Commission Junction Profit Plan Part 4: Copywriting

This is where the rubber meets the road, or drives off a cliff – because once you have a web page up and it begins to (later) rank well, and visitors visit it, you need to convert shoppers into buyers.

Because this is part 4 of my Commission Junction Profit Plan series (named after the Amazonian Profit Plan, a full plan for making sales via Amazon) – getting to the actual “profit” entails copywriting. This is the final installment of the CJ Profit Plan, details at bottom.

Other facets beyond your control will take shape and help or hurt your chances of making the sale, of course – you can have the best copywriting in the world but if the visitor doesn’t need your products…

Or if they don’t have the money because the product is priced out of their budget…

Or if the landing page of the affiliate program stinks (this is a judgement call for you to make in step one)…

Well – these are just some bumps in the road that can upset your apple cart.

If you need to catch up in the series, please consider going back to square one.

Note: this post is 4,099 words long. Bookmark it and come back to it later if you need to.

You’ve done all the above…now it’s time to write your converting sales copy.

Let me stop right there. Maybe you’re wondering:

What If I Can’t Write?

Three solutions to consider: 1) Learn; 2) Use Tools; 3) Hire a Writer.

1) Learn. This is your cheapest solution – like reading this post. Mind you…

Nothing I say can guarantee your results. This business is not for everyone. I’m not saying that as a legal disclaimer – I have a disclaimer page for that.

What I’m saying straight up, though – is that this is primarily a content publishing business. Writers and marketers rule.

Can’t write? Learn.

Not everyone can write.

Either people don’t want it badly enough, they aren’t honest with themselves and publish junk online and hope for the best, or they simply don’t use a spell checker or bother to make things look good.

This takes work. It requires effort.

Sometimes a good page can take a few hours to compose. People don’t want to hear that – they want the 3 minute wonder button and I don’t have one for you, it doesn’t exist – even auto-blog tools need editing.

(See below.)

There are a ton of books out there, for cheap, or posts like this one that hopefully help out. There’s Copyblogger, Seth Godin and a host of other people to read…

This is why so many opt for AdSense or other content advertising networks, for CPC type of ads – those sites are easier to publish. It’s also why many never start.

Rather than discourage you, though, I want to empower / inform you how it can be done.

If you work at it, you can learn. It’s as simple as keeping your eyes and mind open. Then, like you’re bowling for a strike: it’s all in the follow-through.

Hopefully in this copywriting post, you’ll find some tips to put into place to make your sales really take shape. My goal is to make something that seemed impossible very possible, and you know what?

If at the end of my post, you don’t think this is doable, you don’t have to.

You have solutions like:

2) Use Tools

WP Robot

ReviewAzon

Instant Article Wizard

I’d rewrite all of that if I needed those tools myself – anything these programs give you to publish, I wouldn’t just hit publish, I’d make sure it was unique (I don’t mean spun, I mean re-written).

I use Instant Article Wizard and ReviewAzon (use my coupon code “JamestheJust” if you get ReviewAzon to save on your purchase), but in both cases I write my own content (I use IAW for article marketing ideas/research).

These are solutions to the problem if you can’t write. The last solution would be:

3) Hire a Writer

I started on Elance, I loved the environment there compared to other places. Or use your favorite place, wherever you go: you get what you pay for, keep that in mind.

There are always solutions to try out if you’re serious about making money online – but you do need to make sure your copywriting hits a few key points.

Before that, though:

The Myth About Copywriting

When I tell people what I do, I tell them I sell stuff online, or that I’m a copywriter – I usually get stares if I tell them I’m in internet marketing. Why? They think it’s all a scam.

Like I cheat people out of their money or something – and I think a lot of you think that’s what copywriting is: a way to game a sale, or be the used car salesman…

No offense to used car dealers – but that’s not what a review is about. I’m not interested in the hype, I think it’s stupid and pulls on the lowest part of the human mind.

It’s like people who use scantily clad women to sell a product – “Hey! It works for GoDaddy!” Yes, and I have 5 daughters and think the guy’s a pig. My point is: sales doesn’t need to be low-ball, lack of class garbage on the internet.

Copywriting is not making you turn into the low-class slime you picture in a pushy sales environment, nor does it need to appeal to the basic parts of mankind, the lower echelon, animal instincts.

My Low Pressure Sales Theory

This is about helping a visitor to your website obtain the information he or she wants to make an informed decision – and being truthful about things, not covering up objections but actually dealing with them.

I like a conversational tone in my pages, as if I’m out shopping with the visitor and looking at all the options, weighing them out, benefits and problems.

Treat your visitors with dignity, rather than a high pressure sales type of environment, littered with EXCLAMATIONS OF HYPE AND GLORY!! And These –>>> !!!!

Child, please. Just talk to your visitors like you’re out shopping with a friend, and you want them to get the best deal. Do that, and this becomes a bit more rewarding and dignified.

Or, stick to your used car lot, please…quit giving sales a bad name.

The Secret To Good Sales Copy

If you really have been following along, the key begins in the first step. Pick good products. Pick stuff that is already selling – or something you have reason to believe you can sell.

That is, if you can sense a good value and have a good head on your shoulders about these things – then you can gamble and take a stab at a no-name, newbie brand in the marketplace and market a product up out of no place.

My first site? That’s exactly what I did.

Article marketing like crazy and using other web 2.0 properties to build links with good content – I’m telling you, you can come out of the blue with a real winner.

The easiest way to make sales though, is to find what is already selling.

It’s not a guessing game then, it’s more a game of getting your site to rank with decent copy.

Find a good brand and pick their top sellers. It’s much easier to do that than to take a gamble on something and cross your fingers – people don’t buy gambles, they buy sure things.

Step one in this profit plan of mine was all about it…so was step two, market research.

These are what I’d call the secret sauce to marketing:

Make it easy. Find proven-to-sell products.

Learn the unique selling position.

Know / answer objections to buying.

Engender customer trust.

Some things sell like hot potatoes – like anything that Apple does (iPad? iPad 2? iPod? iPhone? Macbook Air?). They sell, you should just be ready when they do with a website.

Many purchases are impulse buys (read: holidays and major sporting events, etc.).

But for the most part, you ought to look at the sales process as a seesaw of sorts – you need to tip your visitors’ minds psychologically past the tipping point…

Moving the seesaw to the tipping point in the mind of the reader happens when enough consumer trust, value and demand sit on one side, tipping the objections, obstacles and overall sales resistance inherent on the other side.

When Apple releases a new iPad or similar device, the tipping point is in their favor because of the mob mentality – people are fanatics about Apple (or oddly cold, like myself).

That’s why step one of this whole thing is so important: finding products that sell, and step two: market research.

You’ve done that already, and have learned a bit about your product during step two, it helps to understand that everything you write in your review needs to be focused on:

Creating the Tipping Point: Stacking The Deck

Building Value
Generating Trust
Answering Objections
Meeting a Need

That’s been my own take on the sales process. Some people are harder to sell than others, but if you do your keyword research right, you’ve already begun stacking the deck in your favor.

This is why keyword and market research pays.

If I’m searching for XYZ Brand Name Product, I’m likely about to buy it – or want to find out why I shouldn’t.

More than likely I’m looking for a coupon or deal (always use coupons from CJ, and rank for “coupon” or “discount” keywords).

If I’m searching for a general term, like “type of product” (say, “appliances”), I might be doing a term paper on the matter for school – or just researching for a blog post.

I’m likely NOT buying with a general keyword.

Stack the deck with SEO by finding product and buying keywords. You’ll get more people likely to buy.

Stack the Deck With Features or Benefits?

Many copywriting features a bullet list of facts – the details like, “Batteries not included” or dimensions and weight. Maybe, “Hardcover Edition” if it’s a book, “378 pp” and the like. This is the “What” – or “Features.”

They are characteristics – and they’re concise. They’re data, but not everyone is an engineer – so these data points are great picking out the right type of product.

They STINK at connecting the dots and moving the sales needle in your favor.

That’s why you need the “Why” – or “Benefits.”

Why does it matter if this is the first edition of the book?

Why does it matter if the screen on the Kindle is low-glare, or the “ink” is “e-ink” versus the iPad’s cool multi-colored deal?

Why does it matter that the battery life is 10 hours versus 3 hours – you have to explain why the features benefit the reader.

I’ve talked about that before, it bears repeating: a review should hammer home the benefits for the reader, not just list features.

You need both (features are great for skim readers, benefits for those who need some convincing, i.e. everyone).

Connect the Benefits To Your Audience

Know who you’re talking to, who this product is for – and know who else buys it because products are usually meant for more than one tiny portion of society.

How does a mom’s schedule benefit from this product, versus a dad’s schedule? How does a college age person use the iPad 2 versus their parents?

Tailor your message – even use a headline to address that portion of your audience like an H2 tag. Note to Fathers Using The iPad 2: Never Miss Another Football Game! Etc.

Use Emotion

There is nothing wrong with being emotional in your reviews – tug on heartstrings, don’t just describe dimensions of the product. “It is blue. It has a handle.” Wow. Moving…

If you need some help here, read more reviews! Seriously – I’m about to suggest the best review on the planet you can review (and you don’t want to copy it – but you should learn from it).

Another consideration: tap into your visitors’ passions.

If you can tap into a passion (sports, major films, celebrity), you’re tapping into a hot fad that you can ride for a while. People are passionate fans of Oprah Winfrey, or Jillian Michaels, politics and sports…

All are passions to tap into, they lower the sales resistance needle dangerously low.

Look No Further Than Amazon

Amazon knows selling online like I know coconut crab. (My mom’s.)

They are literally number one in selling online – they’ve mastered it so well that they have made fierce enemies of politicians and competitors alike.

More on that some other time, the fact is that they are first in selling online – top of their game.

So let’s look at their number one page and see what we learn. The Kindle.

The Kindle is being billed as their number one selling product – that is pretty astounding, and poetic: they started with books, after all.

You don’t get very far down the page and did you see? What does Amazon put up above the fold (before you scroll down)?

Elements of building consumer trust, social proof, and brick by brick: they’re taking down the sales resistance wall.

Take a look at the picture, I put my thoughts in it – but you already know “how they do” – they tell you it’s 5 stars, or close to it.

They tell you it’s received nearly 20,000 reviews – that’s ridiculous. Who wouldn’t want to buy it with so many other consumers casting their votes for it?

They’re building trust early on.

Lowering sales resistance.

It tells the consumer – “You’re not alone, this isn’t a rash decision, your neighbors probably already have one – don’t miss out on something this good!”

It sure helps that Amazon lists their price up top – because it’s main competitors are the iPad and Nook, and Kindle has them beat on price.

And did you catch the new “Like” feature? It’s not a Facebook thing, although you can connect to Facebook – that’s Amazon being smart and taking cues from a good thing: the Like button.

Not many will leave a review, but a lot of people may click a Like button – nearly 7,000 people have thought so.

The point is: Amazon pulls out all stops to build consumer trust, and build it early.

What this means for YOU

Build trust. Build it early on. Have 20,000 people “liked” the product on a Facebook fanpage? Does Amazon or another vendor online show a bunch of reviews like this?

What about authority reviews – besides consumers – what did magazines think? ConsumerReports – which you really should subscribe to, by the way (they’re great for creating your own sales copy and people trust them), what did they say about your product or your competitors’ products?

A few words from the NY Times, Wall Street Journal or the like and you have a great section of trust-building quotes to pull from: and it all adds up.

Brick by brick. A quote from an authority, with clout – and later down the page, some quotes from other consumers – you’re building trust.

Then, it’s not just your word, it’s a crowd of people. You’ve just introduced your reader to a crowd of pleased customers who can back up what you’re saying – and every ounce of credibility helps create more sales.

Don’t take my word for it. Amazon does it.

You don’t scroll far down and then you read, “The Reviews Are In…” and they don’t mean customer reviews (though the link for THOSE are at the top of the page).

Then you see review quotes from various big names – and they do this no less than 3 times: providing either customer reviews or authority / critic reviews – including a video interview:

Charlie Rose and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of a lot of other titles (like “CEO”). Maybe the video’s different in the U.K. or elsewhere, but I know Charlie Rose from America’s public television.

The marketing for this page is reliant on two key points:

1. Reviews / Trust

2. Technology / Benefits

In other words: what makes the Kindle have a unique selling position? Notice Amazon has their finger on the pulse of objections:

Thorough Competitive Analysis (Why not the iPad? Why not Nook? What is proprietary about the Kindle?)
Value / Benefits (To answer: why not read a book? Why Kindle?)

They had to tip the seesaw in their favor – and sure, they did plenty of off-page marketing, radio spots, mailers and television ads – but this page encapsulates all their efforts nicely.

What Amazon did was they came out of nowhere and went up against Apple’s iPad, and Barnes and Noble’s Nook, oh – and you know: plain old books, those ancient things.

Without boring you with all the details of their rocky start (they had a rough go at first), they changed the minds of people and created a need where there wasn’t one to begin with – because we already had books, libraries, and you know:

paper.

Of all the pages I’ve seen online, this would be THE page to learn good copywriting from, it’s a monument to copywriting, in fact.

Where To Begin Your Copywriting

Where do you begin your copywriting? This is something you have a lot of choices in, many ways to skin the proverbial cat.

Personally, I start with an image or video – just like our friends at Amazon do (many products have a video just below the “fold”). Either wrap the text left or right, with a call to action link below it – or center it.

If you use your video, and grab it from YouTube or someplace, make sure you use a video that doesn’t end with a watermarked URL to a competing page, or use one that has bad audio, or ends with a bunch of other videos that will easily distract.

I like using videos – but your best bet is to make your own, you can go to Animoto.com and make one, or some place similar.

Just be smart about what video you use. Same with images – and watch copyrights carefully.

That being said, your affiliate manager will have some materials you can likely use, including videos or images. Start there – with a nice call to action link below it.

For example:

Buy XYZ And Save 40% Off MSRP Here

Buy XYZ Here Tax and Shipping Free

Be Conversational But Hit Benefits Clearly

The tone I take, as I mentioned, is low-key. I write a review of a product based on my own research or experience, and I highlight benefits early on, in the first three paragraphs.

I don’t do it as a bullet point list until further down, but I conversationally mention what I love about the product – and why. What difference has it made in my life, or customers’ lives?

I write like I’m talking to the person, face to face – as conversational as I can manage. I don’t use exclamation points (or minimally), that’s amateurish.

Oh, wow! Look at this thing go! You are being SOLD right now! Buy now!

(Sorry, I just threw up a little.)

I do get excited sometimes, and I let that show – but be natural about it. People came to your site, now what are they looking for? An honest review.

So give one.

Use Consumer and Critics’ Reviews

Just like Amazon did on their Kindle page, I have a list of sites I go to, from newspapers to magazines, to the manufacturer – I hit up Amazon reviews, and scour the net for reviews from customers.

Sometimes it’s not possible – but I stack the deck by “blockquoting” a selection (just 1-3 sentences). Quote sources without a hyperlink, you don’t want to lose traffic (unless you send them to Amazon reviews, then just cookie the link with your affiliate ID).

Shop For Them: Competitive Reviews

Again: notice what Amazon did – they looked at the features that made Kindle out-do the Nook and iPad, namely the price, the proprietary screen and e-ink (which allows the use of the Kindle in bright sunlight, poolside), etc.

Know your competitors. If you can’t out-do them, then include a review and an affiliate link for them, too.

One of the best ways to make sales is to get more than one product on a page, and compare 3 products. Pick a high, middle and low-priced competing product: compare and sell them all.

Usually, the middle-range product or low-priced item will sell more, but it’s a triple whammy, and it works. People want choices.

They will go to your site and maybe get your cookie – then later may return to your product page (on the affiliate’s website) and make a purchase if you did you thing.

But if they find something else, and you missed it – you just missed another chance at a sale.

Competition Is Good

Don’t be skeered of competition – just spit farther. :)

Actually, competition is your friend – because shopping the competition and including the differences your product has will help you engender more consumer trust. You’re not trying to game the system – be honest here.

Don’t lie about a feature, just emphasize why X product is better than Y in your opinion, or it may come down to X being more affordable than Y.

“Sure, you can pay $200 more for genuine leather, but then you have to take care of the leather, and those costs add up over time…”

Don’t lie and say, “Our competition is lying – they don’t give you leather, it’s vinyl, thinly disguised…” or what not.

Hype and all that is a sure way to lose credibility, and your credibility is the one thing you can bank on.

Objections Can Sell More

If you don’t know possible objections to buying your product, then you look like a chump. Learn the possible objections (like, “Yeah, but the iPad is in full color…”), and learn how to answer them.

If you need help with this, then ask your affiliate manager for a list of the objections they get a lot – this helps you overcome the objections, look more credible, and helps you sell more in the end.

Advantages of Buying Online

For the time being, here in the States you can save a lot of taxes up front by buying online. This is something that is under attack at the moment, but it’s still largely true.

If you compare your prices bought online (usually tax and shipping free in many cases) to those of the local shops, you can usually sell for less online.

Do your readers know that?

Tell them how much they save if they use your links – it doesn’t matter every other affiliate has those links – you’re not lying saying:

“Buy Here and Save 42% From This Link”

Spell out the advantages, the benefits, the features – and do it all in a conversation.

Engage the Mind, the Heart, the Emotions

Write like you’re talking to a friend – not like you’re a pushy salesman looking for a quick sale. Engage the emotional side of your reader, their mind and heart – not just “Joe Friday.”

He’d never sell online….

Conclusion and What’s Next

What now? You have a few reviews up (at least a handful). You have planned your content for on and off-site purposes…

Now what?

Well – now you article market or get links as you see fit. I have a backlinking plan, and an article marketing plan.

I’ll reserve both plans for my list exclusively.

The list is free, by the way. Oh, if you notice on Twitter, Facebook or here in the sidebar that there is a new post you can’t get to:

“Protected: TITLE of POST”

…it’s a private post for my subscribers. Passwords are emailed to the list, hopefully nobody is sharing the passwords, but that’s what that’s about.

Once you have your content up, you will need to do your backlinking or traffic generation – I usually concentrate on link building and ranking. Traffic comes on its own from SEO, and PPC may follow shortly.

(As of yet I have only relied on SEO.)

There are other things you can do to tweak your conversions, little tests that will be done if you split test – all these things have added up to make my living.

I’ll talk about that more later. Right now, I have one post dripping out – the ArticleRanks User’s Guide, because there are some things to keep in mind with it – and ArticleRanks 2.0 was just released.

What’s different? I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, my plan is to get some more converting copy published on my websites, and build my links.

I’ll be busy, I think. See you in the SERPs!

If you like what you read – what was that worth? No pressure – but donations are gladly accepted, especially on the long how-to posts, like this one. Only if you can, and only if I deserved it.

Thanks again – and through the end of March, 2011, I’ll be collecting donations for Japanese relief efforts after the 8.9 earthquake. All proceeds go to the American Red Cross, unless specified otherwise in your PayPal “Notes” section.