How to write effective marketing copy that converts with Copy Hackers Joanna Wiebe | #419

Tim

Interesting. I think personalizing this when you’re reading copy as a consumer, just as a general book and think you’re reading it and you’re actually engaged in it and it’s not hard. It’s enjoyable and that’s smart copy that kind of start you off broadly and takes you on a journey to possibly enquiry, even a sale.

 

Joanna

Yeah absolutely. I think that that’s definitely the objective I would say for most copy is to get them to ideally to a sale depending where they are of course but to some point of conversion so they don’t just have this dead-end experience with you. Where they read what you wrote and then walk away and don’t do anything. Yeah that copy should be getting them to do something and ideally yes, getting them to that amazing wonderful money in your pocket sale.

 

Tim

It’s funny you know I’d Mike Rhodes on recently. Who is Google AdWords specialized in Australia and he was quoted as saying, Google AdWords is the closest thing to an advertising money tree and I thought Yeah, I kind of get that. If you get your AdWords right, spend a dollar and get two back but I’m guessing you feel the same about copy.

 

Joanna

I do. I do. It’s not quite as easy to measure direct results as it is with PPC. You’re doing an AdWords campaign I guess you can say okay we did spend a dollar here and we absolutely made these many dollars here but with copywriting. It’s part of all of your communication rate at all points when you’re sending out a thank you email to a new client or someone who just bought whatever it is you’re selling online do a quick follow up. That’s copy though everything along the way at every point there’s copy in it so hard so often to measure the success. There are other times and it’s quite easy to. But for every word we write we don’t see a dollar associated with that word which is different from the money tree that is PPC but you absolutely see it as being critically attached to making those sales.

 

Tim

Now there’s so much we could talk about it. Let’s just pull back a bit I want to get to the point where you share with us some sort of high converting copywriting tips. Some little nuggets that listeners can walk away with. But let’s start as sort of a macro view and does one copy fit all. Because I know you spend a lot of time in the online world like there’s web copy, there’s sales letter copy, there’s email copy, there’s brochure copy, there’s even the Christmas card copy. So, if a small business owner says, Okay I am going to put a writer on my team should that writer be expected to be good at all those outputs.

 

Joanna

Yeah, I think that’s a really great question. The idea of bringing a writer on staff and what that person should be able to do. I mean a writer is a bit of a luxury for a lot of businesses.

 

Tim

So, shouldn’t be. So naughty. It’s absolutely the case. For most businesses. I did this yesterday at a talk I gave. Put your hand up if you could go get a brochure designed and you know right now with your graphic designer. Most hands went up keep. Your hand up if you could have that brochure written by your copywriter. Most hands went down.

 

Joanna

Nobody has one. I know a lot of people don’t know what copy is or what a copy writer does. So, if you don’t really know to isolate that as a thing how could you possibly know that there is a specialist in that area who can make them better for you. It just felt like words right or I’m just writing you all about your writing copy. It’s entirely different way of writing so to your point about can one person do all these things or should you expect one person to. I mean that’s kind of why I recommend that small businesses in particular, don’t try necessarily to outsource their writing or to bring somebody in to do all the writing because for small businesses it is. It’s always going to be it can’t hurt but once they go invest in a writer and there’s other things that are always more pressing because they physically can’t work. Photoshop. But they physically can work word right. So, there’s a limitation there that keeps people from being in a place where they can hire a writer. Okay fine you can’t hire one learn how to do it yourself. Don’t go to some crazy huge course and become a copywriter but learn how to do it. A lot of it is just paying attention to what you’re seeing out there and reading blog posts and little things like that. And then you eventually start to identify differences between brochure copy writing. A Christmas card copy writing and similarities between those things too. What should kind of be the same across all of your media and all the different materials that you have for your business. But I do believe that a small business owner and a growth hacker can write their own copy probably better than if they’re brought some Junior copywriter and like fresh out of college or something like that. No offence junior copywriters.

 

Tim

Hello to all you junior writers out there. So, look I get that. It’s interesting hearing you say that because I get the fact that it’s hard to learn Photoshop so bring in the designer. We all have a pen. We all have a keyboard so get writing. However, and I also agree that most small business owners will be the best at writing their own copy because it’s coming from their heart, their personality, their tone of voice. I get that however, what a time suck.

 

Joanna

It’s a time investment.

 

Tim

Well it is. Its Absolute. I know. I know and right now. Here’s the thing. What I know for all my listeners is the reason they’re not cranking out great marketing and many are because I listen to this show is that they have these limiting beliefs around. Lack of time. Lack of money. Lack of knowledge. Right. So, they’re all, it’s kind of they’re all spitting out working in their business and you’re telling them to write their own copy. So, I do get that but it is a hard one to get your head around.

 

Joanna

Well you’re welcome to outsource it if you want to but then I would say be prepared to invest in it. If you actually want to sell something then you have to. For me at least if you want to sell something it’s critical that you identify a copy as a key part of making that sale happen. It is. So okay. So, if you say, well we want to make of this campaign. We’re running a promotion in our store or through our emails or whatever it is that we’re doing as a small business. We want to make 10000 dollars off this promotion. 10000 profits. Then be ready to invest though or a decent amount to get there and I would say invest in a copywriter. I know it takes a lot of time to read it yourself and I know learning to do it yourself takes even more time. All this upskilling that has to happen which is super time consuming. But on the flipside if you want to get great copy. I mean great copywriters are frankly keeping it real. Extremely expensive. It really adds up so I can’t help but think, ok small business owner. There are a lot of things you can delegate. You can delegate all day long. All sorts of things. And some things don’t require a certain skill level but for me again you’re right. As you said at the beginning. There is a certain skeleton. If you’re going to pay someone to do your copy they’d better do it really well.

 

Tim

You’ve got me. I know exactly where you’re coming from. Now so what you’re saying is, identify all those other things and I talk a lot about the virtual marketing team as a small business these days. We can surround ourselves with marketing specialist in all sorts of categories so outsource your AdWords. Outsource your SEO. Outsource your design but with the aim of freeing yourself up to write.

 

Joanna

Ideally at least to write. Yes, I agree with you absolutely.

 

Tim

I love how you putting yourself out of a job.

 

Joanna

I hear it. But there is always going to be work for copywriters out there. But yeah, I guess the only part that makes me hesitate and that’s something that I tend to not give enough thought to is that there are people out there who just desperately hate writing. There are others who have a novel in their desk that they’re working on and nobody knows about. They actually secretly love writing and there are journalers and things like that. But there is a large group of people out there. A large percentage of small business owners who don’t want to sit in front of the page and put something down on it and if it’s going to be this major hassle-free hour then yeah then put some money aside and invest in outsourcing that to someone who is skilled not in content creation but in copywriting there is a distinction between those two. Between someone who might write a blog post for you and someone who’ll write your home page for you.

 

Tim

Hold that thought because I want to investigate that little bit more. One thought I had, just to finished this conversation about who should write the copy and how do you go about getting it done. Is that a mate of mine. Only last week has been kind of going through this process of should I get a writer or should I write my own copy. What he’s ended up doing is writing the first draft and then going, okay now it’s time to get a professional to cast a professional eye over it and not only is this fellow incredibly poor at grammar and spelling he need an editor and a writer. So, I thought that that’s kind of interesting in itself. You get the first draft down that’ll be coming from your heart as the business owner. Your tone of voice and then get someone to try to clean it up.

 

Joanna

Yeah, I think that’s great. I mean the best writing usually happens in that editing phase if you can get your thoughts down on the page and hopefully have those thoughts in formed by what you know about what you’re offering and what you know about what your customers want from you or what they most desire. If you can get that stuff down first then the magic tends to happen in the editing phase when you go in and apply little tricks and cleanup techniques and things like that to make your copy perform better anywhere.

 

Tim

Love it. So, Jo let’s talk then about that concept the different types of copy you mentioned. There’s content creation. There’s copywriting. Now sort of within that, there’s Web site copy, sales letters emails, back to the Christmas cards. Now the business owners writing at all. But tell me what the differences between these things.

 

Joanna

So, I do think there are some of those things that the business owner doesn’t have. It’s really the sales copy that I keep close to the chest rate and the other stuff when you’re talking about creating a blog post, there are people who can do that for you very easily if you want to write the six ways to neuter and dog but that’s awful.

 

Tim

Go for it. And hey there will be a pet groomer listening. Jo so don’t be shy. Six ways to groom a Dalmatian without losing the spots.

 

Joanna

That’s a good point and that is an important part. It is interesting. But I would say though that sort of thing can be easily researched and there are basic principles to follow when you’re writing a blog post so you could kind of outsource that without feeling too weird about it. Someone can go research that for you and write an appropriate blog post and then if it’s not catchy enough you can do little things and that to clean it up but that’s the kind of thing I would outsource. Those content marketing pieces where you’re producing free content to generate interest. Bring traffic to your site to get people share that kind of stuff. I feel it is oftentimes unless you’re content marketing is your business. Then a lot of times that can be outsourced. And then more creative things like producing a tagline or like the actual tagline that goes below your logo if you choose to have that or during the Christmas card as you say those kinds of peripheral elements I would feel also okay about outsourcing. Like a copywriter like myself I wouldn’t work on anybody’s tag line. I have been an agency writer. I’ve been an in-house writer at big companies, little ones too and an agency can handle that kind of stuff and agency can make you taglines all day long and there’ll be some really amazing creative ones in there and one of them is down to work it seems is for other creative on the Christmas card. Right same thing they can do that for you. So I would say you can also outsource that. But it’s the sales stuff. The stuff where people are on your Web site. You’ve only got so much time with them and you need to get the right people who think about the ecosystem. Everything that’s going on with optimizing a Web site or a web experience including email and the user experience and the ads that drove them there or their pages whatever they were that drove them there. Again, this larger picture is like a larger ecosystem getting people thinking about that. That’s the kind of copywriting that to me feels like if you’re not going to do it yourself don’t outsource that to a content marketer or a person who writes a blog post because there are completely different things. Does that make sense. The distinction of yes or no.

 

Tim

Yeah it is and it’s where the money is and when you start talking sales letters, Web site home pages, landing pages, whatever it is. Calls to action to get people. If you’ve got a website the first thing you want people to do is sign up for something so that you can develop a list and have an ongoing conversation with them then I can see massive value in having a writer use the word manipulate that copy so that they do sign up and when they sign up that series of emails that are going to come through your auto responder is just as important. So yeah, I can see that being really important and if you were to outsource anything and were to pay the big bucks for a writer and they are big bucks then that would be where it’s at.

 

Joanna

I agree. And if there are not big bucks honestly any copywriter who has got results in the past knows their value and is highly likely to charge you accordingly. So, I personally have made some stupid. It might sound silly but if you’re not charging a premium then that would be a flag for me. I wouldn’t hire a copywriter to work on my sales copy. Who didn’t charge premium because if they’re any good they’ll know their good.

 

Tim

Well I think in hiring that writer for that’s such important job. You’d want to speak to a client of theirs for whom they generated a decent sale for.

 

Joanna

Yes at least one right. Otherwise it shouldn’t be a premium for someone who’s only had one or two clients because they need more experience under their belt.

 

Tim

Is it a John Carlton or Dan Kennedy? Who charges some exorbitant amount to even start a project because I just know that they’re going to turn on the money tab.

 

Joanna

I know who doesn’t. I mean you said Dan Kennedy can you even hire him. You have to fly him in on a private jet that sat at a perfect temperature.

 

Tim

I heard you’re not dissimilar so it takes one to know one. Now listeners I am talking to Joanna Wiebe from Copy Hackers I’ll give you her tagline on a website where startups learn to convert like mofos. How rude. Great I love the word mofo. A previous guest was Andre from VinoMofo which an online retailer in Australia is.

 

Joanna

Mofo is an underused word in marketing.

 

Tim

I think you’re right and it’s a great example. Let’s talk personality because one of the great things about good copy is having that tone of voice. That personality that represents your brand and it was interesting using Andre is the example with VinoMofo. It’s a great example of injecting personality into the brand because Andre was sick and tired of the wine industry talking about black currant overtones and you know caffeine underbelly and all this kind of wacky wine talk. And he’s just created this online wine retailer VinoMofo where they just talk in normal terms about how that wine tastes.

 

Joanna

I love it. I love that there is that, if you’re willing to go there. And if you think about it, there’s so much potential liberation in starting your own business and truly doing it how you want to do it with. That was something that’s legit, true to who you are and if you would call it a mofo like say it and then it’s refreshing not only for your audience but for you. You don’t have to fake who you are.

 

Tim

Therefore, the writing becomes easier. I would encourage and surely a major part of a brief to either a writer or to yourself when you’re writing is just be crystal clear on the personality of your brand. What are those three four maybe five personality traits that represent you. That are you and not your competitors.

 

Joanna

Totally what a great way to distinguish yourself with personality. Given that emotion is how we make buying decisions and that of course later support that with logic or validate it with something logical. But in the beginning the way we connect is on emotion and how much better we can act as human beings with one another based on our personality. So, it feels like there this obvious emotional pull just in the way that you communicate. And there are probably a lot of people out there who want you to communicate naturally the way you are because they like to hang out with you. As a human being too. Showing that yourself is really good and sometimes it takes work though. Like we’ve been trained to really think a lot before we put anything down on the page or edit it ourselves before we even write or the way we said that was wrong and here’s the right way to say it but when you’re writing your own stuff you can actually do it your own way and if you have to have a drink, have a glass of wine as writing your copy to chill out loosen up a bit about it whatever works right to get you to have that personality come through.

 

Tim

Yeah there there’s your secret sauce, alcohol. You know again, at this event I was talking at yesterday there was a fellow in the audience who’s selling in to academia. To universities and educated people and he was really struggling in some of the content he was having to write because he felt as though he had to picture it at this client base that he put on a pedestal because they were professors. Professors and associate professors and all these learned people. And he was finding it really hard and, in the end, just resisting it. And we had this kind of discussion which led down the exact path we’re talking about like be yourself. First and foremost, my view is people are people first, before they’re business owners or professors or anything else and people buy from people. And so, I think it’s really important to understand what your brand’s about and be true to that.

 

Joanna

Yeah absolutely. Absolutely and you could be really a game changer too if you were to talk more naturally to professors. I mean they’re not all stodgy man up on their heel with white beards. I mean there are a lot like that. But then there were some really cool ones too who are like always not that I’m supporting drugs but there really all is clearly on something. And so, there’s a range of human beings in there. There’s a range of people and by the way the bestselling books are the most fantastic imaginative ones right. They have people all over the world that all scholars and accountants and lawyers and all these and engineers people who are supposed to be emotionless and very formal or jargony way they’re all buying these books and going to movies. They are humans. They want to be entertained. They want to engage and feel connected. So, it seems like a really old idea to believe you have to talk to a certain profession in a certain way.

 

Tim

Okay. Now Jo let’s roll the sleeves up and get under the hood and give our listeners some kind of how to’s because I think your advice earlier about, hey look you don’t have to outsource but if you’re not going to outsource and write your own copy then learn some stuff get your bone up on some copy basics and spend time understanding what makes great copy. Now whilst you come up with some just unbelievable wisdom. I’m going to open the batting which is a cricket term which you don’t even know what that is. So, but it’s kind of a sporting analogy by saying that surely as you sit down to write you are going to have someone in mind. Yeah and that’s someone, I call them your best mates that person who has the highest propensity to want to buy from you. But tell me I’m assuming you agree with me if you don’t say so but if you do then, how do you identify that person. How do you frame that person in your mind?

 

Joanna

Yeah, I do. I absolutely agree with you. I think that what’s problematic though is when you’re new when you’re starting to communicate or building your business and kind of finding your voice. Say in the first three years it’s easy to lose sight of that critical best mate that you’re trying to talk to and it’s easy to lose sight of that and focus instead on a few of the negative nellies you may have heard from along the way. Like the guy says, oh you’re too Salesy when all you’re trying to do is move a product. What you do your business. Of course, you going to sell sometimes but you hear these negative things along the way and those guys can get into your head more than your prospective customer does. So, I think that’s a big one is to push out and who to let in like you say that person that would most likely want to get this from you and end up happy with that. Happy enough hopefully to talk about you or come back and say nice things to you so you feel good about you got and push out the bad guys. I have in my head people who have said along the way things that have kept me back and they didn’t mean any harm by it. They just thought that they were helping. Like coach me in growing my business and it made me edit myself. It didn’t work for me to follow those negative feedback and I much rather focus on the positive. But yes, focus on the person who mostly going to buy from you and be really happy with what they purchase from you. Getting to know that person is another question entirely.

 

Tim

You know I absolutely agree and I would imagine getting to know their problems that you can solve. Kind of what’s bugging them.

 

Joanna

Get all of it. What they love. What like their crazy love. Who they love. The kinds of places that they can spend their free time. Particularly online if you’re trying to communicate with them online not because you’re planning on advertising in those spaces but because it can help to know that your audience spends a lot of time on things like cracked.com or other kind of joke sites and things like that. If that’s the case rather than assuming that, find out where they go and you can find out a lot of times just by asking them. Which is like scary in some cases. But then once you get that information you’re like, how did I ever try to live without this and grow my business without this more intimate knowledge of exactly whom I’m speaking with.

 

Tim

Yeah totally. You talk about swiping the copy right from your prospects. Tell me about that.

 

Joanna

So at least say that you should write a first draft, okay that’s fine. I think then though be sure that edit in that voice of customer. The things that people are saying about you, to you or out in the world out.

 

Tim

So, swapping copy from the prospects mouth. Is that just the kind of listening in and listening what they talk and what they talk about when they’re talking about your business or your industry or the brands that you sell.

 

Joanna

Well that’s one part yeah. Eavesdropping on the m. If you know where they hang out. Go pay attention to the way they talk there. But it’s also when you get things like testimonials, let’s say you get a natural language testimonial. Someone wrote and said oh this is awesome. They posted on Twitter about something really cool about your service. That’s the kind of language that they’re using. Twitter is often hard because there are so few characters to work with. But it’s really a natural place for a testimonial-ish stuff to occur or to be communicated. And then there’s other testimonials that are just sent into you. Like oh I loved your book or whatever it might be and the natural language that’s usually hidden inside there, are these interesting things. So, we did a test actually recently. This was a couple of months ago, where we were trying to determine really the value proposition for this company. We couldn’t get our heads around it entirely. They couldn’t because they were too close to it. Which is often a problem for small businesses because you’re in it. You think that would be a really good purpose. Sometimes it just like there is you. It’s just too much to see through. So, we were all trying to figure out what the value proposition was for this company and then to try to use it as a headline on the home page which is what we often recommend to copy hackers that you do. So, we came up with all these things on our own. Here’s one thing we think is unique and desirable. Here’s another thing. Another thing. And then none of them were performing well in this ABCD Test. It was getting into pretty big test of these headlines and so we were like, oh that sucks. So, we went and looked through their site and I stumbled across this testimonial they had on some random page where the person had said, your solution, whatever the company name I can’t actually remember it because my memory is terrible for names but it says, this saves us 99 percent of paper every month or something on paper work every month. And it was the language is ninety nine percent on your paperwork or something like that it was that exact phrase that we pulled directly from the testimonial. It was already sitting there on their website. It just needed to be elevated. We tested that as the headline and the results were practically instant because the conversions were flying in on that one compared with all the terrible ones. So that’s an example of going out looking at what you already have heard from customers and just identifying like the gold in there and using that as your message. You don’t have to put it in quotes. Just take out the good stuff and call that headline.

 

Tim

Great copy should it mirror how your customers think and feel about your business.

 

Joanna

It should mirror it and this is also just plain stated. Just does take exactly what they said and put it over here. This is another really good trick. It’s good I think when you start using and practicing it. Its little hard from what I understand the first time, so if anybody decides to do this, do it more than once and it’ll start making more sense. But the idea is that you head on over to Amazon. So, you’re trying to find messages maybe you don’t have customers yet or you’re scared to reach out to get testimonials or to do interviews. You sent out surveys and they’re not coming back with anything that’s really useful. Their long answers are like really scripted or short are not that helpful so you can get to that voice customer data that we’re looking for. You’re not finding anything so you don’t always have to go look at your customers. You can look at the type of people who might be your customers and see what they’re saying and swipe messages from them. So, this is the exercise is to go, let’s say that your topic is, I did this actually, was really great success for a rehab in Florida they were trying to optimize their site and I was helping them with that. I went to Amazon looked up books on alcoholism. On living with an alcoholic. On overcoming drug addiction. And it wasn’t the books I was worried about so much as the language that was used in the book reviews. Amazon is as anybody who’s bought the book there knows just completely packed with a lot of really detailed wonderful book reviews and even those reviews. There are so many unscripted but easy to understand messages that people are sharing about what matters to them, what hurts them, what’s really interesting to them, what delights them, what they’re still curious about and haven’t got an answer to yet. All sorts of things that are like amazing to write copies. So, you don’t have to think it up. You going to go look at Amazon book reviews and they’re going to tell you, like what is going on and what their needs are, what their wants are, what’s still missing for them that someone else needs to fill for them. So, when we did this exercise where went through reviews and looked for essentially just things that stood out when it comes down to. And there is this one phrase, this gentleman had written a book review for something about alcoholism and his line that he sat in there was, if you think you need rehab you do and its pretty straightforward language right. Someone might say that talking to somebody else. If you think you need rehab you probably do and that was the phrase and we pulled it out and tested that as a home page headline and then internally everybody was voting against this because this tone was completely different from what you’re used to seeing in rehab spaces. Where it’s always very quiet, floral and don’t worry and like really long stories and things like that too and this was really straight to the point and it performed like crazy I think they got 400 percent more leads with this headline than before and for a rehab center or something like that. If anybody had heard me tell the story before it might have been 383 or something like that but there was a large, a huge presented increase of leads that they got. And of course, every lead for them is worth twenty-five thousand dollars at minimum. So, it all really adds up and all you had to do was go out and look.

 

Tim

Joey, you don’t mind me call you Joey because that is the tip of the day. That’s gold. I love that stuff because that just makes sense. I mean there is so much preexisting content and knowledge and advice and copy sitting there and yeah, I’ve never thought of going to Amazon and looking for it I’m thinking as you’re speaking about that I get a lot of listener emails, I get a lot of reviews on iTunes and I read them because it pumps me up and allows me to continue to do what I do. But now and I look at them in a completely different light and look at the language that they’re using and what they’re focusing on and include that in future emails. Look out listeners.

 

Joanna

Now they’re going to be really careful when they send an e-mail.

 

Tim

Yeah that’s right. They’re going to go. I’ve got an email from Tim and then they’re going to head over to Amazon and look up marketing books for small business and see which review I’ve copied. That’s great. That’s gold. Joe thank you. You know Joey I called you Joey before that’s a baby kangaroo. Now we’ve got three tips I like to work in odd numbers. I want to get a couple more but so far, we’ve got to understand your audience. Swipe copy straight from your customers mouth. Head over to Amazon and look at the reviews and see what people are saying in regards to books related to your industry. I’ve heard you talk of, I’ve done a little bit of investigating some would call it stalking but that would be wrong. But you’re talking about three levels of a call to action to increase conversions. Now one thing I know for sure is that many of us small business owners don’t spend enough time thinking, what do we want people to do. Having read my copy and that would be a call to action. So, tell us about these three levels.

 

Joanna

So, the three levels, the one I talked about in book four. So are we talking about like primary secondary as you’re moving through an experience.

 

Tim

Hang on this we get the geek alert siren sound effect I mean. Well let’s actually keep that simple, because let’s talk call to action. Don’t worry about the three levels. Let’s talk Call to Action and the importance of it and how one should approach it in their writing.

 

Joanna

That’s awesome. I mean we’ve just done this really. Actually, still finishing as a major experiments buttons across 20 plus start up small business Web sites. Where we were testing just buttons. Just calls action to see what’s really working and if we can triangulate some data across a bunch of different test to see if we can actually make conclusions. So, we’re learning some things definitely. In addition to the things that we already believed to be true. And one of those is moving and I’ve been saying this but I’m not comfortable with the phrase but I’m going to say but it’s not final it’s just idea that we’re working with. I’m going to say when it calls to value rather than calls to action. So, a call to action, we tend to make that more about the action. They need to have that action word in there to know to take action. I think that’s good but we often leave out the critical stuff that’s going to get them to take that action like reminders of the outcome that they’re about to see or about to get when they actually sign up to work with you or to use your solution.

 

Tim

Okay so what you’re identifying is I would call them little taps on the shoulder along the way to say, hey by the way just check out the value that you’re going to get by buying from me.

 

Joanna

Yeah. And I mean we’ve called those click triggers in the copy hackers in book 4 we’re referred of them like the little messages you put around a button as a click trigger. It’s that thing that’s going to trigger them to click. Little last-minute things that should push them over that wall that’s keeping them away. But the value part things to me. More built into the button copy itself. So, the copy that’s on the button instead of saying, donate now. Talking more about the value associated with how you going to feel when you donate. I don’t want to donate now. Right which is a friction word. It’s quite a bit on our blog. I don’t want to donate now that’s not my goal as a human being is to donate now that’s my task at the moment. But it’s not my goal at all. I don’t feel about donating. That’s worked.

 

Tim

So, donates the action you’re looking for the outcome or the benefit of donating.

 

Joanna

Yeah. Yeah. And so, I call it value because if I just said benefit I think that I would limit myself to just benefits from thinking about it when it’s actually this just all good things. It’s called goodness. It’s an amazing wonderful feeling.

 

Tim

At the end of the day we were writing copy to do something. We want people to do something or feel something. And I get those calls to value which obviously then leads to a call to action which is call me, visit me, register here, buy this whatever it’s going to be but in order to get someone there, there’s got to be a little bit of calls to value along the way. So, I get that. Not sure calls to value is the right phrase. Feels a bit kind of clunky.

 

Joanna

It’s something closer. It’s a movement. Mentally as I’m thinking of writing a button which we tend to write extremely quickly. We just throw down or submit. Which is why that’s the submit button. If anybody had ever thought about that they wouldn’t have put that in. Nobody wants to submit, I guess like 50 Shades of Grey people were there or something like that. But in this case not so much. It’s not calls value but it’s something. So, I challenge all of your listeners to find out what that something is.

 

Tim

It’s interesting discussion because what you highlighted here. We got listeners who are like dentists and an accountant and bricks and mortar small businesses and some of them we’re talking about an online Internet Marketing kind of play here which is the importance of the button and some of them we’re going, what are they talking about the button and what about all the other kind of copy things. But I think the learning here guys are the fact that these little things. You’ve got a website and all those websites got buttons whether they be navigation buttons or buttons to register for something or to make an inquiry. These little things are so important. In fact, it’s the pointy end. If you look at copy is you start off broad and you have this kind of conversation that settles people in to a journey to inquiry or buying something then the pointy end is the call to action.

 

Joanna

Absolutely. And further to that or thinking about, like inverted pyramid. I would say that you should trade a page really well to move people closer to that pointy end. I would start with pointy end. Start with the call to action. Start with the thing that you want them to do and then build out around that and you’re constantly out answering questions. Is this enough to get them to do it to get closer to my button. And then once on the button to click it. If you start with your button, it is a trick of the trade but that’s a much easier way to figure out what copy needs to be on the page and what message does need to be there, what don’t. If you’re trying to get someone to sign up to get a free consult with you or learn about teeth whitening a dentist. Then knowing what that call to action is and working out from there rather than starting at a headline and trying to work down to your call to action and you can see that, it frankly gets a lot easier when you start with the button and work out.

 

Tim

Yeah. Good advice Joe. Hey I’m going to put you on the spot here, you’ve got 30 seconds to give me, because I like rounded off. It’s the anal retentiveness in me that needs 5 tips and not fours, just not working for me. So, five last minute kind of little quick and dirty copywriting tip for the small business owner.

 

Joanna

For any testimonial uses an introductory header bit to reinforce what someone’s going to say. Make sure your headline grabs people’s attention, it’s not there to sell its there to grab attention. That doesn’t mean it has to have like explosions in it but it has to grab attention not sell. Move people down to the next line. Tip number three. Every line should lead people down to the next line. Tip number four really short, only necessary form fields.

 

Tim

You are so out of time but the second last one, I didn’t get the last one, but the second last one about every line should lead someone on to the next line. That one excites me. I do like that and it’s not easy to do but if you think about someone gets to the end of a sentence, that’s a point where you go do I keep reading or don’t. So yeah, I love that. Hey Joanna Wiebe from Copy Hackers. Thanks so much for being a contributing part to the small business big marketing tribe.

 

Joanna

It’s been great. It’s been fun. Thank you for having me on. Thanks for listening everyone.

 

Tim

Absolutely and guys. I will put some links in the show notes but head over to copyhackers.com. There is so much gold there. So many beautiful little freebies and things that you can buy to actually improve your copywriting. So, head on head over there. Thanks Joe.

 

Joanna

Thank you Timbo.