The Secret to Making Your Emails Less Used Car Salesman and More Truffle
Before I was a full-time copywriter, I used to live in the awesomely charming mountain town of Bozeman, Montana. And sometimes, on my walks home from work, I used to stop at the chocolate shop and buy one piece of exquisite handmade chocolate.
Ah, the “Nipple of Venus.” I remember it well!
Dark chocolate ganache inside with a kiss of amaretto, topped with a dip of white chocolate.
Sure, it was 2 bucks. But oh, how I savored it!
And this, my dears, is how I want you to approach every email you send.
Not like a 36-pack of Hershey Bars from Costco. But like a little, playful dark chocolate secret.
Here are some ways to get your emails and articles into Truffle Mode:
1) Give away your best ideas. Share freely. Tell your list what you are learning. Reveal a recent A-HA moment. Show your surefire solution to a problem that keeps coming up as you talk with clients and colleagues.
2) Let them see you having fun. This is something I learned when I was in grad school for teaching. One of my professors insisted that no one would listen – or learn – if I was all business, and no sass. Same goes for you: be playful, silly, outrageous. Let your light shine!
3) Plug into your mission. Yes, yes, you want to make a living. But really, why are you doing the work you do? Connect with that fire, and you WILL be writing from an inspired, attractive place.
4) Forget “business as usual”. So many emails and newsletter are so yawn-riffic because they are a chore, and not a transmission of your joy, love, and expertise. As Gandhi has famously said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” What message do you long to hear in your life? If you whispered the perfect thing to one of your favorite clients that would make a huge difference in their biz, what would it be? That, my dear, is your “Nipple of Venus.”
This post is the fourth in a 6-part series on using the web to fill your programs and practice and sell out of your products. Coming up next: Why is a copywriter talking about my back-end?
Get Your Website Selling Like IHOP on Sunday
Get the right ingredients
in your website mix
The Troubleshooter’s Guide to Websites that Sell Like Hotcakes
Your website gets compliments all the time. Your friends and clients keep telling you they like it. It’s a pretty website. Maybe you even paid a fair chunk of change to a designer and a copywriter to get the website you’ve got.
And still, it’s not really bringing you business.
What gives?
When you’ve got a pretty website that’s not bringing your business, here are the usual suspects:
1) You don’t have a sales page. Selling online isn’t just adding a “buy now” button and waiting for results. You know all the calls, lunches, free workshops and speaking you do offline to get your face in front of people who want to work with you? There are online strategies for doing the same thing—and a sales page for your program, event, or product is one. (No, Really. What’s a sales page?)
2) You aren’t clear on your “pathway.” Most people aren’t going to fork over their credit card on a $500 program first. They need to know, like, and trust you. Do you give away a free sample of your work, like a script, MP3, or white paper that helps them right away – without having to buy anything? On your website, is it clear which problem you help people solve? Do you offer a free first session and a chance to hear more from you over time?
3) You care about helping people, not “selling” them. Deep breath here. Many healers, coaches, and service professionals are concerned about being “too salesy”. If this is you, let me reassure you that sending emails and setting up your website so that it sells for you doesn’t have to be soulless, selfish, or tacky. So let that belief go… and chew on the fact that you can also reach and help more people if you set your website up in a more active – and interactive way. (So get out of your own way!)
This post is the third in a 6-part series on using the web to fill your programs and practice and sell out of your products. Coming up next: The Secret to Making Your Emails Less Used Car Salesman and More Mocha Truffle. Oh, and thanks to rcstanley's flickr photostream for the pancakes.
What would Bonnie Raitt do (to your website)?
Page from the Playbook Dept.
If you're stumped about how to make your website as charming as it needs to be to win you even more subscribers, ideal clients, and friends, you're in luck.
Stella Orange laboratories has a fool-proof technology to help you turn up the ole "website charm."
And if you find that your site falls short of the charm that you display on a regular basis in your "real" offline life, this technology will also help point you in the right direction. Towards a charming, money-making website.
See, the first thing about a charming website is that it sings. Hence, the involvement of Ms. Raitt, a famous singer. When your website sings, your cash register will start humming along, too.
So, singing is important.
Now, there are absolutely copywriting "tricks of the trade" that help you dislodge readers from their armchairs and into your coterie of admirers, subscribers, true believers, and fans. (In other words, your tribe.)
But today, we're talking about something different. The "song" of your website. The swing. The charm of the thing. And it's capacity to convey your passion, competence, and ability to get their problem solved once and for all.
Because there are a whole lot of websites out there that follow the standard copywriting formula for "closing the sale," but they're about as exciting as Wonder Bread. It's like the Supreme Court on pornography: even if you can't quite define what's going on with these sites, you know them when you see them. They allegedly intend to empathize with your problem, stir your emotions, and dangle the quick & easy "solution" in front of you...
...but all that is lost in the cacaphony of the yellow highlighter and velveeta headlines that aren't really fooling anybody.
(Okay, I admit: it's simple economics that they are fooling *somebody*. Otherwise they wouldn't be there. But you, for one, and I, for another, aren't convinced.)
In the rubble of all the ballyhoo on those websites, I give you: "The Bonnie Raitt Test" for charming websites:
Let's give them something to talk about
A little mystery to figure out
Let's give them something to talk about
How about love, love, love, love
If your homepage doesn't give the people something to "chew on" (real content), a little mystery, and a whole lot of love (the heartfelt emotion AND the courtesy of simple, clear organization AND a really sweet offer to take you for a test drive), it's probably not all that charming. And the good money says that if it's not charming, you're probably not using your website like the marketing draft horse that it's meant to be.
So keep this in mind as you set out to launch or polish up your website. Be as charming, attractive, authentic, generous, and clear on the web as you are in "real" life, and it will come back to you in spades. Let the Bonnie Raitt test be your guide, and keep on doing good work. And as always, let me know how it goes.