The correct choice of words is critical to the success of your sales copy, sometimes by changing only one word in the title or body the result can be an instant ten-fold increase in your sales. Conversely the opposite is true, it makes sense therefore, to pay very special attention to word selection.

Sales professionals and Network Marketing experts very aptly call this “pressing the hot buttons” and it is such an important subject that professors at Yale University have instituted studies around it.

Their results have proven that the following 12 words are the most personal and persuasive words in the English language.

You must use as many of them as possible in your sales letters if you want to get good results, and I’m sure that you do!

You

The main focus of your sales letter should be on your prospect, so you need to address your words to him, tell him “you will be able to overcome the stumbling blocks and earn more money than you ever dreamed possible” not “I have been able to….. and I now earn more money…”

Your sales letter is all about solving your prospect’s problem, not yours. You are simply providing the solution. When you write to your prospect, address him as “you”, or “friend” at times, not only does it make your letter more personal but, you shift the whole focus directly onto your prospect rather than yourself.

There are times when you need to tell your prospect that you understand where he is coming from. In this case ‘I’ should only be used to build empathy not brag about yourself. “…In my early childhood I was continually plagued by….” This sets the scene and tells him you understand his problems, now all you need to do is shift the focus to his problems and the benefits he will get from your product.

Discover

Sometimes, your prospect may have a problem that he thinks cannot be solved. He subconsciously wishes that somebody would find a solution and thinks to himself: “It would be nice if someone already knew the answer…” When you come along and tell him he can “Discover the answer to…” he will react instantly! This is a powerful hot button to press and use in your sales letter.

For example, if your world is falling apart at the seams and your house is about to be repossessed because you have no work and haven’t paid the mortgage for months. You find it difficult to feed your family and to make matters worse your spouse is threatening to divorce you because you are nothing but a useless deadbeat. What would you do if I came along and told you that I have discovered a way to make enough money quickly and legally to……?

Believe me I’ve been there, I know the feeling of uselessness and despair that hits in those circumstances, I can tell you that not only would you jump at that answer but you’d leap out and grab it with both hands and your arms and your legs…!!!

Safety

People have a big fear of the unknown and need to have a feeling of safety and security when going about their everyday life. To ask such a person to take a risk and buy a product that no one else has even heard of is asking too much of them.

Instead, if you offer an already familiar product or service to your prospect and demonstrate that there are many others who are already happily using it then he will feel safe and secure buying it – that is why brand names work and big companies go to great lengths to establish their brand.

For instance say I develop a new Cola drink and market if alongside the already established brands, which would you buy? Of course you’d go for the old, faithful, reliable, trusted product – there’s no way you’d take a risk on mine!

You can circumvent this with testimonials and guarantees as well as easing your prospects mind that your product is safe to use or 100% tested.

Money

Money, money, money – everybody wants it! We just can’t get enough of it no matter what! It goes without saying that this is an extremely hot button to press! Using words such as “make money now”, “save money” and “quickly multiply the amount of money you already have” are hot buttons you can easily use for increased results.

Proven

Remember the fear of the unknown? Your prospect doesn’t want to try a new product only to find out that it doesn’t work. (He’d look a fool amongst his friends!) You have to get around this by convincing him that your product or service is already proven and tested, that many others are happily using it without any problems.

Results

No matter how high the claims you make about your product or service, your prospect will not believe you unless you can show him results. You have to have testimonials showcased in your sales letter. If you haven’t been able to collect any testimonials yet, don’t make them up, showcase the results that you have personally achieved using your own product or service.

For example: “I have lost 22kg in three weeks!” or “I have made $1,031.00 with DEF program!” and “With JKL Software, I have saved 3.5 hours everyday yet have still been able to write and submit my articles to 1,211 directories!”

Love

We are all looking for someone or something to love, whether it is ourselves, a spouse, a pet or even a car! This is an especially emotive button to press, look at any bestseller book list and you will see that there is a romance story amongst the top sellers!

You can substitute the word passion for love if you want – it will be equally effective! Look at these:

“Discover how to find out what your clients passion in life is, then sell him what he desires the most!”

“Don’t you love the idea of having plenty of free time with your spouse and watching your children grow up?”

“You would love this program, because it can buy you the freedom to travel”.

Guarantee

Once again: “..if I have to take a risk that I may lose my money I’m not interested in your product!”

People are all the same, they prefer certainty above uncertainty, they do not want to take risks or become a guinea pig for your product. You have to tell your prospect that you are shouldering ALL of the risk for him. Use these exact words so that he is clear in his mind about all of this!

Tell him why you are shouldering all the risk and say that you are so confident in your product that he can test-drive your service or simply sample your product for the next 30/45/90/180 days.

Sometimes if you offer a lifetime guarantee, it will make your prospect feel silly to leave your page without giving your offer a try.

“…Why not, what have I got to lose? I can always get my money back!”

This is the feeling you have to imbed in his mind. Once your prospect actually feels your product he will be very reluctant to let it go. If it turns out that it is not suitable for him he can always get a refund.

By doing this you have shown your faith in your product and your confidence is passed on to your prospect.

Save

Money again! If it’s possible to save then people will always be tempted by how much they save rather than the end price!

Emphasise the saving not the cost. This is where the true power of this hot button lies, whether you apply it to money or time or even emotion i.e.

“Discover How to Save Your Marriage in 7 Easy Steps!”

“For only $97, you can save yourself 10 years of guessing about credit card debt. Why risk the time, effort, and frustration!”

New

Ask your friend if he wants to see your new car and he’ll immediately want to rush outside for a look. Now ask him if he wants to see your old car and he’ll say “Why, what’s happened to it?”

The fact is “new” beats “old” every time.

“Discover the latest tricks to making money online for less than…”

“Discover the tricks to making money online for less than…”

Which would you respond to?

Easy

Life is complicated enough without you making it even more so. Everybody is looking for ways to make their life simpler and by implication give them more time, freedom and money etc.

If you can prove to your prospect how your product or solution can make his life easier then he will be willing to buy it. Now couple the ease of use of your product with the savings in time and money he will experience and you’ve got an extremely hot product!

Health

Health is a very HUGE topic on the Internet, we all want to stay healthy and live longer. Not only is it extremely unpleasant to be unhealthy but it is also very expensive to get treatment.

However, you should only use this hot button if you are selling health solutions.

“If you want to enjoy a healthy life free from the painful, debilitating effects of asthma (and spend less money in the process), then I suggest you get a copy of my new book: “Tap Into the Wisdom of the Ancients” and discover how they cured Asthma”

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Stuart Elliott is a world class copywriter who has written numerous stories on sales letters and copywriting. Drop by:
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com to pick up a free copywriting power guide.

Article copyright Stuart Elliott 2006 all rights reserved. You may only reprint this artitcle in it’s entirety and you must include this resource box.

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Here’s a review of one of the best Instant Sales Letter Creation Software packages I’ve seen in a long time.

It won’t turn you into a million dollar copywriter overnight but it WILL save you heaps of time and alllow you to easily write great sales letters that will increase your profits.

What more could you want?

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Here’s the review:

Sales Message Generation Software: Reviewed by Andrea Collare

Finally, a product that compels me to be systematic and efficient. The Sales Message Generation Software forces one to be not only an organized writer, but also an orderly thinker, which is a must in communicating copy effectively.

Several templates for sales letters are provided in which you can point and click on your choice. Try them all out if you like to see which one best fits your current needs. Once you get to the actual template, you simply answer the questions.

If you need it to be, this entire system can aid you in, literally, a “fill in the blank” manner.

However, for those who wish to add their own creative flair, there is still plenty of room to ad-lib as long as you use Sanders structured guidance.

Even the most scatter-brained writer will be able to utilize this method.

In addition to the step-by-step templates, Sanders inserts psychological motivators into the peripheral dialogue. A wealthy list of words are incorporated into the copy that will become your own.

If you open your eyes and look around, you’ll quickly notice that you are surrounded by ads filled with these exact tried and true phrases which are based on a Yale study of persuasive language. Using this proven lingo, Sanders provides headline templates for your letters.

In Sales Message Generation Software, Marlon Sanders has taken a sometimes complex process and simplified it for the potential marketer. Using the formula he has developed, Sanders takes the reader by hand and leads him, or her, step by step through the process of writing a sales letter.

This software contains a point by point method that is clear not only to the experienced but also to beginners. You truly do not have to be familiar with selling tactics. because Sanders has already completed this legwork for you.

I am not an organized writer. In fact, my writings can be quite chaotic. The outline method combined with question and answer fill-in-the-blanks in this software was invaluable. Not only is it easy to follow, it was also a massive time-saver.

Collecting ones business ideas can be a monumental endeavor not to mention having the ability to present them in an effective manner. This Sales Message Generation Software does just what it promises, it generates sales messages and letters, quickly and effectively, proficiently communicating information to your client.

Andrea Collare

Andrea writes professionally and, as such, was compensated for preparing this review.

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I can heartily recommend you have a look at this great piece of software, Marlon sanders is a well known and respected figure in the Internet marketing field. He was a pro-copywriter so knows what he’s talking about.

About the only drawbacks of this software are that it needs an open web connection so can’t be used on a stand alone pc, and it’s not suitable for Macs.

Have a look and see for yourself:

“Stuart, how long must my sentences and paragraphs be…”

This is the question that one of my students asked me the other day, he was referring to the length of the sentences and paragraphs in his sales letter but the answer I gave him applies equally to any web page.

Reading text from the computer screen is very different to reading the same text off of paper, reading from the computer is much more difficult. You only have to spend a couple of hours glued to the computer screen to notice how your eyes quickly start to ache.

And what do you do when this happens, do you carry on reading? Very unlikely, if you’re anything like me you just switch off the computer and take a break.

The same holds true if what you are reading is too difficult to follow, take the following paragraph for example:

“What is the purpose of your sales letter? Of course it is to get your prospect to buy your product it has no other job in it’s life if your prospect has any problems reading or understanding your message or he is at all unclear about the meaning of some of the words in your letter do you think he’ll carry on reading it to the very end and then impatiently hit the buy button or do you think you’ll lose him before he reaches that stage without ever having had the chance to let him try your product out and you take his lovely money in your hands and kiss it because you love money so much?”

Did you manage to get through it in only one breath?

Did you even bother to try?

Terrible piece of writing isn’t it? One short sentence and one very long one – 110 words without punctuation! But it does illustrate my point – keep your sentences short and easy to read!

No matter what ‘power’ words you use or story you tell, if they are lost inside a long incomprehensible sentence they are useless – nobody is going to bother reading it!

The same goes for paragraphs, more and small is the byword. I’ve already mentioned that it is very difficult to read a large block of text on the screen as it is much more tiring on the eye. So keep your paragraphs small and don’t allow them to run away across the screen.

If you don’t make your sales letter easy to read, your prospect won’t be able to follow your story without getting tired and giving up – never to return again

A good rule of thumb is short, five line paragraphs containing no more than three short easy to read sentences.

One or two line paragraphs are also very effective.

Also remember that a high proportion of your readers may not have English as their first language. You need to keep your sentences simple – no high level words that only an English language professor would understand!

Make it simple to read and understand and your prospect will finish your story with joy in his heart and the anticipation of the power of your product to solve his problem!

This makes your sales letter more effective and will bring you closer to a sale every time.

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Stuart Elliott is a world class copywriter who has written numerous stories on sales letters and copywriting. Drop by:
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com to pick up a free copywriting power guide.

Article copyright Stuart Elliott 2006 all rights reserved. You may only reprint this artitcle in it’s entirety and you must include this resource box.

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“If You Are Going to be in Business, You Must Know How to Sell”

In his book Automatic Wealth Michael Masterson states that in order to achieve Financial Independence you need to master a financially valuable skill.

Selling is the number one skill you MUST learn if you are going to be in business, and this applies offline, too. If you do not know how to sell, you and your business will struggle financially.

We are selling everyday, whether we sell ourselves our friends or the latest film we’ve just watched.

Look at this common everyday phrase: – “have you seen xxxxxx? I saw it last night and I ….”

Sound familiar?

Well that is selling in a nutshell! Some people do it better than others but we all do it, and with a little bit of training and practice you can soon become a master at it!

Forget the numerous “no selling required” ads you come across online because they are pure B.S. – for one simple reason: people don’t just walk up to you and give you money for your product – you have to tell them about it.

If you do not know how to sell or HATE selling how can you tell people about your product in a way that makes them want to buy it from you? And, if they don’t buy from you – HOW can you make money?

For instance, if it were not for their ability to sell, how would professionals be able to charge such high service fees and still get paid the amount they ask? If it were not for their ability to sell, how could the Wright brothers have managed to convince the world about their first aircraft when people were still living and traveling without them?

Today, the Internet marketplace is jam-packed with plenty of fantastic ideas and wonderful products. Chances are that you have already located:

• A great idea that you think you can make money from
• A product that solves a specific problem, and/or
• An income opportunity to provide to people online

But the fact is: if you do not know how to sell your products, you cannot turn them into money-producing assets, no matter how great the demand or high in quality they actually are.

Everyday as you have dealings with people you subconsciously become acutely aware of whether or not that person has the ability to sell. I’m sure that you’ve often noticed that whilst many people have million-dollar ideas, more often than not they do not have the skill to sell them, let alone instill commercial value into those ideas or products.

I think you get the picture.

Whether you are selling your intellectual asset, service, tangible goods, yourself or whatever kind of product or solution you have, unless you have the ability to sell, your product or asset is worth absolutely nothing!

This may sound a little harsh but it is a cold hard reality. Sure, you may get lucky once in a while but to really become successful…… Well, you have to be able to sell!

Good News

The good news is that using the leverage of the Internet there is no need for you to go door to door to sell. Even if you join a Multi Level Marketing company, you can cover thousands of prospects via the Internet in an extremely short period of time, something that you cannot possibly accomplish in a face to face, conventional business.

There is no need for you to travel around to meet your prospects either. The Internet brings every other Internet user right to your computer screen. What’s more, you don’t need to recruit your own salespeople – or even do the selling yourself manually to every single prospect…

All you need for the selling to be done on your behalf is powerful sales copy!

Take another look at that last statement again because…..

“Your Sales Letter is Your Sales Person”

Yes, your sales letter is your virtual sales person. Your sales letter does all the selling to your prospects on your behalf.

Unlike in conventional and direct response marketing businesses, there is no need for you to train and recruit multiple sales people. Instead, all of your efforts should be focused on creating a powerful sales letter that produces a minimum 2 to 4 percent conversion rate, then fine-tuning that letter to improve the conversion rate as you go.

In other words, for every 100 prospects you refer or who visit your web page, you are aiming for a minimum of 2 to 4 of them to be your customers. Once you achieve that (and you will!), all you need to do is introduce targeted prospects to your sales letter, confident that it will do all the selling for you, day after day!

Your sales letter is like a personal letter from you to your prospect, in it you tell him why he needs your services/product. You remind him of his problems and why you have the solution to those problems, thus convincing your prospect to buy your product or the access to a service from you.

What You Need

You have probably already got a great idea, or a product and some basic selling skills (remember the film you saw the other day?)

Now all you need to do is develop and hone those skills in order to formulate a sensational sales letter. A sales letter that arouses a deep primal need in your prospects and makes them bolt frantically to your order button, desperate to buy your products, every time.

This means that you have to:

1. Improve your writing skills.

Since you will be writing your own sales copy, you will need to have good writing skills and a good command of English. Even if English is not your mother tongue, with a little work you can develop this skill. Note however, that you do not need to be a master of English to write a successful sales letter. As long as your letter carries emotion and personality it will work. Forget all the grammar lessons you learnt at school – just copy what works and learn from the masters.

2. Inject your personality into your letter.

Yes, you must inject your personality. You will be writing a somewhat personal or emotional letter to your prospects. A letter which needs to move and arouse them to take action, so be friendly and approachable with your words. You need to write from the heart. Don’t write a stiff letter, not only is it boring to read but it will turn people away from your web page faster than you can blink!

NB. Mix your writing skills with your personality, write from your heart with truth and sincerity and you will compose the perfect sales letter!

And last but not least, you need…

3. To take action!

There is a wealth of information on how you can write your own killer sales copy staring right at you – don’t waste it by not doing anything with the information! If English is not your first language – no problem – print out a couple of great sales letters that move you and copy their structure and grammar (Learn as You Earn!) Don’t just copy the letter wholesale though that’s plain old theft. – Your letter must come from your heart!

Got it? Good, now go and get started.

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Stuart Elliott is a world class copywriter who has written numerous stories on sales letters and copywriting. Drop by:
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com to pick up a free copywriting power guide.

Article copyright Stuart Elliott 2006 all rights reserved. You may only reprint this artitcle in it’s entirety and you must include this resource box.

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Not many people fully understand the value of the research done by Bluma Ziegarnik.

I too had never heard of her until one of my copywriting mentors introduced me to a powerful sales letter strategy called the Ziegarnik effect… As soon as I applied this strategy (actually I’d call it a secret weapon) my sales letter conversions started rocketing.

In fact all of my advertising, solo ads, landing pages, headlines – anything that I touched with this weapon soon succumbed to higher conversions and I’d recommend that you start using it too. I’ll even be as bold as to say that if you don’t use the Ziegarnik effect in your sales letter you’ll be leaving massive profits on the table…

So what is the Ziegarnik effect and how can you apply it to your sales letter?

Well before I tell you that I think it’s important for me to tell you a little bit more about Bluma Ziegarnik and what she discovered.

Born in Russia back in 1900 Bluma went on to become a respected Psychologist with a string of credits to her name.

It was while she was sitting in a Viennese café in the nineteen twenties that she noticed a phenomena that later became known as the Ziegarnik Effect. Whilst waiting for her order to be fulfilled she observed that the waiters were not writing anything down.

They simply memorised all the orders that they received, five, ten fifteen of them – it didn’t matter – they were all remembered wholesale. But as soon as they were fulfilled they were instantly forgotten.

This intrigued Bluma so much that she carried out further studies and found out that every single waiter could remember an endless string of uncompleted orders, but not one could remember a completed order.

In 1927 she published the results of her studies stating that ‘we remember unfinished business approximately twice as well as finished business.’

This is all very interesting you may think but how can it help you?

Well think about things you watch on TV for a moment… every news broadcaster employs this technique and all the soap operas use it as well…

What they do is to start off a story then leave you ‘hanging in mid air’ …

“Coming up later we tell you how a ten year old girl saved her grandfather from a band of armed thugs…”

might be the first headline the news presenter reads before starting to tell you other, perhaps less interesting stories.

Of course this lead story has captured your attention so much that you have to keep on watching the ‘boring’ news until finally the presenter comes to the interesting part…

A tension has been built up inside of you and you have to keep on watching just to find out the ending to get release.

Look at any Soap Opera on TV and you’ll see that each episode stops right in the middle of some extremely interesting story – you have to watch the next episode just to find out what happened.

This makes you feel such an excruciating longing to find out just what is going to happen next, so much so that you feverishly wait for the clock to tick away so that you can find out the answer… It’s almost as if there is nothing more to life than the answer to the unfinished part of the previous episode, you’re on autopilot completing whatever tasks you have to do while your mind dwells on what is going to happen next in the story…

This is how powerful the Ziegarnik effect can be and why you must use it in your sales letters.

As you know stories capture peoples attention and you should always have a story of some kind in your sales letter, but the trick is not to finish the story immediately.

Tempt your prospect, pique their interest, keep them hanging on for the answer while you go on to explain other benefits about your product. They’ll have to keep on reading to find out the answer to the unfinished business you agitated in their mind earlier.

In the same way, your headlines and sub-headlines must never give a complete solution to your readers problems, they should only serve to capture their interest and make them want to keep on reading.

Using the Ziegarnik effect in your sales letter will give you increased sales for your product but don’t trick you customers.

If your sales letter offers something , even if it’s simply the answer to a question you’ve raised in someone’s mind you have to supply the answer otherwise you’ll create a resentment in them that will prevent them from buying from you.

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Stuart Elliott is a world class copywriter who has written numerous stories on sales letters and copywriting. Drop by:
http://howtowritekickbuttcopy.com to pick up a free copywriting power guide.

Article copyright Stuart Elliott 2006 all rights reserved. You may only reprint this artitcle in it’s entirety and you must include this resource box.

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