Genius Copywriting With Only One Word

This is something that should force you to become more creative. It’s what I call synonymous copywriting.

Here’s how to say what you’re selling is cheap without even writing “cheap.” Or, even how to say your product is healthy without getting in trouble with the FDA.* You should be able to apply these two learnings to many areas in copywriting.

Cheap Copywriting Trick

The word cheap, cheapens the perceived value of your product or service. Make your message sound like a special offer, a one time deal, or a sale that is only available once a year.

These tactics are used by a lot of companies by claiming seasonal discounts; it works, but there may be a better way too. Here’s an example:

525 Castles & Palaces, $15. Bed & Breakfast, $13. Changing the Guard, free. Ploughman’s lunch, $195. 2 Magna Cartas, free. That’s what makes Britain great.

Most ads are not able to present enough value to show prices too, but this one does. What some marketers won’t notice is that every phrase before each price shows tons of value. 525 Castles & Palaces is a lot of sightseeing — and it’s only $15? It shows a great deal.

Remember: showing immense value and then displaying the price, is how you should say “cheap.”

“Looks healthy to me”

Vitaminwater. It’s basically sugar water plus synthetic vitamins. And synthetic vitamins are questionable if they provide significant health benefits because of how poorly they’re absorbed by the body. Anyway, I digressed a little.

The word “vitamin” is what most associate as being “healthy.” Vitamin equals healthy to nearly everyone. Basically, millions of people will interpret vitamin water as healthy water.

I believe even if they could call the product Healthywater, it would sell worse because it raises consumers’ questions:

Q: “Well, how is it healthy?”

However, Vitaminwater answers the question by saying it is filled with vitamins. This gives the reason and the perceived feeling of being healthy.

Thing about this: what do people see synonymous with healthy?

  • vitamin
  • mineral
  • organic
  • diet
  • etc.

Diet soda anyone? The word “diet” in weight loss is associated with being healthy. So the word “diet” is used in other products to give that healthy feeling the consumer desires.

The One Point You Need to Know

What’s a huge benefit of what you’re selling? Is it cheap, healthy, fast? Prove it by changing a word or two. Make sure you use words that are thought to be synonymous with that benefit. These words are the reason the consumer will get their desired benefit.

*Sorry, I cannot actually claim you won’t have legal issues with synonymous copywriting techniques. This post is not meant to help you get around legal compliance; that was just a teaser and an example. Anyway, I’m certain these cases did have legal counsel. Credit to Info Marketing Blog for the Britain ad.

The Science Behind the Best Converting Call-To-Action Buttons

A call-to-action gives the user a real reason to click — to ultimately buy or fill out a form.

These clicks result in more sales and money for your business. By combining the elements that I listed below, it is not unlikely to double your profits.

What is a call to action (CTA)? It is what must be clicked (links or buttons) to result in a sale or lead. This includes everything from: “Learn more,” “Add to cart,” “Checkout,” “Click here,” and even a poorly designed “Submit” button.

Colors to use for your Call-to-Action

For text links: Blue or #0044CC (The $80 million color, read why.)

Now, many times you’ll use a link as a call to action. This one shade of blue is the color for links. Keep it underlined. Don’t be fancy. Don’t mix it up with other colors either.

For images or buttons: Orange, or a shade of it.

Typically, this color contrasts the best with websites. The color of your button is ‘set apart’ from your website. There are tests that have proven this countless times. Here’s a few posts:

  1. Split Testing with a Genetic Algorithm
  2. How to Call to Action (their explanation of why orange works best)
  3. The attack of red [actually, orange] buttons: how GSM.nl reduced bounce rate by doing a simple change

Position your CTA

Above or below the fold

A call-to-action does not belong just above the fold. This is a myth. Sometimes when it’s obvious you are selling, the consumer resists. They want to learn first and then buy.

Having your call to action above the fold is essential if your presell is very short. However, in long landing pages many marketers have found out that call to actions lower in the page’s content — instead of it in the first paragraph — have a higher conversion rate. Tracking each call to action and click is important to determine where your call to action should be. So, having your call to action lower in the pages, may actually force people to read your sales pitch before clicking. [Read more]

Invisible Call-to-Action

Some advertisers do not show the CTA until when the buyer the is ready. For example, they may do this by showing a video advertisement that is 10 minutes long. Using JavaScript, they make the CTA button appear after the page has been displayed for 10 minutes. It’s an interesting way to not allow a user to buy until you think they are actually ready to make a purchase.

Example: TruthAboutAbs.

Shown in users’ eye path

If you display the CTA above or below the fold, you do want users to be able to find the CTA when they’re ready to buy. Make it easy. Display the CTA in multiple places:

  1. In navigation – You could have a “Pricing” or “Demo” link in your navigation.
  2. Bottom of page – A lot of people will scroll to the bottom of page when they want to act immediately. Make this possible.
  3. After ad copy – Typically, motivated users will be the most ready to act once they read your most powerful benefits.
  4. Other pages – If possible, many users will browse different pages of your site to check: reviews, credibility indicators, privacy policy, or more benefits/features.

Write a CTA — What words trigger clicks and sales?

A call to action on a poorly designed landing page can often be the only element that communicates what a user can do on your site. A CTA requires time and sometimes the submission of a credit card or personal information so it needs to be persuasive and precise.

Do not use “Submit” as your primary call to action. “Submit” never clearly communicates a benefit of clicking that button. By minimum test these simple formulas:

Communicate the benefit. Consumers are almost always trying to “get” something.

Get _____. Get Free Updates. Get Results.

These are curious clicks (or minimal commitment by user). Many times curious prospects can start going into the sales funnel with just wanting to see more.

See _____. See how it works. See Pricing.

Add-to-cart (instead of “Buy now”)

_____ – Next Page. Your Results – Next Page.

You may need to minimize commitment at each step. Most people have serious commitment issues — in buying and elsewhere. They’re just not sure yet. They either have to pay money, give too much information or their time.

Use a secondary CTA on occasion. Try having a large button as your most important step and then a small link under it for people that aren’t ready to make the “larger” commitment.

There are certain websites that are constantly optimizing and testing new CTAs. You can monitor these sites and learn what they've found be most profitable. Basecamphq.com is one of these sites. The button above: 1) Reassures "No credit card required" and with text under "30-day trial. Sign up in 60 seconds." 2) Has a secondary CTA "Or, take a quick tour."

Reassure to get clicks. Decrease your prospective customer’s anxiety by giving them a reason to not be concerned. This can be written smaller in or under the CTA. The above button is an extraordinary example of this.

The secret to triple digit Call-to-Action gains

This is essentially the science or thought-process to create high gains without a lot of case studies. I’m going to post a part II to this call-to-action series — with more studies. Click RSS or Email to get updated instantly when it gets published.

The Most Valuable Advertising Technique from a $450 Million Direct Response Advertiser

Several weeks ago a (possibly former) rebill advertiser got his assets frozen. Here’s an excerpt from the CBC article:

…cheated customers out of $450 million in an internet scam where products or services advertised as free trial offers or risk-free — such as health and beauty products — were actually being billed to customers’ credit cards monthly.

Now, obviously, there’s a lot of lessons to be learned here and some very serious allegations. However, I’m not an attorney so I’m not going comment on these legal issues.

There were quite a few rebill advertisers, but he outperformed them. I want to comment on an ethical technique that he used. I just read this article about the advertiser, “What’s he selling now?” that reveals something interesting:

Willms employed rigorous testing to determine what combination of graphics and ad copy resulted in the most sales. Consumers who clicked on an ad would see one of two different order pages, and the company tracked which page was more successful. Willms told the graphics department to make changes based on the results, and a new site was built nearly every day. “That was the number one thing that made Jesse successful versus any other competitor,” says a former employee. “Even now, nobody really puts in the time and energy to continually optimize.”

If I simply told you that the secret to successful landing pages is hard work, you would not have been too impressed by this advice.

But… it really is. You need to constantly test new landing pages. In the last year, I’ve tested over 200 different landing pages on just one single campaign. And, that does not even include the near-infinite combinations of multivariate tests that I’ve done as well.

In summary, split test every day.

One more thing…

I’m going to publish a few case studies on this blog that have a proven track record of increasing conversions by other marketers. Because I rarely blog, I recommend that you subscribe via RSS or email to get my latest post as soon as it comes out.

One “Unbelievable” Call-to-Action Color Makes $80 Million

The $80 million color is: #0044CC

That “code” is a precise shade of blue, and it works when a link is the call-to-action.

When Microsoft was designing what would eventually become Bing, it tested a vast number of colors and it turned out that the one that users engaged with the most was indeed blue. More specifically, it was a shade of blue quite similar to the one used by Google.

Paul Ray, a user experience manager for Bing said on Tuesday that choosing that specific blue (#0044CC for you color enthusiasts) over some other hues amounted to an additional $80 million in annual revenue, when one factors in the additional clicks on advertisements and increased user engagement.

(Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20000623-56.html#ixzz1M9rp4XNK )

Now, many times you’ll use a link as a call to action. This one shade of blue is the color for links. Keep it underlined. Don’t be fancy. Don’t mix it up with other colors either.

What’s the perfect color for buttons?

Orange, or a shade of it. Typically this color contrasts the best with websites. The color of your button is ‘set apart’ from your website. There are tests that have proven this countless times. Here’s a few posts:

  1. Split Testing with a Genetic Algorithm
  2. How to Call to Action (their explanation of why orange works best)
  3. The attack of red [actually, orange] buttons: how GSM.nl reduced bounce rate by doing a simple change

If you go to Bing’s homepage, you’ll notice they use an orange search button. It is likely that they also found that orange is best for buttons.

This is the power of testing. Use the above shade of blue for links. And, for buttons, it needs to contrast with the rest of the site — this color is typically orange.

Tracking: Where is “Above the Fold” Exactly for Each of Your Customers?

Everyone has different screen resolutions, but there is a way to find out exactly where that crucial fold is at — by using this one, free tool: FoldTester.

To show you how this works, I decided to examine three EDU landing pages:

LowerMyBills / ClassesUSA

(Click image for full size)

As you can see the page is color coded with approximately what percentage of internet users will see this page without scrolling. Over 90% will see the call to action, “GO” — which means this page focuses on getting the user started immediately on the form instead of trying to sell to them too much.

Phoenix

These guys are one of the heaviest marketers for online degrees so it’s likely they’ll be optimized. This landing page is used in their search marketing campaign. This page has one similarity to ClassesUSA; they both keep their form above the fold for virtually all users. This page has a lot of room for improvement, but the most important change would be to make a single, clear headline. There’s too much competing for attention above the fold.

GoGetEducation

Here’s a random landing page that obviously has not been tested much. Now, you might ask why I know it has not been tested much — because to many marketers, it looks good for these reasons:

  1. It has the call to action above the fold
  2. The headlines convey what the page is about
  3. The photo is relevant
  4. Use of credibility images

However, the photo breaks rule #7 of tested ways to increase your conversion rate:

People look at what others are looking at. Have a model looking where you want your user to look.

We want the user to look at the form — not at their back button or other distractions to the left of the page. This page with a few changes and a good presell page could do well though.

Is having your content “Above the Fold” important?

Yes and no. Here’s what I mean: Having your call to action above the fold is essential if your presell is very short. However, in long landing pages many marketers have found out that call to actions lower in the page’s content — instead of it in the first paragraph — have a higher conversion rate. Tracking each call to action and click is important to determine where your call to action should be. So, having your call to action lower in the pages, may actually force people to read your sales pitch before clicking.

Rule of Thumb: Have your most engaging content above the fold. And, at minimum answer these three questions above the fold by use of adcopy and/or design:

  1. Where am I?
  2. What can I do here?
  3. Why do it here?