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Low Budget + Persuasive Copy = Big Money.
You might agree that this is a content strategy all of us marketers can appreciate. It comes from Hershel Gordon Lewis’s formula for making horror movies with the sole intention of making a profit. That formula was: Low Budget (these were like C movies!) + Giving Audiences What They Want With Plenty of Imagination = Big Money.
Check out my post that includes 3 more of Lewis’s copy secrets to increase response.
3 More Logical Rules that Increase Response
Increase Response Rule 1) The Unidentified Authority Rule
If you are a marketer for a business or non-profit, you know that proving your pitch with specifics boosts the power of your claims. But what if your claim has validity but no specifics exist?
Well, you can’t lie but you can use these “Unidentified Authority” statements:
Research tells us that…
It is estimated that…
It has been established that…
For a great many reasons…
A great man once said…
Many agree that…
It is important to remember that…
Increase Response Rule 2) The Ballooning Number Rule
The farther a number is from your website visitors experience, the less emotion it generates. You don’t have much time online, so the faster you hook your reader emotionally the better.
So, a reader accepts a national debt figure of trillions of dollars intellectually, but the same reader accepts, “This means you owe more than $$20,000” emotionally.
Your numbers should also be readily digestible. Percentages are less effective than actual numbers because genuine experience isn’t really ever a percentile. And genuine experience trumps intellectual toil in a sales argument every time.
Increase Response Rule 3) The Who Are We? Rule
You can establish an intimacy with your reader by suggesting that “I” the writer is the same as “You” the reader. You and I are one. The problem is that you have to be careful not to confuse your reader with Who is Who.
For example, here I’m selling subscriptions to my free weekly email:
NKB Marketing is on top of the fast paced, fast-changing world of content marketing. We’re marketers…and we’re business people. This blog is the one publication that covers both sides.
We not only pack our weekly posts with writing tips aimed at you, the marketing professional, but we’re also including tips on social media, internet marketing, and news in the online marketing world.
Do you see that the “We” in the first paragraph changed in the second from “you and I’ to “We” as in NKB Marketing? “You and I” aren’t publishing the blog, NKB Marketing is. So, I should start the second paragraph with, “NKB Marketing not only packs our weekly posts with…”
Every place you can eliminate a point of confusion is a place you may keep a visitor on your site long enough for her to click “Buy!”
So there are three great tips that will increase response on your website and blog.
Until next time,
Nick
Nick Burns is an SEO web writer specializing in persuasive copywriting and content marketing. He provides clients a winning content strategy plus the special web writing to make it work. You can contact Nick here.
