Archive for On Writing Better – Page 37

Landing Pages: Where to Publish Your Advertorial

Last week we covered how to write an advertorial, described as persuasive copy written from the readers’ perspective, designed to educate and inform AND with a specific call to action (sign up, download, buy).

This is a form of sales copy dressed up in Sunday best. Even if your reader doesn’t buy, they will have learned something, or have been entertained, and you at least gain a favorable impression for next time.

Landing pages are one-page web site publications designed to get readers to click, register, or buy. This is where you publish your advertorial. There are smart ways to construct a landing page.

Roberta Rosenberg, the Copywriting Maven, has  guest authored a post all about landing pages over on Brian Clark’s Copyblogger site. It’s a great learning piece because she critiques a landing page and gives 10 tips for improvement.

If you’re like me, you learn from examples, so I suggest you hop on over there now and learn more about what should go onto a landing page, besides good advertorial copy.

You will see she links to David Meerman Scott’s post about landing pages, and critiques his landing page for his new book The New Rules of Marketing and PR

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White Papers: Articles on Steroids

White Papers: The Ultimate Lead Generator
(34:31 min)

Blogging and Beyond with The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., and Denise Wakeman
With Guest Expert: Michael A. Stelzner, White Paper Source and author of "Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged

Michael Stelzner really delivered on this week’s radio show. He started
off by defining white papers and why most businesses can should have
one.  Essentially, a white paper is a cross between an article and a
brochure, they are sponsored by a company and are typically 6 to 12
pages. 

The reason businesses (including coaches and consultants) use white
papers is to

1) generate leads

2) for sales support (a document to
assist with the sales process)

3) to educate and inform.

There’s a lot of good info in this interview including resources for
learning more about how to write and market your business with a white
paper.


MP3 File

We have a post outlining what a white paper is and join our teleseminar on June 6 with Michael Stelzner on how to create white papers to generate leads! 

Advertorials: Step 5- What’s Your Solution?

To review, here are the 4 steps to writing persuasive copy in the form of an advertorial so that you can be educating at the same time as promoting your business:

1. Grab attention with a list of 3 or 5 horrible mistakes people make
2. Positioning: Why should anyone read or listen to you?
3. Explain the problem
4. Explain why most solutions fail

Crossword_time_and_money_2 All of these steps are written with the reader in mind, what’s in it for them, explaining problems from their point of view. You connect with readers by showing you know how they must feel frustrated or even angry when dealing with this issue. Now it’s time to introduce step 5: describe your specific solution.

You can list the features of your product or services. One way to do this is to use the ‘feature…so that…benefit’ phrase like this: "Our program offers you an inexpensive way to access learning materials so that you keep more of your hard earned money."

Or, "our private membership site allows you to learn on your time at your convenience, so that you don’t have to spend days away from home and work at an expensive workshop."

Keep in mind, that solutions that save people time and money are very appealing. People don’t really care about the features of your widget, your ebook, your program. You do, but they are still looking for what’s in it for them. So spell it out for them.

I’m continuing to use our Blog Squad Mentor Program as an example of how I apply these principles to real copy:

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Advertorials: Step 3 Explain the Problem

Digital_contact
I just wrote about steps 1 and 2 to crafting an advertorial that persuades readers to buy or register for your product or service over at Biz Tips Blog.

Just to review, those steps are:

1. Grab attention with a list of 3 or 5 horrible mistakes people make
2. Positioning: Why should anyone read or listen to you?
3. Explain the problem

Once you’ve got their attention, promised to deliver information that’s relevant, and shown that you know what their issues are, you are ready to explain the problem.

This means revealing the 3 or 5 items promised in your attention-grabbing title. In this sample case, it’s the 3 Worst Online Marketing Mistakes.

Here they are, as we propose to use them in our sample Blog Squad advertorial:

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Hey, Stupid! Can You Hear Me NOW?

Attention
Grab their attention. In fact, steal it. Get it away from everything else by rocking their boat. Heck, why not tip it over.

What words can you use in your email subject line or sales copy title that will do the job?

"Scandal!" Yes, that’s more appealing than ‘insider secrets’, which has been overused to bits. "Asshole?" Yes, if you’re a Stanford professor with a couple of best sellers already published.

The problem with using earth-shattering, ass-grabbing words like these is the credibility issue. Once you have someone’s attention – which you will when you use strong controversial words – you better deliver the goods.

Nothing worse than feeling ripped off when you take time to read something only to discover it’s a worthless piece of marketing hype.

Most experts agree that you’ve got to use strong words to get people’s attention. Here’s an idea:

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Are You Promoting or Educating?

Attraction_magnet
Adam Urbanski’s been teaching marketing for several years now and each time Denise and I are exposed to his wisdom, we come away with something new. This time, at his Attract Clients Like Crazy(tm) Boot Camp in Irvine last week, I learned more about writing advertorials. Adam calls this his Edumercial(tm) technique because it employs some of the powerful tips from late night infomercials.

If you are a service professional like a coach, consultant, speaker or author, you know the problem. It’s a little different than pitching a widget or a thing that solves a problem. You need to sell without seeming to sell – you need to educate and inform rather than promote.

Learning sales letter writing and copywriting skills might not be the answer. For higher end sales such as your consulting services, you need first and foremost to build relationship with readers. And to do that you need to educate and inform, even over-deliver content that is useful and relevant to your readers.

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How Not To Email Me – or Anyone Else If You Want Results

Emailmelovehearts_2
We learn from other people’s mistakes, so here goes a prime example of what not to write in an email message if you want to get results.

First off, this person put Joan Stewart’s name in the subject line: "The Publicity Hound Sent Me". That’s a good way to get me to open up your email, but you better be sure it’s true or you’ll piss me off. In this case, if it were true, then the sender wouldn’t have written what she did…

"Dear Denise"… the email begins. Only I’m Patsi. To be fair, we both get email at that address, but still…

"I invite you to help create an international buzz this year for "XXX Days" in Northern California. 

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Formatting an Article Into Adobe PDF

AdobepdfThis is the next step in our serial writing project. Take your full article, after it is edited, and convert it to an Adobe PDF file. This preserves your formatting and content across all computer systems so that it can’t be distorted or changed.

It makes delivery of the document easier and more stable. You can also add some formatting to it for easier readability and attractiveness.

In your word document program you can create boxes with shading and create a title page. You can also create other boxes to highlight particular points in your articles. Make sure you also have any web sources linked before you convert it to PDF form.

Depending on the length and value, once it is formatted into a PDF file, you may wish to call it a special report, or an ebook which can be either given away as a bonus for signing up or subscribing to your newsletter, or sold.

Previous posts on serial writing:

Serial Writing Formula: 1+5+2=7+1

Confessionals of a Serial Writer

Make a List of 5 Key Points

Summarize your List & Ask Readers

Editing your Blog Posts as Articles

Editing the Full Article from Your blog Posts

Editing the Full Article from Your Blog Posts

Continuing our series of blog posts about writing articles that can be used for many purposes (ezines, blogs, article directories, special reports), we come to the next part: how to edit the full article after you have created several stand alone articles from your blog posts.

Edit the full article: gather each individual article and copy and paste it into a word doc, with each headline but minus the resource box. You can keep the headline for each article if you wish, and break each article into sections with a line separating them. The resource box is included at the end.

Of, if you wish, you can delete the headlines, and rewrite it into one stand alone full article. This is more work, because you’ll have to change the beginning paragraph of each of the individual articles where you explain the context. Your choice.

The most important part of editing the full article – besides writing a captivating headline – is the summary and the conclusion. I’ll review why here:

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Editing Your Blog Posts as Articles

Pair_of_steel_scissors
After you’ve posted daily on your key points of a concept, and written a summary with a call to action, it’s time to gather the individual posts together and edit them as stand alone articles.

Since they are already written, this isn’t difficult to do. You must keep in mind, however, that you are developing individual articles that you can use for multiple purposes. They must "stand alone" so you  want to briefly explain the context of each step and how it benefits your readers.

A primary purpose of editing your blog posts is to make them clear to people who read them without any prior knowledge of who you are. Edit for brevity and clarity as much as for grammar and typos.

Cut out all extra words. Ask yourself "so what?" at each paragraph; keep being clear about what’s in it for the reader.

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