Trevor ‘ToeCracker’ Crook Reveals . . .
Anatomy of YOUR Sales Letters
© 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
1
Anatomy of YOUR Sales Letter
Introduction Here’s a whistle-stop tour of what you will be getting in the workshop. This Module is a synopsis of the whole three and a half days. Maybe come back to this section after the workshop to help you put it all together. Even with just this Module, you’ll be able to write copy better than 95% of what’s out there. With a little practice, you could go on to write really good copy. It’s a very learnable skill. Take the very simple fundamental formula: traffic + conversion = sales The conversion element of this formula is your sales copy. Without good copy, you will make few sales, even with a boatload of traffic. Get it right, and you will make a LOT of sales. There is a structure to good copy and you’ll learn that in this Module. You can, of course, use a sales letter template to write your copy. That’s OK too. (In fact, one is included on your resource CD). But if you really, really want your conversions to increase appreciably – then take the time to study copywriting. It will be time well spent. So how do we write our own sales letters? We start with a blank pad of paper and model successful sales copy. And we are often asked the question: Long copy vs. Short copy. There is no right (or wrong) answer to this. Your letter needs to be as long as it takes to tell your story. Copy can never be too long it can only be too Boring If it’s 4 pages (of your writing pad that is) fine. As long as you’ve addressed everything. © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
2
If it’s 32 pages (or more) that’s also fine. Copy should be straight to the point, tell your story. No waffle. No fluff. Winston Churchill said: “short words are best, and the old words when short, are best of all.” The best thing you can do when writing copy is to research your topic. The very minimum you need to do is to read your product and make a list of all the benefits. But going that ‘extra’ mile will pay off. 1. Do some research on the Internet. 2. Go to your local library. 3. Make a spreadsheet and then visit 10 of your competitors’ websites. Find out what their USP is, make a note of their headline. What’s their offer? What price are they at? What is their guarantee. And any other relevant points. Enter all this information into a spreadsheet. It’s now your target to emulate ideas and to be better than all of them. Let’s look at the various elements of a sales copy. There are variations on this, but the basic structure is generally always the same. The first thing you need to do is to study your product. Get to know it, inside out. And, back to front! Do some up-front research on your topic. Time spent doing this will be wellrewarded. And you will be able to add some real golden nuggets to your copy. And before you start to write a word of copy you will need to know who you are selling to. This is called: Profiling your customer. See other article on my docstoc profile for more details. And the very first thing when it comes to putting pen to paper, if to define your offer. © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
3
Construct a compelling offer, and the rest of your sales copy will virtually write itself. Here are just a few things to consider when crafting your offer: • • • • • • • Guarantee your customers satisfaction Offer discounts (time limited discounts work best) Include valuable bonuses Give free samples Offer free shipping Limited availability Be exclusive
Next, go through your product - page by page – and extract all the benefits. As many of these as you can. Each of these benefits then needs to be turned into a bullet point. The Headline Your next step is to write a minimum of 50 benefit laden headlines. 150 to 200 will give you your best results. Why 50 to 200? Because it is extremely unlikely that you will discover a great headline at first writing. Plus, you need to find your “hook.” What is it that makes your product stand out from the rest? (refer to your competitive analysis spreadsheet to find out what your competitors are up to). There are different types of headlines but the type you should consider is one that is called a benefit headline. That is, it should contain your biggest benefit. A headline can be considered good if it contains, as well as the best benefit, these four ingredients. They are: • • • • believability ease of use a time element some curiosity 4
© 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
Your headline can be two parts, to fit all the above criteria, i.e. you can have a main headline and a sub-headline. Example: Write one headline for “dog training” containing all the above: ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________
Writing a good headline takes practice. Bullet points just under the headline work but are not essential. You could equally add a testimonial here, or nothing at all. Best to test! The Salutation Next part of your sales letter is the salutation. Not just “Dear Reader” – how impersonal is that? Remember, you are talking one on one with your prospect. So you need the right salutation. For “dog training”, write down what your salutation would be: Dear ________________________________ The Opening Paragraph Now you’re ready for your opening paragraph. This has got to be better than good. It’s got to be powerful. © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
5
You’ve got to remind your prospect just what their problem (or desire) is, then move on to make it sound worse by reminding them if they don’t take any action its going to get infinitely worse. Then, just as you’ve got them picturing how awful the problem is – you tell them that you have a solution. Find an itch, scratch it, and then solve it. Now, have a go at writing an opening paragraph for “dog training”:
____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ Body Copy There are many ways to write body copy but one of the best is to tell a story. The best copy (in terms of sales produced – over 1 billion dollars) was written for the Wall Street Journal. (see resource CD). But whichever way you choose to do your body copy, there are always the same elements that must be there (refer to the Anatomy of a Sales Letter hand-out). You’ve written your opening paragraph and made a promise that you have the answer to what they want. You need to paint a picture (in their mind) of what life would be like for them after you solve their problem. You’ve got to weave into your body copy proof that your solution works. And prove it to your prospects’ satisfaction.
© 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
6
You can do this by showing them statements, checks received, letters from people (with pictures), photographs (before and after), testimonials from satisfied customers (both audio and video) etc. Use reliable and believable sources of information. Independent articles, studies, and other data that will confirm your claims. Establish your credibility. Show your prospect that you are trustworthy and why they are safe buying from you. Ram home why your product is so different from the rest. In order to do this, you need a strong USP. Unique Selling Proposition It has been proven that the overuse of adjectives in copy is harmful and the use of verbs works in your favor. (see Appendex A).
Adding Value Then add bonuses to build value. For each of your bonuses you will need to write a short description and add about four or six bullet points. You’ll also need a graphic for each of your bonuses. You should now be getting ready for the close. But before you do so, a good technique is to change the “pace” of your copy.
The False Close Your prospect is expecting the sale by now (if he’s read this far), he’s anticipating what’s coming – so, stall for a while with something like this: “You’re probably wondering how to get your hands on this superb package. I’ll tell you in a moment. But first….” Tell a small story which can then lead to the real close. Which is…. Asking for the order! © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
7
This is where you remind him to picture himself enjoying the promise you made. Remind also of your credibility and how unique you are. Before you ask for their money, offer a discount and give them the reason why. (see also resource CD: Reason Why Advertising)
Guarantee Adding a guarantee is critical. You MUST offer a guarantee. Ideally, the longer the guarantee you offer the better. 30 days is good. 60 days is better. 90 days is better still. But it also depends on your product. However, if you use Clickbank it’s a fixed guarantee. Craft a guarantee for your copy here: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
The Real Close And then give him your offer. List all what you are giving him in return for a modest payment. It’s a re-cap of your whole package. Now, have a go at writing a close: _______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
8
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
Call to Action It is recommended that you have an order button that gets noticed. You can have an order button that merely says: Click here to order Or you can have one that uses a benefit driven statement. For example, Click here to Start Making Money Now! That‘s it, your done. Not quite! You need to sign off and write the P.S.s The P.S. is important because of the ‘skimmers.’ Most folk won’t read all your copy, they’ll just read the headline, the sub-heads, and shoot down to the P.S.s. And…. It has been proven that 3 P.S.s work best. The first P.S. is an excellent place to tell your prospect again about your promise or repeat your headline. The second P.S. should be your strongest. A good technique is to introduce something new that you’ve not put in the copy but saved for now. For example: you can add an extra bonus or report at this point. And the 3rd. P.S. can re-state the guarantee, time limit, or price increase. But be careful not to quote the price. Write 3 P.S.s, using the above guidelines.
© 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
9
P.S. _________________________________________ _________________________________________ _________________________________________
P.P.S. _______________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________
P.P.P.S. ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Opt-in Box And finally, if you are marketing on the web, you need to collect your prospects’ names and emails. Latest opinion suggests that your opt-in box needs to be placed below the P.S.s. But in exchange for their details you will be giving away something – a report, a free mini-course etc. Write an offer of a free give-away below: ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com
10
___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________ N.B. It is not recommended to prepare your sales copy in Word, (use a text editor such as Notepad).
Other Considerations for Your Copy Having a graphic of your ebook (or whatever your product is) to complement your description and bullet points about your product will greatly enhance the appearance. Graphics of each of your bonuses will also add to your sales message. Get your graphic designer to craft a great “order button” for you. Using better words than just “click here to order.” A well-designed order button can mean the difference to sales or no sales. Adding photos to your sales copy is another way to add variety and appeal. The best place to find photos that you can use is www.istockphoto.com or www.Corbis.com Supplementing your sales copy with audio and/or video is another proven way of increasing your conversion rate. Testimonials in particular are a good use of audio and video.
“Dedicated to Kicking YOUR Ass Until YOU Succeed!”
Warmly
Trevor Crook
www.TrevorCrook.com
PS. You have a choice . . . your sales can be as successful as Titantic on it’s maiden voyage or you can get your hands on the biggest tools in the copywriting tool shed and slash your competitors and leave them feeling like they are a one legged duck swimming ina crocodile infested creek! 11 © 2007 Trevor Crook and www.TrevorCrook.com All Rights Reserved.
Claim YOUR FREE Copywriting Blueprint Formula – 10 hours of audio mp3’s valued at $197. Nothing to BUY. My gift to you. Go to: www.TrevorCrook.com