Long copy or short copy to capture leads?

October 23rd, 2009

You’ve probably found long copy vs short copy can make a big difference when it comes to online lead acquisition.

In working with new clients I’ve discovered a great deal of confusion and misperception about this issue.

I can tell you after writing and testing many different acquisition pages over the years that answering some key questions beforehand is vital to success:

Are you looking to get people to call? Or to fill out a form? Or enter their email? Or some combination of these? How many fields in a form do they have to fill out?

Is it for a product or a service? Or a product leading to a service?
Will they receive a free report, free consultation, or some other premium? Do they have to take out their credit card (even if it’s for a free trial)?

Is the prospect coming from an ad? Where was the ad placed? An article? A press release? Some place else?

Even the lingo used makes a difference in setting expectations about the length of the copy. Sales page or opt-in page? Or squeeze page? Or lead capture page? Or landing page?

When you are working with a copywriter or marketing person be careful of the terminology used and make sure everyone is on the same page, so to speak.

It can all factor in on the length of the page. And length makes a difference. I’ve created tests where changing the length doubles response.

It would be interesting to hear your experience when it comes to copy length for lead acquisition. Why do you think one worked better than the other?

For topnotch lead generation pages, check out www.altmancopypro.com

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The Importance of Writing a Landing Page that Gets a High Page Quality Score

June 8th, 2009

If you haven’t been improving the quality score of the landing pages in your Adwords campaigns, this should get you started on that immediately.

The price advertisers pay is determined by the formula P = (B2 X Q2)/Q1, with P = price paid by the advertiser, Q2 = Quality score of the next highest-placing ad, Q1 = Advertiser’s quality score, and B2 = the next-highest-placing ad’s bid.

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Is There Too Much Pain in Your Sales Page?

May 19th, 2009

Identify the prospects pain – then agitate it before offering a solution. It’s one of the maxims of an effective sales page.

But there can be too much pain in your sales page. And that happens in a couple of ways.

One is that you just go on too long agitating the pain. You’ve dug too big a hole before helping the prospect climb out.

But there is another, more subtle way, in which there can be too much pain in your sales page. This happens when the prospect has heard it before over and over again.

 For instance if the country is in a  recession or economic downturn and your message is reaching your audience late in the game. By this time you are rehashing things  your prospects have already heard many times over and are likely to tune out before you get to your message on your salespage.

One solution is to get to a story or case history early in the salespage, so instead of jaded commentary  on the woeful situation the prospect is in, you  are agitating the pain in an engaging way. Otherwise, identify the pain – then get on quickly with what you have to offer.

How you agitate the pain is also an issue when dealing with perennial problems. Let’s take insomnia, for example. The reader has probably heard  the “tossing and turning” pitch endless times. Spend too much time describing the pain of sleeplessness and they’re gone.

 
There are subtleties and gradations here on where the prospect is  in the “pain cycle.” Let’s say you’re talking to new parents. While many of their problems and concerns are as old as time, you may be reaching them when the problems are new to them. So you can spend more time talking about the difficulties they are facing. 

 
Creativity is the trump card in all cases. If you find new ways to agitate the pain, by all means, go ahead. There is nothing more powerful on a sales pages than making the prospect feel you understand their pain and have a way of making it go away. But if you think your prospect has heard it all before one too many times then get on with your solution.

 

For a video review of your sales page, check out http://bit.ly/laXbk

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The ultimate social networking website for frugal travelers

April 19th, 2009

There are lots of websites that will show you good deals on hotels and motels.
But no website takes frugal traveling to the extent of couchsurfing.com. The site links‚ travelers with like-minded hosts who let them stay on a couch, a spare room, in the backyard, even the floor - for free.

It’s wildly popular with the back-packing set, and has forged all sorts of cross-cultural friendships and alliances worldwide.

Read more> http://bit.ly/uthES

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New FDA Fair Balance guidelines makes pharmaceutical pay per click impossible

April 18th, 2009

In print advertising, there is enough space for fair balance text - the long, small-type legalese at the end of the ad.

You can put fair balance at the end of drug advertising on TV - making most of the genre dull as white bread…(except for “if erection last more than 4 hours….”)
But putting it in the 95 character limit‚ Google imposes on Adwords is, well…impossible.

Pharma was under the assumption that they were safe if they followed the one-click rule - (as long as the consumer can reach the fair balance text in one click)- but the FDA says that’s not good enough.

For more> http://bit.ly/hGGtT

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Best SEO Wordpress Plugin

March 23rd, 2009

The Platinum SEO Pack is the most powerful SEO plugin for wordpress. But there is a trick to using its most important feature. Here’s a video I made to explain it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIleObRhlY[/youtube]

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Headlines that make you go click - from the Huffington Post

March 7th, 2009

I’m really liking the short attention-getting headlines at the top of the Huffington Post. Whether or not you agree with their politics, the short quick headlines pull you in - and the long, clickable subheads tell you the details. Good 1-2 punch to attract lots of clicks.

For instance: when the stock market rallied a couple of days ago after a weeklong nose dive - The HP headline read: It’s Alive!

Right under that was the stock chart for the day. Good grabber.

On a headline about BofA chief and other bank execs refusing to talk to NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, HP ran a big this one-word headline:
“Omerta” - the Mafia code of silence.

Good stuff.

For Free Headline templates that attract clicks and more sales, click

http://www.altmancopypro.com/headlinehelper.php

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Get Your Prospects Hooked with These 4 Attention-grabbing Headline Templates

March 6th, 2009

It’s been said that the job of a headline is get propect to read the next line. That is true, but even better is to get the prospect to read the next line with a feeling of anticipation. Here are some headlines that do exactly that.

1) Discover the _____ hidden in your_____

(Discovering something good that is hidden, especially when it is close by, is a powerful incentive to find out more)

(example) Discover the fortune hidden in your backyard

2) Do you have what it takes to____________

(When posed the right audience, this kind of challenge is intriguing and hooks them in to reading the text.)

(example) “Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Day Trader In The Hottest Financial Market In The World?

3) (a person, expert, book, report, etc. ) reveals ________________

(The word reveals in the headline is a classic. It increases the engagement factor by implying that a secret is about to be shared.)

(example) Free Report Reveals Little Known Secrets Overweight Women Use To Look 15 Pounds Slimmer Than They Really Are

4) Are you tired/ fed up with_______?

(taps into genuine frustration and desire for a change)

(example) Are you fed up with waking up tired every morning because you didn’t sleep well?

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Making an opt-in page irresistible

March 1st, 2009

I came across a very simple opt-in landing page where I couldn’t resist signing up. The headline was simple.  “Free! Buy these stocks before Obama takes office.”

This optin landing page does an excellent job of combining curiosity with urgency to attract signups. I came to the page on December 26, 2008 from a text ad with the headline “3 stocks you need to get into before Obama takes office. ” The date is obviously important because it is just a few weeks before Barack Obama’s inauguration. Urgency is explicit in the timing.

It’s worth taking a look at why it is so effective
The headline is to the point and compelling to investors (I like the headline of the text ad even better because of its specificity). The design of the landing page is clear and spare. You see the headline then “Enter Your email” and just one field to fill out - your email address.  It sits there in the middle of  the screen surrounded mostly by white space like a tempting piece of candy to someone with a sweet tooth. Hard to resist. See screenshot below:
Motley obama Making an opt in page irresistible

There are many examples of spare opt-in pages. But this is about as spare as it gets, depending on the strength of the headline and the simplicity of the layout for its power.

A small logo in the upper left corner tells you it’s from the Motley Fool, a brand name in the investment newsletter field. It’s all that’s needed to tell you this is coming from an authoritative source.

What happened after signing up
It’s also interesting to see what they did post-signup. Once I signed up I came to a detailed 3 page article/report. It goes into the historical relationship of stock movements and presidential administrations.

It then transitions into talking about the sectors that should benefit from Obama’s policies. The report then revealed all 3 stock picks. There is certainly good marketing reasons to give away this information.

1) It follows the give-away free information model on the Internet. The idea is to get people thinking: if I get all this for free, imagine what I’ll get with their paid product.

2) Theory of Reciprocity - one of the principles developed by noted social psychologist Robert Cialdini. The premise is that when you give people a gift (e.g. valuable Free Report), people feel obligated (and may pay for your newsletter).

Still, I wonder . . .
Read the rest of this entry »

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The Right Keyword Density Can Drive More Traffic to Your Website

February 24th, 2009

Keyword density sounds like one of those geeky Internet concepts. But it’s actually quite simple, and can make a big difference in your bottom line. And contrary to what some people think, it’s become even more important.

One of the reasons for its growing importance is Google’s landing page quality score. It’s almost impossible to make money on a Google pay per click campaign without a good landing page quality score. With a low score, your cost per click will be jacked up - sometimes many times over.

One of the ingredients of a good landing page quality score is having the right number of your targeted keywords on the web page, in the right places, e.g. the headline. If this sounds a lot like SEO - it is. Many of the same principles that make for good search engine optimization make for a good landing page quality score.

So what is the right keyword density (number of words on a page divided by the keyword or phrase you’re targeting). The ratio has shifted somewhat. Today, it’s pretty much accepted that 2-4% is good. I would opt for closer to 2%, and it could be even lower if your keyword is in your headline and the beginning of the title of your page.

Usually, when the keyword density gets to be over 2% your score may be good, but the page reads awkwardly. And in the end your page must engage the reader.

Here is the way I recommend getting the right keyword density. Have the keyword you are targeting in mind when you are writing the page. Try putting the word in the headline. Then write as best you can for the reader. And put in the keyword in the places where it makes sense.

When done, copy and paste the text into Article Analyzer, a handy keyword density tool. Instantly it tells you what your keyword density is. If it’s close to 2%, let’s say 1.8% - leave it. If it’s way short, say, 1%, go over the page, and see where you can put in the keyword without disrupting the flow of the page.

Then check the density again. By now your ratio should be close enough. If not, go back and add your keyword until you approach an acceptable ratio.

Keyword density is not one of those things to obsess over. All you need is just enough. And if you are getting most of the people to your page by email, it’s not an issue. But if you are driving people to your page through pay per click or natural search, getting the right keyword density will be a big help.

To get Article Analyzer, the keyword density tool, just go to http://tinyurl.com/54t82r

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