In my years of internet research, stumbling, browsing and surfing, I’ve never had such a difficult time finding something.  See, I’m trying to find out where the surfers on the net hang out, blog, post and share stories.  That’s how I get to the root of a thing I’m researching, find out what the people doing the thing are talking about, what motivates them and try and tap into it.

After a few Google web queries on the subject it became clear to me that I wasn’t about to find anything authentic.  Most of the top results were based on trip and vacation details, surf camps, surf shops and other services.  Well, that’s fair I guess, but it’s not what I wanted.  I wanted to hear from people, not companies.  Still, I figured that the shops might provide authentic information…

No such luck though.  Most of the sites I went to tended to use the same boilerplate copy that you see everywhere.  It’s not bad copy, certainly fits with conventional wisdom on web copywriting, but in most cases it lacked authenticity.  Could’ve been written by anybody, whether they’d been surfing or not.  I’ve dubbed it Robocopy… and again, it’s not bad copy by any stretch.  There’s no shortage of web experts who’ll tell you that this method is the most proven to create the opportunity for conversion.

And they could be right, but I don’t see it that way.  I think we have to look beyond the conversion to the people we’re having the conversation with.

If you’re interested, this is the formula for writing effective sales copy.

Introduction: Introduce yourself and your company, then spell out a key problem the visitor is experiencing while trying to identify with them on a personal level.  You might say something like,

Your widgets are important, they’re what makes your company function day to day!  When your widgets break it can cost you thousands of dollars in lost orders or production time, something you simply can’t afford in today’s struggling economic climate.  Tom’s Widgets carries thousands of widgets, and provides free overnight delivery of all standard and non-standard widgets around the world!

Elevator Pitch: Quickly explain the unique benefit your organization offers, something like:

Tom’s Widgets provides guaranteed overnight delivery on all widget orders.  We pride ourselves on providing excellent customer service and a vast array of widgets of all sizes, makes and models.

Closing Statement: Here’s where we go for the sale, in the business it’s named a “call to action” because it’s supposed to compel visitors to take some sort of action.  A closing statement with a CTA might look something like this:

Whether you need one widget to keep production going or thousands of widgets to outfit your factory, Tom’s Widgets is there to keep your productivity lines moving forward.  Contact Tom’s Widgets today for an estimate on our high quality widgets.

So, what’s wrong with the above copy?  Well, nothing inherently.  It gets to the point, tells me what I need to know and solves a big problem.  I’ve written copy just like this dozens of times, I think I just want a little bit more… I don’t need Hemmingway, I just need some personalization.  I turned then to Google Blog search and, voila!  I found some great surf blogs written in an authentic, travelers tone.  I guess the difference is that bloggers aren’t necessarily trying to sell anything, they’re trying to tell a story.

Sales copy is written with a specific goal in mind, to drive visitors (much like sheep, or lemmings) to perform a certain act.  That act may be something like signing up for a newsletter, filling out an inquiry form, or even making a purchase.  No doubt about it either, many of the ‘rules’ based on eye tracking studies, copywriting and user experience studies indicate are totally valid.

I long for the day that businesses break the mold of corporate and sales based communications to take on the more honest and open approaches found prevalently in the blogosphere, and I think to do that – we need to look past the conversion to really see the conversation.  So what do I mean by looking past the conversion?   Looking past the conversion is about connecting with the actual people visiting your site and starting real conversations with them, talking about actual experiences and telling the story of your business.  Maybe it’s idealistic, but it’s something to work towards.

 

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on April 28, 2010 at 1:25 pm, filed under Copywriting, Search Engine Optimization and tagged Copywriting, Marketing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.

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