being-original
How You Can Help Your Customers Get To Know You
If you are trying to build a personal brand in order to build trust and authority in your niche, then one way to achieve this is to get your visitors to feel as if they know you. By doing this, they will be far more likely to trust your future posts and far more likely to want to listen to you when you suggest buying a product.
Think about it: who would you be more likely to listen to your recommendations to purchase a product; a friend or an advert? Obviously it is the friend and that’s because we feel as though we know them and can trust their judgement. If you can be seen in the same way by your audience, then your suggestions will carry much more clout and your offers will be much more persuasive.
So how do you go about establishing this level of trust? Well here are a few options…
Write in the First Person
Try to write some of your messages in the first person. This is rather different to what you may have learned in school. Most schools will teach that writing in the third person is preferable for business as it sounds more professional and authoritative but the point here is that you want your readers to feel as though they know you and as though you are personally recommending something. And you can do this by writing in the first person. Use ‘I’s and ‘Me’s and generally write as though you’re talking to that person; write as if you are writing a letter to your mother!
Be honest
And don’t just write in first person, make sure you’re being honest too. If you have concerns about a product, let your audience know; believe me, they will appreciate it. Not only does this fill in your personality but it also shows that you’re willing to ‘tell it how it is’ and boosts your integrity. The same goes for talking about issues in your personal life which has the added bonus of making you more relatable; you can be seen as a fellow traveler along the journey.
Use images or photos
Including images of yourself is a great way to help people feel as though they’re getting to know you. Remember that a picture paints a thousand words and it is always nice to put a face to a name. If you’re writing about the benefits of a certain exercise, then why not include an image of you performing that exercise? This is also a good way to get graphics for your site without paying the high prices charged for stock images.
Go on camera and shoot a video!
Why not go one step further and put yourself on camera?! If you are confident enough, then going on YouTube is a great way to reach a larger audience in a way that will leave a more lasting impression. Video is infinitely more engaging than text so if you have the confidence, go for it!
Writing Persuasive Copy for Your Landing Page
Being able to write persuasive copy for a landing page is one of the most important skills you can develop as a digital marketer. And this applies whether you’re planning on selling a digital information product, or you plan to become an affiliate marketer.
The whole purpose of the copy on this page is to demonstrate why your product is good value and the key features that should make your potential buyers excited. You want to take them from being unaware of your product to becoming paying customers; this is commonly known as ‘converting’. It’s probably the single biggest factor that will have a direct influence on your number of sales and therefore your revenue, turnover and profit.
What is the key to writing copy that converts?
The Journey
Taking a prospect who has never have heard of your product and persuading them to buy it is a key part of most sales copy. There is a structure that many copywriters follow and this is called AIDA which stands for ‘Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action’. This sequence acknowledges that people don’t know anything about the product at first but that they will eventually end up happy to buy it.
The big question is; how do you move them through these steps? The first challenge is actually getting noticed in the first place! After all, most people on the web are there because they’re doing something important. Most people nowadays are in a constant rush, have work to do and certainly don’t want to spend their valuable time reading sales pitches that just want their cash. As a writer, your job is to change their mind and to make them actually want to keep reading.
One way to do this is to use a narrative structure i.e. tell a story about your product or service that will encourage them to keep reading. If you have a personal story that resonates with your audience you can include this too. This works well because we are naturally inclined to want to read stories and we find it very hard to end a story early. Stories are highly relatable and always interesting.
The Value Proposition
You will also need to focus on your value proposition. A value proposition is a key selling point of your product and beyond that, it is what your product does for someone and how it changes their lives. Does your product help people by making them richer? Does it improve their physical shape so that they’re stronger, healthier and happier? You also need a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) which will demonstrate why your product is different to the others and why it will work for them. Focus on the ‘dream’ that will sell your product in your pitch.