11 Unusual Methods For Being A Great Copywriter

Altucher wins again with this entertaining article. He gives some really great advice on how to become a better public speaker, which also happens to be great advice for those of us desiring to become better copywriters:

“1) Start off with a joke. This is a must. People need to laugh within the first 30 seconds or else you’re going back to your cubicle at the pencil factory and they will never remember you.

I spend about at least one to two hours before the talk coming up with the first joke because I know that’s what starts off the good feelings for the rest of the talk. I usually make it relevant to the locale and the topic or the news (Tomorrow’s joke starts off: “True story: two days ago I was having dinner with the prime minister of Pakistan and…”) And it actually will be a true story.

2) Get on their level. This has two meanings. I once fell off of a podium while pacing around giving a talk. I was very embarrassed. So now I always get off the podium and explain that I’m afraid to fall off so I’m just going to walk around if that’s ok with everyone. People laugh a little bit and it physically and mentally brings me onto their level.

3) Very important: I very very slightly slur my words. A very small slur. I don’t drink at all. But by slightly slurring my words it’s as if I’m telling my brain I’m a little drunk. When you’re a little drunk you don’t really care what people think of you and you take a few more chances than you would’ve otherwise. It also makes me a bit more brutally honest. And everyone likes a nice drunk!

4) I try to use JUST one word plus one image per page. No more! You think people really want to come to a talk and read a novel? They want to look at funny pictures. At heart, we are all two year olds trying to just stay alive. I’m not saying this in a patronizing way. Its just true.

Here’s one slide from my upcoming talk:

Colorful, topical. It’s the world record bubble creator, so its interesting. And has the flare of magic around it. Given recent events, if I can’t fill up 30 seconds of brilliant insight with this slide then I shouldn’t be doing any public speaking.

5) Try to shock people on each slide. This keeps them awake. They’ve just been jolted with electricity. Like a taser. That hits their brain to keep them awake for another 30 seconds (I say this all because I hate talks and I know I fall asleep every 30 seconds during a talk) Here’s another slide from my upcoming talk:

I then tell people I just bought this house. People are shocked for a brief second (the human mind is conditioned to believe everything it hears). Then I say, “no I didn’t”. And everyone relaxes. All of their muscles relax. The jealousy muscle, the reality muscle, the humor muscle. Everything settles down. Some chuckles. Its obviously not my house. But now we can all move ahead and talk again.

Why You Should Be Using Google Analytics Right Now!

Have you ever called a business to inquire about their services and heard the person on the other end ask you, “Where did you hear about our business?” Sure you have, this is a pretty common thing and while it may seem like a small, almost meaningless question to the customer, the business takes this question VERY seriously. This is how they determine how effective their specific marketing and advertising campaigns are.

If a business is using, let’s say the yellow pages, fliers, and postcards to advertise their business, it is VERY helpful for them to know how many customers they are getting from each source. Once they tally how much they are spending on each particular campaign versus how many customers they acquire, they can decide which methods to continue with or which to possibly discontinue. This is EXACTLY the data that you need to be collecting for your website. Without it, you are just marketing in the dark.

The good news is, this data is EXACTLY what you can get by using Google Analytics, and actually much more than that. Google Analytics is a free program that Google allows ANYONE to use who has a website. You simply place a piece of java code on each page of your website and the program does the rest. This data is simply invaluable.

How so?

Well, when promoting your website, it is likely that you are hitting several avenues at once in order to get visitors. You may be using Google Adwords, Facebook, Press Releases, etc. Now I ask you, how do you know which of your marketing efforts is bearing the most fruit if you have no way to track where your traffic is coming from or which traffic source is producing more leads or sales?

Before programs like Google Analytics, collecting this data was not so easy or cheap. Most website owners spent all their time promoting their site never really knowing which methods were producing and which were not.

Now, it is incredibly easy to see exactly where your traffic is coming from and which campaigns are effective. Once you find out what areas are not as effective, you have the choice of either stopping those methods altogether and focusing more time and energy on the ones that are, or try to tweak the less productive ones to increase the traffic rate.

Google Analytics is helpful not only in showing you traffic data, but in showing conversion data as well. So at a glance you’ll know the percentage of visitors that have taken action by signing up to your email list or by purchasing one of your products. You’ll also know which traffic source brings in visitors that take action the most.

As you can see, Google Analytics can be a website owner’s #1 tool when it comes to producing a powerful and profitable website. So stop “driving” your business “blindfolded” and install Google Analytics already!

How To Use A Semicolon From The Oatmeal

A refresher on how to use semicolons can never hurt, and it doesn’t hurt if that refresher also happens to be hilarious! Leave it up to The Oatmeal to knock it out of the park.

As a marketer you can learn a lot from The Oatmeal actually. People love to laugh and be entertained, so if you can infuse a little humor and personality into your marketing message your business is only going to benefit.

Just make sure you steer clear of religion and politics, for obvious reason;).

Click Here To Read The “Semicolon” Comic At The Oatmeal!

Direct Response Advertising Principles Can See You Through Hard Times

In order to sell on-line it’s important to study the old school Direct Marketing cats like David Ogilvy. Why? Because even though we find ourselves in a very high tech world in 2011, human nature has changed very little since the dawn of civilization. The psychology behind making the sell now hasn’t changed and it’s not going to as long as we remain human.

I understand there are certain aspects of doing business online that change, since the Internet is dynamic, and is changing all the time. However, if you are well versed in Direct Marketing principles you’re likely to weather the storm and adapt to any changes Google or the Internet can throw your way.

So what is Direct Marketing (aka Direct Response Advertising)?

Put simply, it is advertising that makes a specific “call to action”. Whether that is on your website or anywhere else. It’s advertising that is asking the reader to do something right now! Whether that something is to buy their product, or sign-up for a free offer. This allows for results to be tracked and measured more accurately. Which is crucial because if you’re not tracking, then you don’t know which of your marketing efforts are working and which aren’t. Basically you’re behind the wheel with a blind fold on.

Check out this awesome article showing how one should consider the “old school” Direct Response Advertising principles when laying out their website design. GokDotCom writes:

“Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.

What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy).  Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term.

Based on those things, the conclusion he came to was that messaging and relevance had to have highest priority. Everything else – creativity, design, layout – should be subordinated to the end goal of conveying a salient message in as persuasive a manner as possible. In print, this took the form of what has come to be known as “The Ogilvy Layout.”

Understanding Ogilvy’s Layout and Why it Still Works

There are three main parts to the Ogilvy Layout, with a corresponding and crucial quality for each element:

1. The picture, which should have “story appeal”
2. The headline, which should tie into the “story appeal” of the picture
3. And the body copy, which most be placed in the right relationship to both the picture and the headline as to anticipate the reader’s visual preferences and enhance readability.

I’ve dealt with Story Appeal in previous posts, but let’s talk about headlines before diving into why Ogilvy’s favorite arrangement continues to stand the test of time.

What I’ve Noticed About Ogilvy’s Headlines

In his book, Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy writes about the importance of captions no less than 4 times, urging the reader to include captions underneath all of their photographs each and ever time.  According to the research Ogilvy cites, 4 times as many readers read captions as body copy and 10 times as many people read headlines as body copy.

iPhone Continues To Be Apple’s Meal Ticket!

This comes as no surprise really. I’m all for smart phones gaining in popularity, since it will only help bloggers and internet marketers/entrepreneurs. It just all comes down to the fact that people with smart phones use the Internet more often than those that don’t. This means we have many more opportunities to reach new people and draw them into our site. It’s simply a numbers game.

I’ll be honest, Apple iPhones are my least favorite when it comes to smart phones. I just don’t trust Apple to make the right decision when it comes to Net Neutrality.

WebProNews Reports:

“Apple released its second-quarter financial results today. This includes a record March quarter driving 83% revenue growth, and 95% profit growth.

Second quarter revenue came to $24.67 billion with profit at $5.99 billion ($6.40 per diluted share). For the same period last year, the company reported 13.50 billion revenue and $3.07 billion profit.

The company also recorded year-over-year iPhone sales growth of 113%, having sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter. In addition, the company sold 3.76 million Macs (28% YoY growth), 9.02 million iPods (a 17% YoY decline), and 4.69 million iPads during the quarter.

“With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we’re firing on all cylinders,” said CEO Steve Jobs. “We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year.”

CFO Peter Oppenheimer added, “We are extremely pleased with our record March quarter revenue and earnings and cash flow from operations of over $6.2 billion. Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $5.03.”

iPhone sales estimates had been all over the board, but clearly they’re doing well, based on this earnings report. Analysts expected the iPad to be doing a little better, but it looks like Apple will survive. iPod decline isn’t entirely shocking…”

Continue @ WebProNews