The power of persuasive ad copy
When times are tough, the greatest advantage you can give yourself is the ability to market and sell more effectively.
That's because being a better marketer doesn't cost anything extra. You don't have to buy more advertising, or invest in additional technology. And of course, you don't need additional employees or a bigger overhead.
Being a better marketer simply means squeezing more sales out of your existing business processes (traffic generation, ad campaigns, search engine strategies, etc.). You make more money because more of your prospects turn into paying customers.
Copy is the key to profits
By far, the easiest way to influence your profits and increase your conversion rate, is to write more compelling, persuasive ad copy. In other words, create sales material that gets people to buy.
While site design and color scheme definitely influence selling power, it's an indisputable fact the best looking site with the worst ad copy will not sell. On the other hand, a simple, even ugly site can nearly always make sales with the right offer.
And of course, a small increase in your conversion rate can double or triple your profits, which can mean your promotion makes six-figures instead of three.
Considering how easy it is to improve your ad copy when you know how, it's a wonder more marketers don't do it. After all, if you are selling $50 product, and your conversion rate is 1%, increasing that to 2% means you make twice as much money with the very same traffic.
Even if you sell expensive products or services, like those over $5,000, and your site is simply a lead generator, your conversion rate is still important. If 5% of your visitors request information, and your close ratio stays the same, you will double your business by simply increasing your "info request" rate to 10%.
In this article, we are honored to interview persuasion and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) expert Kenrick Cleveland, who will reveal simple changes you can make to your ad copy to get more of your visitors to buy.
Kenrick runs MaxPersuasion.com, one of the best persuasion sites online, and his techniques have made millions of dollars for thousands of business owners.
We used some of his tricks on our Amazing Pop-Ups sales letter and increased our conversion rate by nearly 1%, which means thousands of extra dollars in revenue every month, with no additional work (we like that).
Q: Kenrick, what is NLP, and can it really be used to increase the persuasiveness and conversion rate of a sales letter?
A: The originators of NLP set out to create a model that would explain how a few really excellent therapists were consistently able to get phenomenal results with their patients. NLP accomplished far more than just that however. They actually figured out how the human brain communicates with itself. And perhaps even more important, they discovered a series of processes that enabled them to model excellence in any field of human endeavor.
So for example, if someone were very skilled at public speaking or welding or fly fishing -- literally any skill that you might want to learn - their skills could be reduced to a series of specific behaviors, attitudes and techniques, thus making these skills easily and more quickly available to others.
In 1977, I began my study of NLP and became one of the early certified Trainers. What fascinated me was the field of persuasion. So I began to translate the strategies from the therapeutic world to the world of business and marketing. In honor of my work, the Society of NLP (in the late 80s) created two certifications called Business Practitioner and Business Master Practitioner.
I've since moved on from the world of NLP and continued my development of persuasion strategies. My course, Maximum Persuasion has long set the standard in this field, and is being used by copywriters, marketers, sales professionals, lawyers and those who need and want to be more persuasive in their businesses. You can learn more about NLP and my course by visiting my site. Make sure to subscriber to my Influence Tip Newsletter (which is still free, at least for now).
Q: Thanks, your site and course are excellent, and have our highest recommendation. Now, can persuasion skills increase conversion rate?
A: In a word, absolutely! With one caveat -- persuasion skills don't replace good copywriting skills. If you have a bad letter and you add persuasion techniques to it, you'll probably see a small increase, but not enough to break the bank. Add persuasion skills to a good letter and now you have profit pulling magic working for you.
Q: Some people advocate using persuasion techniques sparingly. Do you take this approach, or do you think marketers should "go for the jugular" when writing ads?
A: Persuasion strategies appeal to the unconscious mind, which is a tremendous pattern recognizer. If you saw the movie, A Beautiful Mind, you know what I'm talking about. The movie is worth seeing just to understand this concept more effectively.
A pattern is not a singular event. To make a pattern, you need repetition. The unconscious mind recognizes and responds to repetition. You can use repetition effectively by repeating a particular suggestion or by using a persuasion pattern a number of times.
It's not so much that you have to use the techniques sparingly, it's that you want to make sure they don't overwhelm your good copy. Repetition trumps strength. Or another way to say it: Repetition is strength... and patterns persuade.
Q: Virtually all of our subscribers have Web sites. Is online copywriting different from direct-mail or space advertising?
A: No! Great sales and copywriting strategies work just as well online as they do off line. Learning these strategies is critical to success in any business. Adding persuasion power to copy used off line, in Web site copy, on the phone, and in person will catapult your results far beyond what you can get without them.
Q: What are four or five of your most important tricks to writing or "punching up" ad copy to make it more persuasive?
A: Let me give you some of my favorites.
1. Embedded Commands
These are 2 - 5 word "sentences" that persuade the unconscious by giving it little instructions that bypass conscious resistance. These command sentences fit within normal sentences and are marked so the unconscious pays attention to them.
Typically, you can mark embedded commands by italicizing, bolding, underlining, changing the font slightly, or highlighting them. It's very important to mark them in some way otherwise they'll have little if any effect.
The key to using embedded commands is to figure out the process you want to take your readers through, then write commands to accomplish that goal.
Another important aspect of embedded commands is to make sure they are actually commands. That means they are in present tense, there is no use of negation (this means using the word not or no - in advanced levels you can use negation effectively), they are short (2 - 5 words), and marked to call unconscious attention to them.
Practice saying commands, and as you do, use a down tone at the end of each of them. Your goal is to sound like a drill instructor. Practicing them by speaking them will help you understand their power. Practice saying these commands so you sound like a person barking an order:
A. Do this
B. Do it now
C. Get moving
D. Buy now
E. Feel good
F. Learn this
Now that you can feel how they are supposed to sound, let's concentrate on using them in writing.
Here is a sentence with embedded commands so you can see how to use them yourself.
"When you use embedded commands you can easily fit them into the sentence by writing out a few of the ones you want to use in advance. Embedded commands move people to take action the way you want them to. Once you learn how to use them you'll wonder how you ever got along without them."
- The commands above are:
- Use embedded commands
- Fit them into the sentence
- Take action
- Learn how to use them
See how they work?
2. The carrot and the boot strategy
This is the strategy that deals with positive (carrot) and negative (boot) orientation. When you write your sales copy, do you focus on the carrot, giving your customer the benefits they get as a result of owning your product or service?
Or do you focus on what will happen to them if they don't get your product or service? The negative consequences, if you will.
You need to be a bit careful with this strategy. Over using it could get you in trouble. Many products and services lend themselves naturally in one of these directions. For example, backup software is primarily a "boot" product. You purchase it to avoid a problem and other than helping you avoid this problem it does little else. Insurance is the same way. The key here is to know your product or service and your prospect and what they really want.
Think about this for just a moment. Are you more motivated by what you might lose, or by what you might gain? For example, which of these sentences has the biggest impact on you:
- People who don't understand the use of Influence skills in their copywriting are potentially leaving tens of thousands of dollars (or more) on the table. I hope you're not one of them.
- Adding these Influence skills to your web site copy can easily increase your profit by 50% to 100% (or more) with the same traffic you currently have.
If the first sentence had a bigger impact on you then you are responding to a boot approach. If the second sentence had a greater impact then you are responding to the carrot approach.
When in doubt, use the boot approach first followed by the carrot. And don't overuse the negative or boot approach.
3. Presuppositions
This is a very large class of persuasive patterns that can have a huge impact in your writing and speaking. There are a number of different types of presuppositions. In my course, I teach five different types. Today let's concentrate on one of my favorites: Awareness presuppositions.
This category simply asks the question, "are you aware." For example, instead of asking:
"Would you like to buy this?"
...you might instead ask:
"Are you aware that you are already beginning to want to own this?"
Read that last sentence again and pay attention to your feelings. Note how much more persuasive asking the question about being aware is.
There's little resistance a person can come up with if you ask them the aware version. If you ask them, "Would you like to buy this?" they can simply say no. But if you ask if they are aware of wanting one and they say no, they are only acknowledging they aren't aware of wanting it yet.
Here are some words in this category you can easily use to make your writing more persuasive:
Do you realize just how powerful your writing will become as you begin to use this type of pattern to add persuasion to what you do? Have you become aware of your growing desire to master these strategies and incorporate them in your writing?
You have? Great! I knew you'd begin to understand the power as you learn about these patterns.
The above is an example of how you might use this pattern in your writing.
4. Cause and effect language.
This is the language of beliefs. The basic pattern is "X" causes "Y." When you use this type of language pattern, you fold the power of belief into you writing. So why might you want to do that? Good question!
You see, as children we're taught not to question the closely held beliefs of others. For example if someone came to your house and said, "It's not possible to look at nature and not believe in God," it would be quite impolite to challenge that.
Now let's look at that statement. How is it a cause and effect statement? Here is the cause and effect, looking at nature (the X) causes a belief in God (the Y). You can simply use the same pattern, X causes Y in your writing. Let me give you some examples:
- Reading this article stimulates you to take action to make your writing more persuasive. (Note the use of embedded commands.)
- Are you aware that just the act of thinking about owning this service makes you want it? Now, hold that thought as I tell you all that will be yours with your purchase.
Preachers, who are some of the greatest orators and persuaders on this earth, use cause and effect language all the time. Learn from them and add this to your arsenal as well.
5. Pacing and leading
This strategy is both a persuasive language pattern and an overall way to organize what you want to persuade someone about.
When persuading, you want to make small steps toward your outcome, not one giant leap. For example if I were selling your Amazing Pop-Ups course, I probably would not start out by saying:
"This new version of my program creates 15 additional combinations of pop-ups. Therefore you will make at least $5000 a month more than you currently are by purchasing this program."
That's a silly jump in logic, and helps to exaggerate the point that you want to lead someone smoothly from start to finish, using small baby steps.
You can do this in the form of a persuasive language pattern as well. Here what you want to do is to make statements of fact followed by what you want the person to believe. Again remember to go smoothly and proceed with logical small steps.
"My new pop-up program has 15 new pop-ups. This will give you many additional choices of pop-ups you can use on your site. As you know by now, pop-ups used correctly can be a powerful addition to your marketing. Our program teaches you how to do just that. Soon you'll find yourself easily doing the things you've seen other sites do and wished you could too. It's all here, in your grasp. . . right now."
See how the above paragraph moves from statements of fact to what I want you to believe? It does so in smooth steps, each one congruent and climaxing with what I want to insert in your brain.
This is a very powerful pattern. Practice becoming smooth with it and then apply it to your web site and in your speaking and watch your results soar!
Q: Which of the above tricks are most effective at getting people to take action, and is there a mental process you are trying to take them through?
A: Actually, every one of the strategies I gave above is oriented to get people to take action. They persuade at the unconscious level, which is why they are so powerful.
In terms of a process, you absolutely want to take them through their buying strategy in your copy. Get them interested, build that to excitement, convince them, and get them to take action immediately.
The way I like to do this is to first think about what it is that I want my copy to do. I call it "setting my intention." You might even write a short sentence that clearly states what you want your reader to do.
Write a few short sentences that describe the process you want to take your readers through. Clearly identify the reader in your mind. See him or her clearly. Imagine you are talking to him or her mentally and impressing upon them what you want them to do. Let your intention guide your writing.
Q: Using words like if, because, and since are great ways to precede a command. Are there any other words or phrases that are especially powerful?
A: There is a class of words called modal operators. These are words such as can, possible, could, should, must, need, have to, etc. Here are some examples of how they work:
- It's possible to use commands powerfully.
- You can feel great about learning to be more persuasive.
- You need to buy life insurance now to protect your family.
Another one of my favorites is the use of the infinitive "to." Here are some examples. In each example you could put a command after the word to.
- It's possible to
- It's easy to
- It's nice to
It takes a lot of work to make your commands effective. The key to learning how to use them is to practice.
Q: You said it's important to mark the persuasive pattern. Doesn't this tip off the reader that you are trying to influence them?
A: You must mark the words of the command or it won't be set apart for the unconscious to notice. (Notice how I said unconscious.) No marking equals no results, at least as it relates to commands. I like to use italics, as it doesn't make the words jump off the page like bolding and colors do. Highlighting the words is also very effective, but you can go overboard with that tactic. The key is consistency.
Q: Many of our subscribers already have sales letters, so for them, the job will be to punch up their existing materials. Any specific tips when rewriting copy?
A: Remember persuasion strategies are really the secret sauce that squeezes extra conversion from your offers. Persuasion strategies aren't necessarily the bun or the meat. What that means is you must have a powerful offer for a product the person really wants. When you have that, adding the secret sauce of persuasion gives you results you've only dreamed possible.
Q: Are there any resources our subscribers should be aware of?
A: There aren't a lot of books on the subject. Most of them are teaching the therapeutic application, and that can serve to confuse more than anything. One book I do like is, Unlimited Selling Power by Donald Moine.
And one of the biggest, best resources you'll find on the subject is The Influence Vault at my site, MaxPersuasion.com.
Q: Unlimited Selling Power is great! Thank you Kenrick, I picked up a lot from this and I'm sure our subscribers will as well.
A: Thank you Jonathan
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