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Archive for October, 2009

How to write a killer press release

October 26th, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Lead Generation, List Building | No Comments »

Here are some additional tips that will help you in creating a great offline press release. With the help of these tips, you will hopefully have calls ringing in response to your press release or visitors coming into your business wondering what it is all about!

1.    First and foremost, you have to ensure that your press release is a catchy and newsworthy one. This can be best done with a tie-in, so this means that the press release should be written in such a way that it triggers the reader’s curiosity through headings that attract human interest, has novelty in it, is inspirational or has something extremely newsworthy.

2.    The second rule is to ensure that it is short and sweet. If the press release does not fit onto an A4 page, then it is too long for a press release.

3.    This is because of the third rule of an effective press release, which is that the press release is meant to be a prologue to an actual story. You should never be telling the whole story through the press release, as it should have sufficient content to make readers call on you for the continuation of the ‘story’.

4.    The best way to do this is by using ‘teaser’ types of questions and statement in your copy. These should be constructed in such a way that the reader’s curiosity drives them to want to know the answer to the questions.

5.    Also, when having a press release done for you, it’s a good idea to ensure that you use some sound bytes or good one liners. This makes the press release more interesting and memorable to the reader, as well as keeping it short and snappy. And this all contributes to having an interested and intriguing piece of writing that readers will want to read, and importantly, want to know more about.

Tips for effective press release copywriting

October 22nd, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Lead Generation, List Building | No Comments »

The success of a press release lies in its construction and its words, as the intention is to get it as many views as possible. As I have experience in writing several press releases I thought today that I’d give you a few tips for the effective copywriting of press releases.

If you are writing offline press releases, make sure you write them in such a way that they don’t tell its readers absolutely everything. One of the purposes of a press release is to tease its reader, and have them curious to find out more.

This is why you should write a short press release that has lots of white space, plenty of paragraphs so it just isn’t big blocks of text, and perhaps most important of all, it should have a great headline that pulls the attention of readers.

Offline and online press releases are different

Creating the right story for the press release is the key to distribution of the press release, as well as its readership. If the press release doesn’t look worthy for the front page of a newspaper, then don’t expect too much of a response from it.

Bear it in mind that offline and online press releases are different entities. While the objective of an offline press release is generally to get media coverage, in case of an online press release, its objective lies in search engine optimization. So never expect much media coverage from an online press release, as they tend to be written to promote a business in the search engines.

I must add this point however, that there are now specific companies out there that I use that CAN promote the press release in order to get additional media coverage. But as a general rule, it is used solely to promote a site.

While writing online press releases, your focus should be on the keyword phrase you want to optimize on. This is the keyword that should be present in the web page that is linked to the online press release.

Give them a reason to click

To ensure readers click on the keyword to your website, you have to give them a reason to do so. This means you should offer a free bonus, a free service, a free e-book or even the completion of the story you had started in the press release, to the reader.

Remember that while offline press releases can often directly lead to sales, online press releases may not necessarily have the same instantaneous effect. They will primarily drive visitors to your website, and so it is the job of your website to convert that visitor into a sale. If you want to learn how to create a killer press release, just wait for my next post!

Copywriting tips for autoresponders

October 15th, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Lead Generation, List Building, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

I discussed in my last post about using autoresponders to provide interested prospects with information about your products and services.

I have always felt that an autoresponder is an often under-utilised piece of software, as they can be used to educate your prospects, pre-qualify them into using your products or services, provide answers to frequently asked questions, provide information to quicken a sales transaction and for building client loyalty by providing quick response.

However, copywriting for an autoresponder series can prove to be difficult for most people, and so I have some advice today for this very subject.

One of the biggest initial challenges is to get your prospect to open your email, and the most effective way of doing this is by using a compelling subject line. Once you have achieved this, you must continue with some useful, compelling content in your email which will coax your prospect into clicking from the email to a site, or to take some course of action.

For either reason, you have to be able to first make your prospect read at least a part of your email instead of sending it to the recycle bin, like other promotional and spam emails. In addition to this, you have to effectively write your email so that it goes past the spam filters and ISPs which just go on dumping emails.

Quality or quantity lists in email marketing

October 8th, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, List Building, Traffic Generation, Viral Marketing | No Comments »

When you think of email marketing, most people are of the impression that the larger is their email list of subscribers, the more successful they are going to be with their email marketing. However this is not necessarily the case, as it is always better to have a list of qualified, quality subscribers and not a large quantity of subscribers who are not really interested in you or your product.

Quite often the email addresses that are entered into forms on web pages and squeeze pages (a form of web page that solely prompts you to give your name and email address) are false, as people provide this information just to gain entrance to sites or to see what comes next. The people who are in this email list will not have any interest in whatever you have to sell. So sending them emails about your company or product proves to be worthless.

At the most, and if you are lucky, you may only find about 1% of them clicking to your site through the link you send in the emails. However, I believe that it is better to have a quality list of people where you are sure that anywhere between 20-80% of them will click to your site when you send them an email.

Factors affecting list quality

When you speak of list quality, you have to realize that this is a trait in email lists that is determined by various factors. This is why to maintain your list quality; you will have to follow an effective and proven strategy when you sell products that lead to subscribers subscribing to your list.

So if you have a product to sell, it is often more effective to send prospective clients two emails that have links which lead to high quality information, or perhaps some audio or some software before you actually send them an email that leads to the page that will be selling your products.

This is because the clients on your list who will be most responsive to your offers will be prepared to wait to see what comes next, and they will hopefully appreciate some quality, free information or audio as a ‘thank you’ for signing up to your email list.

Of course, most autoresponder systems now allow you monitor which emails are opened and which links within that email are clicked, so you can easily and effectively monitor your list to see how responsive it is.

How to use testimonials as an online marketing tool

October 1st, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Traffic Generation | No Comments »

In my last post I discussed the use of referrals as an effective marketing strategy. Today I will talk about another under-rated strategy, testimonials.

Testimonials are generally taken lightly, as just the feedback provided by customers about your product or services and is often not used to its full potential. Today I will discuss why you should use these at every opportunity to increase your customer conversion rates.

Did you know that one of the key factors that will ensure the success of a sales letter is having testimonials. This is because these testimonials add further credibility and efficiency to the product or service that you’re offering.

This is because testimonials form part of what is known as ‘social proof’. As human beings, we love social proof and either following other people in what they do or having someone reccommend something to us.

Place testimonials on your site

It can be extremely worthwhile to place your customer testimonials on your website, so that all potential clients can see for themselves what others think of your products or services.

I always try to use as much information as possible about the person giving me the testimonial, so their full name and town/city, plus their full testimonial – rather than using a condensed version of it.

The more specific a testimonial, the better. One that goes into detail about why your product/service is so valuable and exactly what you did for them will really stand out to your prospects, and they will be able to start visualizing themselves using your company’s services.

Don’t be afraid to ask for testimonials

This is something that few businesses actually do, and that is to ask for a testimonial. And it is so easy to execute too.

All you have to do is once a client has bought your product or used your service, you simply send them out a ‘thank you’ card/letter thanking them for using your company’s services, and you then ask them to tell you about their experience with your company.

You could also mention that this may be used on your website or in your shop/office and most people will like that too, as it gives them some kind of recognition as a customer.

So you can see how easy it is to get testimonials from clients that will serve as social proof to prospects as to why they should use your company. So, what are you waiting for, get writing to those clients who have used your services this past month!