CASE STUDY: Don’t Skip This Ingredient For a Great Email Campaign
One of the biggest hang-ups business owners tell me they have around writing copy is that it doesn’t SOUND like them.
They are themselves on the phone with clients (or in person). Warm, genuine. A guide. An authority.
“But Stella, when I sit down to write – ARGH! – it’s like there’s a stranger typing at the keyboard. And I don’t LIKE that person. How can I stop?”
It’s a valid question – and one that needs to be answered if you want to grow your business online.
Because your real personality, point of view, and voice are your greatest asset in business. And that goes QUADRUPLE online, where most thinking people don’t buy the cheap-fast-easy mass marketing message.
So today, let’s take a look at why so many business owners feel the need to Write Advertising… and make the case that it’s actually costing you a lot of business.
There’s a myth out there that to get business online, you have to write sales copy in a certain way.
This was true for me as a newbie copywriter. I thought I had to write the headlines that I saw everyone else writing. Even though they were cheesy, formulaic and unbelievable.
Since then, what I’ve learned is that if you want to build a tribe of people who actually care about you before they meet you in person (and show up to sales conversations KNOWING they already want to work with YOU)… you need to take the rules about what moves people and what persuades them to act… and infuse them with YOUR voice, personality and sense of style.
All those “proven marketing strategies” are useless without this work.
Let’s take a look.
Case Study
Robin is a financial advisor and mentor on a mission to change the way the way educated women handle their money. In her former job at a national financial services firm, she’d managed the accounts of over 100 millionaires. When she set out to open her own business, it wasn’t long before her client roster was full.
Before long, she did what so many business owners do – looking for ways to leverage her time. She bought an info product on how to do an online launch. The creator of the product knew his stuff – his business was well into 8 figures. So Robin thought it would work for her, too.
She followed the plan. She made videos. She wrote copy. She wrote emails.
She put all this work and money and thought into it.
But it didn’t work.
She made $500.
“I was completely and utterly disappointed,” she says.
“So what I decided to do was to go back to face to face marketing and networking and speaking. Connecting with people one on one, not one to many.”
A charismatic woman who knows her stuff, she had no trouble getting clients.
But the feeling that she was missing out on a huge opportunity online haunted her for two years before she screwed up the courage to try to figure out online marketing again.
She came to work with me so she could find out what wasn’t working in her copy – and fix it so that people resonated and responded more.
The biggest thing she worked on was being conversational, like she was when she was with clients on the phone or in person.
I like to help people work on writing like they talk by working on a moneymaking project. So Robin decided she wanted to launch a group program online.
She wrote an opt-in page for her teleseminar. She wrote emails to get people on the call. She wrote emails inviting people who were interested to set up a time to talk with her. And she wrote a sales page.
But this time, she focused on describing her program like she would if she was actually sitting with a potential client, face to face.
“Before, my writing was factual,” she said.
Side bar: writing factually is the kiss of death in writing marketing copy.
Your audience doesn’t want “just the facts” from you. They want to feel something. They want to know that something else is possible for them – and that you know how to get them there.
And increasingly, they are shopping for an authentic experience.
Not someone who comes off as slick or who says all the right things.
So really, what this means is that we have moved beyond “proven marketing strategies.” To win business online, you need to have those strategies and know how to communicate in your voice, with your real personality.
Learning how to write like this pays off.
Robin signed 12 people into the program, at a price point of $2,000.
Being conversational – and really connecting with people through her writing – made Robin $24,000 from one campaign. Best of all, she will use these skills for the rest of the life of her business.
“I got how to be conversational, interesting, and inviting with my copy,” she says.
So, THAT is why you should write like you talk.
And here’s a tip for how to start: talk out your copy with someone sharp before you sit down to write. This is a lot of what I do with business owners – ask them questions about their ideas, until we find the ones that are really juicy. THEN they go write.
If you don’t have anyone right now that you can have that conversation with, you can also do this with yourself. On a piece of paper, brainstorm 5 questions that your ideal client would ask or want to know about what you’re offering. Imagine that they are really excited about your offer, they just have a few questions before they’re a yes.
These are usually really simple – like “when does the class meet?” or “can you help me clean out the junk food in my fridge?” Then, once you are done imagining what they might want to know, just write your answers. BIG HINT: Don’t use marketing speak or try to convince them of anything. Just write what you would actually say to a REAL LIE PERSON, if they were sitting right in front of you.
Mighty thanks to Depositphoto for the mirror image yelling at herself photo
