No matter what type of sales copy you write, be it a full blown sales letter or Classified Ad the process can be broken down into three distinct phases.

They are:

1. Research

2. wRiting

3. Ruthlessly Editing

I call them the ‘three “R’s” of copywriting’… And they are fundamental to the success of every piece of advertising copy you write, from a full blown sales letter, a script for a video, a PPC Ad to a classified Ad.

Many people never bother to master them though, they are either too lazy or simply can’t understand the need to invest time in all three. They often plump for the actual writing without giving credence to the other two… But once you realise how important ALL THREE are to your marketing success you will soon be using them all without a second thought.

… And when you apply them to your sales copy they will have a dramatic effect on your results and, of course, your bottom line.

In this article I’m going to focus on perhaps the most important – the research phase.

To quote world renowned copywriter Michel Fortin:

“researching your market before you put pen to paper or electron to screen is the most important component of good copywriting. Not the headline, not the offer, and not the price.”

“R” Number 1 – The Research Phase Is…

“The make or break of your sales copy” – it really is that crucial.

Research, or rather lack of it, is where most sales copy falls flat on it’s face.

Fact is, most lacklustre sales copy is so not because the writer lacks the skills to write… It’s because he didn’t invest enough time to THOROUGHLY investigate his product, market and competitors… and thorough research is what is going to make your sales copy soar leaps and bounds ahead of your competitors.

But why is thorough research so vital?

Here’s why:

• It will allow you to truly understand your customer… It will tell you who your customer is, how he thinks, what his feelings are, what his wants are, how he talks and what motivates him
• Research will allow you to talk with the honesty of an expert and someone who’s ‘been there’
• You’ll discover every little nuance about your product – how heavy it is, what it feels like as well as looks like. Whether it smells, and if so, is that good or bad? What things it can, and more importantly CANNOT do
• You’ll know all the good points AND what the bad points of your product are – Pointing out in your copy a couple of the bad or not so good points of your product will really boost your credibility and make your customers believe what you say – they will look up to you for this
• Your research will instantly tell you how your product will solve your prospects problem
• From this you’ll immediately know the best approach to your prospect’s wallet – without having to resort to trickery
• You’ll be able to educate and inform your prospect as you write. This will build up his trust in you, in his eyes you’ll become more powerful and important
• You’ll be awarded expert status so people will look to you to solve their immediate and future problems – allowing you to make more sales in the future
• The content, headlines, sub-headlines, USP and ‘angle’ will come from your research, in effect your sales letter will almost write itself

Enough said?

I cannot stress how vitally important this prelude to actually writing your sales copy is. Don’t think you know it all, make the time and do the research then the rewards will flow to you like an incoming tide.

In a later article I’ll discuss different ways to research your product.

Speak to you soon,

Stuart

I’ve been looking for a new web host for a while and heard several good things about Hostgator along with some firm recommendations so I thought I’d give them a try.

Thing is though, the guys who’d recommended them can’t have had the utterly disgusting treatment meted out to them that I received from the ’support’ desk there. Let me explain…

After checking out the services offered I decided the business plan would suit me best and opted to pay monthly. I’ve never been a fan of paying for a year or more upfront because I like to experience the service offered for a month or so first.

I signed up, paid by Paypal, set up a monthly debit and was forwarded to a page informing me how to access my account – smooth sailing so far but that’s when things started to get a little rough…

I tried to log in several times but access was refused so I contacted the live ‘help person’ to find out what was cooking. After a little while of puzzlement on her behalf she stated that an email had been sent to me giving reasons why.

Strange…

Then I noticed an email from Paypal stating my payment had been refunded – “What? Why?”

The live help was no use — just repeating that an email had been sent. So I waited for the email from ’support’ to arrive and after about 10 mins there it was. When I opened it this is what greeted me:

Thank you for your order with HostGator.com!

howtowritekickbuttcopy.com

Your account has been marked for a security verification. Because of this, in order for us to host your domain, we will require payment via bank transfer or Western Union.

This was followed by a set of instructions on how to pay by those means and a severe warning to follow these instructions to the letter otherwise payment will not be accepted. Also there was a minimum payment required of $100.

“WHAT… What’s going on? Security violation? What have I done wrong?” I felt like a criminal through no fault of my own and there was no explanation in the letter. I also noticed that if you want to cancel the account later ( assuming I got one set up in the first place) Hostgator DO NOT give cash refunds if payment has been made via Western Union or Bank transfer — they will only give a credit toward their services.

That’s nice! You want to cancel your account but can only get a ‘refund’ in the way of a credit against the continued use of their services… Sounds a bit shady to me what do you think?

As you can imagine I was a little upset at the email and the instructions minus explanation so replied stating that they had made me feel like a criminal and asking what was cooking.

Their terse reply was:

Due to the number of fraudulent signups, PayPal reversals, and charge backs from accounts signed up from China, all account sign ups from China must be paid through either a bank wire or Western Union. This has nothing to do with you specifically, but it is company policy. Please let us know if you have any further questions.

So that’s it — I live in china so I must be treated like a suspicious character… AND you’ll notice the tone of the reply? nothing else in the email, no apology or anything… Oh they did address me as ‘Hi’ so I have to give them 0.5 out of 10 for trying!

By now their tone and attitude was a little upsetting and I wrote back asking whether the wanted to in fact do business with me… They still had a little chance if they humbled themselves and apologised like they should have done in the first place. If they’d addressed the first letter with a:

“Dear Stuart, Thank you for your interest in opening a host account with Hostgator. Unfortunately due to the high number of problems encountered when accepting payments from mainland China we have to ask for payment via bank transfer or Western Union rather than credit card or Paypal…” or words to that effect things would have been smoother.

I mean that’s how any sensible company that values it’s name and clients would respond isn’t it?

Sadly though not Hostgator…

In fact the next reply I received was MUCH WORSE!

But let me ask a couple of questions before I get to that.

If they know there are problems receiving payment from mainland China why do they allow the user to select Paypal and Credit card from there in the first place???? And why do they not inform buyers from China of the alternative payment options when they try to place an order? Are the deliberately trying to mislead people?

And of course where are their customer relation skills? Many people comment on how good their support is — well all I can say is they should be thankful they didn’t speak to the rocket scientist I did…

I COULDN’T BELIEVE THEIR REPLY!

Forgive the capital letters but this really takes the cake…

This is how they replied:

Hello,

This doesn’t mean that we do not want your business. What is does mean is that we are following company policy, which you agreed to when you signed up, and can not make an exception to our policy for you.

At no point have we stated that you are a criminal. However, as any investigator can tell you, when some one claims that they are not a criminal without being accused of being a criminal, that person is either a criminal or planning on doing something that they know to be questionable in nature.

I mean really!! “we never said you were a criminal but you must be if you think like that…”

Who are these guys? Which PR school did they go to?? And are they interested in business???

I’m still waiting for the reply to the email I sent in return but doubt they’ll even bother. But I can tell you this I’ll NEVER< NEVER use Hostgators services and will go out of my way to tell all of my friends and clients about their atrocious attitude…

But you know what?

I think they did me a favour… heaven knows what kind of shoddy treatment they’d have meted out in the future IF I signed up!

I hope you don’t have the same kind of treatment from your webhost. I tell you what why not reply and let me know your horror stories and if you have one a good story — eems good webhosts are few and far between these days..

Speak to you soon,

Stuart.

PS
Need a sales letter written or critiqued? Drop me a line to: copy [at] kungfucopywriter.com – I’d love to hear from you.

“We Hope You Come Back…”

Hi there,

That’s all the receptionist said as we were leaving and it surprised me.

Why?

Well, Susan picked up a couple of tickets for a free massage the other day and persuaded me to come and give it a try. Now I’ve been in China for 6 years and still haven’t had a massage yet. I know, I know, they’re supposed to be great but somehow they don’t appeal to me.

Anyway I thought “What the heck might as well give it a try.” so off we went…

The reception area was very opulent, gilded sofas and armchairs, beautiful decor and fine china on display – more like a five star hotel and definitely not what I’d expected.

The receptionist was very pleasant and once we’d changed our shoes for the slippers provided we were escorted to a sofa and asked to wait a little while. Whilst waiting we were asked if we’d like to go for a shower and offered tea, coffee etc.

I plumped for water which duly arrived with a plate of watermelon, nice touch.

However I was disappointed that the receptionist didn’t remove the previous persons dirty tissues when she took away the empty glasses. This spoiled the effect of the water melon.. I mean who wants to eat something when someone’s dirty tissue is sat there winking at you?

Kind of put me off my watermelon it did…

Soon we were told it was our turn, so leaving the watermelon talking to the dirty tissues we followed our host and were taken to the massage room.

This was an eye opener…

We entered a big darkened room with about 50 comfortable-looking reclining seats and each one had a TV monitor on it. Most of the seats were full, the customers lay back watching TV and relaxed whilst the masseuse massaged their feet.

Now this may seem fine, after all everybody looked happy lying back with their eyes glued to the screens: so maybe the management had done their research and discovered this was what their customers wanted. But for me there was just a teeny-weeny problem…

The noise!

Most of the TV sets had the volume turned up way loud… the cacophony was indescribable, umpteen different channels all blaring away in Chinese.

I was in two minds whether to get up and go but decided to bear it to see what happened. I didn’t switch my TV on though despite the intentions of numerous assistants who seemed upset I didn’t want to have a TV screen pressed inches from my face!

Anyway after about an hour the ordeal was over and I was glad to get away.

To be honest the massage wasn’t bad but the overall experience was a big minus in my book.

I asked Susan what she thought and she said she’d not go back. “The other places are much nicer as they have private rooms and no noise.” were her words.

After collecting our shoes we were escorted to the door by the receptionist – which is the norm in China – and she said “We hope you come back…” as we left.

I looked at Susan and said “Is that it? Is that the sum total of the marketing?” I couldn’t believe it.

We’d been enticed there with the promise a FREE massage which was duly delivered without any ‘fuss’ – surely they were going to try and sell a membership or something? But no, there was no upsell, not even a form to fill in to collect a telephone number or email. We were expected to remember the place and choose to come back without any further offers.

Massage centers are a dime a dozen in China and since this one had gone to the trouble and expense of printing fliers, and giving the Free massage you have expected something more.

This really begs the question – “What was the point of this marketing campaign?”

If it was solely to get more people to visit the center then they succeeded. But if it was to get more recurring customers then they failed. It’s pointless getting new people in the door then letting them walk out without at least capturing their details and, better still, marketing your services to them there and then.

Of course, that may have been what the owner intended when he planned the campaign but the staff let him down. Which means he doesn’t have any control of his business. i.e. the staff are being allowed to do as they see fit (hence the episode with the dirty tissue). If this is the case then he’d really be better off getting on top of his main problem which is his staff training and or morale.

This could be the main reason he is losing customers and felt urged to try and attract more. Fact is though, no matter how many prospective customers he brings in the door, if the staff don’t do their job many will leave without becoming customers…

So Let me ask you:

Who are the most important people in your business, are they the customers or the staff?

In my book it’s the staff. Treat them like diamonds and they’ll shine for the customers attracting more and more to come back. Now even if you only employ yourself you should still treat yourself like a diamond so you can shine for your customers. Get this right BEFORE embarking on your next marketing campaign otherwise you may not see the results you expect from it.

Speak to you soon,

Stuart.

Need some help with a sales letter or marketing problem? Drop me a line to copy [at} kungfucopywriter.com – I’ll be glad to help.