In a recent webinar I talked about how the offer is the most important thing on your sales-lead generating web pages (squeeze pages).

The offer is usually a free gift like a PDF report that your potential customer or client can download once they submit their name or email address.

Coming up with offers is easy when you know how — and I’ve talked a lot about that on my blog in the past. I’ve also spent a lot of time talking about lead page design and development and have launched numerous programmes including squeeze page software and squeeze page video training programmes.

However, what I’ve not talked about much is the actual process of writing the text to go on your lead pages… that can be a tricky one. So at the moment I’m developing a brand new programme (called The Lead Page Copy Formula) which explains a step-by-step process for writing lead pages that convert up to 93% of visitors into active e-mail subscribers.

If you’d like to hear more about that then click here to join the private announcements list.

However in advance of me launching the new programme I wanted to share three ways to create effective headlines for your squeeze pages.

Eye-Catching Headlines Are Critical

Headlines are usually one of the first things a prospect looks at when they land on your lead page – and the strength of the headline determines whether or not the visitor stays on your page long enough to become a sales-lead.

I’ll outline 3 quick and easy techniques you can use to create great attention-grabbing headlines – implement them, and crafting your squeeze pages should become effortless.

1) Simply restate the title of the offer.

For example, if the offer is a free report (PDF) that explains “How to reduce your corporation tax by 20% or more in the next 12 months”, then you could just repeat that title as your headline – “How to reduce your corporation tax by 20% in the next 12 months.”

You can also add a prefix, such as “Revealed:…” then the title, or “Discover:…” then the title. Or, you could add “Free report reveals how to….” then the title.

One headline I’ve had success with on my own squeeze pages – when offering my paperback book – is “Claim your free copy of… ” then the title of the book, “Email Marketing Dynamite”(in quotation marks).

There is, however, a caveat with the above strategy. Even though this worked really well, it did so because the driver of that campaign fully explained what ‘Email Marketing Dynamite’ was.

Now, a ‘driver’ could be a number of things, such as a google advert, an email campaign, a written advertisement, or even an email from a Joint Venture partner. If that driver – the strategy used to get people onto the squeeze page – hadn’t fully explained what ‘Email Marketing Dynamite’ was, then I wouldn’t recommend that headline.

2) Highlight the pain the visitor will suffer if they don’t request the offer.

Let’s use our example of “How to reduce your corporation tax by 20% or more in the next 12 months”. Here, you need to highlight the pain of paying too much corporation tax. For example, “Warning: 7 out of 10 corporations paid too much tax in 2010″.

However, for this type of headline to be effective, you also need to follow up with a solution to the pain. For example, “Revealed…Special report shares…”

In the above example, I’ve spun the headline on its head so that it outlines the pain, then offers a solution in the sub-headline.

3) Use a ‘JV Headline’.

When I do Joint Ventures with other online marketers, and he or she promotes my free report to their list (using a squeeze page that I’ve created), then my headlines nearly always include the name of the Joint Venture partner.

For example, the headline could be, “Joe Bloggs recommends this special report”, or a similar headline that includes the name of the JV partner.

The reason why this is so effective is because the email subscribers on Joe Blogg’s email list trust him — so when they land on your squeeze page, they will be more likely to enter their email address and request the free gift when they see the JV partner’s name in the headline at the top of the page — trust is implied.

Beyond these strategies, there are many more ways to create powerful headlines for your squeeze pages, but I hope these techniques have given you some ideas on how to create great attention-grabbing headlines for your lead pages?

Leave your comments and questions below – what types of headlines do you use on your lead pages?

Warm regards,

Ed Rivis.

P.S. If you’d like to discover lots more ways of crafting effective headlines for your squeeze pages, then click here to register for free announcements about my forthcoming lead page copywriting course — called “The Lead Page Copy Formula”… I’m creating it for anyone who wants to create squeeze pages and lead pages that convert at ‘abnormally’ high levels (as high as 93%!)

Okay, so what I want to talk about today is on topic closely related to the above announcement.

A client emailed me today, asking for my advice about an idea he’s had for a new service, which he was thinking of offering to his email subscribers…

“I’m thinking of sending out an email offering << … >>> … do you think it’s a good idea?”

My answer was…MAYBE!

I suggested that instead of guessing what his list wants, that he instead runs a survey and asks them what they need help with.

I suggested he could at the very least create a list of ideas, and ask them to choose their favourite.

That way he can find the specific thing the majority want, then create and deliver it to them.

It’s much better than guessing.

Earlier this year I was at the same point. I was unsure what project to work on next. In fact, I had been working on a major programme for quite some time — but I’d started to worry that no one wanted it.

Unfortunately, I was right!

I ran a survey and gave people 12 ideas for products I was thinking of launching, including the programme I had been laboring on up to that point.

It turned out to be one of the least popular choices.

The most popular choice was for software that automatically generates sales-lead generation websites, and it was based on that invaluable feedback that I was able to instead invest my time and money developing something people actually wanted, rather than something I thought people wanted.

There’s a huge difference.

As an aside, guessing what people want seems to be the #1 mistake on Dragon’s Den, where said Dragon’s make the inventor realise he’s just wasted ten years — and hundreds of thousands of pounds of his own money — creating a cure for a non-existent problem.

It makes for fascinating but often quite painful viewing – when I think of all the times I’ve attempted to second guess what people want, rather than simply asking them!

Luckily I got it right with Lead Site Launcher. There are a lot of people waiting for my new software at the moment, all thanks to the survey. (And of course it also helps to have a large email list of active subscribers too, which coincidentally you can build up using lead pages!)

All I’ve got to do now is finish it off and launch.

Nothing’s ever definite, but things look very healthy for this launch. I already have a rough idea of the people who are going to buy a launch copy of the software. And from my customers perspective, I know it’s going to fix one of their biggest and most common headaches... not because I’m a mind-reader, but simply because they told me so!

Take Action.

Before you start work on your next marketing campaign, product development or service innovation, first find out what the majority of people on your email list really want. What are their biggest ‘pains and challenges’?

Then, create a product that directly addresses the most common issues.

Taking it a step further, consider running a survey that asks your potential customers to choose from a list of product ideas, like I did in my my last survey – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V55NSYW)

It sure as hell beats guessing! 

Happy surveying,

Ed Rivis.

P.S. I use SurveyMonkey, but there are lots of survey tools out there, some of which are built directly into email marketing software like GetResponse.

You may have received an email from me last week where I asked if you would take part in a quick survey — I wanted your opinion on what you think is the most important thing I could be working on.

It was a fairly “self-serving” email so I was delighted that 239 business owners took part – (if you did… thank you.)

Anyway, here’s a quick video where I walk though the results — (or if you want to cut to the chase, beneath the video I’ve written about the results too.)

As shown in the video above, here are how the 239 votes were spread across the 12 product ideas…

1. Lead Page Generator Software – 14.8% (35 votes)
2. Social Media Primer – 14.4% (34 votes)
3. Content Planning Software – 14.0% (33 votes)
4. Headline Generator Software – 8.5% (20 votes)
5. The Ultimate Experts Marketing System – 8.1% (19 votes)
6. Shrink Wrap Your Brain 2011 Edition – 7.6% (18 votes)
7. WordPress Website Theme For Experts – 6.8% (16 votes)
8. The £35,000 Sales Letter – 5.5% (13 votes)
9. Ultimate Business Blogging 2011 Edition – 5.1% (12 votes)
10. Ed’s Little Black Book Of Power Tools & Online Services – 4.7% (11 votes)
11. Video Marketing Primer – 6.4% (15 votes)
12. E-Mail Marketing Dynamite Video Series – 4.2% (10 votes)

As the stats show, there’s a marked gap between the top three ideas and the others, with their only being a single vote separating the Lead Page Generator Software, Social Media Primer training programme and Content Planning Software.

This survey has told me that I need to launch all three of the winning ideas in close succession.

If you took part in this survey – thank you for your time and giving me your opinion — it was very much appreciated.

If you have any questions about this survey, or even questions on how to run surveys like this for your own business, feel free to leave a comment or question below and I’ll endeavour to respond in between product development!

Have a great week,
Ed.

A client recently asked me “should my web page have long copy or short copy?” (In other words, she wanted to know whether the descriptions of the products and services on her web page should have lots of writing, or not.)

Now this is a really common question, and the common assumption is that “People don’t read web pages.”.

In fact, a few years ago an American marketer boldly announced he’d “analysed all successful product web pages and discovered the best length for web page copy is equivalent to one and a half pages of A4 text.”

I think such rigid rules are absolutely ridiculous.

The length of copy on a sales web page needs to be “as long as it needs to be” to effectively explain the specific features and benefits — and reasons why — the product (or service) being offered is superior to the alternatives.

The age old marketing maxim is “the more you tell the more you sell”.

If you’ve got a simple product that solves a single problem for a customer, then you obviously won’t need to write as much as you would to explain a complex product that has a myriad of different uses and potential benefits.

For example a bottle opener doesn’t warrant as much copy as an MRI Scanner in order to get the sale.

If in doubt, my advice is to go with long copy, that explains the product or service in detail. As long as it’s not boring, it should generate more sales and enquiries than a web page featuring less explanation and detail.

If you don’t explain the product or service in enough detail then you may not give the reader (web site visitor) enough information to make a buying decision.

An Exception to the Rule

Remember the client I mentioned at the beginning of this article? Well, she was asking whether she needs long or short copy on her lead pages, (the special kind of web pages you use to offer a free report or other incentive in return for a name and email address to build a list of interested prospects.)

With lead pages, all you’re wanting the visitor to do is enter their name and email address in return for an incentive like a free report.

So in this case my answer was that “It depends on where you’re driving traffic (visitors) from.”

If you’re driving traffic from a full page advert or magazine insert, then I use fairly short copy lead pages, because the advert or insert should have already explained the offer in detail… the only reason someone visits the lead page is because they’ve already decided to accept your free offer.

Or, if you’re driving traffic from Google Adwords or anywhere the prospect only sees or reads a small amount of text prior to arriving on the lead page then you’ll probably need a much longer lead page to explain the offer in more detail.

Any time you want to improve the performance of your web pages, ask “who will be looking at this page” (what do they want to know determines what content you put on the page) and “how much do they understand the offer on the page BEFORE they get to it).

The ‘long copy versus short copy’ debate will continue raging probably for as long as companies run advert and promote their wares.

But I can tell you, this simple approach to deciding how much copy to put on your web pages can significantly boost your conversion rates, and the number of enquiries and sales your web pages generate for your business.

Ed.

A friend reminded me about David Ogilvy last night, and I remembered this video where he describes brand/vanity advertising versus direct response.

I wonder what he’d be doing differently in these days of the Internet? Probably not much!

The direct response principles that were his ‘first love and later became his secret weapon’, and which allowed him to grow his agency at record speed translate directly to web sites.

In my book The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy I explain how to utilise the principles of highly-effective direct response advertising — how to change a website from “all about you” to “all about your visitor” to dramatically boost enquiries, sales-lead generation, opportunity creation, and sales and profit!

If you have a web site that focuses on your brand (you know, the kind that start with “Welcome to our website. We’ve been in business ‘x’ years and won all these awards”) maybe you should consider why the visitor has actually come to your website… probably to get information on — and the solution to — a pain, challenge, problem or opportunity they have.

Probably not to learn about you and your business. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s true in most cases.

Give visitors answers… not branding… and you can have a successful website.

Ed.

Every business owner should know the answers to the following three critical questions about their web site…

(A) How many visitors did your web site get last week?

(B) What’s your web site’s conversion rate?

(C) And what are your website’s best and most profitable sources of traffic? (Visitors.)

If you don’t know the answers to those questions — or if you don’t know what I mean by any of those phrases — then I can almost guarantee your web marketing strategy is not generating the highest levels of sales and profits.

Why?

Well, first of all, you may actually be getting visitors to your site… but it may not be doing a good job of converting them into sales-leads or customers and clients.

Or you may have an issue that’s affecting one of my mentor client’s web sites… he’s got a web site that is now converting more than 9% of his targeted traffic into sales-leads, but it appears his site is NOT getting the traffic (visitors) he or I had originally been lead to believe.

My client’s been thinking his site needs to be better at converting visitors – whereas I’ve explained that’s no longer the main issue… what he needs more urgently is to simply get more prospects (aka ‘targeted traffic’) on to it.

My client needs regional sales-leads — rather than National or International, so in his case, based on his business and budgetary constraints, I’ve recommend he starts submitting articles and press releases to local publications that are read by his target audience, runs Google Adwords with radial geographic targetting turned on, and other such tactics.

Those tactics will produce a stream of genuine prospects, not to his main site but to landing pages I’ve helped him develop.

Now prior to me getting involved he’d been sold the ‘Search Engine Optimisation dream’… he’d been told that all he needed to do was have a website that appeared highly in Google for certain phrases. Unfortunately he’s discovered that’s very much only one of many things he needs to do.

So he had invested in a website that IS appearing high on Google’s organic (free) search results, but he discovered — thanks to web statistics which he didn’t have access to before — that the traffic he was getting was mostly outside his sales region!!

Also his site is well designed and worded to appear high up in Google, for competitive search phrases… but it’s pretty much useless at getting visitors to convert into enquirers. Typical!

The thing is, without having access to quality data (web statistics), he may have continued to focus on trying to optimise his site for conversion, when in fact the main issue was that he simply needs more local traffic.

The site (or rather the popups and landing pages we’ve created recently) are doing a damn good job of capturing sales-leads and allowing him to perform e-mail marketing.

How are your statistics today?

Ed.

I interviewed master web copywriter and conversion expert Daniel Levis last Thursday (23rd April 2009). At the end of the interview Daniel made you (my blog reader) a very special offer — access to his full 5R Web Conversion Formula at a preferential rate (i.e. big discount!). To help you decide if this is for you, here’s a quick video review I made over the weekend…

Watch this video to find out why I’m raving about 5R! (CLICK THE GRAPHIC BELOW)

In a nutshell, this is one of the best copywriting programmes I’ve seen, because of the systematic way it goes all the way from from market research through to the end result of highly responsive web copy that packs a powerful emotional punch.

As explained in the video, Daniel’s special offer to my blog readers and email subscribers (which obviously includes you!) is a fantastic $200 discount off the standard price.

==> Click here to get the full 5R Formula shown in my review at $200 discount.

Remember, Daniel’s special offer expires on the 30th April — that’s this coming Thursday!

Act now and take advantage of Daniel’s amazing 365-day guarantee — where he says “if after implementing his system you don’t see an extra $15,000 sales (more than £10,000) as a direct result then you get a full refund.”

How strong a guarantee is that! Who wouldn’t want to try this programme and put Daniel to the test?

I look forward to hearing about the amazing effect this has on your web marketing too. Click here now to go and grab your package too.

To greater web conversion,

Ed.

I had 174 responses to my marketing mentor survey last week.

I’ve been toying with the idea of launching my own mentoring programme, and wanted to find out how many people had used a marketing mentor in the past, what level of results they achieved… and basically whether people want or need access to a marketing mentor (or in my case a web marketing mentor.)

The resounding answer was YES! In fact here’s a quick summary of the main statistics…

Have you ever worked with a marketing mentor?
Yes – 55.2%
No – 44.8%

If you answered yes, how long did you have a mentor for?
Less than 2 years – 89.2%
More than 2 years – 10.8%

Did the mentor help increase sales?
Yes, their advice made a huge difference – 20.5%
A little bit – 39.7%
No, our sales stayed the same – 27.4%
We lost sales – 4.1%
The advice seriously damaged my business – 8.2% (SHOCKING!)

Do you like the idea of having access to a WEB marketing mentor?
Yes- 82.6%
No – 17.4%

On the basis of these results I WILL be launching a web marketing mentor programme next week. However, the survey also included some ‘open ended’ questions where people could tell me what was good — or bad — about the mentoring they’ve had in the past. I’ve used that to refine the finer details of how my own menoring will be conducted.

(For example it seems people don’t just want a mentor to give them occasional advice — it seems most people want a lot more than that.)

Anyway, if you want the full scoop on my survey click the video for a narrative of me giong through the results. If you do watch the video I’d love to hear any additonal comments you have — please submit them below at the bottom of this page. Thanks.

To say I’ve learnt a lot from the 174 responses to my survey is an understatement!

My mentor programme launches next week — but since the survey last week I’ve seriously limited the number of people I’ll accept, so that I can be a lot more practical and ‘hands-on’. More details shortly.

Have a great weekend,
Ed.

P.S. Here’s the list of ‘best advice’ and ‘worst advice’ taken from my survey…

The 18 Best Tactics & Strategies Given by Mentors that “Made a Significant Difference” to Sales & Profits.
(Taken from results of Ed Rivis ‘Marketing Mentor’ Survey, March 2009.)

1. Implement systems.
2. Design a marketing funnel.
3. Position yourself as an expert.
4. Don’t compete on price.
5. Focus on specific niches.
6. Profile customers to identify the best ones – then get more of them!
7. Use direct response copywriting.
8. Use time effectively—value it highly.
9. Focus on one thing at a time and follow it to completion.
10. Use targeted marketing aimed at specific people.
11. Get leverage on landing pages, joint ventures, lead generations and special offers.
12. Continuously track, measure and test different tactics.
13. Switch to advisory/consultative selling.
14. Get total clarity and direction.
15. 100% accountability.
16. Stop flogging a dead horse.
17. Trust your instincts more.
18. TAKE ACTION.

The 23 Worst Mentoring Failures—that Either Failed to Produce Results Or Damaged Sales & Profits.
(Taken from results of Ed Rivis ‘Marketing Mentor’ Survey, March 2009.)

1. Not giving practical support/not taking a hands-on approach.
2. Talked too much.
3. Too much advising & not enough listening.
4. Not enough more meetings or e-mail interaction.
5. Failing to understand the company fully — making false assumptions.
6. Not working to an agreed plan.
7. Not setting goals.
8. Not telling the truth!
9. Not delivering on promises.
10. Not ensuring a return on investment.
11. Mentor not walking his talk! (Giving advice he wasn’t following himself).
12. Mentor didn’t understand Internet Marketing.
13. Lack of structure.
14. No formal feedback or review mechanism.
15. Failing to identify a ineffective business model.
16. Not delivering any more specific information than already in his books and website.
17. Asking ambiguous and vague questions then not explaining them or giving any help.
18. Poor advice – think all he was after was the money.
19. Mentoring programme was too fast/too slow.
20. Not driving the learning process.
21. Not thinking between sessions.
22. Not enough focus on results.
23. Failing to pay attention to the cost of their advice in terms of results achieved from it.

I thought I’d share the statistics for my recent newsletter launch. If you’re planning on launching any type of monthly subscription programme this could be interesting for you.

19.9% of my email list clicked a link in the email I sent out announcing the newsletter, and ended up on the newsletter subscription landing page.

(That’s a lot lower than usual — probably because this launch wasn’t a ’24 hour special’ like my other launches. Ongoing promotion of my newsletter will ensure a lot more people on my email list are made aware of the newsletter.)

20.6% of those people who saw my web marketing newsletter sales letter web page ‘converted’ and became subscribers*.

*Regards subscriber conversions: At the moment none of my subscribers have paid anything, because the first issue’s given away free as a trial issue.
If my newsletter’s good enough then hopefully I’ll retain a high percentage of those subscribers over the coming months. It’s my job to make sure the newsletter remains to a very high standard. (I intend to!)

So the next page that appeared after someone had just entered their credit card details and subscribed saw an upsell page offering my £997 flagship home-study programme for £397.

(And for the cynics out there — that really is a genuine one time only offer… you can’t buy it any other way yet — and when it launches it’ll be £497 for 24 hours and £997 thereafter.)

So 6.25% of the people who saw the £397 one time only upsell offer responded and bought it.

The people who didn’t buy it were then offered a £97 downsell and 13.5% of the people who saw that downsell bought it.

Finally everyone ended up on the final page which thanked them for subscribing.

In a nutshell, the results of this launch were exciting. It means I can give away the first issue of my newsletter totally free — and let the upsells and downsells pay for them. (In technical terms it makes the offer ‘self liquidating’.)

I win by getting more newsletter subscribers, and my subscribers win by (a) getting a free newsletter and (b) the opportunity to buy products at massive discounts.

Some more comments and observations…

• I’ve had a few people unsubscribe, but my customer services team haven’t reported any negative feedback. (By negative I mean ‘unconstructive’ or ‘nasty’ feedback.) The reasons have been either because they “can’t afford it at the moment”, or they “found it too technical/basic”. Obviously it’s impossible to create a newsletter that suits everyone at all skill levels. The purpose of the free trial is to allow people to find out and decide for themselves.
• The majority of people who subscribed still are — and feedback I’ve had from many of them is that they “love it and are looking forward to the March 2009 issue”.
• After checking my records I can see that most of the people who didn’t subscribe and instead emailed or left ‘negatively unconstructive’ blog comments about my launch… have never actually bought anything from me before. Hmmm.

Whatever business you’re in — chances are you could also benefit from launching either a free or paid (‘premium content’) programme like a newsletter, members only or loyalty club programme using this type of approach (or a variation of it.)

In a future issue of Web Profits Monthly I’ll be publishing a special report with more detail on exactly how I did this launch. It was quite technical to setup — but now I’ve done it I can share all that with you.

Ed.

In less than two weeks the February issue of Web Profits Monthly will only be available as an expensive back issue.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get the inauguration issue for free and get the inside track on how to use the web to boost the sales and profits of your small or medium size UK business.

*** CLICK HERE to register for your free issue and 30 day trial subscription today. ***

Most expert copywriters will tell you the headline is one of the most powerful elements on any sales letter or webpages that aspires to sell anything.

Add a compelling, attention grabbing headline to your webpages and you’ll nearly always get more sales.

(The same principle applies to headlines on the front cover of magazines and newspapers — the headlines directly influence sales, and is one of the main reasons why their writers get paid so much.)

Unfortunately a lot of people struggle to write great headlines.

Whenever I write my own copy I sometimes spend ages trying to figure out how to start off a sales letter. But I persist because I know the returns a good headline produces is worth the effort.

And therein lies another problem — when you think you’ve written a great headline… how can you be sure?

The ultimate test is to put the headline on a live webpage and see if sales increase. Unfortunately you may end up testing a dud. It may not increase sales, or worse, even decrease sales.

Obviously that scenario’s best avoided — it’s best to be confident a headline is good before testing it.

So here’s a very powerful tip from master copywriter Clayton Makepeace — and this is a great tip because you can use it to instantly ‘score’ whether their new headline has any chance of selling or not.

It’s this…

(If I recall what I read correctly), Clayton said that a great headline is something your prospects could say at 2 a.m. in the morning.

They’d wake up in a cold sweat, sit bolt upright in bed, slap their forehead and say “If only I could…. ” (fill in the blanks with a problem or challenge).

So here’s an example of this in practice.

Yesterday I critiqued a landing page created by a lady who bought my Landing Page Power home-study programme.

She’s created a great landing page, and been very proactive to actually get traffic (people) on to it. But alas… no sales!

So I took a look, and the moment the page loaded, I could immediately see it it failed Clayton’s “2.a.m. headslap” test.

Here’s the original headline…

“HOW TO QUICKLY BRIDGE THE KNOWLEDGE GAP BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR ACCOUNTANT”

So we played the scenario through.

We asked the question “would anyone wake up at 2 a.m. in the morning, slap their forehead and exclaim “Oh I MUST bridge the knowledge gap between me and my accountant!”

No, of course not.

So we chatted some more, talked about the product she’s created and here’s the first draft version of a possible alternative…

“How to Shave Hundreds of Pounds off Your Accountants Fees & Gain a Critical Insight Into Your Business.”

So running our new headline through the “2 a.m. headslap test” — imagine a cash-strapped business owner who who just received a whacking great big bill from their accountant who they don’t have a great relationship with, and who hasn’t really helped their business in any way.

It’s quite feasible they’d have a ’2 a.m. headslap’ moment, where they’re lying awake in bed thinking “Those [insert expletive] accountants! They’d better reduce their bill or else!”

If they saw our new headline it would be far more likely to capture their attention and interest than the original headline.

SALES-BOOSTING EXERCISE:

Check all your webpages that aren’t selling well (or even at all!).

1) Do they have headlines!? (I’m always amazed at how many don’t!)
2) Secondly, do they pass Clayton’s “2 a.m. headslap test”?

If not…

3) Get the best features of your product or service, translate them into benefits… and then make sure that how you explain those benefits pass Clayton’s powerful test.

Happy headslapping,
Ed.

P.S. Just please don’t phone me at 2 a.m. when you come up with a corker!!