A Few Preliminary Thoughts on Google+

Last I heard there were over 10 million people who’d signed up for Google+. That’s not too shabby considering that most of us aren’t quite sure what it is or what we’ll do with it yet.

Just in case…

Google+ is Google’s new social networking tool. Google also something called the “+1″ button, which is not the same thing. While we’re still experimenting with the +1 button to see how it impacts search engine placement, the Google+ social networking tool is creating a rather interesting diversion.

The +1 button allows you to “vote” on a web page. What happens after you vote is only known to the Google engineers working on that project, but we suspect it will help your search engine placement in time.

Google+, however, is another communication tool that allows you to connect with “circles” of friends, colleagues, customers, prospects, or whatever category of people you deem necessary:

You add people to a “circle” of your choosing. Then, when you post an update (message, video, picture, URL), you specify whom you want to receive the message:

For me, the jury is still out on its overall usefulness, especially when it comes to reading the stream. You have to remember to click on the “+” link when you’re in your Gmail account. And, if you don’t actively use Gmail, then I’m not sure when or if you’d ever look at your Google+ stream to see what others are saying.

You can have a zillion people in your circles, but if nobody ever reads your updates, then it’s not much good to you.

I’d be interested in hearing your opinion and thoughts on Google+. Is it useful? Will it replace or enhance Facebook and Twitter?

And, if you do use it, what do you use it for?

Inquiring minds want to know…

Learning the Art of Predictable Irrationality

A few weeks ago I completed the web copy for the re-design of MicroConnex’s website (they make Flex Circuits). Today I learned that a few of the people on their management team were freaking out (in a positive way).

It seems that the combination of the new copy and the SEO tweaks I made had the effect they wanted, but not exactly in the manner they expected. This happens a lot…

They’re a technology company made up of engineers from the President on down. They expect that people will always behave rationally and logically, which is rarely (if ever) the case. Their customers – and your customers – will act in seemingly irrational ways whether you like it or not. It’s simply our nature to act on the basis of emotional impulses and justify our choices later with supposedly rational conclusions.

Here’s what happened and why…

I’d intentionally done some tweaks to the copy and SEO to promote capabilities that were hidden in their previous website. While these aren’t their core competencies, they are things the company does exceptionally well.

The site leapt from nowhere to the top five in Google for two of these keyword phrases. Within days they received calls from people who wanted those specific capabilities and didn’t give a hoot for what my client knew to be their core capability.

See, it really wasn’t the “technology” itself that got the attention of their new customers. And, it had little to do with whether or not other companies provided the same capabilities. I’d phrased it in a way that gave the reader an impression of uniqueness.

My client wondered why people were suddenly demanding a service that to them was secondary and relatively unexciting. All I did was give the website visitor an intriguing call to action. Instead of saying, ”Call us”, I said:

”Challenge Our Team…”

The combination of a few SEO tweaks and a bit of unconventional (and unexpected) copy created an emotional response in the website visitor. He no longer acted “rationally” with a handful of technical specifications. He acted “irrationally” on the basis of the “Challenge.”

Maybe You Should Act a Bit Irrational, Too

Now, my client has seen the light. They are beginning to think more irrationally, which will help their marketing efforts considerably.

For example, I just learned today that they do something fairly commonplace called ”button plating”.

After discussing this internally, they realized that they’ve improved on the standard processes. So, rather than saying, ”We do button plating better than anyone else” (boring and unconvincing), they’re going to claim that they do ”Micro Barrel Plating”.

Any engineer familiar with button plating will be immediately emotionally aroused at the possibility of learning something new and different. “Better” is no longer enough to get people excited. However, “Completely New and Different” will get their knickers all twisted up.

The Point

It’s not really “thinking outside the box” that’s going to win you friends and influence customers anymore. You need to get irrational. Throw the box away and become just as irrational as your prospects and customers. Push the edge. Trust me… you’ll love the results.

How to Combine Content Marketing & Email Marketing Strategies

The recent news about reduced open and click rates for email campaigns might have some businesses worried. If your business relies heavily on email marketing to get existing or new customers to buy your products and services, then you have every right to be concerned.

A recent study in which advertising executives were asked about trends shows that they expect Facebook and YouTube advertising to increase dramatically over the next year. They will rely much more on mobile advertising than ever before to get in the face of their prospects.

The study shows that Facebook advertising will increase significantly, and that as a result they want their “creative” types to become better problem solvers than communicators. This is a significant shift in focus.

Smart service and tech companies can take advantage of these shifts in advertising by becoming better at content marketing, which in turn can improve the performance of their email marketing. Here’s how…

1 Focus on Value

First, focus on providing value to your prospects and customers. This is the key tenet of content marketing, even if your primary marketing dollars are going toward mobile (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) as the advertising executives suggest.

For example, a Facebook or YouTube ad might promote a special how-to video, article or special report. The advertisement promotes the content instead of the product.

To obtain the content, the visitor must provide a valid email address.

Then, really do deliver something of value. Fill the report with helpful tips they might not hear anywhere else, or deliver a video that truly adds value to the person’s job or life.

Now, you’ve got their attention, the beginnings of a relationship, and the foundation for an email campaign that might just work…

2 Focus on Relationships

Next, build on your initial relationship with additional value. Promote your Facebook page in every email and every new piece of content (video, article, Facebook update, etc.)

Ask for their opinions through polls, and gain their participation in your next marketing campaign by holding contests.

All of these “touches” with your prospects are geared toward creating a dialogue in which you provide something of value, and in exchange they converse with you about their thoughts, opinions, ideas, and even suggestions.

The most effective content marketing campaigns encourage this kind of dialogue, whether it’s through comments on blog posts, Twitter updates, or Facebook conversations.

And, now with Google+ on the horizon, businesses will have even more ways to create meaningful conversations with their customers (watch for more news and tips on Google+).

3 Effective Email Marketing = Value + Relationship

Once you’ve got a meaningful connection and relationship with people, your email messages are more likely to get opened, read, and acted upon.

Email marketing dead by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is changing to reflect the increased use of mobile computing and social networking.

By creating emails that are easily read and digested on any mobile device, and by already having a meaningful relationship with your prospects, your email marketing campaigns will extend and enhance those relationships. The result will be more sales of new products, upgrades, and additional services.

Knowing Your Buyer is Critical to a Solid Content Marketing Campaign

One of the first things I’ll do with a new client is to learn as much as I can about their buyers. This is more of a daunting task than you can imagine, as most business owners couldn’t give you a good description of a buyer if their lives depended on it.

Technical buyers are especially hard to pinpoint because we think of them as being highly analytical, fact-driven or data-driven creatures of habit.

Even, and perhaps especially, technical buyers are driven by their emotions as much as anyone when it comes to making a buying decision.

However, because they don’t wear their emotions on their sleeves as do non-technical buyers, it’s harder to pinpoint their emotional hot buttons.

Here are a three tips on uncovering the “real buyer” behind the curtain:

1 Understand the buyer’s position in the company.

A CIO will have entirely different emotional reasons for making a buying decision than will a production engineer or design engineer.

Thus, the first step should be to identify the positions of your buyers within the company because you may have several buyers in very different positions.

2 Determine the emotional hot buttons for each position.

“Personification” is a technique we often use to put a face and emotions behind a “group” of people. Give your buyer a name, gender, age, and background.

If she’s a CIO who has worked 60 hour weeks for most of her life, and is yet terrified of losing her job, then you’ll want to paint a picture of her that represents her deeper emotions.

For example, because she’s afraid of losing her high-paying, high-profile job, you know that she’s got to maintain an air of both professionalism and success. Your job isn’t to sell her stuff. It’s to make her feel and look successful.

Or, if you have a buyer who is an experienced techie with 25 years in the field, you know that he’s got a HUGE ego to feed. It’s his place to be seen as “the guy who knows it all,” and it’s your job to help him feel and look knowledgeable.

These are their emotional hot buttons – it’s what drives them to decide on one product or service over another. They’re not looking for the product with the best specifications, unless that product can also feed their emotional needs first.

3 Understand their secondary emotions and beliefs

Everyone believes in something, whether it’s a religious belief, a political belief, or a belief about how a vendor should operate.

See if you can uncover their core beliefs about life, politics, and business relationships. Once you understand these beliefs, you can easily tap into secondary emotions that come from those beliefs.

For example, if the people in your target market believe that global warming will ultimately destroy civilization as we know it, then even if your product has nothing to do with global warming, you can establish a rapport with your lead by demonstrating that you are “in their camp.”

We want to buy from people who are like us – with similar beliefs, ethics, and ideas about how to run a business. To illustrate this point, one of my clients works as a consultant to the oil & gas industry. These are mostly hand-shaking, good old boys who put their relationships with people first.

We were able to play off these secondary emotions in our copy, thereby creating a connection long before a face-to-face meeting is had.

The Point

Everyone ultimately decides on a purchase based on emotional reasons. They’ve got to “feel good” about it before they’ll make the purchase decision.

Get to know your customer and lead from an emotional standpoint, and then write your copy in a way that connects to their deeper emotions. This is how you generate more leads and make more sales online.

Communication and Connection are the Lifeblood of your Business

Many technology companies ignore email lists, Facebook pages, and the like. Their sense seems to be that technology buyers don’t need to wined and dined and otherwise presented with a smile.

Even tech buyers talk to each other and communicate occasionally with the outside world. If you simply see the massive effort that a company like Hubspot (a true tech company) does to nurture leads, and the equally massive growth they’ve seen over the past year, you can’t help but recognize the importance of lead nurturing.

At the heart of lead nurturing is the “Opt-in.” An opt-in is simply a way for you to get the names and email addresses of people who might be interested in whatever you’re selling. This kind of marketing works far better than sending an email to a list you collected at a trade show or conference because it’s “permission-based.”

We know that permission-based email (where the user “opted in” to a list) gets almost five times the open and click rate as non-permission-based email. And, people who consciously Like a Facebook page are far more likely to read your Facebook updates, participate in surveys or quizzes, and interact with you and other followers.

Here’s how to increase your opt-ins and generate more quality, targeted leads:

1 Offer information that’s valuable to your leads

This is an area in which Hubspot displays true mastery. They are constantly on the lookout for topics of interest to their target market. They conduct studies, interview customers, and watch the trends online to understand current issues, questions and concerns.

Then, they create straightforward and targeted reports (not “white papers”) that provide the information people want.

These reports are typically between ten and 20 pages and are filled to the brim with quality information. Hubspot doesn’t attempt to sell their services until the last couple of pages of the document.

Another approach is to provide free Webinars. These can be pre-recorded or live, and in exchange for the ability to view the Webinar, the viewer gives you his or her contact information.

2 Create a focused Opt-In page

Most businesses will create one or more special reports or videos and do little more than provide a “Download Now” button on their home page.

Unfortunately, the visitor will be too distracted to click on the link or opt-in to get the report. Ideally, you’ll have a separate web page that’s entirely focused on one thing: the opt-in. All the visitors sees on the page is an opt-in form and reasons why they should give you their personal information.

These opt-in pages can contain a video or they can be text-based (or both). We’ve seen that text-based opt-in pages out-perform video-based opt-in pages, quite possibly because we’re becoming less enamored with videos.

In fact, split tests have shown us that people generally prefer to download a PDF report over watching a video online. This is a reversal of the trends we saw two years ago.

3 Keep the Opt-in form “above the fold”

The opt-in form should be immediately visible on the web page. The visitor should not have to scroll to find the form.

Also, we’ve found that an opt-in form on the right performs better than an opt-in form on the left. We’re not sure why, but we suspect that it’s because we read from left to right and our eyes “land” on the opt-in form instead of skimming past it.

To the left, you’ll have a compelling headline that grabs their attention and immediately puts them into a “I need this” frame of mind. If you did a good job of naming your report, then your title can simply be the name of the report.

Then, include several strong bullets that give solid reasons why the person should download the report. This can be statistics, data, or information that is specific and relevant to the prospect. What you want here are strong benefits and not features.

4 Only ask for email address

This last tip will rankle some, but we’ve learned that our opt-in rates increase by 15% or more just by eliminating “Name” from the opt-in form.

Hubspot actually asks for name, email, business name, website URL and about four other questions. It’s a tedious form, and I know that I’ve avoided downloading a report I wanted because I didn’t want to waste time on their form.

In truth, this additional information won’t increase your conversion rates. We’ve found that the conversion rates actually increase without asking for the person’s name, probably because we’ve increased their level of trust.

We don’t trust “glad-handers” and for some reason that’s how it feels when someone asks for our name and sends us an email with “Hey there, Sid” in the first sentence.

You’ll have to trust me on this one for now, but try it for yourself. Do a split test and see if you can increase your opt-in rate by only asking for the person’s email address.

How Content Marketing can Solve Serious Email Problems

A recent report by Harte-Hanks shows that Email open and click rates have dropped significantly in the past year.

Because many technology companies rely heavily on Email as a source of leads and sales, this is a bad omen for things to come.

What’s most interesting about this is that (in my humble experience), technology companies are often the LAST to move to new marketing technologies. They were slow to adopt the Internet, and many still have static Web 1.0 websites.

Here are Hart-Hanks overall email performance findings for 2010 (based on roughly 3 billion email messages sent by 100 companies in nine vertical industries):

And, here are the open and click rates by industry:

Making Sense of the Data

The tech sector saw the lowest open rates (6%) and LESS THAN 1% click rate. This means that for every 100 messages sent, only six were opened and less than one saw the user click through to a web page or other link.

In short, this means that technology companies can no longer rely on their standard Email marketing practices to grow their businesses.

Does this mean that Email doesn’t work? Absolutely not. As you can see, the pharmaceutical industry saw a 25% open rate and almost 5% click rate, and the insurance industry saw an even higher click rate.

Why might this be?

I can only speculate, but I suspect that Big Pharm and Insurance see higher open and click rates because the emails are more highly targeted to the people who most/need/want the information and products.

Tech companies tend to fill their Email lists through trade shows and other “business card gathering” functions. They are rarely “double opt-in”, meaning that the user isn’t selectively choosing to receive emails from the company.

Thus, they may see the email as Spam, and at a minimum will ignore the email.

Solutions?

There are several solutions to this dilemma, all of which have to do with developing a solid Content Marketing strategy.

1. Start providing useful content on a company blog…
2. Create and maintain an active company Facebook page…
3. Develop useful and informative video content…
4. Create one or more special reports and “how-to” videos that can be used for online lead generation (“give me your email address, and I’ll give you the report”)…
5. Or, simply provide more value in your Emails instead of using them to sell your products and services.

Content marketing isn’t the solution to everything, but it’s one great solution to the reduction in Email opens and clicks.

By having a good content marketing strategy, you can target specific people on your list based on their interests (Facebook likes, reports downloaded, etc.), instead of blanketing everyone you’ve ever met with every message.

Hey, if works for drug companies, it can sure work for tech companies.

Written by Sid Smith]]> http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/content-marketing-solves-email-open-problem/feed/ 0 http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/copywriting-tip-no-spec-sheets/ http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/copywriting-tip-no-spec-sheets/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:14:45 +0000 Sid http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/?p=928

A Great Specifications Page Can Kill Your Sales Efforts

I’ll be tossed out on my nose in the techie community for saying this. A great, well-written brochure or specifications sheet for your product can absolutely KILL your sales efforts.

Now, before you throw me to the dogs, hear me out on this.

Technical brochures and spec sheets are fabulous sales tools if well-written, clear, concise and informative.

However, they can also cut your potential sales in half if you lead the sale with the specs and data.

Why Leading with Technical Data Kills Sales

Mother Teresa once said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

In 2004, some researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (see Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Fail) decided to test Mother Teresa’s statement.

They ran several studies in which they gave a number of students $5 for taking a “survey” (the survey was irrelevant – they just wanted the kids to have money). At the end of the survey the kids were given an envelope with a request for a donation.

Inside the envelope was one of two pleas. The first relied on strong facts and figures like “In Zambia, severe rainfall deficits have resulted in a 42% drop in maize production from 2000. As a result, an estimated 3 million Zambians face hunger.”

The second version just gave information about a single young girl named Rokia. The letter talked about the seven-year-old girl from Mali who was desperately poor and faced the threat of starvation. Her life would be changed for the better as a result of a financial gift.

The Rokia letter resulted in DOUBLE the contribution rate.

It gets better…

They ran a second test in which people were given BOTH letters. The result was exactly the same as if they had only received the first, statistic-based letter. In other words, the mere fact that they were “primed” by statistics made them give less.

AND, it gets better still…

The researchers were curious about WHY the statistics fared less well. They suspected that it had to do with the state of mind of the participants. So, to test their theory they devised yet another test in which students were “primed” with either a thought-based question or an emotion-based question before reading the letters.

Here’s what happened…

Some students were given a mental puzzler before reading the Rokia (emotion-based) letter, and some were given an emotion-based question before reading Rokia. Neither group was asked to read the more technical, fact-based letter.

For example, the first group was asked, “If you’re driving 50 miles an hour, how long will it take you to drive 360 miles?”

The second group was asked, “Please write down one word to describe how you feel when you hear the word ‘baby.’”

Can you guess the results?

When people were asked to feel before they read the Rokia letter they gave twice as much as the group who were asked to think before reading the same letter.

The Moral of the Story

Spec sheets aren’t necessarily a bad thing to have. But, if you want your spec sheet to help in your sales efforts, then you need to FIRST put your prospect into a feeling state.

In other words, don’t lead with your specifications.

Lead with information that will get your prospect feeling and he or she will be in a much better frame of mind for being generous with their money.

In the next article I’ll expand on this topic and give you three practical (and easy) ways to lead with emotion instead of logic.

Written by Sid Smith]]> http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/copywriting-tip-no-spec-sheets/feed/ 0 http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/3-simple-content-marketing-tricks-generate-leads/ http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/3-simple-content-marketing-tricks-generate-leads/#comments Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:30:41 +0000 Sid http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/?p=924

Why You Should Kick Some Content Marketing Ass This Year

We’re almost half way through with 2011. The world hasn’t ended. Facebook hasn’t (yet) destroyed Google. And, Content Marketing is still the best way to generate a steady stream of quality leads online.

The question I ask myself and my clients is this: What will you do the remainder of this year so that your business is poised for dominance in 2012?

I’ve noticed over the past two years that as Social Networking increases in importance as a marketing tool, it has enhanced rather than supplanted content marketing as a lead generation tool. Before I give you my five simple content marketing tricks, I should briefly explain what I mean.

Content Marketing Creates Leads… Social Networking Builds Relationships

The distinction between social networking and content marketing is an important one. “Content” is any piece of information that you share online. It can be shared on a blog, YouTube video, or on a Facebook page.

Content consists of white papers, articles, podcasts, Webinars and special reports. Content also includes informative updates on Facebook or LinkedIn. I distinguish this kind of content from frivolous status updates or chit-chat. Those are important in terms of your relationships with your connections, but they are generally not useful for lead generation.

People find and read (listen to or watch) your “valuable content” and become a lead. More valuable content turns them into a customer. Then, you build and maintain the relationship through BOTH social networking and the delivery of more valuable content.

Got it?

3 Simple Content Marketing Tricks

1 If they don’t read it, they won’t need it…

If they don’t click on the link to read your article, Facebook update, or watch your video, then you’ve accomplished nothing.

The headline (title) should either offer a clear and significant benefit for clicking; or, it should evoke another strong emotion. Strong emotions include curiosity, outrage and sympathy. A headline like “Is Sarah Palin Smarter than a 5th Grader?” should evoke both an element of curiosity and quite possibly outrage.

Or, a title like “Grow the Biggest, Juiciest Strawberries this Side of the Mississippi” offers a clear benefit.

To get some ideas on compelling headlines, just grab a copy of one of the magazines you see at checkout stands. Read their headlines for ideas on what might grab your reader’s attention.

We’re often split between creating a “clickable” headline and a headline that generates more SEO brownie points. Whether someone clicks on the link to your piece of content from a search engine results page or another website (or Twitter post), your headline still must be clickable or it won’t do the job.

I know that I’ll sometimes get lazy about the headline, and that’s a big mistake. Put some serious thought into the headline of your content before you post it online.

Oh, and this applies also (especially) to things like white papers. Take a little time to create an interesting white paper title so that people want to click on the link and download the white paper.

“Company X Storage Systems Solutions” sounds too much like a sales brochure.

“3 Ways to Dramatically Reduce Storage Costs” is something I might want to read.

2 Get others to toot your horn

Once you’ve got a killer headline in place that will almost force people to click through to your content, you want to get the word out to places outside your website.

I’ve got a special trick I use to make this easy. It is a monthly subscription services, but if you’re putting out a lot of content, it is well worth the minimal expense.

This is my secret weapon. I’m almost hesitant to reveal the source because it is so powerful. This tool is called “Synnd“.

Synnd has evolved from a simple content “syndication” system that enabled content to be “bookmarked” on a variety of bookmarking sites into a full-fledged automated content broadcast machine.

Spend 15-20 minutes of prep time, and the system will automatically have your content bookmarked on sites like Blinklist and BibSonomy. Then, you can get dozens of people to automatically “Like” your content on Facebook, Re-Tweet your content through Twitter, “Vote” for your content on Digg or StumbleUpon, and even comment on your blog.

You can even control the comments placed on your blog by writing them yourself.

The beauty of Synnd is that YOU are not the one Re-Tweeting, bookmarking, Liking or Voting on your content. The system transparently has other users of the system do those tasks for you. It’s completely automated, and completely transparent to the search engines and other systems.

It’s as if you’ve got a building filled with people doing all of these social media tasks for you. And, all you did was spend 15-20 minutes getting the system set up.

3 The Power of One

The Power of One is a subject I’ll touch on periodically because of its importance.

This article, for example, focuses on one main idea: getting more leads from your content marketing. Every piece of content you create, whether it’s a PowerPoint presentation, an article, or a live Webinar will generate more interest if it focuses on ONE main idea.

For example, I just watched a Webinar from Dell on their Compellent Storage System. In 35 minutes the presenter spent approximately 30 seconds on several hundred points. He hit on every single aspect of the system, which quite honestly made my head spin.

Personally, I think Dell would be much better off splitting a Webinar like this into several five to ten minute presentations that can be recorded and watched repeatedly if necessary. Each presentation would focus on a single idea and would lead the viewer to want more.

Longer articles or presentations that try to do too much leave the reader or viewer wanting less, which is not conducive to lead generation!

Marketing Profs executes this idea extremely well for its members. They have a series of “10 Minute” how-to videos that make it easy and fast for members to learn valuable information without having to block out a large chunk of time.

The Point

• First, your content needs to be read or viewed to be of any value. That comes from the title or headline.
• Second, get it out there. Synnd will do the trick better than anything else I know.
• Third, focus on one concept or idea at a time. Don’t overwhelm your reader with too much, too fast, too soon.
Written by Sid Smith]]> http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/3-simple-content-marketing-tricks-generate-leads/feed/ 0 http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/personalized-urls-purls-magic-marketing-weapon-waste-time/ http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/personalized-urls-purls-magic-marketing-weapon-waste-time/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:53:02 +0000 Sid http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/?p=919

What are Personalized URLs (PURLS)…

And why the heck should you care?

I first learned about PURLS a couple of years ago when working on a direct marketing campaign for a client. They wanted to personalize the entire process so that every letter or email recipient would receive his or her own “personal” web page to visit.

Once they visited their personal web page (www.website.com/Joe_Smith), they’d see all sorts of personal information that would help with their decision-making process.

They might see their company name, position in the company, and maybe a bit of their personal background if the information was available.

All form fields would be automatically completed with their correct name, email address, and phone number.

The purpose of PURLS is to “personalize” the buying experience. It’s intended to replace the glad-handing sales person who asks about your family and wonders if your dog has healed from his recent injury.

It works by using special programming code on your website called “PHP” that allows you to populate various fields with information stored in a database, very much like the “mail merge” feature of Word.

When a visitor goes to his or her personalized page (“/firstname_lastname”), the fancy programming will see a specially coded field, such as “Company_Name” and retrieve the actual company name for that person from a database.

Does it work?

The results of my first test: We had over 15% of our recipients go to their personalized web page. That’s very high for any campaign, and this was to a brand new list.

Why PURLs Might Work

While there is no guarantee that a personalized URL will work in a marketing campaign, it does offer something that a standard, non-personalized URL doesn’t offer: an element of curiosity.

For example, let’s say that your email or sales letter says that “we’ve created a web page especially for you. On it you will find a free gift that is personalized to YOUR tastes and needs.”

Wouldn’t you be a bit more curious about “opening your special gift”?

However, to make this work your “personalized” web page must truly be personalized, and not simply have a header that says, “Hi Joe Smith!”

To make it personal you’ll have to gather some background information about the person, and that takes time and energy.

For this reason, I suggest that PURLs are most useful when you’re sending to an established list. You can conduct surveys and store the personal preferences in a database.

For example, people list their color preferences (blue, red, green, yellow, etc.).

You store this information and later offer your list a “personalized” T-shirt in their favorite color. You can do the same thing with personal preferences or needs for just about anything.

If you can collect the data, then you can display the personal information on a PURL page.

How to use PURLs

There’s the hard way, and then there’s the easy way.

Several services will sell you a “PURLs Campaign” for thousands of dollars. All data and web pages are maintained on their servers. This is great if you’ve got the budget and don’t have the time to mess with any of the technical aspects.

There are also one or two stand-alone PURL systems where you buy all the PHP code and can use it on your server. It’s great stuff, but you’ve got to have a good programmer on staff to make it work.

Finally, there is a wonderfully inexpensive Plugin for WordPress called PURLEM that handles everything for you, right within WordPress.

Purlem does take a little effort to set up, but so will any similar system. Fortunately, you don’t have to do any coding. It’s just a matter of creating another WordPress page and uploading all your data to Purlem.

Purlem stores all your personalized data and handles the substitution of your data for the various variables you define. And, because Purlem allows you to create any number of data fields, you can upload and substitute everything from mailing address to hair color and the first poem they ever wrote.

The Bottom Line

Personalized URLs can help you to create personalized, trackable cross-media campaigns in which you can create a more personal experience for the people on your list.

If you’re using WordPress for your website, then as far as I am aware, Purlem is not only the sole option currently available, it’s also the easiest PURLs system I’ve used.

Written by Sid Smith]]> http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/personalized-urls-purls-magic-marketing-weapon-waste-time/feed/ 0 http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/web-copywriting-tip-put/ http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/web-copywriting-tip-put/#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:10:34 +0000 Sid http://www.businesswordsmiths.com/?p=914

Technical Business Copywriting is Still Marketing

I like to think of all B2B copywriting or technical business copywriting as a marketing effort. Unfortunately, that’s a hard thing to remember when you’re enamored with your own product, especially in the technical world.

Today I was doing research for a client who sells very specialized test equipment for the integrated circuit world. This is the geekiest of the geeky stuff, and is filled to the brim with industry jargon like “confocal laser microscopy” and “solid immersion lens (SIL)”. Crazy stuff, but it’s extremely important to the businesses that need to push new IC’s out to market in a hurry.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with any B2B copywriting, but particularly technical companies is to understand and emphasize the VALUE of their technology or products to the customer.

The other day I wrote that asking your customers what they think about your products can lead you to write headlines or leads for your products that can double your conversion rate with your web copy (see the article on Business Copywriting – Doubling Conversion Rates).

I believe that you can get even better results by putting the WHY before the WHAT.

Let me explain…

”WHAT” business copywriting is all about you and your products

When I lead my online copy with the name of the product I’m assuming that this is important to the reader. The truth is that they won’t even see your headline if it’s the name of your product. They’ll scan the page for copy that’s relevant to them, and that usually means a clear statement that demonstrates the VALUE they’ll receive.

Those who lead with the name of the product will almost always provide a sub-headline and lead (the first paragraph after the sub-headline that’s typically in a slightly larger font) that includes more information describing the product. That is, the copy describes WHAT the product is.

For example:

nanoProbing
Solutions for in-situ nanoprobing in SEM’s and FIBs

Those are WHAT leads. There’s no real information that would make the visitor want to click through for more information. The only people who would click through are either people who already know the company, or people like me who are simply doing research.

”WHY” business copywriting is about your prospect

The alternative to leading with a product name and a brief description of the product (usually in technical jargon) is to lead with a reason WHY they reader would want to learn more.

For example:

Cut Production Time in Half with Advanced Nanoprobers
4, 6 and 8 probe systems provide flexibility and quick install/removal without contamination.

The difference: when you lead with a benefit, you’re giving the reader an emotional queue to keep reading. One or more of the words you use will trigger a response that says, “Yes, that’s going to solve my problem.”

When all you do is tell them WHAT you’re selling without giving them a good reason to consider WHY they want to keep reading, you’re going to lose people who are just comparing specs from vendor to vendor.

And, you do NOT want to play that game. It’s no better than playing the “lower price” game. You’ll never win.

The Point

Think about WHY someone reading about your products and services would feel compelled to learn more. Ask your customers why they bought, and how they are benefiting from your products.

Then, include those reasons why right up front in the headline and lead. Don’t bury them two or three paragraphs down because the reader may never get that far.

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