todaytest 05/22/2007

Remember These 5 Copywriting Formulas » Copywriting Blog By Copywriter Michel Fortin  Annotated

I used to teach marketing and selling at a local college here in Ottawa. And one of the things I used to teach with (I also use them all the time when I want to learn and remember new things, too) are mnemonics.

Mnemonics are tools or devices that aid retention. My best form of mnemonic are acronyms.

Do you remember the little ditty to remember all the planets taught mostly in kindergarten? It goes, "My very eager mother just served us nine pizzas," where the first letter of each word represents the name of each planet in our solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto).

Similarly, I use acronyms to teach about copywriting. I do this to help you remember, appreciate, and understand the process I go through when I write copy. Here they are, with their meaning (they are also linked to their respective articles covering the formula in detail):

Six Elements for Effective Landing Pages | Marketing Pilgrim  Annotated

MarketingExperiments just released a new research brief discussing how to make landing pages more successful.  As always, their conclusions are very relevant to online retailers and other companies who are trying to generate an action from their visitors.

A key part of the study involved trying to determine whether long copy or short copy performed better when the desired action was a simple email capture.  As it turns out, the short copy was more successful.

In the past, many studies have shown that long copy is more effective in certain situations.  However, MarketingExperiments believes that there are four factors that should influence your decision about whether to use long or short copy–the cost of what you are selling, the perceived risk, the commitment level, and the motivation.

In other words, if you are selling a high priced product, asking for a lot of personal information, requiring a time commitment, or using logic as your selling strategy, use long copy.  On the other hand, if you are giving away something for free without commitment and selling with emotion, use short copy.

MarketingExperiments identifies six elements that affect the performance of landing pages:

1) Friction - how much work the visitor has to do (this includes the reading)

2) Incentives - extras that are thrown in to sweeten the deal

3) Visitor motivation - how much they want what you have

4) Value proposition - the perception visitors have of you and what you are selling

5) Anxiety - the perceived risk to the visitor

6) Credibility - how well you convey trustworthiness

To increase site conversion, you should focus on these elements.  It is important to understand that few changes will in themselves make dramatic differences.  My company tripled our conversion rate over the past year, but we did it with a huge number of very minor changes.  Even very modest improvements in these six areas can cumulatively add up to a significant increase.