Stella Orange, WORDSMITH Uncommon copywriting & strategy to make your cash register sing

Internet Marketing: the Middle Path

When it comes to selling your nectar on the interwebs, must you hand in your humanity and become one of those – *gasp* - Internet Marketers?

Most sales copy is as flat & flavorless as these boxes. It doesn't have to be.

A client just sent me an email that cuts to the core of this issue, subject line: “What bugs me.”

She writes: “Every opt-in ‘funnel’ that I run into lately looks the same… a little plug… what’s your pain… what’s your fear… then request for email addy… repeat …. Repeat again and again and again…”

You know how someone says something out loud you’ve been carrying in your heart that you haven't found words for yet? Writers get that, too.

And my client just nailed what's been bugging me lately.

As a writer and a creative, much of the "sales copy" out there does one of the following:

1) Depresses me

2) Offends me

3) Bores me to tears

In fact, if I see the words OVERWHELMED, "take your business to the next level", STRUGGLING, or YOU'RE NOT ALONE again, I just might scream. (Let's keep "stop leaving money on the table" on this list, too. Ugh! Is anyone else breaking out into shingles right now?)

It leaves me with the distinct sense that we're these insecure, sniveling Vienna Sausages who have just been waiting for someone to tell us what to do... instead of business owners who want: 1. to know what works 2. how to put that into action without losing our shirts, sanity or self-respect and 3. more time to do things we love that don't pay us as well as our businesses do (like sitting in the sunshine, travel, making art, growing young humans, or napping).

So when YOU want to build out the online part of your business and marketing, you don’t want to be a cheeseball, a sleazeball, or do what everyone else is doing, right? Plus, is what you see everyone doing online REALLY working?

(Anyone else out there have the strong suspicion there’s a wizard who invents “internet marketing strategy” and distributes it through all our viral and virtual channels... and she’s just getting the biggest kick out her memes fanning out through the entrepreneur population?)

After all, internet marketing is like a virtual magic show. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. And when the guy in the top hat saws the lady in a box into two pieces and she makes $6,734 in less than 2 weeks working only 3 hours a day, you know in your gut it’s an illusion, but you still don’t know how the trick is done.

But what really makes me want to kiss my client is her question: “Is there another way?”

Yes, yes, there is. And, dear reader, we are the ones to create it.

It starts with you. How you talk about – and write about—your business. Whether your emails start from a place of “I need to sell 40 of these to pay my mortgage” or what my actor friend Kent calls “Hey – wanna see something cool?” Whether or not you let your clients know you don’t check email on the weekends because you’re human, not a production line.

And it starts with paying attention to what turns you off on the web-- and in your inbox-- and what turns you on. Lights you up. Makes your day better. Feels like a breeze through your mind. Simplifies your workday.

So, dear reader, here’s to the middle path of internet marketing. Not so airy-fairy as to leave your readers, customers, and clients scratching their heads saying “not sure what all that transformation talk and mandalas were about, but at least she’s expressing herself.” Not so hard-core as to leave them feeling like you’d sell your own mother’s kidney through your merchant account. The middle path: charmingly intelligent and delightfully real.

The first step is to notice who’s getting it right – and I’d love to hear who you like and follow in the comments below.

There are still spots left in Charm School for Sales Pages, the 4-week class on writing powerful, charming copy that moves people to opt-in, register for your program or call, or buy one of your products direct from your website. Starts March 22. To get more info or to sign up, click here. Oh, and thanks to SqueakyMarmot's flickr photostream for the photo, and Jolin for the inspired topic. Seriously. This is an itch I've been dying to scratch. Thank you for the idea!