influence the buyer’s decision. It definitely works in grabbing your attention!

Make it easy for people to buy from you.

Here’s all you have to do to make it easy for people to buy from you – and make more money…

• Reduce your choices.
• Place the most expensive option first – everything else looks like a bargain…and/or
• Highlight the choice you want people to make.
• Don’t forget benefit statements.

Want to learn more about SEO copywriting and effective direct response techniques? Consider enrolling in the SuccessWorks’ SEO Copywriting Certification program. (Learn what others are saying about Heather’s SEO Copywriting Certification program!)

Thanks for tuning in! Do you have a question for Heather? Tweet it to her @heatherlloyd or email her at heather@seocopywriting.com. And be sure to check back next Monday for another hot SEO copywriting video tip – it may well answer your question. See you then!

photo credit to: AMagill

If you’re just catching up, in the last couple of weeks Heather’s been talking about “power words” – those conversions-driving words that have been tried and tested by the copywriting community since pre-internet time. When weaved into your content, these power words can help increase your conversion rates by eliciting an emotional response from your readers.

So… how can you fail to correctly leverage that sexy power word, “free”? As easily as you fail to let your readers fail to understand the real value of it.

Tune in as Heather discusses how to use that mighty power word, “free,” so that it both conveys value to your readers and helps increase your conversion rates.

Will using the word “free” in your online copy help increase conversion rates?

If used correctly, you bet!

• “Free” is one of those powerful power words that definitely gets your attention.  But it is also one that requires some finesse in its use if it is to mean something of value to your prospects and help you with conversions.

So today we’ll be talking about how to effectively use and leverage the word “free” in your online copywriting.

The word “free” is a power word…

• The challenge is that within a sales situation, many copywriters don’t know how to use it correctly.

Think about the word “free” from the prospect’s perspective. The prospect is coming to your site and finds that you’re giving away a product or service for free.  Well, in their mind….

“Free” has no value…

• People aren’t thinking about the deal that they’re getting…
• They’re merely focusing on the word “free”

Your prospects aren’t considering the long hours, the research, the considerable investment that you’ve put in to create this “free” product or service. They’re not thinking about the intrinsic value of the freebie, they’re just transfixed on the word FREE.

So what can you do instead? Simple:

To get your prospects to really understand the value of what you’re giving away, and to increase conversion rates, here’s all you need to do:

• If you’re providing an incentive gift, simply include the value of the gift:

As shown on the left, specifying “a $47 value” reassures prospects that they’re already ahead of the game, making them much more comfortable with their purchase as they see high-value extra’s thrown in.

• If you’re offering a “savings,” tell your prospects how much they’re saving:

Looking at the example of “Adult Costumers: Grease Cool Sandy,” you’ll see that the full retail price of $47 is shown, followed by the site’s price of $34.95. Prospects will immediately see the value in purchasing from the website as opposed to paying full retail somewhere else.

• It is much more powerful to demonstrate the value of your “free” offering than it is to simply state the word “free.”

That’s a wrap for today – thanks for dropping by!  If you have a question for Heather, please zip it to her at heather@seocopywriting.com and be sure to tune in next week. See you then!

photo credit to Mike Licht

You. Such a seemingly simple word packs an incredible punch, as it centers your web copy around them. Coupled with customer-oriented web content, using “you” in your copy is a proven strategy for engaging the prospect and improving conversions.

Tune in to this Monday’s video and find out how to make your web copy rock with “you” and customer-oriented messages.

As discussed in last week’s video blog, the use of “power words” long precedes online writing as an “old school” strategy of direct response copywriters to improve conversions. 

These power words have been tested throughout “copywriting time” and have been found to increase conversions because they help to elicit an emotional response from the reader.

Words like:

• Now
• Exclusive
• Save

are among the longstanding favorites. So strategically placing these power words within your copy can help boost your conversions and engage your customers.

But there is one power word that trumps them all…

• YOU.

Yes, you.  Using the word “you” in your content is really powerful and incredibly important, because…(drumroll, please)…

PEOPLE are reading your content…

• And they want to know what’s in it for them/their customers.
• So focus on your target customer – not your company.

Website owners tend to forget this. They write all about THEIR company and THEIR wonderful staff and THEIR mission statement and so on, but at the end of the day, the folks reading the copy want to know if the company they’re evaluating can help them meet their needs, whatever their needs may be.

• This is a truth applicable to both B2B and B2C sites: the copywriting rules are the same.

So whenever you have that simple, powerful word “YOU” in your content, it helps to build that connection with your prospect. It takes the focus off of your company and puts it on your target customer, where it should be. You are speaking to your target customer and explaining the benefits of your products/services that matter to them.

How to evaluate your writing for customer-centric messaging

First, look at your content. Does it talk about your company? Or does it talk about your customer?

• Check out your website and see if you’ve fallen prey to writing more about your company than your customer. It’s a very common thing to do, but also a very easy mistake to fix.

Evaluate how many times the word “you” appears in your web copy – or if it even appears at all!

• If you find the word “you” scant or completely missing from your web copy, then this presents a great opportunity to re-write your content to put the focus back on your customer.

A fun, free tool to check your website’s customer focus: the WeWe Calculator

A tool offered by FutureNow, Inc., the “WeWe Calculator,” is fun and free. It evaluates the words on your website to find out how customer-focused your content really is, and is definitely worth checking out for an objective view.

Thanks for checking in to this week’s web-writing video! Do you have a question for Heather? Send it on over to her at askheather@seocopywriting.com, and be sure to tune in next Monday!  See you then.

photo gratitude to vitevu

Tune in as Heather explains what power words are, how they work, and how you can use them to strengthen your copy with their conversions-driving mojo:

What are “power words” and how do they work?

Long before copywriters added keywords to their online copy, they focused on adding “power words” that helped boost conversions.  Tested for “phraseology,” these select words have been proven to elicit an emotional response from readers. They get people excited about the product or service being offered and help them take that next action step.

• Power words help with “emotional selling.”  They’re about getting people excited, engaged, and taking action (making that conversions step).

What are some typical power words?

A partial list of some typical power words include:

-       Now

-       Proven

-       Exclusive

-       Bonus

-       You

-       Power

-       Powerful

-       How to

-       Results

-       Guarantee

It’s interesting, once you read the list, how many places you’ll see these words used in web copy and direct mail, and hear them used in radio and television ads.

Of these power words, “You” is very important.  Writing the word “you” in the copy and thereby personalizing the experience for the reader can really help boost conversion rates. “You” is a word that has proven to be incredibly powerful in both the online and offline copywriting world.

What does this mean to your online writing?

Whether you’re B2B or B2C, there are ways to integrate power words into your content so they flow naturally and fit with your site’s overall tone and feel.

• Try using a “power word” in your headlines and measure the click-throughs and re-tweets.
• See if you can weave a power word into your calls-to-action.
• It’s important to not overdo it. You want your copywriting to appeal to your prospect – not be heavy-handed.

Experiment with using power words – try using them to begin a sentence or paragraph. Don’t be afraid to use them. Play with them and get a feel for what works for your site. Applied skillfully, power words are every bit as effective in boosting conversions as they were way back when.

Do you have a question for Heather? Please feel free to zip it to her at askheather@seocopywriting.com, and be sure to check in next week!  See you then.

photo courtesy flickr – Seattle Municipal Archives

While the general reader benefit statements were powerful, honing them to highly tangible and specific ”what’s-in-it-for-me” language is what this copywriter needed to do to improve their conversions. So for those of you who have been struggling with writing better sales copy and are looking for any advantage you can find, you should find this most helpful:

1. So these are so-so benefit statements. (Let’s make them better…)

• Boost your revenue!
• Let us help you save time!
• Save money!

The challenge? People have different ideas about what “boosting revenue,” “saving time” and ”saving money” mean. The web copy doesn’t paint a picture. This is where the specifics come in…

2. Specifics take a good marketing statement and make it sexy

• Boost your revenue by 30%!
• What would you do with an extra hour every day?
• Slice your expenses by $2,000 a month!

So you can see how these highly specific benefits, expressed in such personalized, concrete and precise terms, can be something simple to leverage…

3. So what does this mean to your online writing?

• Track how you’ve helped your customers – what specifics can you uncover?
• Try to back up any “general” benefit statement with an exact number or percentage.
• Don’t feel compelled to “round up.” If you’ve boosted profits by 27.6%, it’s OK to use that stat.

If you haven’t yet asked your customers for testimonials, now would be a great time to start. Ask them if they can provide you with any precise specifications in terms of numbers and percentages. Studies have shown that accurate, factual spec’s (e.g., 27.6% as opposed to 25- or 30%) are found to be more credible by prospects. And besides, it’s the truth of the matter!

Try these suggestions and watch your conversions improve!

Thanks for tuning in and please drop Heather your question  at askheather@seocopywriting.com. See you next Monday!

The Conversion Scientist, Brian Massey

Brian Massey is the Conversion Scientist at Conversion Sciences and he has the lab coat to prove it. His rare combination of interests, experience and neuroses was developed over almost 20 years as a computer programmer, entrepreneur, corporate marketer, national speaker and writer.

Conversion Sciences was founded to fill the Web with helpful, engaging and entertaining online Web sites that convert visitors into leads and sales. Brian has helped dozens of businesses transform their sites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics and testing.

So how did it come to pass that you became the “Conversion Scientist?”

Well, I knew that few business owners were waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats screaming “I need an online marketing strategist,” which is what I technically do. Even fewer are screaming for a “Conversion Scientist.” However, the next best thing to having someone say, “Oh, I need someone like you,” is having them say, “You’re a what?” And I can explain conversion in a sentence.

The Sciences theme plays to the fact that my practice is very data-driven: “I get no pleasure if we don’t measure.”

In your opinion, where is the art of conversion copywriting going?

I think it is going cross-channel. To be a good copywriter, you must be able to be persuasive on a landing page, home page, product page, etc. To be a good Conversion copywriter, you have to be able to write a video script, summarize the major points for the landing page, create the series of blog posts that tease the video, compose the white paper that the video pitches, integrate the search key words in all of this and then cram it all into 140 characters… all in a week.

The only way to really know what to write without doing a lot of research is to watch your results. You have to know which topics get clicked. You have to know which headlines get sales. You have to know which search terms like which offers.

A good copywriter watches the numbers.

Do you have any words of wisdom for SEO copywriters about conversion optimization?

Get comfortable reading Adwords analytics and site analytics. Figure out what works for humans (conversions) as well as the search engine (visits). Then practice, and when you get good, charge a whole lot of money.

Besides actual text, what are other ways to induce conversions?

Use big buttons that call people to action. Draw boxes around important points you want to make. Strike stock photography from the site. Add a video. Shorten your signup form. Add trust symbols and logos to your pages and shopping carts. Most importantly, know the person who typed in the page URL or search term, and why they did so at this point in their life. Then make them glad they did.

Where do SEO copywriters “fit” in the overall conversion equation?

Copywriters have more ability to affect conversion rates than any other contributor to the online marketing equation. Richer images can be drawn with words than with Photoshop. Headlines can be more emotional than photographs. Designers assume they have 8 seconds to get someone’s attention. Good writers will capture visitors for minutes. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s still the words that count.

Why does it sound like I’m so full of shit? Because writers don’t know how to defend themselves. Most marketing firms believe that, because they own Word, they are qualified to edit a writers’ work. As a result, writers suffer from PRPSD: Post Red Pen Stress Disorder. By the time a corporate committee has finished “reviewing” their work, the storytelling, metaphor and color have all been bled out of the best copy. Copywriters begin to just do what the client asks rather than fight the battle. Copywriter heal thyself. Every situation is different, but I would recommend the following:

Be the most expensive in your industry/area /subject matter. This gives you the freedom to rewrite and do more research if necessary.

1. Set expectations up front: “I won’t let just anyone edit my copy.”
2. Don’t EVER assume that the client knows their customers, especially on the Web.
3. Get good at doing personas of Web visitors. These fake people will rise to your defense when your copy is attacked.
4. Threaten to fire clients frequently.
5. Gather data from every client you don’t fire to demonstrate your prowess.
6. Call yourself a Copy Scientist, Persuasion Editor, or Conversion Linguist… and then kick ass.

Start adding conversion skills to your arsenal NOW. Subscribe to the Conversion Scientist by email or risk missing something very important to your work. Sign up at The Conversion Scientist.™

If you were talking to the smart guy (or girl,) you probably led with a brainy comment. If a hockey fan caught your eye, you’d chat about the Stanley Cup and the Bruins. If you thought an outdoorsy-looking person looked hot, you may mention your love for everything REI.

The key is, you’d change what you’d talk about depending on your, um, target audience. I bet it even came naturally. You’d do it to make a a better connection, faster – and move him or her to your next conversion step (asking them out.)

Why don’t we take the same care with our Web copy?

Many B2B Websites use the same pick-up line, expecting it to work with every audience they work with. Rather than personalizing the reader pitch, their Web copy is the equivalent of “Hey, baby. How YOU doin’?”  It’s general. It’s untargeted. It’s all about them. And it doesn’t show that the company understands anything about their target audience.

Sure, this approach may work some of the time. But it won’t work most of the time. Here’s what to do instead:

I’ve talked before about creating vertical-specific landing pages for B2B copy. This gives companies two distinct advantages:

• You can speak specifically to what’s important to a defined customer persona. For instance, dental offices and real estate agents buy mailing lists. However, the benefits to a real estate agent (finding possible home buyers within a certain demographic group,) is different than dental offices (finding families within a certain zip code.)
• Splitting your pages up by vertical allow you to capitalize on less competitive (but still highly targeted) keyphrases. For instance, it could be tough to gain a competitive ranking for the phrase “mailing list.” It’s a heck of a lot easier to position for “real estate agent mailing lists.” Plus, searchers entering your site off that phrase would be highly targeted.

For instance, let’s look at this example from Constant Contact:

You can see how the company was able to customize the copy (and the application list) for the target audience.

Compare this to another Constant Contact page targeted towards consultants:

 
See what they’re doing? Their pick-up lines are personalized for the audience. They know what real estate agents and consultants want to hear – and it’s addressed in the copy. The “voice” is personal and friendly, not the B2B equivalent of “How YOU doin’?”

In short, the way they wrote their copy helps them make a better connection, faster, with their audience.

And I bet their copy converts like crazy, too.

What do you think? What’s your favorite way of connecting with your target audience?