Your Mom Was Right!

I really want you to listen to your mother. If she is anything like mine – you were told a looooooooooooooong time ago that first impressions count. Along with “wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident!” Make sure you are doing your best to create a positive first, second, and FOREVER great impression. Having a structured follow-up strategy is best way to make this happen. Print off list for each client – attach it to their file and make sure you go through it at end of each week. It stops a customer from falling through cracks – which of course, also means that revenue isn’t falling through cracks either!

Listen to your mom, listen to my paramedic boy and also listen to Sales Diva! Create a Follow-up Process and then you can also spend A Golden Hour in shoe store of your choice!

Copyright© 2005

Think of how you grab someone's attention verbally in your life. You use strong, direct, imperative language. You use strong action verbs and direct nouns and phrases. The same method should be applied to your headline. You want to stop reader in their tracks, but then be sure to hold onto their attention.

After you have their focus, aim to entice them by hinting at what your product may do for them. You must accomplish this is in as little words as possible.

The best way to figure out how to entice your audience is to have a clear sense of exactly who your target audience is. Understand what motivates them, what their interests, passions, and priorities are, and what they are looking for.

What is it that causes this target audience to take some kind of action? Once you answer these questions, choose words that will arouse this audience's interest.

However, make sure that your headlines are 100% truthful, accurate, and above all, credible-and your advertising copy must support claim your headline makes.

It's a good idea to test market different headlines. Once you get hang of writing them, try out a different headline as you update your ads, and keep track of what ads received most responses. These are two or three headlines that you should build your marketing campaign around.

The content of your message in a safelist ad should be educational. Include case studies, research results, testimonials, anecdotes, and relevant benefits of your product or service.

Focus on most important benefits your customers will receive from your product. Be specific and stick to facts, don't use hyperbole. Be as down-to-earth as possible or you will sound unbelievable. You want to keep focus on your product,not on yourself, and you want to appeal to a wide range of different types of people.

It's a good idea to include a compelling story. Focus on what makes your product or service unique, and then find a story that illustrates how a customer was able to effectively make use of this uniqueness. This story should lead reader to an offer that will compel some form of action.

Offer something upfront, such as a free article, a discount, a free trial offer, or even a free ebook. Then immediately follow it with a link to that offer that declares: CLICK HERE FOR FREE OFFER. This will automatically bring reader to your website where they can learn more about your product.

Keep your message within 3 screens of text. You want it to be long enough to contain all relevant information and benefits, but not so long that it will become a chore to read.

Make sure your copy is fluent, flowing, and easy to read. Eliminate all spelling and grammatical mistakes. If you're giving out a lot of information, break up space using bulleted lists to give reader's eye a rest. A list should summarize key benefits in an immediately accessible form.

Make sure text is easy to read, in a readable font, with enough space between lines. Use color only to emphasize points, and don't use too much of it or it will become distracting. Avoid colored backgrounds, as they are hard on eyes. Use upper and lower case text. If you want to use caps, save it for your headlines.

Use a blank line between paragraphs instead of an indent to increase white space on page.

Keep your ad copy as brief as a single page if possible. The more emphatic and condensed, greater possibility of maintaining reader attention.

Using Free safelists is a great way to try out different ad headlines and copy. Monitor results carefully until you've honed in on most defective emails. Then go on to subscribe to Pro lists using your most effective ad copy.