Sonia and I will be speaking again this year at BlogWorld in Las Vegas, October 14 – 16. This time we’ll be doing a keynote presentation along with our friend Darren Rowse of Problogger.

We’re excited to be presenting together, and if we pull it off like we plan, it’ll be educational and entertaining. Of course, the show is much bigger than the three of us, which is the real reason you should attend.

BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the only trade show and conference created for the industry of blogging and new media. It gives participants the strategies, tools, and technologies they need to stake their claim in the blogosphere.

Specifically, BlogWorld is all about creating content, getting it noticed, and achieving your goals – whether that be money, influence, or both. The even bigger draw is the networking, deal making, and good ol’ fashioned camaraderie that happens in between the sessions.

Not to mention what goes on at the parties.

I’ve watched BlogWorld grow from its inception in 2007, and it keeps getting bigger and better. This year should be no different, and I’m especially stoked that the show will be held at Mandalay Bay this year instead of the convention center.

And besides… everyone’s gonna be there.

Save 20% With This Promo Code

Okay, here’s what you’re really looking for. Save 20% off the price of admission when you use this code:

COPYBLOG

Sign up for BlogWorld here, and we’ll see you in Vegas!

Note: We are marketing and media partners with BlogWorld — it’s a good match. If you’d like to promote BlogWorld as an affiliate, check out the program here.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of the writer-friendly Scribe SEO software. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

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When your sales page isn’t converting the way you need it to, it doesn’t just hurt your bottom line – it can cripple your confidence as a writer and make you doubt your future as a marketer.

On top of that, the frustration of having to rewrite underperforming copy can make copywriting seem like a tedious chore instead of the enjoyable exercise in persuasion it’s meant to be.

Fortunately, there are simple (but powerful) ways to write highly effective copy the first time – copy that gets readers emotionally invested and ready to click that “Add to Cart” button.

Read the next few paragraphs, and you’ll have a step-by-step, can’t miss foundation that will make your next sales letter a whole lot easier to write.

1. Get in touch with the pain your reader brings to the table

Features aren’t what sell your product – solution-oriented benefits are. You know, the kind of things that say “That thing that’s keeping you up at night? This will fix it.” Before you even begin to try and impress your readers with how incredible your offer is, you’ve got to establish situational relevance with them.

You absolutely must get yourself in tune with the pain points that are bringing them to a buying decision. Why are they searching for the kind of thing you’re writing about? What’s holding them back, causing them stress, or making them break out into a cold sweat?

Take the time to step into your future customer’s shoes and get a sense of what they’re feeling. What are the most important pain points that they care about, the ones that make them say “If only this could be taken care of, I’d buy that solution in a heartbeat?”

Then you can begin framing your product not as “impressive,” but as “the thing that makes their pain go away.”

2. Understand their frustration with “so far” and “out there.”

Chances are, your reader has tried to find a solution on their own. They may have tried everything and seen no meaningful result – or worse yet, they could have seen their efforts blow up in their face. This is the “so far” element you have to look into (and if you’ve already stepped into your customer’s shoes, you’ll probably have an idea of how this could play out).

This is your chance to think about how your product or service can work for them, even if they’ve failed “so far.” Consider how you’re going to position what you’re selling as a way to make sure those mistakes don’t happen in the past. This time, it’s different. Why? It’s your job to figure that out and express it.

The same goes for the “out there.” Your customers may be feeling frustrated that others have it easier in terms of having this problem solved, because other people are smarter, or more established, or naturally have the deck stacked in their favor. There’s a lot of “if only I had what they have …” thinking going on in your customer’s head, and if you can demonstrate how your offer closes the gap, then you’re halfway to the sale.

3. Step them into their “Dream Situation”

Once your reader understands that your offering might just be what helps them get away from their pain and frustration, it’s time to take them a step further. Envision what your customer’s perfect outcome would look like as they use your product or service. What problems go away? What new opportunities appear? What changes happen in their life?

People don’t buy products – they buy outcomes. Look closely at the outcomes that your offer can produce for your customers and help them see themselves there. Phrases like “Imagine if …” and “Just think of when …” contain powerful words.

Let them taste their future, and craft your sentences in such a way that they can immerse themselves in the feeling of being there. When you do this part right, you’ve helped them vividly see how your solution can move them away from pain and frustration and toward their desired outcome.

4. Close the deal with an “Ideal Solution”

By this time your reader is excited at the prospect of making their outcome happen – and now’s your chance to position your product as a slam-dunk solution. This is where you bring the features of your offer into play, stepping them through the specifics of why what you’re offering is perfectly suited to helping them achieve that desired outcome.

Maybe it’s the format you’re delivering it in – audio, video and PDFs are a great way to guarantee hitting the top learning modalities customers want. Maybe there’s one-on-one consulting tied into the offer, or a Third Tribe-style online community … or maybe it’s all of this.

Since your customer’s shoes are still on, think about how your he or she would view the ideal delivery method of your solution. Ask yourself what would make it easier for a customer to tap into the power of your offer, and then make sure it’s worked into your product or service.

Once you’ve done that, all that’s left is communicating just how well-suited your offer is to easing their pain, ending their frustration, and helping them finally get closer to their dream situation.

Use these four steps to make your next sales letter much more powerful

There’s no denying the power of a solid headline and a killer set of opening paragraphs. But the source of that power comes from these four elements – wrap them into the headlines and teaser text at the beginning of your sales letter, and your chances of having readers stick with you to the end go through the roof.

Need proof? No you don’t – because I worked these four steps into the introduction of this very post … and you’re still here.

The question is, where will these four steps take you next. Take a moment in the comments to share which of these points resonated with you the most, and how you can use them to make your next offer more enticing than ever.

About the Author: Dave Navarro is a product launch manager who can’t wait for you to join the 7,000+ people using his free workbooks in the Launch Coach Library (a crowd favorite in the Third Tribe forums).

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Gather round, everyone. It’s time to have “The Talk.”

You know the one I mean. You’ve started asking lots of questions and I can tell you’re ready for it, so make yourselves comfortable and let’s go over the basics.

Because if you’re in business, you need to know about this. It’s crucial to your success. Mastering this technique will put a spring in your step, and bring new life to your ventures.

Plus, it’s actually pretty fun.

Birds do it, bees do it

The birds and the bees do this naturally, and we can, too. It’s called cross-pollination.

They fly from one flower to another, or one tree to the next, picking up bits of one plant and carrying it to the other.

The plant on the receiving end of this pollination is hardier and able to reproduce with greater variety. It meets environmental challenges more successfully because it’s genetically diverse.

In the same way, when you cross-pollinate ideas, you make your business stronger. You’ll be better able to weather the difficulties that every business and brand has to face to survive.

Keeping your eyes open to sources for ideas is the first step. Having a system for gathering and using these ideas is important, too. Really great ideas can be found where you least expect them.

Get started here

First, the obvious sources. Cross-pollinate your business with innovative new ideas by:

• Reading books, magazines and websites outside your field.
• Talking to people in different industries. Find out what their challenges are and how they’ve met them. Ask yourself how you can apply their solutions to your own business.
• Learning from your customers. Design thinking is a concept that is built around staying in close touch with your customers’ needs, and building your products and services around meeting them.

Look for love in all the wrong places

You can find great new ideas in places you never expected, too.

• Get inspiration from your fiercest competition. Your competitors are fighting the same battles you are. What are they doing that you can learn from? How have they solved the same challenges you face? What techniques do they use to succeed? What are some problems they don’t solve particularly well, where you could fill in the gap?
• Learn from your own failures. The School of Hard Knocks can teach you more than anything else. Look back on your projects and learn from what went wrong, so that you can get it right the next time.

Keep the innovative ideas flowing

Finally, it’s easier to keep the new ideas flowing in to your business if you have a structure in place that allows cross-pollination to happen on a regular basis. Here are some techniques:

• Create an informal Board of Directors. Gather a group of 3-5 people who are willing to support your efforts. Meet with them in person or by phone at least four times a year. Update them on your goals, the progress you’re making, and your struggles. Let the ideas flow, and take good notes.
• Join a Mastermind group. Many groups meet monthly, some more often. Some Chamber of Commerce organizations coordinate them, but you can also find virtual Mastermind groups with a quick web search. The group supports each member, so you’ll both offer and receive encouragement and ideas.
• Join a virtual private community. Sites like Third Tribe are great places to connect with like-minded people and to generate exciting new business ideas.
• Consider working with a coach. Because business coaches speak to many different clients, they’ll naturally cross pollinate your conversations with ideas they’ve picked up from helping other people.

Small business, big ideas

We all want a more resilient business, and a lot of Copyblogger readers have very small organizations. Letting ideas flow freely between your small-scale operation and the larger world will build a business that withstands the challenges of the marketplace.

How about you? Are you gathering and applying ideas from all over? Buzz down to the comments and cross-pollinate them with some thoughts of your own.

About the Author: Pamela Wilson has been in the same Mastermind group since 2004. She cross pollinates her Big Brand System site with ideas to help small businesses use the power of design to grow.

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Writing with emotion can be hard. Really hard. Especially when it’s on a subject that’s technical.

I’m speaking from experience. You see, I recently launched an ebook about keeping WordPress sites more secure, and I asked my friend James Chartrand of Men with Pens if I might be able to write a guest post to try and spread the word.

If you’ve been following James’ blog for awhile, you know she doesn’t publish many guest posts, and when she does, her standards are high. The reply to the first article I submitted was, “I’d prefer one that’s less technical and more emotional.”

“Um, it’s WordPress security enhancements.” I think I may have said that out loud.

Now how the heck am I supposed to tell an emotional story about setting up a WordPress Firewall?

I’ll tell you though, it can be done. The story just needs to be told in the right way. It can’t only focus on implementation. After all, the implementation and the “how to” are covered in the ebook.

To write with emotion about WordPress security, I had to get to the Why. And whys can be very emotional.

I’m not a copywriter, nor am I the world’s greatest storyteller. I’m just a guy who knows a thing or two about how to keep your blog safe at night while you sleep. I know what it’s like to wake up one morning with a nightmare you never knew you had.

Telling the “why” from your heart

My wife and I had that nightmare once. Our dream was taken from us by someone we never met, someone who could care less that the website they ruined for us helped put food in our kids’ mouths.

I tried to describe what happened to us, in hopes it might convince others to take action so it wouldn’t happen to them.

My goal in writing the post for James was to convince her readers that the threat of someone breaking into your blog and destroying what you’ve worked so hard at building is real.

In fact, it happens all the time. And it’s getting more and more common.

When I told the “why,” the “how” became easy to sell.

How I learned to become a copywriter (sort of)

The truth is, I’ll never be a great copywriter. I’m just a guy who wants to help people, and to sell some copies of my ebook.

But my understanding of marketing changed when I understood why emotion matters. When you’re getting out there and trying to sell your product or service, you’ve got to connect on a deeper level.

We all hear how you should mention your product’s features, but you really need to glorify the benefits.

Features, Advantages, Benefits (FAB).

Okay great, got that.

But if that’s all you’re looking at, there’s one more piece of the puzzle missing.

You need connection

You can glorify the benefits of your product to customers all day long. And yeah, that might be good enough.

But they also need to connect with you.

If you can not only convey the benefits of your product or service, but also the passion you have to help your customers, especially if you tie that into your own personal story, then you’re that much closer to retiring to Hawaii.

Since I know my limitations, I asked James to tell my story for me.

Reading how James rewrote my own words made me realize just how complex attractive sales copywriting can be. It’s not only about conveying benefits. Nor is it about simply sparking an emotional response.

In fact, it’s not “simply” anything.

To me it’s almost like a mathematical formula (sorry, I have a minor in mathematics). Attractive sales copywriting is about making connections.

Connecting features with benefits. Connecting your “why” story with their problem. Connecting desire to action.

Since Copyblogger readers are some of the best copywriters around, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What other connections do you think are critical when we’re writing to persuade customers to buy?

And how have you used emotion and storytelling to create a stronger message? Let us know in the comments.

About the Author: John Hoff isn’t a copywriter, but he does blog for a hosting company, WP Blog Host and has created a free video mini course on how to secure WordPress from unwanted intruders. He really, really, really hates hackers.

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Usually on Copyblogger we talk about how to grow your business, get more customers, increase your conversion rate, build thousands of daily readers, and all the rest of it.

But you also need to know about the factors that will kill off your business. Sometimes it’s a question of attitude, like when you’re sick of it, when it’s only a hobby and you don’t want to take it too seriously, or when you’re equally scared of success and failure.

And then there are just downright mistakes, which, fortunately, can be corrected.

If you want your business to thrive, watch out for these warning signs. Get them straightened out and you’ll get your business on the road to robust good health.

#1: A sucky attitude

Your attitude about your own business will affect everyone else’s attitude about it. Every web visitor, every person you speak to, every twitter and FaceBook contact. They’ll know, without you telling them, exactly how you regard your business.

What are some of the warning signs that your attitude may suck?

• When you don’t post for weeks on end.
• When you haven’t put out a new product or service for the last six months.
• When you say your business would be great if it wasn’t for those $#%^& customers.
• When you whinge about how hard business is and how all those successful A-listers must have had friends in the right places.
• When you’re expecting to be an overnight success and you’re surprised that you aren’t both rich and famous after six months.

#2: Marketing to a demographic, not a niche

The best and simplest definition of a niche that I’ve seen is “a group of people with a common problem who congregate together.”

What isn’t a niche? Freelancers are not a niche. Work at Home Parents (mums, dads, or both) are not a niche. Small business owners are not a niche. Copywriters are not a niche. Women over 40 are not a niche, neither are men after retirement.

Those are all demographics — and they’re all groups that I’ve seen people try to market to.

It’s only a niche when they share a problem.

So what’s the problem in your niche, and how are you going to solve it? Where does your niche group together so you can market to them specifically?

It’s a marketing paradox that the more you narrow your niche, the more successful your marketing will be.

Have a look at who you’re aiming at now and ask yourself if it’s a demographic or a real niche.

How can you narrow your message down to their core problem — the one that you solve brilliantly and uniquely?

#3: Looking like a cheapskate

It’s so easy to set up an online business these days — just whack up a WordPress.com or Blogger site and off you go.

Need graphics? Pick up some clip art. Logo and website header? $50 should take care of that if you outsource to the lowest bidder. Business cards? You can get freebies from Vistaprint, why pay money for a designer and printing? Newsletter list? Send that from your desktop with Outlook.

The only problem here is that your business looks cheap. And the overall impression visitors and potential clients get is that you’re (a) broke, (b) cheap and (c) unprofessional.

There are some things you can do free or low-cost and no one will notice. Your website is not one of them.

Don’t get me wrong here, you don’t have to go to the other extreme and mortgage your house to pay for the website. You do have to make sure that your site has a clean, professional look, that it’s easy to navigate, and that your web presence makes you look worth the prices you charge.

#4: Not capturing visitor details

Someone comes to your site, looks around, reads some posts, and then leaves. Sure, they liked it and intend to come back and read some more — but they never do. They forget, lose the url, get busy. And you’ve lost them forever.

I’m amazed at the number of small businesses that don’t have a way to capture visitor details — their names and email addresses. They’re losing customers and making life harder for themselves. It takes time and effort to attract people to your site, so why let them leave without a way to keep in touch?

Set up an email newsletter list (NOT from your desktop, see #3 above) and offer a valuable free report or ebook in exchange for their details. MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers if money is tight at the start, and you can build from there.

Once you’ve lost a visitor they’re gone forever — along with every person they may have referred you to. Do you really want to let them get away that easily?

#5: Failing to plan long term

Or don’t plan at all. Business plans are for big businesses, and for when you need to go to the bank for capital, right? Wrong!

When you don’t plan you’ll drift. You’ll chase the latest marketing guru and technique, flit from this to that and wonder why nothing seems to work for you. What are you aiming for? What do you expect out of your business? How will you know when you’ve reached it?

You don’t need a 100 page plan full of legalese and possible budgets and financial projections that no-one but your Accountant understands.

But at the very least you do need to know what your aims (goals) for your business are, who you’re marketing to, and what makes you different from everyone else out there.

No plan = No business.

#6: All learning, no action

Are you a ‘gunna’? You’re ‘gunna’ do this and ‘gunna’ do that?

Just as soon as you’ve studied this marketing e-course, read those 136 ebooks, listened to the 84 teleseminars and watched the 78 hours of business videos that you’ve downloaded onto your computer?

How many information products have you bought that you’ve never read, listened to or watched? How many of them have you actually worked through step by step?

We all do this, or rather, don’t do this. Me? I’m waiting for retirement before I work through my resources folder — it’s the only way I’ll ever have the time.

Ebooks, courses, videos and all the other teaching methods are great, as long as you utilize what you’ve learned. Information junkies abound. People who take action on what they’ve learned are rare.

You’ll learn more in your first twelve months of actually running your business and putting yourself out there than you will from any number of books, courses and videos. Information is great, but nothing beats taking action.

About the Author: Mel Brennan is the antipodean force behind both SuperWAHM and the Two Hour Business Plan. You can also catch her on Twitter.

P.S.

Looking for the advice we talked about at the beginning: how to grow your business, get more customers, increase your conversion rate, gain several thousand daily readers, and all of that good stuff? You’ll find it on the free Copyblogger newsletter, Internet Marketing for Smart People. Come join us today!

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Recently, my company brought together 60 of the web’s brightest minds to speak about influence for 60 seconds each.

Yep. 60 speakers, 60 minutes total.

Who came to the party?

Well, Copyblogger’s own beloved Brian Clark, and his humorous underlord, Johnny B. Truant, to start.

We also heard from Guy Kawasaki, Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble, MarketingSherpa’s Anne Holland, MarketingProfs’ Ann Handley, David Meerman Scott, and many others.

We called it The Influencer Project, and billed it as “the shortest marketing conference ever.” The venerable HubSpot was our sponsor. Word got around.

We learned a lot, which we’ll be sharing as a case study later down the road.

But for now, I wanted to share with my fellow Copyblogger enthusiasts and Third Tribe mavens the “one thing” each speaker shared that we at ThoughtLead found unique and essential to building digital influence.

Now, without any further ado, here they are, in order of appearance:

#1. David Meerman Scott. “Stop talking about your products and services. People don’t care about products and services; they care about themselves.” -@dmscott

#2. Anne Holland. “Improve the buttons on your landing page. Can you make your button bigger?” -@anneholland55

#3. Mike Volpe. “We share lots of things that most companies would keep internal. By sharing both the good and the bad, you build digital influence.” -@mvolpe

#4. Michael Port. “Consistency. Consistency demonstrates commitment. You’re going to earn trust because you’re consistent.” -@michaelport

#5. Liz Strauss. “Know where you’re going — because who would want to follow you if you don’t know where you’re going?” -@lizstrauss

#6. Robert Scoble. “Follow better people. The better your inbound is, the better your output will be. And your output is what people follow.” -@scobleizer

#7. Carol Roth. “Align yourself with outstanding strategic partners.” -@CarolJSRoth

#8. Scott Porad. “Make connections with people online, and then go and meet them in person in the real world, offline.” -@scottporad

#9. Joe Pulizzi. “Create content that stands for something: what I call Higher Purpose Content Marketing.” -@juntajoe

#10. Laurel Touby. “Each month, on the first day of the month, assign yourself 3 digital trends you’ve been hearing about and do a test drive.” -@laureltouby

#11. Hugh MacLeod. “We use other people’s stuff or other people’s content to socialize. And your stuff’s either a social object or it’s not.” -@gapingvoid

#12. Chris Guillebeau. “Avoid incestuous blogging. Instead of sticking to one niche, think bigger: what social circles are related to yours?” -@chrisguillebeau

#13. Laura Roeder. “Just start talking to people! Don’t worry about what to tweet, just start responding.” -@lkr

#14. Michael Margolis. “People either identify and connect with your story or they don’t. Have a story that’s worth telling.” -@getstoried

#15. Dave Navarro. “Find people who have your audience already and co-create products with them.” -@rockyourday

#16. Loren Feldman. “Either be super-fake and make believe you’re friendly to everybody, or be completely honest.” -@1938media

#17. Ann Handley. “Ground your content in who you are. Don’t be afraid to have a point of view. But also give it wings to soar freely and be shared.” -@marketingprofs

#18. Jim Kukral. “Facebook advertising: you can run ads on profiles of people that work just within certain organizations!” -@jimkukral

#19. Joselin Mane. “As soon as you meet someone, introduce that individual to someone else you know.” -@joselinmane

#20. John Jantsch. “Get very good at filtering and aggregating content. Deliver it to people at the right time, the right size, the right amount.” -@ducttape

#21. Marshall Kirkpatrick. “Be early in the news cycle on any conversation of general interest. Detect early voices out in the wilderness.” -@marshallk

#22. Shama Kabani. “Create [video] content around your area of expertise and then distribute, distribute with gusto!” -@shama

#23. Terry Starbucker. “The only way to build influence is to go out and try and get it yourself, and to overcome that fear of doing so.” -@starbucker

#24. Johnny B. Truant. “Defy convention where it’s appropriate. Only a few people dare to step outside. And people take notice of that.” -@johnnybtruant

#25. Jason Falls. “Share good content consistently. That’s how I’ve done it.” -@jasonfalls

#26. Robbin Phillips. “It is not about digital. It’s about people. It’s about passion conversations, not product conversations.” -@robbinphillips

#27. Yaro Starak. “Learn how to talk more about other people. If you’re looking to influence a certain thought leader, talk about them.” -@yarostarak

#28. Michael Stelzner. “Set up a fan page on Facebook. Make a welcome tab with a video on it, and ask a poll question.” -@mike_stelzner

#29. Erica OGrady. “Make people around you more successful than you are.” -@ericaogrady

#30. Gary Vaynerchuk. “Talk about things you know. The reason Wine Library TV worked was because I knew what I was talking about.” -@garyvee

#31. Nathan Hangen. “Don’t worry about getting attention from other people. Make something worth talking about.” -@nhangen

#32. Danielle LaPorte. “Get yourself properly interviewed. Either hire a writer, or get yourself in front of a camera with a friend.” -@daniellelaporte

#33. Guy Kawasaki. “Repeat your tweets. I repeat them every eight hours.” -@guykawasaki

#34. David Bullock. “Move offline. Sometimes your market is not online. Use another media—television, radio, speaking events.” -@davidbullock

#35. Vanessa Fox. “A lot of people attract [visitors] from search. They’ve missed that big second step: solving their problems.” -@vanessafox

#36. Lewis Howes. “Find one specific niche and master that niche.” -@lewishowes

#37. Valeria Maltoni. “Do a weekly chat on Twitter. I’m a business strategist, so we use the principle of kaizen to help people at #kaizenblog.” -@ConversationAge

#38. Sergio Balegno. “Invest more time mapping a strategy for not just using social media, but for integrating social media with other tactics.” -@sergiobalegno

#39. Hank Wasiak. “Get rid of conventional views of influence. It should be about our influence — from my influence to our influence.” -@hankwasiak

#40. Mitch Joel. “Get active in other people’s communities. Get out of your own head and get into other people’s spaces.” -@mitchjoel

#41. Tamsen McMahon. “Building digital influence is about ‘digital dimensionality.’ Show as many sides of yourself or your business as you can.” -@tamadear

#42. Justin Levy. “Listen to the conversations around you. See how different networks interact, because not every network’s the same.” -@justinlevy

#43. Chris Garrett. “What you’re looking for is a long-term relationship. You don’t want to gain influence and lose influence.” -@chrisgarrett

#44. Cathy Brooks. “Think about the authenticity and consistency of your voice across your entire online and offline presence.” -@cathybrooks

#45. Todd Defren. “To change your world, start by trying to change the world. What is it that you feel passionate enough about to shake things up?” -@tdefren

#46. Brian Clark. “Learn to be a storyteller. Narrative — it’s what makes us human. Big media does it great. You have to as well.” -@copyblogger

#47. Scott Belsky. “Share your ideas liberally. Accountability and letting people know what you’re up to can make all the difference.” -@scottbelsky

#48. Wendy Piersall. “You have to put your business model before pursuing fame. Whatever you do online, make sure that it adds to your bottom line.” -@emom

#49. Mark Silver. “Many people are afraid to speak; if you speak for them, they will be listening.” -@markheartofbiz

#50. Dan Schawbel. “Go further down the long tail and choose a much smaller niche to focus on. Be the personal finance expert for Minnesota.” -@danschawbel

#51. Shashi Bellamkonda. “Find out from your customers which social networks they are using, and be there for them at the moment they need you.” -@shashib

#52. Gretchen Rubin. “Self-expression is the new entertainment. Get people talking. I had success just asking, ‘What’s your comfort food?’” -@gretchenrubin

#53. Muhammad Saleem. “Give as much as you can give. Too often we’re too focused on what we want to accomplish.” -@msaleem

#54. Aaron Kahlow. “Think about social media not as its own strategy, but a strategy to enhance your existing marketing and business goals.” -@aaronkahlow

#55. Alexandra Levit. “Target between five and ten individuals who you admire, whose work you’ve followed, and gradually start getting to know them.” -@alevit

#56. Steve Woodruff. “Identify gifted up-and-comers. By coming alongside them and becoming an advocate, you end up creating an advocate for life.” -@swoodruff

#57. David Siteman Garland. “Start the media arm of your company, whether it’s a special show, or a podcast, or an online magazine.” -@therisetothetop

#58. Amber Naslund. “Online influence is a slow burn. It’s something that’s grown by having quality one-on-one conversations over time.” -@ambercadabra

#59. Julien Smith. “Get someone else to take a look at what you have that you maybe take for granted and gives you an advantage over other people.” -@julien

#60. Brian Solis. “How do you become a thought leader? It starts with *being* a thought leader and then connecting the dots back to you.” -@briansolis

So there you have it: 60 of the most successful digital influencers, all sharing their thoughts on how you can increase your own digital influence.

Of course, each one is tweetable — what’s the point of wisdom if it can’t be shared? (Kudos to Chris Brogan for the original inspiration of “tweetable advice.”)

And if you want to join the conversation on influence, just include #influencer in your tweets. You’ll find a community of people waiting to interact with you.

And now, my friends, I ask you: which is your favorite tweet, and why? And how can you implement it in your business, starting today? Let’s have some fun in the comments.

Sam Rosen is the big-time, Daddy Warbucks CEO of ThoughtLead, a digital influence agency that helps brands use the web to spread important ideas, and the co-creator of the Influencer Project — the shortest marketing conference ever.

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Five reasons?

There may be seven thousand reasons why your newsletter won’t get the response you’re looking for.

Most of those reasons have the same common problem, though: readers just don’t like it.

And that’s probably because you’re making one of these five mistakes.

Mistake # 1: Your newsletter isn’t helpful

This is a big one. My wife signed up for a newsletter on Ayurveda, thinking she would get some helpful articles and ideas on a topic she was very interested in. All she ever got was a whole bunch of promotional stuff.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You know very well that non-stop shameless self-promotion doesn’t exactly endear you to others, and of course you’d never make every single newsletter into a pitch.

Because you’re a Copyblogger reader, you know that your content has to be useful or it won’t get read.

Yet most folks can’t help themselves.

They mean to write something useful, they mean to be helpful, but they end up being self-promotional because it’s easier. It’s easier to say “Yoga class on Friday, 17th December” than it is to write yet another article about yoga.

So they wind up being self-promotional by default — and since it was the easier option, they don’t think of it as being unhelpful to their readers.

That doesn’t mean the readers don’t see it that way, though.

Mistake #2: Your voice isn’t particularly compelling

Voice is not everything, but it sure counts for a lot. When you speak to a friend over the phone, they sound excited and vibrant. Ask them to put down their feelings on paper and you often find what they’ve written just doesn’t sound like them.

Their voice doesn’t show up in their writing, and that means their writing doesn’t really convey how they feel. Every artist, singer, and yes, writer has a signature voice. This voice needs to be authentic.

If you’ve tried and failed to find your voice before, put down the pen and Skype a friend. Get them to ask you questions about the topics you’ll be writing about in your newsletter — recording every word, naturally. Then just blab away, and transcribe what you’ve said.

I know this method sounds tedious. But it’s quicker than slaving over a boring newsletter that takes you two days to write, and still winds up completely devoid of voice.

Voice matters. And you have one — you just have to get it on paper.

But tone alone won’t save the day.

Mistake # 3: You’re not telling stories

Many people think their newsletter has to be full of perfectly organized and structured articles — and since they don’t know how to create those kinds of articles, they get frustrated and stuck when they’re trying to write.

Structure isn’t the way to create a great newsletter. Stories are.

As human beings, we’re entranced by stories from an early age. Start with stories about your clients. Write about what you’ve experienced in your industry and your thoughts about it. When you’re trying to elicit response, nothing gets your readers engaged like the color and drama of a good story.

And how do you finish? Tell the moral of the story — just like you would in a real story. Explain what you learned or what you should have learned or what someone else could learn from this experience.

The moral of the story also does double duty as the springboard for your call to action. Which brings us to Mistake # 4.

Mistake # 4: You have a half-hearted call to action

This week, you need to fill up your yoga class. In your newsletter, you’re going to ask a customer to write back or comment. You need that customer to respond. You can’t hope they will — you have to ask them to do it.

You have to be pretty darned clear what you want them to do, too. Just saying “please respond” is far too vague. Your customers don’t know exactly what you want them to do or how to do it.

Do you want them to click on a link? Tell them to click here (and also tell them why).

Do you want them to write back and tell you you’re a god/goddess/schmuck? Use the words “just click reply to email me back and tell me I’m a god/goddess/schmuck.”

Do you want them to buy? Tell them.

Most folks just hope their customers will act on their own. And their customers mostly don’t — because they’re too busy to figure out how you want them to respond. You need to tell them. Just a little nudge will do.

Of course, none of this will work if you’re a complete stranger.

Mistake# 5: You don’t have a specific frequency

Switch on your TV at 6 pm. What do you see?

In most countries, it’s the evening news. And every evening it’s the same old news, but hey it’s consistent.

Most newsletters aren’t. If you’re going to write a newsletter, then you’ve got to have a publishing schedule.

You have to promise your readers that your newsletter will go out once a month, or twice a month or three times a week — whatever it may be.

Your newsletters can’t go to Bermuda on vacation. They’re doing all the grunt work for you. Our newsletter has gone out since 2002 and has done so week after week without any stoppage.

You want to stop? You are ill? Sorry mate, but that won’t wash well with your readers. Imagine the TV station canceling the news because some newsreader didn’t turn up.

One of the big reasons for the lack of response is that your newsletter is a stranger to your readers. You can’t send them a newsletter whenever you feel like it and hope they’ll respond. Response is directly related to frequency. Muck up on frequency and the rest of the four points don’t even matter.

So there you have it:

1. Pure self-promotion won’t work — make it useful.
2. Your tone of writing is critical. Record yourself if you have to, but connect with your own unique voice.
3. If you can’t get your head around structure, use customer stories.
4. Don’t be half-hearted about promotion — give a strong call to action.
5. Without consistent frequency, your customers will forget who you are even if you do everything else right.

Newsletters are a lot of work. There’s no point in doing them unless you see the response you’re looking for. And avoiding these five big mistakes will perk up your response in a hurry.

About the Author: Sean D’Souza offers a great free article on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter. Be sure to check out his blog, too.

P.S. Have you checked out Internet Marketing for Smart People, the Copyblogger email newsletter? It features a free 20-step course that will build your business, so you really should click here and subscribe.

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Whoa Nellie… we got an amazing response! We’ll get caught up and do this again in the future.

When people arrive at your website, they’re looking for instant guidance. They want to know what you’re about, and if you can help with whatever they’re looking for.

That’s the function of your tagline. It’s an up-front statement that encapsulates and delivers your big-picture promise – and it’s got to hit the mark with your target audience in seconds.

First up, here are two articles on ways to formulate a killer tagline:

• How to Create a Rock-Solid Tagline That Truly Works
• Does Your Tagline Create Clarity or Mystery?

Creating the perfect tagline is an expression of your positioning, so also check out these two articles about developing your winning difference:

• Differentiate Your Blog or Die
• Take 15 Minutes to Find Your Winning Difference

Now, for the cool part:

In the past, we’ve done interactive tagline clinics in the comment section. Basically, you tell us:

1. what you have to offer
2. the type of people you’re trying to reach
3. your current tagline if you’ve got one

Then, people like Roberta, James, Sonia, Jon, and yours truly will provide guidance and suggestions. We’ll even write your actual tagline for you should the proper inspiration hit.

And of course there’s no charge. So if you want help with your tagline, get started by telling us in the comments!

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of Scribe. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

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Ever wonder where you’re supposed to find the time to promote your blog?

If you’re blogging in your spare time, it can seem impossible. You’re already struggling just to publish a post every weekday, and sometimes you can’t even manage that. You want to work on your SEO, twitter following, and relationships with popular bloggers, but you also have a job, family, friends — responsibilities that are just more important.

And so you wonder: should you just keep going, doing the best you can?

Or is there a strategy you can use that doesn’t require so much time?

I started to research the answer to that question about a year ago, and after working with more than 50 bloggers, trying different things, I think I’ve found one.

As it turns out, the answer isn’t doing more. It’s doing less.

Let me explain.

Step One: Publish only one blog post per week

Whoever said you have to publish a blog post every weekday?

Nobody, as far as I can tell. It’s just what everyone does, and so most of us assume it’s the only way to do it.

But it’s not.

If you’re strapped for time, there’s nothing wrong with cutting back on the number of posts you publish each week. Your readers might even be grateful. Most people have so much to read that they don’t have time to keep up with all of your blog posts, and they feel bad about it. By cutting back, you make it easier for them to stay a subscriber.

So how many posts should you publish, exactly?

There’s no set number, but here’s a suggestion: start with one really good post per week, and if you have time, work your way up.

The key word is “good.” One well-written, well-thought-out blog post can get you more links and traffic than hundreds of hurried ones. Some writers are faster than others, but in general, if you’re spending less than two hours on most of your posts, you’re probably going too fast. Cut back the quantity, and focus on quality.

By itself, this will often double or triple your traffic. But it also does something else: it frees up time to focus on promotion.

Step Two: Publish one guest post per month on popular blogs

As you’ve probably seen, there are hundreds of strategies for promoting a blog. In an ideal world, you would use them all, digging dozens of channels for traffic to come flowing in.

There’s only one problem: you don’t live in an ideal world. And neither do I.

Even if you were working on your blog full-time with a dozen employees to help you, you couldn’t do everything.

So don’t try. Instead, focus on one strategy, and get really good at it.

My advice: start with guest blogging.

Here’s why: pretty much every other traffic strategy depends on you having connections.

To make SEO work, you need links from trusted sites. To make twitter work, you need to get retweets from people who have a lot of followers. To make social bookmarking work, you need connections with social media power users who can bring you dozens or even hundreds of votes.

And that’s hard when you’re a beginner, because you don’t have any of those connections.

In my opinion, it’s far, far easier to establish relationships with influential people first, and then use those connections to fuel the other strategies.

If you can publish just one guest post per month for popular blogs, at the end of the year, you’ll have made connections with twelve very influential people who can help you grow your blog. That’s not going to give you 100,000 subscribers all by itself. But it will give you a nice foundation, and it’s one you can build on.

Step Three: Slowly start doing more posts and promotions

Once you start getting results, I think you’ll find it’s a lot easier to expand your efforts.

Everyone is more motivated to work on something that’s working. If you land a guest post on a big blog and pick up a few hundred subscribers, you won’t have to push yourself quite so hard to work on your next post. You’ll want to do it, and that makes blogging a lot more enjoyable.

You’ll also have the connections you need to slowly start trying some other traffic strategies. For instance, you could:

• Publish a special piece of content, such as a free report or video, and then use your connections to get links from popular blogs (Here’s a free tutorial on how to do that).
• Build a following on twitter to help promote your posts, and then strategically make a post go viral (Here’s a free tutorial on how to do that, too).
• Pick a search phrase that gets hundreds of thousands of searches per month, and then use your connections to get trusted links (That tutorial is coming this Friday).

By themselves, none of those strategies are new. Anyone who has been blogging for more than a few months probably dreams about attracting links, building a twitter following, and getting a first page ranking on Google.

The difference is you’ll actually be able to do it.

Cutting your posting schedule will free up the time you need to work on promotion, and guest blogging will give you the connections you need to pull them off.

It’s a very simple system, but it’s also one that gives you everything you need while investing a more reasonable amount of time.

Is the system perfect?

No.

In fact, it has one serious flaw:

Isn’t getting a guest post on a popular blog kind of hard?

Yeah, it can be.

With audiences numbering in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, popular bloggers are justifiably careful about the quality of content they publish. Frequently, they also have a lot of bloggers volunteering to do guest posts, so the competition can be stiff.

But it’s not impossible. New bloggers do it on a regular basis here at Copyblogger, as well as many other popular blogs.

There’s no reason you can’t do it too. You just need a few tricks of the trade to help you get started.

Check out the free GuestBlogging.com videos

If you haven’t seen the GuestBlogging.com videos yet, you should check them out.

They’re free, and they contain some of the most powerful strategies I’ve learned while writing for Copyblogger and building popular blogs of my own. So far, thousands of people have signed up for them, and many are saying it’s some of the best blogging advice ever published.

The bad news is that I’m about to take it all down.

No, it’s not because I’m the King of Mean. (Even though I am.)

It’s because next week, I’m opening the doors to a new training program I’ve put together specifically for people who are serious about building a popular blog. I’ll leave the videos up for about another week, but once the training program starts, I’ll be taking them down to give members 100% of my attention.

I’ll probably be releasing them again at some point, but I’m not sure when, and I didn’t want the Copyblogger readers to miss out. So, if you’ve been looking for a strategy you can implement in your spare time without having a lot of connections, be sure to take a look.

It’s not the only strategy for building a popular blog. But if you’re strapped for time, I think it’ll work well for you.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of GuestBlogging.com. Get more from Jon on twitter.

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If you’re trying to make money online, sooner or later you have to face it. Conversion. That intimidating topic: how to get more buyers from the same amount of traffic.

The only reason conversion is intimidating is that there are a lot of places you can go astray. Most of them aren’t that hard to fix, but any one of a thousand little problems can keep you from getting the conversion you should have.

I don’t have a thousand tips for you today, but I do have 101 to get you started.

Here are 101 fixes, some small, some big, for making more sales online.

1. Does your product or service solve a problem people actually care about? How do you know? If your basic offer doesn’t appeal to your prospect, you’re sunk before you begin. Make sure you’re selling something people want.
2. Let prospects know they’re buying from a human being. Keep your language personal, friendly, and (for most markets) informal. Sound like a person, not a pitching machine.
3. Tell a story about how you solved this problem for yourself before you started selling the solution to others. Let readers put themselves in your shoes. Let the prospect feel, “Wow, this person is a lot like me.”
4. Fix your typos, make sure your links work, avoid grammar mistakes that make you look dumb. Reassure your prospect that you know what you’re doing.
5. Test two headlines. When you find a winner, run it against a new headline. Keep eliminating second-best. Google Adwords is a quick and efficient way to do this.
6. Try testing an “ugly” version of the sales copy. Boring fonts, not much layout, no pretty colors. Weirdly, sometimes a bare-bones presentation works better. Don’t just run ugly without testing it, though, because it doesn’t always win.
7. Instead of sending traffic right to a sales page, put them through a six- or seven-message autoresponder first. Give them enough information to build their trust and let them know you’re the best resource.
8. Strengthen your call to action. Make sure you’ve clearly told readers exactly what to do next.
9. Make sure you’ve described your product or service in enough detail. If it’s physical, give the dimensions and some great photos. If it’s digital, tell them how many hours of audio you include, how many pages are in the PDF. Don’t assume your prospects already know any details — spell everything out.
10. Getting traffic from advertising, pay-per-click, or guest posting? Be sure your landing page is tied to your traffic source. If you’re running a pay-per-click campaign for “Breed Naked Mole Rats,” make sure the words “Breed Naked Mole Rats” are in your headline for the landing page.
11. Master copywriter Drayton Bird tells us every commercial offer should satisfy one or several of these 9 human needs: make money, save money, save time and effort, do something good for your family, feel secure, impress other people, gain pleasure, improve yourself, or belong to a group. And then of course, there’s the obvious #10 — make yourself irresistibly sexy to the romantic partner of your choice. I guess Drayton is too much of a gentleman to include it, but it’s about the strongest driver we have once eating and breathing have been taken care of.
12. Now that you’ve identified your fundamental human need, how can that be expressed in an emotion-based headline?
13. Have you translated your features into benefits? I bet you’ve still got some benefits you could spell out. Remember, features are what your product or service does. Benefits are what your prospect gets out of it.
14. Put your photo on your sales page. Human beings are hard-wired to connect to faces. If prospects can see you, it’s easier for them to trust you.
15. If you have a dog, use a photo of you with your dog instead. There’s something about a dog that lowers nearly everyone’s defenses.
16. You can try just using a photo of the dog. Believe it or not, sometimes it works.
17. Simplify your language. Use something like the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale to make sure you’re keeping your wording clean and simple. (Please note that simple writing is not dumb writing.)
18. No matter how emotional your appeal, justify it with logic. Give people the facts and figures they need so they can justify the purchase to themselves. Even the most frivolous, pleasure-based purchase (say, a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes) can be justified with logical benefits (superior workmanship, rare materials, giving the wearer a boost in confidence).
19. What kind of tasty bonus could you offer? Peanut butter is good; peanut butter with jelly is great. Find the jelly for your peanut butter, the bonus that makes your good product even better.
20. Are you getting your message to the right people? A list of people who really want what you offer, and who are both willing and able to buy?
21. Listen to the questions you get. What are people still unclear about? What’s worrying them about your offer? Even if you outsource your email and/or support, it’s a good idea to regularly read a random selection of customer messages.
22. Keep your most important sales elements “above the fold” (in other words, on the first screen, without scrolling, when readers go to your page). Usually that means a compelling headline, a great opening paragraph, and possibly either a wonderful product shot (to create some desire) or a photo of you (to build trust and rapport). Eye-tracking studies suggest your most important image should be at the top left side of the page.
23. Check the dual readership path. Do your headline and subheads tell an intriguing story if you read them without any of the rest of the copy?
24. How’s your guarantee? Could you state it with more confidence? Can you remove any of the weasely stuff? Does your guarantee remove the customer’s risk?
25. Do you take PayPal? PayPal has its issues, but it’s also “funny money” for a lot of customers. They’ll spend freely from PayPal when they’d think twice about pulling out a credit card.
26. Have you asked for the sale boldly and forcefully? Is there any hemming and hawing you could edit out?
27. What’s the experience of using your product or service? Could you make that more vivid with a testimonial video or a great case study?
28. Is there any reason your prospect might feel foolish for buying from you? Are they afraid they’ll kick themselves later? That their friends, spouse, or co-workers will give them a hard time about this purchase? Fix that.
29. Are you using standard design conventions? Links should be underlined. Navigation (if you have any on your sales page) should be immediately understandable.
30. Got testimonials? Got effective testimonials? (If these are hard for you, check out Sean D’Souza’s great advice.)
31. Does the prospect know everything he needs to know in order to make this purchase? What questions might still be on his mind? How can you educate him to make him more confident about his decision to buy?
32. Does the link to your shopping cart work? (Don’t laugh. Go test every link onthe page that goes to your cart. And make a point of testing them once or twice a day the entire time your shopping cart is open — even if that’s 365 days a year.)
33. Is your marketing boring? Remember the great Paul Newman mantra. “Always take the work seriously. Never take yourself seriously.” If your marketing is putting customers to sleep, it can’t do its job.
34. Social media isn’t just about talking – it’s also about listening. What are your potential customers complaining about on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, in forums, in blog comments? What problems could you be solving for them? What language do they use to describe their complaints?
35. Have you answered all of their questions? Addressed all of their objections? I know you’re worried the copy will get too long if you address every point. It won’t.
36. Have you been so “original” or “creative” that you’ve lost people? Remember the words of legendary ad man Leo Burnett: “If you absolutely insist on being different just for the sake of being different, you can always come down to breakfast with a sock in your mouth.”
37. Can you offer a free trial?
38. Can you break the cost into several payments?
39. Can you offer an appetizing free bonus, one the customer can keep whether or not she keeps the main product? An incredibly useful piece of content works perfectly for this.
40. Does your headline offer the customer a benefit or advantage?
41. How can you make your advertising too valuable to throw away? How can you make the reader’s life better just for having read your sales letter? Think special reports, white papers, and other content marketing standbys.
42. Have you appealed to the reader’s greed? Not very pretty, but one of the most effective ways to drive response. (The nice way to put this is “be sure you’re offering your prospect great value.”)
43. Is your message confusing? A bright nine-year old should be able to read your sales copy and figure out why she should buy your product.
44. Can you link your copy to a fad? This is particularly effective for web-based copy and for short-term product launches, because you can be absolutely current. Just remember there’s nothing more stale than yesterday’s Macarena.
45. Similarly, can you tie your copy to something a lot of people are really worried about? This can be something in the news (an oil spill, climate change, economic turbulence) or something related to a particular time in your prospect’s life (midlife weight gain, anxieties about young kids, retirement worries).
46. Try a little flattery. One of the great first lines of all sales copy came from American Express: “Quite frankly, the American Express card is not for everyone.” The reader immediately gets a little ego boost from assuming that the card is for special people like him.
47. Is there a compelling, urgent reason to act today? If prospects don’t have a reason to act right away, unfortunately they have a bad habit of procrastinating the purchase forever.
48. Are you visualizing one reader when you write? Don’t write to a crowd — write for one perfect customer who you want to convince. Your tone and voice will automatically become more trustworthy, and you’ll find it easier to find the perfect relevant detail to make your point.
49. Tell the reader why you’re making this offer. In copywriting slang, this is the “reason why,” and it virtually always boosts response.
50. Can you get an endorsement from someone your customers respect? Celebrity endorsements are always valuable, but you can also find “quasi-celebrities” within your niche that hold as much sway as a national figure.
51. Can you provide a demonstration of the product or service? If it’s not something that can be demonstrated on video, try telling a compelling story about how your offering solved a thorny problem for one of your customers.
52. How often are you using the word “You”? Can that be bumped up?
53. How often are you using the word “We”? Can that be eliminated? (“I” actually works better than “we,” which tends to come across as corporate and cold.)
54. Stay up late tonight and watch a few informercials. Keep a pen and paper handy. Write down every sales technique that you see. In the morning, translate at least three of them to your own market. (Remember, you can change the tone and the sophistication level to match your buyers.)
55. Have you made yourself an authority in your market?
56. Is there an “elephant in the living room?” In other words, is there a major objection that you haven’t addressed because you just don’t want to think about it? You’ve got to face all inconvenient truths head on. Don’t assume that if you don’t bring it up, it won’t occur to your prospects.
57. How’s your follow-up? Do you have the resources to answer questions that come in? Remember, questions are often objections in disguise. Prospect questions can give you great talking points for your sales letter. You may want to bring on some help in the form of a friendly VA or temp to help out with email during a big launch.
58. Is there a number in your headline? There probably should be.
59. Similarly, have you quantified your benefits? In other words, have you translated “time saved” to “three full weeks saved — plenty of time to go on a life-changing vacation — each and every year.” Put a number on the results you can create for your customers.
60. It’s weird, but “doodles” and other elements that look like handwriting can boost response — even on the web. There are hundreds of handwritten fonts available, which can be converted to visual elements with PhotoShop or simple logo-generating software.
61. Does your headline make the reader want to read the first line of copy?
62. Does the first line make the reader want to read the second line of copy?
63. Does the second line make the reader want to read the third line?
64. (Etc.)
65. Throw in some more proof that what you’re saying is true. Proof can come from statistics, testimonials, case studies, even news stories or current events that illustrate the ideas your product or service is based on.
66. Compare apples to oranges. Don’t compare the cost of your product to a competitor’s — compare it to a different category of item that costs a lot more. For example, compare your online course to the cost of one-on-one personal consulting.
67. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to have at least one platinum-priced item for sale. They make everything else you sell look nicely affordable by comparison.
68. Make your order page or form easier to understand. Complicated order pages make customers nervous.
69. Remember to restate your offer on your order page. Don’t expect the customers to remember all the details of what you’ve just (almost) sold her. Re-state those benefits.
70. Include a phone number where people can call for questions. I know this is tricky to handle, but it can boost your response by a surprising amount.
71. Include a photograph of what you’re selling, if you can.
72. Is there a lot of distracting navigation leading your customers away? (Worst of all are cheap-looking ads that pull people away for a penny or two.) Get rid of it. Focus your reader’s attention on this offer with a one-column format stripped of distractions.
73. Put a caption on any image that you use. Captions are the third most-read element of sales copy, after the headline and the P.S. The caption should state a compelling benefit to your product or service. (Even if that benefit doesn’t quite match the image.
74. While you’re at it, link the image to your shopping cart.
75. Make the first paragraph incredibly easy to read. Use short, punchy, and compelling sentences. A good story can work wonders here.
76. Does your presentation match your offer? If you’re offering luxury vacations, do your graphics and language have a luxury feeling? If you’re selling teen fashion, is your design trendy and cute?
77. Are you trying to sell from a blog post? Send buyers to a well-designed landing page instead.
78. Halfway through a launch and sales are listless? Come up with an exciting bonus and announce it to your list. Frank Kern calls this “stacking the cool.”
79. Are you asking your prospect to make too many choices? Confused people don’t buy. You should have at most three options to choose from — something along the lines of “silver, gold, or platinum.”
80. Look for anything in your copy that’s vague. Replace it with a concrete, specific detail. Specifics are reassuring, and they make it easier for the prospect see herself using your product.
81. Numbers are the most reassuring details of all. Translate anything you can into numbers.
82. Look for any spot in your copy that might make your prospect silently say “No,” or “I don’t think so.” Rework that spot. You want the prospect to mentally nod in agreement the entire time she’s reading your letter.
83. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. Prospects often don’t read every word of the sales letter. Find ways to restate your call to action, the most important benefits, and your guarantee.
84. Hint at a genuinely exciting benefit early in the copy, then spell it out later in your sales letter. (Be careful of curiosity-based headlines, though, as traditionally they don’t convert as well as benefit- or news-based ones do.)
85. Use the two magic words of persuasive copy.
86. Successful marketing doesn’t sell products or services — it sells benefits and big ideas. What’s your big idea? What are you really selling? If you’re not sure, go back to our ten human needs in #11 above.
87. If you offer something physical, make sure there’s a way they can get expedited delivery. The ability to place a rush order lifts response, even if the customer doesn’t take advantage of it.
88. Put a Better Business Bureau, “Hacker Safe” seal, or similar badge on your sales page.
89. Could you be underpricing your offer? A surprising number of buyers, even in a bad economy, won’t buy a product or service if it seems too cheap to be worth their time.
90. Are you using the wording “Buy Now” on your shopping cart button? Try “Add to Cart,” “Join Us,” or similar wording instead. Focusing on word “buy” aspect has been shown to lower response.
91. Allow your prospect to picture himself buying. Talk as if he’s already bought. Describe the life he’ll now be living, as your customer. If you want a delicious example, go to the J. Peterman website. Few have ever done it better.
92. Cures sell vastly better than prevention. If your product is mostly preventative, find the “cure” elements and put those front and center. Solve problems people already have, rather than preventing problems they might have some day.
93. If your funny ad isn’t converting, try playing it straight. Humor is, by its nature, unpredictable. It can work fantastically well, or it can destroy your conversion. If you can’t figure out what else might be wrong, this could be the culprit.
94. Are you the king of understatement? The sultan of subtlety? Get over it. At least in your sales copy.
95. How’s your P.S.? (You do have a P.S., right?) Is it compelling? Typically you want to restate either the most interesting benefit, the guarantee, the urgency element, or all three.
96. Cut all long paragraphs into shorter ones. Make sure there are enough subheads so you have at least one per screen. If copy looks daunting to read, it doesn’t get read.
97. Increase your font size.
98. Include a “takeaway.” No, this isn’t a hamburger and fries — it’s the message that your offer isn’t for everyone. (In other words, you threaten to “take away” your great offer for those who don’t deserve it.) When you’re confident enough to tell people “Please don’t order this product unless you meet [insert your qualification here],” you show that you’re not desperate for the sale. This is nearly universally appealing.
99. Are you putting this offer in front of cold prospects? What if you put some variation of it in front of people who have already bought something from you? Your own existing customer base is the best market you’ll ever have. Make sure you’re regularly sending them appealing offers
100. If they don’t buy your primary offer, try sending them to a “down-sell.” This is a lower-priced product that gives the prospect a second chance to get something from you. Remember, even a very small purchase gives you a buyer to market to later. Building a list of buyers is one of the wisest things you can do for your business.
101. What is it about your product or service that makes people feel better about themselves? Ultimately, everything has to boil down to this.

Have your own favorite conversion-booster that you didn’t see here? Let us know about it in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication.

P.S.

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