It’s often, pretty much every single day, that we come by a promise to make money in just a few clicks. It can either hit us in the mail or pop up in our twitter time line. Either way, it’s hard to believe that either someone or something is going to teach us how to make money THAT fast and THAT easy, right?

That’s probably why when I say that this website will teach you how to make money in 13 clicks won’t give you much but a little annoying feeling at the bottom of your stomach toward me, my blog and everything this industry represents.

Anyway, although I don’t support this kind marketing, the reason sites like this one still exist, is because they convert! Why? It’s one of the most basic lessons in copywriting: people want results fast results and they want them yesterday!

The promise of incredibly fast results will always work. That’s why Herbalife, Agel and Vitamark were a hit back in the day-they promised to fix your health fast, easy and make you money in the process. I mean, what can be better than that, right?

However, keep in mind that unless you can really deliver what you’re saying in your copy, eventually, your own promise can kill your business. Unless you deliver, eventually, your customers will find out that you’re a phony and terminate the relationship. So, beware when making a promise like this!

There’s an old saying that says that we are incapable of genuinely understanding someone until we have walked a mile in their shoes. Same is true about marketing and understanding your customer.

How else can we know what drives our customers to buy our products unless we GET them?

The goal here is understanding. How can you motivate someone, how you can you persuade someone, how can you sell someone without understanding that person?

However, as transparent as it may seem, it can be easily forgotten. For example, when I sold my Mastermind Mindset course, my sales copy reflected my mistakes.

Although I carefully identified my customers’ objections, I forgot to address them in my sales copy. I gave my prospects no reason to either believe me or the claims I was making regarding what my course can do for them and their businesses.

As a result, I was embarrassed to admit to myself that I had 0% conversions for a $27 product. It was one of those Huge Failures that made me understand that I was shooting blind relying simply on the product and fancy graphics.

What I lacked was connection with my customer who, as I determined later, was a frustrated internet marketer who’s looking for a silver bullet product that will cure his marketing using nothing but pure magic.

Although my product seemed to fit the magic bullet criteria, since I showed my students how to improve their marketing using nothing but thought, no one bought my course, because I’ve overlooked the fact that internet marketers are guided by the belief that nearly everyone’s a scammer and that sales copies are lies.

Did I forget that when I’ve written my 24 page sales copy? You bet. I assumed that I was trustworthy and as a result failed miserably at marketing a low ticket offer.

To better understand your customer you need to spend at least 20% of your time “in the field” communicating with them, getting to know them, finding out what their problems are, who do they vote for and whether they believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny.

10 Questions To Answer To Better Understand Your Customer

To better understand your customer, Dan Kennedy recommends answering 10 questions:

1. What keeps them awake at night, indigestion boiling up their esophagus, eyes open, staring at the ceiling?
2. What are they afraid of?
3. What are they angry about? Who are they angry at?
4. What are their top three daily frustrations?
5. What trends are occurring and will occur in their businesses or lives?
6. What do they secretly, ardently desire most?
7. Is there a built-in bias to the way they make decisions? (Example: engineers = exceptionally analytical)
8. Do they have their own language?
9. Who else is selling something similar to them, and how?
10. Who else has tried selling them something similar, and how has that effort failed?

In addition to these questions you might want to gather demographics: age, occupation, income level, zip code etc. These factors are bound to help you in answering all of the 10 mentioned above.

6 More Things You Can Do To Better Understand Your Customer

Here are 6 more things you can do to better understand your customer:

1. Read the same publications and blogs your customer reads
2. Visit the same discussion forums and message boards
3. Play pretend customer with other vendors
4. Attend your industry trade shows, conventions and seminars
5. Subscribe to the same mailing lists your customer subscribes to
6. Regularly mastermind with other marketers and vendors who provide the service in your industry

The Best Way Ever To Understand Your Customer

To this day I haven’t found a better way to understand your customer then actually talking with him and asking him what is his biggest problem or frustration and delivering a product which solves that problem faster and better than any other product out there.

That’s not only the best way to understand your customer but it’s also the easiest way to sell anything to anyone ever!

At the end of the day, marketing is as much about understanding as marriage: strength of your household is determined by the level of understanding between you, your spouse and her mother .

Today I want to teach you the easiest way of overcoming sales objections without being pushy or obnoxious.

First, let’s go over the most common objections your prospects might have:

• Financial Risk Of Loss
• Effort Required To Learn Something New
• Looking Foolish To Others
• Why Should I Trust You?

Overcoming Objections

There are 2 ways of overcoming sales objections:

1. Addressing the objections straight forward, head on
2. Be more subtle about …sneaky even

Addressing Sales Objections Head On

If you want to overcome objections by blatantly addressing them, use the following statement:

“As attractive as this product/service/offer is, our marketing experts tell us that only about X% of the people receiving it will respond.

Although that’s okay with us from a business standpoint, it still bothers me personally.

You see, I know how much the owners/users of our product/service/offer benefit from it. I read their letters; I talk to them on the phone; I see them personally when they visit us; and hundreds/thousands/millions each year tell me that “(strong, brief customer quote).”

Because of this, I just hate the thought of someone not getting our product/service/offer because of some error or omission in our explanation. That’s why I held a special brainstorming session with a group of our people just to try to figure out why you might say “no” to our free trial offer.

After several hours, our group could think of only three possible reasons.

[list the reasons and explain why they are misleading]“

I have used this form on numerous sales letter I wrote for myself and for my business partners and it proved to be very effective.

And if you don’t want to take my word for it, take Den Kennedy’s, because I ripped it off from him

The Sneaky Way Of Overcoming Sales Objections

Although I call it “The Sneaky Way Of Overcoming Sales Objections”-it isn’t.

There’s nothing sneaky about telling stories. After all, that’s how we communicate throughout our lives-by telling each other stories.

Telling stories and fables is in our DNA, it’s an unconscious communication pattern-and that what makes this method so “sneaky”.

I guess by now you’ve figured out what is going to happen next? Yes, I am going to tell you a story, the purpose of which is to overcome the 4 most common objections in sales:

“This internet business thing has always seemed like a non-realistic thing to me.

But when life left me no chance but to find an additional income stream to support my wife and 2 kids, I decided to give it a shot (although I knew that my friends are going to make fun of me when they’ll find out).

And to my surprise, it took me only 2 days to set everything up even though I didn’t know jack about technology…

Before I knew it, I started making money and I quadrupled the money I invested into this by the end of the third week!

Now, the only problem, I guess, are my annoying friends, who are chasing me down-begging to borrow them money (because now I have much more then they do)…”

Here’s How This Story Overcomes All 4 Of The Common Sales Objections:

“This internet business thing has always seemed like a non-realistic thing to me.”

By acknowledging the fact that you didn’t think this whole internet business is realistic you show your prospects that you are just like them and therefore-you can be trusted. You’re also addressing the objection of not wanting to learn something new and complicated.

“But when life left me no chance but to find an additional income stream to support my wife and 2 kids, I decided to give it a shot (although I knew that my friends are going to make fun of me when they’ll find out).”

In this short paragraph you identify with your target market (a family man with wife and 2 kids in this case) to establish more trust and also address the objection of being seen as a fool by your friends.

“And to my surprise, it took me only 2 days to set everything up even though I didn’t know jack about technology…”

In this short sentence you overcome the objection of learning something new and complicated. You show to your prospects that it is much easier then they think, even they lack knowledge in technology.

“Before I knew it, I started making money and I quadrupled the money I invested into this by the end of the third week!”

In this sentence you address the objection of financial risk by showing the fast multiplied return on investment.

“Now, the only problem, I guess, are my annoying friends, who are chasing me down-begging to borrow them money (because now I have much more then they do)…”

In the last paragraph you overcome the objection of being seen as a fool by others by showing that by following through you end up having a higher social status in your community.

Know Your Target Market

The reason why I was able to easily identify and eliminate the objections of my target market is because I know them, and that’s what you should do too-get to know your target market, find the most common objections and craft a wicked story to demonize the hell out of them.

P.S: Don’t let me wrong-I don’t want you to lie. Don’t make up things that didn’t really happen to you.ONLY TELL THE TRUTH (otherwise-it will byte you in the ass!)!

P.P.S: If you think that you don’t have any stories to tell to overcome objections and you would like to learn how to do so without being a super successful expert in your market-please let me know by leaving a comment below.

The reason I am always chattering about headlines being the most important part of your sales letter is because headlines ARE the most important part of your sales letter…

I have already shared with you my 7 fill-in-the-blank headline formulas, however, you can never have too much headline formulas up your sleeve, so I decided to post some more proven-to-work benefit rich headline recipes…

1. [number] [resource] Saving Tips For _____

5 Money Saving Tips For Single Moms

10 Time Saving Tips For Entrepreneurs

2. [number] Ways To [benefit] Your _____ Without Spending More [resource]

3 Ways To Improve Your Health Without Spending More Money

9 Ways To Control Your Staff Without Spending More Energy

3. [number] Ways To _____ And [benefit]

5 Ways To Sleep And Make Money

47 Ways To Eat And Lose Weight

4. How To Get _____ In Half The Time

How To 3 Times Slimmer in Half The Time

How To Train Your Dog In Half The Time

5. Top [number] Tips For Hassle Free _____

Top 17 Tips For Hassle Free Divorce

Top 3 Tips For Hassle Free Cookout

6. Who Else Wants To _____ ?

Who Else Wants To Experience The Best Weekend Ever?

Who Else Wants To Discover How I Made 2 Million Dollars Last Year Alone?

7. Plan a Perfect _____

Plan a Perfect Summer Vacation

Plan a Perfect Business Strategy

I recommend starting a swipe file of headline formulas and of copywriting material in general. It will help you later on when you will be writing your own sales copy, blog posts and even if just looking for copywriting inspiration. Enjoy!

Every sales copy needs a P.S. Don’t consider your work complete without a properly crafted Post Scriptum. The P.S can literally make or break any sales copy, ad or proposal.

Creative P.S is crucial because, believe it or not, many people never read your sales letter – they skip to the P.S first. Some want to look at the signature to find out who is writing to them while others want to know whether there is an affiliate program available. But for the most part people are just perverse.

This is the kind of people that reads the end of the mystery novel before buying it and cheats when playing Need For Speed just to see how the game ends. Long story short, those people eat their desert first.

However, their perversity is your opportunity because you can use their behavior to encourage them to read the whole sales letter. By properly summarizing your offer in the P.S you can inspire them to read the whole letter with greater enthusiasm then if they weren’t so perverse.

You should also apply scarcity in your P.S by reminding them of limited time offer or quantity. It proved to be a very powerful boost to not only read the sales letter without blinking but also to take instant action.

And even if the reader has read the P.S in the proper sequence, the P.S serves as a high impact “second headline” you simply can’t afford to ignore.

P.S: You have just found out how to use the P.S section of your sales letter to boost conversions.

P.P.S: If you find this post helpful, interesting or valuable in any other way, please take a second to ReTweet it to your followers. Thanks!

One of the most prevailing misconceptions among the majority of internet marketers is that in order to increase Opt In rates you need to increase the Traffic Flow to your website.

It’s Hard to Get Further Away From the Truth.

You don’t need a whole lot of traffic to run a successful business. Moreover, traffic happens to be the problem once in a blue moon (although most marketers tend to focus solely on this particular aspect of their business).

There is a reason why people like Dan Kennedy (and other successful copywriters I am not familiar with but know exist) is paid up to $25,000 for writing ONE SALES LETTER. Converting visitors into customers is much harder than it seems to be and that is probably the single biggest challenge internet marketers are failing to overcome.

Here’re 4 things you can do to increase visitor to customer conversion ratio instantly

1. Above The Fold Design. More than 80% of visitors never scroll down. It means that 80% of your traffic never gets to see your opt in form and “Get Instant Access” button. You need to have at least 2 opt in forms when designing a capture page: one at the upper right corner of the page and one at the bottom.

2. Headline. You see me talking about this nearly in every single post I make about copywriting and capture pages. Headlines are extremely important. Your headline probably is somewhat close to 50% of your sales letter’s success. If the headline doesn’t compel the reader to find out more, peak his curiosity or state a benefit – your visitors won’t be motivated to read your letter.

3. Bullet points. Another common mistake is a list of bullet points that talk features, not benefits. When compiling a list of bullet points for your copy – talk BENEFITS. People don’t care about features. People love to read benefits. Features don’t make their life better – benefits DO! Talk about how your product is going to improve their lives. Make it hard for them to imagine their lives without it.

4. Call To Action. People are lazy. They take their time to move their asses and do something. Remind them what they need to do if you want them to actually do that. After you have created the design, came up with genius headline and got them hungry for your product – remind them what they need to do to actually get it. Remind them to opt in!

Can You Recommend More Tips To Improve Opt In Rates? Leave A Comment!

It is often said that headline is the most important aspect of copywriting. Judging by the quality of your headline, the prospect will arrive at the conclusion whether he is going to continue reading your sales letter.

What your headline says and how it says it are absolutely decisive. You might compare it to a sales person going door-to-door trying to buy just enough time to transform from annoying pest to welcome guest.

Headline is supposed to create interest, melt resistance, peak curiosity and to get the reader motivated to read the sales letter. Headline might even be the separation between 0.02% conversion and a total success!

1. They Didn’t Think I Could ______, But I Did.

The headline works well because of our natural desire to root for the underdog. People love success stories and this kind of headline will get a person curious enough to read the sales letter.

They Didn’t Think I Could Speak Italian, But They Didn’t Expect What Happened Next.

They Didn’t Think I Was Any Good, But Their Doubt Vanished When I Picked Up The Guitar.

2.  Who Else Wants ______?

This headline implies that many know what the reader doesn’t.

Who Else Wants A $124,556 In FREE Training?

Who Else Wants The Biggest Steak In Texas?

3. How ______ Made Me ______.

The headline introduces a first person story. People love stories and are remarkably interested in other people.

How A Homeless Person’s Advice Made Me The Richest Man In Babylon.

How A Weather Forecast Saved My Life.

4. Are You ______?

This question headline is supposed to grab reader’s attention by challenging, provoking or arousing curiosity.

Are you ashamed of your car?

Are you one of those people who never tips the waiter?

5. How To _____.

Probably two the most powerful words you can use in a headline.

How To Dominate The Search Engines In 30 Minutes.

How To Get 1034 Followers in 72 Minutes.

6. Secrets Of _____.

Everyone loves a secret, don’t you?

Secrets Of World’s Top Bloggers.

Insider Secrets Of The Top MLM Producer.

7. Warning: ______!

“Warning” is a very powerful word. It grabs attention faster than a naked woman holding a “STOP” sign.

Warning: 95% Of Internet Marketers Are Doomed To Failure In 2009.

Warning: 43% Of People Above 40 Are Exposed To Arthritis.

Got More Headline Formulas? Please leave a comment!

Why 90% Of Today’s Ads Are A Total Waste Of Money

Hundreds of Millions of dollars are being invested in advertising each year by all the major corporations. Nissan, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Snickers, Kit-Kat – all of them are guilty of lousy advertising investments.

Most of the ads we watch on TV and read in Newspapers aren’t working anymore. When I am watching 2009 Lexus IS250 riding around on New Zealand’s finest roads, it still doesn’t make me want to have a Lexus. It does make me want to go to New Zealand though, but that wasn’t what the adman wanted to accomplish, was it?

Most of today’s advertising agencies are clueless. Giving them control over your marketing campaigns would be as crazy as hiring a hungry rabbit to guard a warehouse full of carrots. MADNESS!

Ad agencies are charging millions for creativity but if you were to look at the sales statistics before and after the ad release, more often than not, sales go DOWN. However, it doesn’t concern the adman very much, he got his 7 figure check and he is off to get that Lexus IS250 he wanted so bad while he was creating the ad.

Creativity Over Sales?

Couple of years ago Nissan hired one of the industry’s most Creative ad directors – Lee Clow (note: very close to “Clown,” coincidence?) to create a series of TV commercials for Nissan’s new production line of cars.

The Clow(n) presented Nissan with a series of the most creative ads ever made: Toy action figures driving around in toy Nissan cars. There even were dinosaurs involved…WOW!

The ads were pure entertainment and didn’t include a word about how great, unique, affordable or convenient Nissan cars are… You can imagine what happened next.

As soon as the ads began running – Nissan’s sales hit the dirt. According to The Wall Street Journal, the month the “toy” ads debuted, Nissan’s sales fell 2.7%. The next month they fell 10.2%… then 4.2% … and then, 1.6%.

While Nissan’s sales were going down the drain, Lee Clow was inducted into the advertising Hall of Fame and the ad campaign was proclaimed “the best ad campaign of the year.”

Did Clow(n) even bother about the ad campaign assassinating Nissan? Not at all.

So what’s the point of advertising? According to most of the major corporations it’s not sales. What is it then? What is the point investing huge budgets into ad campaigns that are going to demolish your profit margins?

Some might say “branding,” others are going to give you a blank stare, but the truth remains – MONEY. The whole point of advertising is to get more leads, more sales and more money.

4 Missions Every Ad Must Accomplish To Be Successful

1. Create a strong desire for the product by presenting the benefits the product will bring into prospect’s life.
2. Convince the prospect that the benefits the product provides are unique and can’t be found in any other product.
3. It must communicate urgency for the prospect to buy the product.
4. It must compel your prospect to action – to buy the product.

Thousands of small business owners are carelessly investing in TV and Radio advertising every single day. If you don’t want to lose your pants to angry debt collectors – never trust your advertising to media reps. Conveying those 4 key points to your readers/viewers/listeners is essential for a successful advertising campaign.

You don’t need to spend millions of dollars on advertising to make people want to buy from you, you just need to be a little bit smarter than Nissan’s CEOs.

If you are serious about Internet Marketing, than copywriting is one of the ‘must have’ skills you need to master in order to save yourself from one of the most crucial mistakes most marketers make-handing your business into someone else’s hands.

Hiring a professional copywriter in order to write a compelling sales copy can cost you somewhere between 500 and 5000 USD. This is a large price to pay especially if you can do it by yourself. Money, of course, is not the issue here, the real reason why you would want to write your own copy is because no one knows your customer better than you do.

One more aspect to copywriting is in fact SEO. Search engine optimization within your sales copy can play a crucial part in your search engine rankings. Optimizing your copy for your targeted keyword phrase can be tricky, especially when trying to make your sales letter look professional and making sure it is fluent and easy to read.

I want to provide you with couple of seo copywriting tips which will assist you in making a compelling, seo optimized sales copy which not only will convert but will drive traffic on its own as well.

When optimizing a page for seo purposes, what you want to do, is to make sure your targeted keyword appears in the title, tags and description of your page. Some say, that it is also important to make sure your domain name contains your targeted keyword as well, but I have seen plenty of pages rank high without it.

Now, the really important part of the whole process: the copy. Make sure it is readable, easy to follow and relates to the title. When writing your copy, think of the person who is going to read it, do not think of the search engines AT ALL!

Google algorithm and Yahoo spiders are sophisticated, and they constantly make sure to provide the best relative content to the searcher. Therefore, stuffing your page with your targeted keyword will not do you any good, since it will not do any good for the reader.

Whenever I am writing a new sales page, article or a blog post, I always think of the reader, I do not even consider the search engines. As soon as I am finished with the tags and seo research, my copy is going to be as fluent, easy to read and clear as possible, with no focus what so ever on ‘on page search engine optimization’.

I would like to conclude with reminding you, dear reader, that the copy you are writing is always about the person who reads it, not the search engines who scan it for keywords. This is due to the simple fact, that if it is not, than even if you have 1000 unique visitors a day, you will still have 0% conversion, and that is just plain useless…

Lead generation pages can be tricky to create. Being an internet marketer I have felt on my own skin what it takes to create a highly effective converting capture page from scratch. That is exactly why now I use a system which is generating those pages for me and saves me tons of time. However, if you want to create a good, high converting lead capture page on your own, here are some of the things you will have to get in place before you can start driving traffic to that page.

1. Title or Headline. One of the most important aspects of a highly converting lead capture page is the headline. This is the first thing your visitors are going to see and in most cases it will define whether they are going to continue reading or just close the browser tab. What makes a good headline is the color, the length, structure and of course the content. There are plenty of copywriting books and materials for you to get more information on how to write an effective title. Some of my favorites are Dan Kennedy, Eben Pegan and Bill Glazer.

2. Structure of the page. The content on the lead capture page is supposed to be right down in the middle. The page itself can not be more then 400-500 pixels wide because otherwise it will hard for the visitors to actually read through the content. If you look at some of the best converting capture pages than you will find out that none of them ever have gone full width.

3. Video. Many times I get asked by my clients if they should use a video. I say you should, but in a very specific way. While most of the information should be written, it is a nice touch to insert the video introducing the product and actually talking about the benefits. That way people can connect to the human side of your page-you. They will hear a voice speaking and many times it can be a pattern break which will lead them to the sale.

There you go, you have 3 great strategies to capitalize on your next lead generation page creation process. However, as I mentioned earlier-there are tools for you to use in order to save yourself a lot of time and money. The time you will have to spend creating the capture page can be spent on learning some new material on how to drive traffic or how to create more profitable products for your customers. Remember that your business is based on your customers needs and that is another thing to consider when you are creating a lead generation page.