There’s nothing more disheartening than seeing visitors flooding into your site thanks to some good campaigns . . . But then not sticking around.

This is the frustration Bret Hoyt Sr., president of contract manufacturer Vitakem Nutraceuticals, was experiencing.

“Our website wasn’t working for us,” recalls Hoyt. “We had visitors coming in but very few were contacting our sales team.”

Hoyt approached me to see how we could turn this around.

Identifying The Problem(s)

Since the best solutions are built on a clear understanding of the problem, we started with a website content audit.

First, through an initial interview, I ferreted out the goals for the website, Vitakem’s USP and the competitive environment. Then, by examining the website data and assessing the website’s content I gathered clues that helped paint a picture of why website visitors were skipping away at the drop of a hat.

Here’s what I discovered:

The initial copy had been well optimized for search engines. But the human visitors had been largely ignored. In fact some of the website copy was downright unintelligible.

Adding Glue To The Webpages

Drawing on my knowledge of the nutrition industry and interviews with Vitakem’s sales team, we honed in on the pressing issues most prospective customers care about. I replaced the website’s existing copy with copy that was written for these potential customers while maintaining optimization for search engines.

As a result, the site’s overall bounce rate dropped from 57% down to 40%, with some individual pages dropping from bounce rates into the mid 80′s to bounce rates in the 20′s and 30′s. These numbers told us that less people were  “bouncing” off the pages (leaving soon after they’ve arrived).

Lead Generation Tactics

Now that visitors were sticking around more, we wanted to take them to the next step – initiating contact. The only invitation offered to visitors to contact the sales team was a Request-A-Quote link or a bland Contact Us option.

The site offered no opt-in incentive to visitors who were not ready to get a quote. Even worse, by making a quote request the sole contact option, it framed the whole sales discussion around pricing.

To change the focus of the conversation, we created a white paper, “6 Questions You Should Ask When Choosing Your Nutritional Supplement Manufacturer”. This paper positioned Vitakem not only as a service provider, but also as a helpful partner in making the crucial decision of choosing a contract manufacturer. And it took price away from the center of the initial conversation.

To gain more traffic, the report was also repurposed into several SEO articles that were used for two purposes: 1.) To bring in traffic through SEO and article marketing; and 2) as part of a survey and 3-part email series sent out to lapsed leads bringing them back to the sales team.

Following on the heels of the report download came a carefully-crafted 11-part autoresponder series. This series highlighted the report’s tactical information. It also prodded prospective customer pain points, reminding them of how Vitakem could help them. Each autoresponder’s call to action encouraged the prospect to call the sales team.

Finally, as an added push to encourage even more visitors to get in touch with the sales team, we created a 2-minute video. The video welcomed visitors to the home page and directed them to the report offering.

A Website That Helps Grow Business

Vitakem’s CEO and President, Bret Hoyt, Sr. couldn’t be more pleased with the results, “Since implementing the marketing funnel Sarah created, we’ve had a 20% increase in leads,” Hoyt reports. “But even more importantly, these leads are already pre-sold on our services helping us with our lead conversion.”

By finely tuning the messaging on the website, the report and the autoresponders to tap into prospective customers’ most pressing problems we made Vitakem an option visitors couldn’t ignore. The website and the report spoke to their questions, doubts and interests. And as a result, more visitors contacted the sales team and more of these leads were predisposed to like what they heard as the process continued.

Concludes Hoyt, “Overall, investing in Sarah’s expertise and keen understanding of the nutrition industry has been invaluable for my business.”

For more information on how a lead-generation strategy like this could help your B2B nutrition industry website, be sure and get this meaty report:

“How To Turn Your Website and White Paper Into A Recession-Busting Dynamic Duo”

Or email me at Sarah @ HealthyMarketingIdeas.com to schedule an appointment to discuss your marketing concerns

I’ve been trying to get my kids to put their dishes in the dishwasher.

Like most things I try to establish here, it took a few months of me calling out, “A., come get your bowl.” Or “O., is this your plate on the table?”

Too often I’d just pick up the stray dishes myself, grumbling all the way to the kitchen . . . Only to reprimand myself once I arrived that I was just keeping the problem going.

And then I’d go back to hollering.

If you’re a parent you know part of your job is to teach your children well.

But while we could have a huge discussion about what to teach your children, what rules we want them to live by, there’s one thing most parents can agree on . . .

It takes consistency.

The lessons we learn in life . . . the ideas that we grasp and hold onto and keep close in our pockets . . . the ones that we act on . . . are ones we hear again and again.

And the actions we take are more often than not something that comes as a result of lots of reminders.

This is true for even things we want to do. Not just putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

I wanted to go to peach picking at a nearby orchard. But it took several conversations and several false starts to finally get us on our bikes and head on over.

As marketers we’ve got to put this understanding into our marketing plans.

Especially in this economy . .

Marketing To The Natural Health Crowd: No Longer A One-Shot Deal

See, part of my job as a copywriter is to write a sales letter that grabs my prospect “by the eyeballs” as Clayton Makepeace would say and gets them to buy in one fell swoop.

But while this will happen for maybe 2% of your prospects who read your sales piece for the first time, it won’t work for a truly sizeable majority.

But that doesn’t mean that they don’t want what you’re selling.

It doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to buy what you’re selling.

It only means that they weren’t ready to move right at that second when they first got through your sales letter.

As marketer Bill Glazer explains, most of your customers are sitting on the fence.  In other words, huge profits are sitting on the fence.

And this economy, this is especially true.

Whereas a few years back, people would whip out their credit card with a nonchalant, “What the heck!” and buy something that piques their interest.

Now, each purchasing decision requires deliberation.

And unfortunately, your sales piece isn’t the only thing that’s weighing on their mind . . .

Within a matter of days, hours – no minutes! – your sales piece can be easily forgotten. Dust in the wind.

Unless you do something about it . . .

The Follow Up Autoresponder Follows Your Customers Even When They Might Forget About You

That’s where the autoresponder email comes in.

I love autoresponders. They’re fun to write. And they’re powerful.

An autoresponder series is a set of emails programmed to go out over an established interval to people who have demonstrated some interest in your product and provided you with their email address.

Usually they’ve opted in to watch a video or download a report or gotten a free sample in the mail.

They’re interested. Their eyeballs have been grabbed.  But their heart is still indecisive.

By sending out a series of emails you can continue to nurture your relationship with them and keep their mind on what you offer.

What A Good Follow Up Autoresponder Does

A good autoresponder doesn’t just sell. A good autoresponder . . .

• Builds a relationship. By using storytelling and telling more about yourself and your business, you help people to get to know you. And by finding ways to speak to their interests and experiences, you demonstrate that you understand them.

• Reminds them that you have a solution for them that they’ll like.

• Reinforces some of the concepts in your initial report or video and then gets them to the sales letter to see more.

• Reinforces the message of the sales letter, helping to move them off the fence in your direction.

• Gets them in the habit of opening your emails and clicking onto your links. Leads them to other content you have on your website.  Ultimately it gets them used to your presence in their inbox.

So don’t sell yourself short with single-shot sales letters.

Don’t do your potential customers a disservice by dropping them cold when they still need convincing, have questions. And don’t want to forget your solution.

Set up an autoresponder series.

This is an essential tool for both B2B and B2C companies who don’t want to leave money on the table.

Oh yeah, and when it comes to dirty dishes? Finally, I’m seeing the results. My daughter just walked straight from the dinner table and loaded her plate in the dishwasher where it belongs.

It took a bit of reminding – but it’s working!

As you well know by now, I learn a lot about writing for the natural health market from watching my animals here on the farm.  Well, here’s a lesson for web writing taken right from my nice little flock of chickens and a few usability experts I interviewed for Nutrition Business Journal . . .

Around midday I let my chickens out after most of them are done laying. (We don’t like easter egg hunts every afternoon.)  Inevitably, one hen hangs behind to do her business in the quiet of the recently vacated coop.

But the quiet does not last for long.  As soon as she has laid her egg, she lets out a triumphant/shocked cackle announcing her deed/discovery.

From the other side of the yard, wherever the flock has found some good scratching, the rooster turns towards the coop and lets out an answering call.  And then for the next five or ten minutes, a game of chicken Marco Polo ensues.  The hen tries to reunite with the rest of the flock by calling out to the rooster and navigating according to his response . . .

Hen, cackling desperately: “Where are you?!”

Rooster, in a slightly panicked, hiccupping sort of call: “Over here!”

“Where are you?!”

“Over here!”

“Marco?!”

“Polo!”

Listening to this, watching the hen walking tentatively towards the sound of the rooster, craning her neck as she looks from side to side, you begin to understand where the Chicken Little story came from.  This whole episode lingers on the edge of panic.  The hen is desperate to find the flock.  But she is at the same time ready to turn and sprint back to the coop at the slightest hint of danger. And the rooster seems equally flustered . . .

Finally she gets to the latest foraging spot and peace returns to the yard.

Well, despite our bigger brains, us humans act much like these chickens when it comes to surfing the web.  And key to getting traffic to stay on your website – and ultimately convert – is to get your visitors to stop panicking . . . relax . . . and start scratching around contentedly.

What do I mean by this?

People are busy, eager to get their task done on the internet.  When they do a search on Google and choose a page from the search results to visit, they really don’t want to waste any time.  They’re only going to spend about 3 seconds scanning your first web page to figure out if it’s where they want to be.  If it’s not, they’ll click away.

Just like the scatter-brained hen, your web visitors are letting out a constant stream of cackling in their mind of “Is this the right place?!”

Your job is to let out a constant reassurance – just like friend Rooster: “Yes, you’re on the right track.  Keep going.”

So what can you do on your website to make sure they feel like they’ve come to the right spot?

I just had a good hour-long interview with Scott Kincaid and Tom Cherry from Usability Sciences about usability issues.  Usability Sciences works with companies large and small to make sure their websites are visitor-friendly.  Many of their pointers were about assuring visitors that they will find what they are looking for on your website.

Web Page Writing/Chicken Little Reassurance Step 1:

The first, most important thing is to make sure you know who your visitors are. Look at your web analytics and see what search terms visitors are using when they come to your site.  Look at your website’s internal search data and see what people are looking for and where they leave.

Then go a little deeper. Have someone outside of your business test your site.

Usability Science has a whole systematized way for doing this – and 30 years experience in getting at how well your site is working for visitors.

But Kincaid says that even if you don’t use expert help, you can still get a lot of valuable insights just by getting an opinion on your website from someone outside of your business.  Ask your jogging partner or your neighbor.  Have them visit your site in your presence and give them a task to do.  Have them tell you what words they’re looking for and what words confuse them when they first come onto the home page.

Can they easily find the right route – page click to page click – that gets them to where they want to go?  Are they finding the information they need?  What barriers come up as they try to get through your site?

Your analytics and this third-party opinion should give you a clear picture of who your visitor is, what language they’re expecting and what they’re hoping to accomplish on your website.

Now you need to assure them that they can get their task accomplished easily on your site.

Web Page Writing/Chicken Little Reassurance Step 2:

Start with the home page.  “The home page design can be an enormous factor toward the success of the site,” Kincaid said. “This is the starting point for visitors’ browsing, searching and really aligning their personal needs with the mission of the site.”

1. Make sure you identify you website  – what your company is about in a brief phrase or tagline on the top left hand side of each page.  This is the spot where people look first when they come to a website and this is the primo spot to let them know they’re in the right spot.
2. Provide clear options for next steps for what they can do from your home page.  And make them action-oriented directives.  Most websites have the directive “Shop” and some have a clear option, “Learn”.  But if your visitors are coming to a more specific landing page or your website is more narrowly focused, make these directives more specific:  “Find the best multivitamin for you” or ” See how magnesium can make a difference in your health.
3. Double-check your language throughout your text:  Are you using words that your prospects are using? This is more than good for SEO.  Are you explaining terms and using accessible language so your prospects feel comfortable on your site?
4. Use bullets and bolded subheads to make it easy for visitors to scan through your page and figure out what your website is about.

Keep these four points in mind throughout your website.

Finally,

Web Page Writing/Chicken Little Reassurance Step 3:

Look for different ways to assure shoppers that it’s okay to shop here.

1. Do you have testimonials or reviews posted demonstrating that other people have been happy buying from you?
2. Do you have customer service contact info posted prominently so people can get questions answered, returns processed easily, etc.?
3. Do you have icons that indicate you’re a safe shopping site like BBBonline?
4. Do you offer a clear guarantee and return policy?

Put these three steps into play and your panicked chickens – ehem, I mean visitors – will be scratching contentedly on your site.

Add some fowl observations or webwriting tips of your own in the comments – I’d love to hear from you.

If you’d like some copywriting help in making your website user-friendly . . . and keeping your flock of visitors from scattering . . . please consider my services.  You can contact me at Sarah@healthymarketingideas.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Again, I highly recommend Nick Usborne’s online copywriting course on writing for the web to give you more specifics on copywriting for good usability.

Don’t let the doom and gloom get you down.  There are still plenty of marketing tactics to keep your business moving while minimizing the cost.

And to get the most bang for your buck, nothing can compare with the internet.  Search engine marketing is a great way to get customers for minimal advertising dollars . . . if done right.

See my article below about some cautions to keep in mind when working on your website.

And at the end, check out this great online copywriting course for getting a hold of some web copywriting techniques that sell.

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In mid-December, I received a hands-on lesson on the limits to technology – or actually, I should say, the beauty of older technologies.  Ice storms left us without power for five days.

Left without the usual conveniences, I had to develop a savvy that three generations ago would seem commonplace.  I learned to gauge the different spots on my woodstove for heating different foods.  How to take an efficient bath with stove-heated water.  And I kept a careful eye on the thermometer outside as I shuffled perishables between my porch and the root cellar.

I became focused on the most basic strategies for keeping comfortable during these few days.  And interestingly enough, I also became more aware of how satisfying warmth, a good meal, and a clean kitchen is.

And while I have since welcomed the return of my dishwasher and refrigerator, it made me think about how new technologies can sometimes prevent us from attending to basic skills and experiences.  Sometimes even causing us to neglect fundamental things we should be attending to.

A great reminder for me, a health copywriter who specializes in writing for the web.

You see, the web is a fantastic combination of new technologies.  My business depends on it.  It enables me to write for clients in California and Texas from my home in New Hampshire.  Just like it enables your business to expand your customer base, communicate more cost-efficiently and measure the effectiveness of these communications with analytics.

But it’s easy to get so swept up in the technology of the web, that we lose sight of some of the basics of communication.  I admit I’m a little biased, being a copywriter, but I have to emphasize how great technology can’t make up for good copy.

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

SEO Madness Search Engine Optimization is one of the most cost-efficient ways to market.  As a copywriter, I love SEO because it forces me to really think about how the people I’m trying to reach are thinking about the product I’m writing about.  It forces me to be more of a communicator  – not just a writer.  But it’s easy to get lost in SEO.  I’ve seen too much copy that is like a splatter of key words with very little sense pulling it together.

Use SEO to make your website friendly to your customers and the search engines.  But keep it in the realm of communication.  Don’t sacrifice interesting, compelling, and comprehensible copy for a bunch of key words.

Autoresponder Dependency Autoresponders make our life easier – it’s like keeping up with 1000’s of penpals and not losing track of it all.  But how many autoresponder messages in your inbox do you really feel like reading?  Or even worse, leave you confused.

I mentioned this in my report, “17 Health Copywriting Tactics for a Tough Economy”, and I’ll harp on it again.  Make sure you take advantage of each communication – no matter how automated – to build a stronger connection with your customers.  Good autoresponder messages are:

• Personable.  They don’t sound like a form letter.
• Identifiable.  The from and/or the subject line clearly link back to previous messages or the website.
• Clear.  They anticipate questions and confusion and clearly explain what’s going on and what action the customer should take, if any.
• Helpful. They connect people to additional help if they should need it with an url, phone number and email address.
• Interesting.  Use it to continue to pique your customer’s interest and excitement about the product they just bought; the next one they might buy from you; or your company in general.

Blinding Glitter Now I have to admit, after reading and writing all day, I often get a kick out of a well-done bit of Flash art on a website.  While researching one Nutrition Business Journal article, I lingered on each visit to Dr. Smoothie’s website.  The website’s background music kept me feeling mellow, despite my deadline.  But don’t let these technologies get in the way of your customers getting to your copy.

• Don’t let flash art, etc. slow down your website.  And make sure you present a way to opt out of flashy openings to your website for customers who just want to get down to business.
• Provide alternative text for graphics and videos.  Search engines can only read the text. No matter how pertinent and interesting your graphics may be, they won’t help your rankings.  Provide a brief alternative text description.  And for better mileage, refer to a benefit in that alternative text as well.
• Don’t rely on artful technology to keep or even capture your prospect’s attention.  Remember, many web shoppers are very task-oriented.  Words do the best job of letting people know they’ve come to the right place, getting them excited about what you have to offer and helping them make that purchase.
• Don’t rely on graphics to help your customer navigate your site.  Provide clear text instructions and information that reinforces your graphics.  Don’t risk ambiguity.

Online shoppers like to feel there’s a person behind the website. So talk to them.  Put good basic communication up front and technology will just help it go further.

Resource:

For a fantastic tutorial on how to craft great online copy – from sales pages to emails – nothing beats Nick Usborne’s Million Dollar Secrets to Online Copywriting. Nick has been copywriting for 25 years, 11 of those focusing exclusively on online copy.  His clients range from Disney to Yahoo.

This professional-grade online copywriting course provides you with everything you need to know to write hard-working web copy.  Get your copy here.

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If you’d like some help in making your website or e-communications more shopper- and search-engine friendly, consider using my services.  Contact me at sarah@healthymarketingideas.com.

It’s tempting to take pre-existing copy that’s worked well in a brochure or sales letter and simply post it on the web – instant website!

However, it’s not that simple.

And while the initial differences between most other forms of copywriting and web copywriting may seem even a little awkward, in fact they can make your marketing as sharp as a razor.

Here’s why:

When you send a sales letter in the mail, your primary objective is to make sure your carefully-wrought sales pitch doesn’t get tossed in the recycling bin. Your prospect is on defense, all alerts on high because she can’t waste her precious time on another piece of junk mail. This puts you in an almost combative role.

However, on the web, it’s a reverse scenario. Your prospect has sought you out. They’ve typed in a google search – or maybe decided to go to your website directly using the url that they got from a space ad or other source. They’re looking for your product.

But hold on, don’t get too comfortable yet . . . Even though they haven’t tossed you in the recycling bin, they can easily click on the back button and leave your website – often never to return.

Since you’ve got that initial interest, you have to make sure that you keep it. And the way to do that is to make sure that your website is pinpoint relevant to what they are looking for. So your headline has to say quite clearly, “I’m exactly what you’re looking for, look no further.”

And then make sure the rest of your web page follows suit. Give them good, relevant and straightforward information – with access to the final product they’re seeking. While they may have doffed their junk-mail alert cap when searching you out, they are certainly wearing their b.s.-detector hat squarely on their head. The web is no place for hyped up messages.

And then there’s search engines . . .

As much as we marketing folks sometimes think about search engines as some kind of wily chess master we’re up against, when it comes down to it – they’re really designed to help people surfing the web find exactly what they want – and easily. Search engines are almost like that little copywriting angel sitting on your shoulder whispering in your ear, “Are you really speaking directly to your prospects – really? In their words?”

They keep us pushing hard to find out what people are looking for, what they’re concerned about, in their words. So in this sense, search engine optimization (SEO) is really just helping you tune your marketing to your market.

Now, granted, they are still limited in sorting through some of the subtleties that goes on in human communication and that’s why we don’t let search engines write copy and shouldn’t let them dominate how we write and communicate with our audience.

Good web copy speaks clearly, comfortably and convincingly to your prospect. They shouldn’t feel like they’re hearing from an automaton. They shouldn’t look over they’re shoulder to check if maybe there is someone else that this website is for – not them. They should feel when they get to your webpage that that is exactly where they want to be.

A few final ingredients:

• Make your website user-friendly. Help them navigate easily, through each step to get the information they want and to secure the product you’re offering. Remember, there is no clearcut path a visitor to your website uses. So spend time thinking about the different routes they might take and how you can influence this and facilitate this process, making their visit enjoyable and productive for both of you.

• Keep it simple. Don’t put high-tech gadgets that just make using the web more tedious and frustrating. Web users are very task-oriented: They want to get their job done and feel satisfied that they didn’t waste time or money and that they are wealthier in knowledge and a useful product for it.

Please add your two cents on this below – I’d love to hear your comments.

For more ideas on how to make your website work better – or create one that works great! – contact me at Sarah@healthymarketingideas.com.

And sign up to get a copy of my free report just for health marketers:  “5 Internet Marketing Mistakes . . . And How To Fix Them For Online Success”.

It’s really pretty funny.  I’ll be walking back to the house from releasing the crackens, ehem I mean chickens, and if I stop a moment inevitably I’ll feel a bump against the back of my foot.  I know who the culprit is.  Roo Roo, as my children call her because of her rooster-like cockfighting moves, is always tailing us around the yard.

While the other chickens keep a relatively wary distance from us unless we have food, Roo Roo just sticks right behind us, bumping right into us if we stop suddenly.

She’s one of the chicks my kids hatched last year in an incubator.  And we speculate that she may have imprinted on us.  By imprinting, I mean the way that baby birds take the image of the first creature they see when they hatch and stick it in the box in their brain labeled “Mama”.  And from then on that creature is their mother hen.

The way Roo Roo tags along and jumps onto my kids’ laps and shoulders indicates a level of familiarity beyond the average chicken-human connection.  Imprinting is the only explanation, short of a bizarre chicken quirk of personality.

Now, as usual, there’s a great web writing lesson here.

Just like Roo Roo imprinted on us and follows along diligently, you want your website visitors to do the same thing.

You want to imprint your company – your image – in their brains in such a way that they place you in the box labeled “beloved source of vitamins” or “my home for healthy products”. Or best of all, “the only place I’ll ever go to buy . . .”

And then they keep coming back to you to shop.

How do you do this? Two things:

1. Imprint on Your Visitors With Good USP Use

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is key to your success.  It’s what defines you from the rest of the crowd.  It’s what makes your customers love you.  It also may be what makes some people decide you’re not what they’re looking for.

And that’s okay.

You want to figure out who you’re selling to, who you can really help solve a problem and then focus on them with laser-like precision.  When you do so, when you get specific about what you offer, you’ll make them feel like you really understand them and can really help them.

Inevitably some people won’t quite connect with what you’re saying.  And the nice thing with the web with 1/5 of the world’s population buzzing around is that you can still find enough ardent fans to do very well.

So to define your USP ask yourself these questions:

-         Who is my ideal customer?

-         What is their primary pain I can help soothe or their burning desire?

-         How does my service or product help them do this? Which features help it do this?

-         How does my company do things differently?  How do we make the shopping experience more successful, more of a pleasure, less rife with obstacles?

-         How do I do this differently or better than my competition?

-         How is my competition articulating the way they help and how can I define myself from this?

Consider the tone of voice, the personality you want to establish for your company.  And what kind of relationship you want to establish with your visitors.

And then try to put this together in 3 sentences at the very most. Whew! That’s the tough one.

By doing so, you’ll define your USP.

But once you figure your USP out, don’t just rest on your laurels. Get it out there.  Online conversion expert Bryan Eisenberg notes that one of the main strategies top converting websites use is making sure their USP is highly visible not only on their home page but on their internal pages as well since these may be the landing pages people come to first.

So scan your home page and make sure that in those 3 seconds you’ve got to make an impression on a visitor you can tell them why they should stick around.

And then look at your internal pages for similar references that keep your visitors with you.

2. Develop content that supports your USP beautifully.

Not only do you need to state your USP up front, but make it ring true.  Now I’m not going to get into product formulation or customer service here since that’s not really my area of expertise.

What I can talk about is how you underscore your USP by providing information that both defines you and makes your customers and visitors happy and satisfied.

Solicit feedback from your customers, research keywords diligently, keep a close eye on Twitter and then simply make sure you provide quality, interesting, helpful, entertaining content on your website.

A couple months ago a potential client asked me, “With content, isn’t it more about quantity than quality?”

Unfortunately, grey hat SEO folks have pushed things more in that direction by using optimized content mills to get Google rankings.

But that’s changing now.  Too many people were frustrated with searches that ended on top ranking web pages filled with semicoherent optimized babblings with no substance.  Google picked up on this and shifted things with the new algorithms they introduced in May.

So be prepared to see better results for your good content from Google.  But better yet, happy visitors who decide to buy from you and customers who keep coming back.

When you provide this kind of service that connects people to your solutions and their happiness, you make your USP more than just a few sentences. You make it your way of doing business and your presence on the web.

So develop your USP, make it visible and then substantiate it with more solid content.  Before you know it you’ll feel a bump bump bump of all the visitors and customers who have been following you around and are lining up to do business with you.

Just like Roo Roo, our besotted cock-fighting hen does when the objects of her affection pause to look around.

If you want to improve your copywriting for both homepages and content in general, check out this great web copywriting course that helped me get going online.

What are your ideas about developing a USP?  How has it helped your business and conversion rates? And if you have a Roo Roo-like story, please share it!

Lies!

My daughter was caught lying.

It was a simple issue – she had gone online to look at videos when she was supposed to be working on her Japanese.  But instead of fessing up, she concocted a story about using Google to find a definition for a Japanese word.

Now it’s a small thing in some ways.  Kids are notorious for playing when they’re supposed to be buckling down.

 But it’s huge in its ramifications. The major transgression here was her lie.  And trust isn’t something you can play with.

For years, she’s trumped her younger brother in many a dispute because she has a reputation for honesty.  Often we’ve used her spotless record to prod him to be more forthcoming.  He’s had to work hard to make his arguments hold water since he has such a tendency to embroider the truth.

But my girl – she’s been reliable . . . until for some fluke – today.  Or maybe not . . .

See that’s the terrible consequence she faced when she stepped into the world of fabrication.  She no longer has that credibility with us.  All the past was left in doubt.  And even more significant . . .

Everything she said from now one would have to be backed up with evidence.  We couldn’t just take her on her word.  She’s going to have to work hard to regain this trust that took so little time to disintegrate.

This is the importance of truthfulness in advertising. 

As people get to know you, they begin to trust you.  And that trust transfers over not only to the immediate sales letter you just sent them . . . but to the next one and the next one.  It builds up.  It makes selling easier.

But be caught lying – even in one small bit – and that trust is shattered.  You’ve got mountains to climb to get back there.

Garden of Life’s Jordan Rubin hit this when his Ph D was questioned.  Tiger Woods’ sponsors faced this when his integrity showed some cracks.  I’m sure you can come up with plenty of examples yourself.

Now, I bring this up for a very specific reason.  As a copywriter, I work to create rapport between the market and the person I’m writing as (the company CEO, health expert in residence, etc.)  As a copywriter, I’m used to putting words in people’s mouth.  It’s like being a speechwriter when you write a sales letter for somebody.  I don’t fabricate any of the info I put together – but in some ways I’m putting on a façade as I write in someone else’s name.

But what happens with social media?  What happens when you hit Twitter or comment on forums or blog in another person’s name?  Can you still do this?  Is it a breach of trust?  Does the public assume that some tweets are carefully crafted by professionals-for-hire?  Are they okay with that? Or if I write in someone else’s name is that a lie?

And I’ll add an even stickier layer with a recent large online revelation.  Copywriter James Chartrand revealed that he was actually a she.  She had taken a male penname because she found she got more, better-paying clients when she presented herself as a man.  In the Copyblogger blog where she told the truth, her self-disclosure was taken with a warm round of applause.  But how about her clients?  Was there fallout?

Plenty of copywriters (like Michael Masterson) take pen names – I’ve thought about it myself to protect my privacy.  (Full disclosure:  I don’t.) But how does this factor into the age of social media, transparency, and relationship-building.

As James (or Jamie, now?) made it clear:  It’s only a matter of time before someone uncovers the truth if they really want to.  You’ve got to be prepared with an explanation.

On one hand, I feel that if the idea of using a professional writer in social media makes you feel conned, you’ve got a certain naivete about the world.  As much as we feel buddy-buddy in chat rooms, it’s not the same as really getting to know someone.  Face to face.  And to expect that it is the same is not understanding that we’re still communicating through the safe distance of our machines.

But as copywriters, we also write to tap into people’s emotions – again, building trust and asking people to let down their defenses.  And it’s not something to take lightly.

I don’t have a conclusion here.  I’m trying to sort through this myself.  I’m working on marketing projects that require tweeting and intimate-feeling emails.  And so much of this is new, it’s hard to find tested results and best-practices.

 But it’s an important question for us copywriters to broach as we move online and then into the social realm.   I’m asking you to help me and all of us tuning in here to sort through this.  What do you think?  What guidelines do you use for online honesty?  I’m all ears.