Are you yelling at them?
Simulate a conversation in your writing
For some reason, business owners think they have to shout in their marketing. I don’t know why, but I suspect it’s from watching too many local mattress and car commercials on television, where the owner is super excited for no reason.
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You know that relative or acquaintance who TALKS SO LOUD ALL THE TIME IT’S REALLY GRATING TO BE AROUND HER… AND YOU JUST END UP TUNING OUT AS SHE GOES ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT HERSELF AND WHAT SHE THINKS YOU SHOULD DO WITH YOUR LIFE???
That’s what many folks do with their marketing.
Which is why I say: put the bullhorn down. Step away from the CAPS LOCK. And put the exclamation points back in their box.
The real trick to marketing as a service professional isn’t to be loud or pushy.
It’s to turn the volume down and master the art of connection. (Want a tip for doing it? See “One of My Favorite Writing Tips of All Time”)
What we’re really doing when we write a homepage is having a conversation with our potential clients. That’s why it’s so important to use your voice to express who you are, and how you can help your favorite clients of clients.
And that’s also why it’ so important to know who your favorite clients are, too. And what challenges they are facing (or what dreams, problems, or aspirations they have).
Because you need to be able to simulate a conversation in your writing.
How do you do this? It takes practice. But remember, you weren’t born knowing how to walk. Or ride a bike, for that matter. You learned.
Same goes for writing your homepage.
One of the first lessons I teach my students is to stop writing to a group of people. And to imagine one favorite client (even if you haven’t met her yet)… and start “talking” to her in your writing.
You don’t yell at your favorite client when you’re talking to her, do you?
I SAID: you DON’T YELL at your FAVORITE CLIENT when you talk to her… DO YOU?????
So why not take the voice and conversation you have with her, and just write it down?
Chances are, you already know what she’s working on. What her dreams are. What she’s learning how to do. Why she wanted to work with you in the first place. And what is really challenging for her.
So, put that into your copy.
Want more tips and AHAs about writing your homepage? Join Stella for a no-cost training call “Clear as a Bell: 3 Simple Steps to Writing a Homepage That Makes Your Cash Register Sing” on February 22nd at 8pm EST. For more information and to register, go to: http://tinyurl.com/7zyrlnb
Mighty thanks to sky_sd’s Flickr photostream for the lady.
What friends don’t say about your website.
Your homepage is the “face” of your business online
There are 4 things I want to see on your homepage:
- Enthusiasm
- Competence
- Results
- A “call to action”
There are 3 things I don’t want to see on your homepage:
- “Do you struggle with ----?”
- A headline that you would never say out loud to a client.
- A lot of words that don’t make me feel hopeful, excited, or agitated (or feel much of anything.)
Here’s the thing: your homepage is the “face” of your business online.
And it needs to be as clean, clear, and friendly as your real face is, when you are with people in real life.
Maybe even MORE so.
But when you show your homepage to your friends, there’s a good chance that they will compliment you. They love you, after all. They want you to succeed. Even if they think you are crazy for being an entrepreneur.
But even if your friends consider themselves writers, they may not be helpful readers of your website.
This is because writing a website is not writing.
I know, this may sound bananas. But it’s true. Writing a website—and writing promotional emails and sales letters—is actually more like TALKING than writing.
That’s because you want it to “sound” more like a conversation, and less like a college essay on Hemingway.
This can be intimidating at first. You KNOW what you sound like when you’re talking to someone who is your “ideal client”… but you may not have learned how to WRITE in that style.
The good news is: you can learn.
The even better news is that it’s a lot more fun—and “in the flow”—that trying to squeeze out some crappy marketing copy.
And the best news of all is that as you practice writing this way, it gets easier… AND you will get better response.
But unless you hang out with friends who are copywriters or natural born marketers (aka people whose enthusiasm is contagious, and sells stuff in the process), you will never know how to “do” this kind of writing on your website.
And if your intention is to use online marketing (that’s websites, emails, sending a newsletter, writing a blog) to build your business, this kind of ignorance gets more expensive with each passing day.
Unless you take a stand and figure out how to start doing it right.
Want more tips and AHAs about writing your website? Join Stella for a no-cost training call “Clear as a Bell: 3 Simple Steps to Writing a Homepage That Makes Your Cash Register Sing” on February 22nd at 8pm EST. For more information and to register, go to: http://tinyurl.com/7zyrlnb
Mighty thanks to Bull3T’s Flickr Photostream for the www on pavement
The kitchen sink test.
Everything but the kitchen sink?
When it comes to writing your Services page on your website, think of the kitchen sink.
You know the expression: everything but the kitchen sink?
This is the test you must put your Services page on your website through.
Because the truth is, your Services page is a curated collection of offerings.
It’s not a full-on catalogued inventory of every way you’ve every worked with a client.
The thing about curation is that it involves choices. Like hanging a painting, you choose what’s going to go in the spotlight. And what pieces you are going to group together, to tell the story you want to tell.
In practical terms, it’s listing 3 packages you offer.
Giving them names that are benefit-driven.
And being able to articulate who each program is for—and what it does for them.
Some distinctions here:
- Is it where you recommend new clients start?
- Is it an intensive, for people who want quick results?
- Is it more of an ongoing program, with accountability + support?
- Is it for beginners?
- Is it the most affordable program you offer?
Write a couple lines of copy with your answers to the above, throw in some bullet points about what your clients will learn or get from that program, and add a “call to action”—what you want them to do next if they are interested in learning more. And you’re done.
The thing about choice is that a few are good, and too many are confusing.
At a certain stage of building your business, you don’t need sales pages for every program you offer. You just need a succinct overview. So that people coming to your website get a sense of how you can help them.
And at this stage, it’s not going to be the way you write your web copy that wins them over. It’s going to be the relationship you have, and how well you can communicate (usually verbally) what you are able to help a potential client do, be, or achieve.
Want more tips and AHAs about writing your website? Join Stella for a no-cost training call “Clear as a Bell: 3 Simple Steps to Writing a Homepage That Makes Your Cash Register Sing” on February 22nd at 8pm EST. For more information and to register, go to: http://tinyurl.com/7zyrlnb.
Mighty thanks to Nelson Minar Flickr Photostream for the sink.
Quelling skepticism with your About page.
Quit hiding out behind a boring bio
We are entering a golden age of opportunity.
There’s opportunity aplenty, when you know how to look at things.
See, there are a lot of people out there who are skeptical about anyone who is selling anything on the interwebs.
You may even be dealing with 3 layers of skepticism:
Layer #1: They are skeptical about anyone who’s selling.
Layer #2: They are even more skeptical about anyone who’s selling things online.
Layer #3: They are SUPER hardcore skeptical about something being sold online , because they actually bought something from someone else, and it didn’t work out so well for them.
Because at the end of the day, a website is just a pile of words + pictures. And you can’t really “see” who’s behind that at all.
This is what you are up against when you want to build an online presence.
How do you begin to swashbuckle your way out of this corner you’ve been painted into?
You’ve got to have a super valuable service, one.
You’ve got to have your integrity intact, two.
And, three, you might as well have an About page that doesn’t suck.
By this I mean, quit hiding out behind a boring bio. Quit trying to “look professional.” And actually tell the nice people why you do the work you do.
This goes double for service professionals. Because there are plenty of people who may offer a suite of services (or results) similar to yours, but there really is only one you.
One of the best ways I’ve found to really impress upon your potential clients that you geek out on what you do more than anyone else they’ve met is to “uncork your personality” when you write your About page on your website.
And to do that, you need to know your Powerful Story.
This is the story of how you came to do the work you do now.
And we’re going to follow Aristotle on this one—it needs a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is where you started out, the middle includes your lowest point (or your AHA moment when you started your business), and the end sums up why your experience (and training) to date has prepared you exquisitely to help [your target market] do [what you help them do] so they can [benefits + outcomes].
This kind of writing is a whole other genre than you may be used to. Most people don’t learn dramatic storytelling structure in school. And they don’t teach you how to write copy that moves people to action, either.
So be patient with yourself. And as you travel in cyberspace, note whose About pages on their websites draw you in… and which ones put you to sleep.
There’s more storytelling to writing copy + marketing than you might first think.
Mighty thanks to cjggbella’s Flickr Photostream for the woman hiding.
Want a clear homepage? Step 1: think.
Take the cork off your truth
So, last week we talked about the great translation problem.
And the brass tacks difference between FEATURES and BENNIES.
Or benefits, for those of you in the peanut gallery.
So, you want your homepage to speak in terms of the benefits, results, and outcomes you help your client get. Become. Or achieve.
Now, say you’re clear on the top 3 results you help your clients get. Say you’ve already brainstormed a list of 30 ways you help people improve, heal, or enrich their lives.
And if you haven’t made this “top 30 list” in awhile—or ever—here’s your invitation: please do this before you write your homepage. Or talk to anyone. Or write anything. This is ground zero for getting clear.
Can you go do that right after you read this?
And then, to make sure you’re not writing in language that just you and your invisible twin (who grew up next to you in the closet of your head) understand… show that list to someone else. Preferably someone who geeks out on marketing. And then ask them to put a check next to any results that people are willing to pay for.
Then look back over everything with checks, and pick the top 3 results you help people get.
If you don’t have someone like that in your life, pretend. And think about joining one of my upcoming production labs to get some support.
Now, a simple way to turn your results into snazzy, hot copy is to turn ‘em into a “pull question.” The basic formula here is: “Want XYZ?” or “Ready to ABC?”
And then, you can turn that question a “headline.”
I put these in quotes, because when you roll with Stella, you’re going to learn the lingo. There are no wallflowers in Stella’s neighborhood. We’re all Recovering Perfectionists here. And we’re all taking what we learn and putting it into action.
For an example of a “pull question” that’s ALSO a “headline,” see my homepage.
Want more clients, referrals, and joy?
See how that “pulls” a certain kind of potential client? The results I help my clients get are client-based (and therefore, money-based)… but I also promise more joy (and therefore, fun + play + simplicity), too.
Notice, too, that there’s a “pull question”… followed with my take on how to get it:
Quit Marketing and Learn to Tell the Truth.
In classroom teaching, we call this the “hook.” You’ve got to get people’s attention. Questions can work. Bold, simple statements can work. Flying in the face of expectations can work, too.
In this example, most people think that if you want more clients + referrals, you need to market more.
So I’m messing with expectations on this one.
Because my message is: marketing won’t save your butt.
(In fact, if I see one more business owner following the “marketing coloring book” without putting any of their heart or true voice into it, I may put my eye out with my mechanical pencil).
Taking the cork off your truth—and studying how to express it in a way that makes other people care + want to get more of it—WILL save your butt. And more.
But back to the lesson at hand. If you’re working on your homepage right now, tinker with the results you get in a “pull question” style headline. Then answer it with YOUR distinction. Something that YOU say all the time… or THINK all the time… that flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
If you wanna play, post the headline of your homepage here in comments, and let the workshopping begin. Or, if you’re a bluebird, fly on over to http://twitter.com/stellaorange and post it there.
Many thanks to Brent Schneeman for the Flickr Photostream of Things That Pop.
