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"Are Your Words Killing Your Success?" In this article written by Charlie Page, he discusses three critical areas you must be mindful of in your copywriting as you are writing the content of your website, emails and offline marketing pieces. By carefully targeting your message and keeping it uniform throughout your contact with your customers, you will build trust and create an open to buy feeling among your website and offline visitors. Are Your Words Killing Your Success? by Charlie Page © 2004 No where is crystal clear communication more important than on the Internet. When we speak on the phone, or face to face, we can count on the inflection in our voice or the expression on our face to make up for any lack of clarity in the words we choose. Not so when the *only* tool at your disposal is words. Whether you communicate your message via a Web site, publish an ezine, or utilize wireless technology (even if you snail mail a newsletter), the bottom line is that poor copy will kill your business and great copy will make it thrive. So what are the secrets to writing effective messages on the Internet? While many a book could be written (and has been written) to answer that question, here are the top three factors to consider before you put hands to the keyboard or pen to paper to fashion your selling message. ===> Your Audience Your customers are unique to you. Sure, they may visit other sites like yours, but they came to *your* site (or opened your email) because they want something from you. They want you to solve their problem. If you sell parts for the Space Shuttle you will use a different tone and different wording than if you are selling clothing or a business opportunity. You must know your audience and be able to communicate to them why yours is the best offer. Will they respond to aggressive wording or do you need to soft-sell your proposition? Your sales message must tell your audience that you understand them and that you are there to meet their needs and desires. This is how you gain their confidence and get them to keep reading. ACTION STEP: Review your web copy or email letters today and see if the tone of the writing is in alignment with the personality of your average customer. Once you have taken this step it's time to polish ... ===> Your Message When you communicate in writing, your copy IS you. You must speak TO (not at) your audience, using a message that is both tailored to their wants and needs as well as leading them to take the action you desire. Many sites fail this critical test, sounding either like a Doctoral thesis or are so casually worded that they don't sound like businesses at all. What is your sales message really saying about you? ACTION STEP Take a moment to read your selling message as if reading it for the first time. Sound out every word as you read. Does it sound like you? ===> Your Medium *Where* you message will be read will determine how your message will be written. If your message is not tailored to the specific medium you are using you can do much more harm than good. Web copy can be more "enthusiastic" than email can afford to be. Web copy can also be much longer. ACTION STEP When writing copy for email, try to condense the wording from your website. This keeps your message uniform and makes you look more professional when your reader clicks to your site. Effective copy, copy that makes you money, will be tailored to the medium as well as the audience. Is yours? The bottom line here is simple. The average customer hears more sales messages per day than they did in a week just a few years ago. YOUR message must cut through the clutter and confusion and cause them to act on your offer. Effective copy will clearly communicate your message, create more customers in less time, and make you more money in the process. That is what you want, isn't it? ;) ----------------------------------- Charlie Page is a copywriter who owns the Directory of Ezines and the Directory of Marketing. If you want to sell more online, visit Charlie today at http://www.directoryofmarketing.com ----------------------------------- We see other people's efforts at copywriting hundreds or thousands of times every day. As you are writing the content of your website and your email and offline messages, you need to be very mindful of the competition you face and laser focus your message directly to your target market. With so many different and competing marketing messages coming at all of us every day in all forms of media, our brain does an excellent job of filtering out anything that confuses it or that isn't relevant to us at that particular time. By focusing on your target market and writing to them consistently and persuasively every time you send them a message, they will start to come to know and trust you. Eventually new visitors will become customers and some will most likely become evangelists for you and your Business. If you follow the action steps above and continue practicing your copywriting skills on a regular basis, your articles and sales messages will hold your readers interest and help them buy from you again and again. Until next time, Kind regards, Rocky P.S. If you would like to learn more about copywriting to increase your sales and profits and learn strategies that will help you when you are writing the content of your website and email messages, then Charlies site has some great articles and information that you can use immediately. In addition to this, marketing guru Sean D'souza has lots of free articles and tips on his website that will teach you how your customer's brain works and help you to persuade them that you are the person that they should be dealing with when they think about buying the product or service that you sell. Check it out...
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