Are You Making This Rookie Mistake in Your Sales Copy? I Was (Even When I Thought I Wasn't)
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- In this video, I explain a single rookie mistake that’s easily rectified once you know you’re doing it.
- Read on for a great tactic for connecting and strengthening your bond with your customers.
Hello, everyone. My name is Matt Ackerson. I'm the founder of Growbo.com. Welcome to another episode of Matt Hacks. In these videos, I give you actionable tips to be more awesome at marketing and to accelerate your creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.
Onto today’s video topic: are you making this rookie mistake in your sales copy, on your landing pages and even in your videos? Find out in this video.
This mistake is so fundamental that even if you don’t think you're doing it, chances are, you might be completely wrong.
The Rookie Mistake
So what is it, exactly? What is this fundamental thing that I'm talking about, that you absolutely have to do exceptionally well to maximize sales and conversions? What is it?
It’s identifying with people's pain points to lead them towards the logical conclusion of your solution.
Now, this may include the element of pacing and leading, as well as a separate technique we will talk about in a future video and article.
According to B2B opportunity management company iSEEit, pacing and leading is “used in copywriting to influence your reader or listener and making them feel as if you are speaking directly to them. How? By using what we know to be true about the target market, tying it to emotions, and leading them to a logical conclusion.”
For today, I want to underscore the importance of emphasizing pain points on your landing page, sales copy and in your emails. You have to explain the pain in the words of your customers back to them so they identify with what you are saying.
You might say in response to this, “Oh, Matt, what are you talking about? I already know about this. I know about the importance of stating the pain on the page. You know, you state the problem, then you agitate the pain, then you talk about the solution, and the benefits, and the FAQs and blah, blah, blah. I know that. You're not telling me anything new.”
But wait, there's more. You see, even though I have over a decade of experience as an entrepreneur in digital marketing, I still didn't realize the fundamental importance of this lesson. So, for me, I knew, “Oh yeah, you know, you need to start with the pain, you need to state the problem. And maybe we devote a paragraph, maybe two paragraphs, a couple of bullet points to it.”
However, I've been studying the top online marketers recently. I'm subscribed to over 200 newsletters that I know of, probably more. I read their newsletters. I read their email sequences. I look at their landing pages. I'm like a sponge on the Internet. I'm always just kind of looking at whatever is out there that seems to be working and performing well so that I could come back and deliver it to you guys in these videos.
As far as this is concerned, what I have learned recently and really internalized is this fundamental truth: that the top-performing marketers identify and align customer pain points, through their copywriting, in their emails and in their words. This way, the customer who has bought products will almost be lulled into a sort of trance because they're like, "He's talking about me. He's talking about my problem" or "I relate to this in some way."
Part of that is the style and the structure of the language in some cases. I think Dane Maxwell said it best in an interview not so long ago with Andrew Warner over at Mixergy.com.
He said, (and this is a paraphrase): If people believe you identify with their problem, that you understand, then understanding is one of the most fundamental, grounding and common of all human needs, to be understood. If people feel that you understand their pain point, their problem, they will automatically assume you have the solution to it."
One Action to Take Right Now
Let's bring this back to one action you can take away from this video and start working on right now.
You understand this is something important you have to do in terms of making your copy effective. Whether you're executing a launch, hosting a webinar, building an email sequence leading up to a product offer or whatever it is, this is one of the most effective ways to relate to your audience and build a bond that will lead to a sale.
In practice though, how do you actually go about executing this?
Well, the way that I've started applying this internalized lesson is you can study some examples that are out here. As I mentioned, I subscribe to a bunch of different marketing newsletters to get a feel from the top marketers that I know are really killing it right now.
I would say keep your copy conversational. Use words like “but” and ask questions. Really, I think, at a core level, what you're trying to do is to tell the story back to your prospective customer of their pain point, right?
So, for example, you know, let's say you want to sell a tax preparation service for entrepreneurs who are busy and who work remotely. Well, you might say something like, “It comes around every year, but you're always stuck doing it last minute because you just have too many other priorities. Are you getting as much money back as you could be? Are you taking all the deductibles that you can?”
Because, hey, you're busy. You can't be expected to know all this information about the tax code, which is as thick and tall as a building. So what do you do? You go to your local accountant and you ask him or her like, "Hey, can you take this over for me?" But they're not specialized in your type of business. In many cases, they're not a digital nomad type of entrepreneur, and so on and so forth.
You kind of get what I'm saying from that example. All right, so that's the one key takeaway from today. Take action, apply it and come back here and let me know your results.
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So until next time, my name is Matt Ack in the Matt hat, delivering your daily dose of Matt Hacks. I'll see you in the next video.
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