No matter the advertising platform you’ve been using, you’ve probably noticed a consistent trend over the last few years – your ad cost has continued to rise! It’s inescapable, and businesses are left at the whims of the Zuckerberg’s of the digital world, and it’s all too easy to throw in the towel or point the finger at everybody else. What traffic was profitable a month ago suddenly isn’t. Is it the affiliates fault? Is Google attracting a different audience? Suddenly everything you knew about marketing has been turned upside down, but that leads me nicely to our first hack…

Focus on the psychology, not the technology

It’s easy to fall prey to thinking the latest chatbot or landing page software is going to drastically turn your business around for you, but the reality is if you’re thinking like this then you’re missing the point entirely. Don’t rely on gimmicks to sell to your audience, and instead focus on the fundamental psychology behind selling. Remember, a sale will only ever take place when the value exceeds what is asked of the consumer. You need to bombard your customer with value before you ask for their money. Your first transaction should be to build trust within your marketplace, and it should cost the consumer nothing other than their time. To begin with, you’re after their data (an email or a phone number), not their money.

Here are some great ways to build trust with your audience, without selling to them:

• A free report
• A free eBook
• A free cheat-sheet
• A free consultation

Your freebie should be specific to your industry. If you’re a dentist for example, you could offer a free teeth-whitening session, and from there you have entered prospects into your value ladder and you can now start selling your other services, i.e. jaw alignment, braces, veneers… Whatever it may be.

At this point, your customer is entering your value ladder for the first time and they’re currently extremely sceptical of you and your services. Start by building some trust with the freebie – but don’t skimp on the quality. This is your first introduction so you need to leave your prospect thinking ‘if this is what I get for free, what will I get if I paid these guys?’ When you enter a customer into your value ladder, you always need to be one step ahead, literally. That is, your value needs to always exceed the cost.

Dispel the disbelief and address the scepticism

While the freebies are a must have (for multiple reasons), you need to also understand that it’ll simultaneously build disbelief with your prospect. Why would you be genuinely giving away something so valuable for free? That is the conversation taking place in your prospects mind. You need to always be aware of what your customer is thinking, so you can address this in your copy and dispel what they may be thinking. Failure to do this will make your offer seem insincere, and could put people off from opting in.

Features tell, benefits sell

When you’re writing your copy (or hiring someone to do so on your behalf) the most fundamental thing you should bear in mind is ‘what does this do for my customer’. Nobody cares about you or your business, they care about what your business can do for them. Don’t lead with weak copy such as ‘we’re a family business that deliveries exceptional customer care’. Things like this are expected – nobody comes to a business and expects to receive poor customer service. Lead with what your customer wants to hear and how you can help them immediately.

However, don’t get too distracted with describing what services you provide, but be sure to tell your customer about the benefits this has for them. It’s key to always lead from the customers perspective. Remember, features tell – benefits sell.

Here’s an example of weak copy from a mattress company:

• Our memory foam mattress contours to your body
• Brand new AirFoam mattress technology
• Advanced cooling technology

These are empty features that don’t explore how they actually help the customer. Instead, try something more compelling like:

• Our memory foam mattress contours to your body, giving you a much deeper sleep so you can wake up without aches or pains, improved REM sleep to aid overnight recovery and feel ready to tackle the day ahead of you.
• Brand new AirFoam mattress technology means unsettled sleepers will no longer disturb their partners at night, giving both people an uninterrupted nights sleep and leading to a better spousal relationship with less friction and less arguments.
• Advanced cooling technology means the temperature distribution of your new mattress stays localised to yourself, so you aren’t giving off or receiving unwanted heat from your partner. Overheating in bed can lead to reduced sleep, fatigue through-out the day and dehydration during the night – no more trips to the kitchen for a glass of water!

The key here is to intimately understand your markets pain points so you can exacerbate them while providing your solution straight after. The pain points of this particular market are that people often wake with aches and pains and regularly have a less than optimal sleep, often leading to frustration with themselves or their partners and unwanted friction in their relationships. All of these features clearly outline how the benefits mitigate their pain.

Sell the click!

Here’s where so many businesses go wrong; trying to sell straight out of the gate when your prospect knows nothing about you, their scepticism is at its highest and they’re colder than ever. You need to warm your traffic before you sell to them, so stop trying to sell your ad. You wouldn’t ask for a hand in marriage on your first date, would you? Did you know that 97% of all online traffic is cold traffic? (suby, 2019). Yet most companies have copy that only speaks to the 3% of hot leads that are in buy-now mode and just hope their ad also speaks to the overwhelming majority that aren’t immediately looking for a solution (or even aware they have a problem).

Here’s the landscape of the digital world:

The goal of your advert should not be to drive cold traffic to a landing page and pray you close a huge monetary deal. The job of your advert should be to sell the click, not get a sale straight away. Remember, social platforms like Facebook are native platforms – people are browsing for consumption of information, not to buy from you. Your ads need to align with this basic philosophy otherwise your advert will get lost on the platform, and you’ll be punished by Facebook for a low clickthrough rate (and your ads will stop showing to as many people).

The freebies mentioned earlier (e-books, reports, consultations) are great ways to engage that 97% to educate them before they make a purchase. 3% of buyers don’t need that, because their pain is so great they’re buying in desperation but the overwhelming majority of traffic available needs some TLC before they buy from you, so it’s time to re-write your copy to make sure you’re talking to the much broader audience out there.

Honey attracts more flies than vinegar

Well, what do I say to prospects then?

“On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent eighty cents out of your dollar” (Ogilvy, 1948), so you better put out the best hook that is an absolute bullseye of pain-points and promises. The goal of your headline should scream ‘I can help you, I promise… just keep reading below to find out how’.

Lead with positivity, tell them what they want to hear, give them a guarantee and an immediate light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. The time to exacerbate their pain comes later, but for now, simply focus on everything they need to hear.

It’s all in the headline (case study!)

Let me show you the power of how a strong headline can have absolutely tidal wave like effects for your business.

When a new book is printed, typically around 5,000 books make the first print. In 1982, a book called Astro-Logical Love (Hayden) was published and followed this format, but only 2,000 went on to sell. Realising this crushing defeat, the author, Naura Hayden, arbitraged the remaining 3,000 to flea markets and discount bookstores for 99 cents apiece. From there, a New York publisher stumbled across the book, purchased it, read it and thought ‘what a great book on how to seduce women’.

Realising the immense potential the book had, he called Naura Hayden and purchased the rights to the book and republished it, changing just one thing.

You guessed it.

The title was changed from this:

To this:

Everything in-between the covers stayed the same; the only change was the headline (as far as copy is concerned, of course there are other differences with the cover such as colour use, images etc…). Anyway, this ‘new & updated’ version went on to sell 2.3 million copies in the first 18 months. Pretty mind-blowing, right?

So, what exactly makes a good headline? We touched on what to say above, but it’s all about how you say it. Here are some bullets that will help you to make irresistible headline copy:

• Use of numbers; headlines are far more compelling with the use of numbers and give a tangible structure to your solution. Consider any glamour, pop or fitness magazine you’ve ever seen when you were standing in-line at the checkout. They ALL take advantage of numbers – “11 common fat-burning mistakes the fitness industry doesn’t want you to know about”
• Timeframe; adding a timeframe makes the headline seem more achievable – “shed 10lbs of fat in 30 days”
• Even if, and; adding this little snippet helps dispel any distrust your prospect has already built up with their various interactions with other similar services, or general doubts about their own success – “Guaranteed page 1 ranking in 90 days, even if your website is brand new and/or you’ve tried other agencies before”
• Intrigue; one of the most compelling principles in human psychology. Great buzzwords for intrigue include (but not limited to) ‘shocking, exposed or horror’ – “Shocking break-through herbal remedy found in the Maldives increases metabolism by 957%”
• Guarantee; risk mitigation is an absolute must have to breakdown any objection your prospect can think of – “Guaranteed Google ranking on page 1 in 60 days or we work for free”

That’s enough golden nuggets for one read!

These are some simple hacks that you can apply to your ads and landing pages to explode your click-through and conversion rate. Why not apply some of these changes and let us know how you got on? If you need more intimate advise on how to best implement these strategies, then go-on ahead and apply here to see how Monetise can help you expand your business with blistering lead generation and innovation.