5 easy ways to build your list with ListHero

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Here are the 5 best and easiest ways of boosting your subscriptions and sign-ups with ListHero.

Only by taking action will you get the results you deserve.

The problem is many people are just signing up as ListHero members and expecting hoards of subscribers to just be delivered to them automatically within a matter of days. Then when 30 days have gone past with only 1 subscriber they wonder where they went wrong.

The fact is as with most things in life there are no easy paths to anything worthwhile and list building is no exception. It takes consistent actions over a long period of time to achieve massive results, no matter what others might have told you. But don’t let this put you off because building a high quality list of subscribers is actually very easy once you know how, when you follow a plan and don’t ever give up.

ListHero can and will help you become successful online, but only if you follow the 5 part plan I’m about to reveal.

You better make yourseful comfortable because here’s where the tyres hit the road!

1. Create your own website or blog

Having your own website is essential to your ultimate success online, there’s no reason for not having one because the benefits are so clear. They’re easy to set up and if you’re on a limited budget you can even do this for free, so you really have no excuses.

So what should your website or blog be about? We recommend creating an affiliate review website where you review and write about the products you’ve purchased using your affiliate links within your review recommendations.

Writing reviews and recommendations is what’s called “pre-selling” and is the most powerful way of selling anything online. You see people don’t like to be sold to, yet they like to buy things with the confidence that they’ve made the right choice and reading the reviews you’ve written provides a huge amount of value to everyone. In addition to this you become seen as the “expert” in your market because of the honest advice you’re providing.

Can you see how simple this business model is? If you can read and write you can do this and you don’t even have to be the worlds best writer, all you do is write just like you speak and have conversations with your readers.

The more formal you write the less friendly you sound which is going to put people off. So write as you speak, after a while you’ll develop your own style and people will hang on your every word!

Because these are your personal reviews and recommendations of the products you’ve used no-one else can copy your unique perspective and voice.

So what should your domain name be? If it’s a review site you’re creating your domain name should be something like: www.YourNameReviews.com or www.YourNameRecommends.com. Just change where it says “YourName” for your name. This way you’re building a brand name for yourself and it’s also clear what your website is about, both very important things (and also be sure to get a .com).

Useful resources:

a) Click here to learn how to register a domain name and set up a blog
b) Click here for a free website and website hosting

Action step:

Step 1: Create an affiliate review website or blog if you don’t already have one

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2. Add the ListHero squeeze box to as many pages of your website as possible

The reason why adding your ListHero squeeze box to as many pages of your website as possible is because this is how you earn more points which gets your newsletter ad seen on other people’s websites within their ListHero squeeze box.

Action step:

Step 1: Login to your ListHero account now: Go to step 4 and install your ListHero squeeze box on as many pages of your website or blog as you can. This helps to get you more subscribers from your website and the websites of other people.

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3. Set up and create your own newsletter

So what are you going to offer those people who join your list?

You need to think about this really carefully and understand that people will be joining your list ONLY because you promised something of value and of interest to them in your newsletter advertisement.

As I mentioned above with the idea of creating a review or recommendations website, this follows over to your newsletter which becomes a way of you publishing your newest reviews or recommendations to people via email.
You simply make money by using your affiliate links within your recommendations or reviews.

This is what I mean by offering unique value to people.

Useful resources:

a) Click here for a selection of newsletter templates you can use

b) Click here for how to start a newsletter

c) Click here for your newsletter success mindset

Action step:

Step 1: Plan your newsletter: what’s it going to be called? what’s it going to be about? how often will you publish it? What professional autoresponder service will you use to help you manage your subscriptions and broadcast your newsletter to your subscribers?

Also, think about what happens with someone subscribes to your newsletter, will they immediately be sent a back issue they can read until you publish your next newsletter issue? You can do this all automatically with a professional autoresponder system (but not the one provided by your web host or free email account!).

Step 2: Choose a newsletter template. This is where you add your text and prepare it to add to your autoresponder. I highly recommend writing at least 2 issues of your newsletter in advance to make sure you have something ready to send, because committing to a consistent publishing schedule is essential. Missing publishing deadlines when your subscribers are expecting them makes you look unprofessional and unreliable, which will effect your credibility.

If this all sounds like a lot of work I’m going to tell you that it is, there are no easy routes to success, it takes hard work dedication and persistence to see the rich rewards you’re most probably seeking.

Step 3: Begin by looking through the hard drive of your PC looking for the products you’ve purchased in the past, sign up to their affiliate programs and write a review about your experience with those products you’ve found. Save these reviews you write to a special folder on your PC ready to be added to your newsletter and website.

Be sure to publish each back issue of your newsletter on your website or blog so the search engines can send you traffic their too. On those newsletter back issue pages include your ListHero squeeze box then you can turn the traffic the search engines send you into new subscribers.

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4. Use a professional autoresponder service

Time and time again I see people using their Yahoo or Hotmail email addresses as their autoresponder where ListHero delivers new subscribers to on step 5 form within your ListHero account. This is totally the wrong way of doing it!

Here’s what will happen if you use a regular email address (provided by Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, Hotmail) that’s not a professional autoresponder.

Someone sees your ListHero newsletter advertisement and decides they would like to subscribe, so they enter their email address. Minutes later they get an email from your Yahoo email address with their first message, but then they change their mind and decide that they no longer want to be on this list, so how do they unsubscribe themselves?

There’s no link to click for instant removal of their email address, there’s no postal address of the person sending them the commercial email so they can’t easily be contacted to be removed.

In fact the whole thing is beginning to smell a lot like SPAM so your new subscriber reports you to Yahoo for sending spam and your Yahoo account is deleted without notice. And you also risk having your Internet connection removed, again without notice!

For the publisher it gets even worse because without realizing it they’ve broken the law by sending a commercial email that doesn’t comply with the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 created by the Federal Trade Commission.

If you don’t believe me take a close look at this and see if you’re in compliance…
Click here for the Federal Trade Commissions CAN-SPAM act of 2003

I’m telling you about this not to scare you but to warn you that it’s an easy mistake any newbie to email marketing can make so pay close attention to what you’re doing. I’ll show you a safe and easy way to stay within the law later on.

Let’s go back to the example of the newbie newsletter publisher above, they’re using Yahoo to manage their list of new subscribers which is a bad idea from the start. With no automatic removal when someone wants to cancel their subscription they have to manually delete subscribers from their list.

What happens when you have a list of several thousand people further down the line when you use Yahoo (or any other regular email service)? I’ve got some more news for you… you’ve just created a full-time job for yourself of removing unsubscribers from your list! And yes you will get people leaving your list, just as you’ll always be gaining new subscribers, it comes with the territory, you just need systems in place to help you manage as much as possible all automatically.

Here’s the solution but first I need to ask you how serious you are about building your list of subscribers? It’s your list of subscribers that becomes your biggest asset online, you need to start as you mean to go on and not cut costs and chop off corners because you’ll regret it later on as your list grows.

The solution is to pay for a professional autoresponder service who provides you with the tools and the training needed to manage your listbuilding activities.

A professional autoresponder also service ensures you comply with the law whenever you send out an email. A professional autoresponder service takes care of anyone who wants to leave your list with a 1 click unsubscription. A professional autoresponder will make it easy for people to join your list and make every message you send out personalized with the subscribers name (if you configure it this way) which is proven to increase response.

Useful resources:

a) Click here for the professional autoresponder system we recommend you should use.

Action step:

Step 1: Sign up for a professional autoresponder service to help you manage the building of your list of subscribers (your biggest online asset).

Step 2: Create an autoresponder (once you’ve completed step 1) and load it with your first newsletter, then set it up so when someone subscribes to your list they get their first issue of your newsletter right away.

Step 3: Login to your ListHero account and go to step 7 then add your new professional autoresponder email address in the box provided directly below the text “Autoresponder email address:”

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5. Write an attention grabbing advertisement for your newsletter

This is absolutely critical to the success of your listbuilding with ListHero!

Let me say it again because it’s that important…

This is absolutely critical to the success of your listbuilding with ListHero!

Why? because it’s your advertisement that people read and decide if they want to subscribe to your newsletter or not, so you better do a great job of writing a great ad!

Recently I wrote a series of great ad writing training articles I recommend you print out, read through and apply what you learn from because out of everything else I’ve said above this is the most POWERFUL thing you need to master to build your list of subscribers using ListHero.
If your newsletter ad is boring no-one will read it and you won’t get many subscribers. Make your ad eye catching, compelling and full of benefits you’ll find yourself with many, many more subscribers than most other people.

However, this will require some work but once you master this you’ll find all your other Internet Marketing a lot easier and even more effective and profitable than before.

Interested?

Here are the links to the ad writing training articles you need to print out read, study and apply.

How to build your list with better ListHero ads

If I join your list what’s in it for me?

Emphasize Benefits, Not Features!

Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons!

Incorporating proof and believability into your ListHero ad

So what’s unique about your newsletter?

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action!

Action step:

Step 1: Read, study and put into practice all you learn in the articles above.

Step 2: Take a long hard look at the ListHero ad you might already be using and improve upon it using all you’ve learned in step 1. If you’ve not written an ad, write one now, it doesn’t have to be perfect because you can perfect it as you go on, just get it done and out there.

So there you have it 5 easy ways to build your list with ListHero, yes they are easy to do but they will take time to complete. But when you’re done you’ll have the accomplished a great deal!

1. You’ll have a website or blog where you review and recommend product you’ve already purchased using your affiliate link to direct people to the products website. Then on each page of your blog or website you’ll have your ListHero ad installed which build your list for you.
2. You’ll have an easy to remember and clearly understandable domain name that helps to establish you as an expert.
3. You’ll have a newsletter set up within a professional autoresponder so when people join your list you have something of value to offer them right away. You’ll be able to make money from your newsletter because of the reviews you’ve written that contain your affiliate links.
4. You’ll have mastered how to write an attention grabbing advertisement for your newsletter which gets you more subscribers.
5. You’ll have laid down the foundations to a potentially profitable business that you can be proud of.

All that’s left for you to do is to take action, don’t let anything hold you back because it doesn’t have to be perfect before you start. Just as long as you get started you can make changes as you go along aiming for excellence all the time.

Find yourself a diary and work out what you’re going to do each day, commit to it and you will succeed. It’s all about persistence and commitment to your goals and the belief that you CAN do it.

“Use Takeaway Selling to Increase the Urgency and Build Your List”

When you limit the supply of a product or service in some way (i.e. takeaway selling), basic economics dictates that the demand will rise. In other words, people will generally respond better to an offer if they believe the offer is about to become unavailable or restricted in some way.

And of course, the opposite is also true. If a prospect knows your product will be around whenever he needs it, there’s no need for him to act now. And when your ad is put aside by the prospect, the chance of closing the sale diminishes greatly.

It’s your job, therefore, to get your prospect to buy, and buy now. Using scarcity to sell is a great way to accomplish that.

There are basically three types of takeaways:

1) Limiting the quantity
2) Limiting the time
3) Limiting the offer

In the first method, limiting the quantity, you are presenting a fixed number of widgets available for sale. After they’re gone, that’s it.

Some good ways to limit the quantity include:

• only so many units made or obtained
• selling off old stock to make room for new
• limited number of cosmetically-defected items, or a fire sale
• only a limited number being sold so as not to saturate the market
• etc.

In the second method, limiting the time, a deadline is added to the offer. It should be a realistic deadline, not one that changes all the time (especially on a website, where the deadline date always seems to be that very day at midnight…when you return the next day, the deadline date has mysteriously changed again to the new day). Deadlines that change decrease your credibility.

This approach works well when the offer or the price will change, or the product/service will become unavailable, after the deadline.

The third method, limiting the offer, is accomplished by limiting other parts of the offer, such as the guarantee, bonuses or premiums, the price, and so on.

When using takeaway selling, you must be sure to follow-through with your restrictions. If you say you only have 500 widgets to sell, then don’t sell 501. If you say your offer will expire at the end of the month, make sure it does. Otherwise your credibility will take a hit. Prospects will remember the next time another offer from you makes its way into their hands.

Another important thing you should do is explain the reason why the offer is being restricted. Don’t just say the price will be going up in three weeks, but decline to tell them why.

Here are some examples of good takeaway selling:

“Unfortunately, I can only handle so many clients. Once my plate is full, I will be unable to accept any new business. So if you’re serious about strengthening your investment strategies and creating more wealth than ever before, you should contact me ASAP.”

“Remember…you must act by [date] at midnight in order to get my 2 bonuses. These bonuses have been provided by [third-party company], and we have no control over their availability after that time.”

“We’ve obtained only 750 of these premiums from our vendor. Once they are gone, we won’t be able to get any more until next year. And even then we can’t guarantee the price will remain the same. In fact, because of the increasing demand, it’s very likely the price could double or triple by then!”

Remember when I said earlier that people buy based on emotions, then back up their decision to buy with logic? Well, by using takeaway selling, that restriction becomes part of that logic to buy and buy now.

Think about how you can apply these same principals when writing your ListHero newsletter advertisement.

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action!

There’s a well-known structure in successful sales letters and advertisements, described by the acronym AIDA.

AIDA stands for:

•    Attention

•    Interest

•    Desire

•    Action

First, you capture your prospect’s attention. This is done with your headline and lead. If your ad fails to capture your prospect’s attention, it fails completely. Your prospect doesn’t read your stellar copy, and doesn’t order your product or service.

Then you want to build a strong interest in your prospect. You want him to keep reading, because if he reads, he just might buy.

Next, you channel a desire. Having a targeted market for this is key, because you’re not trying to create a desire where one did not already exist. You want to capitalize on an existing desire, which your prospect may or may not know he already has. And you want your prospect to experience that desire for your product or service.

Finally, you present a call to action. You want him to pick up the telephone, return the reply card, attend the sales presentation, order your product, whatever. You need to ask for the sale (or response, if that’s the goal). You don’t want to beat around the bush at this point. If your letter and AIDA structure is sound and persuasive, here’s where you present the terms of your offer and urge the prospect to act now.

A lot has been written about the AIDA copywriting formula. I’d like to add one more letter to the acronym: S for Satisfy.

In the end, after the sale is made, you want to satisfy your prospect, who is now a customer. You want to deliver exactly what you promised (or even more), by the date you promised, in the manner you promised. In short, you want to give him every reason in the world to trust you the next time you sell him a back-end offer. And of course you’d rather he doesn’t return the product (although if he does, you also execute your return policy as promised).

Either way, you want your customers to be satisfied. It will make you a lot more money in the long run

Your ad for your ad?

If you’re going to make a single change to boost the response rate of your ListHero ad the most, focus on your headline (you do have one, don’t you?).

Why? Because five times as many people read your headline than your copy. Quite simply, a headline is…an ad for your ad. People won’t stop their busy lives to read your copy unless you give them a good reason to do so. So a good headline promises some news and a benefit.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “What’s this about news, you say?”

Think about the last time you browsed through your local newspaper. You checked out the articles, one by one, and occasionally an ad may have caught your eye. Which ads were the ones most likely to catch your eye?

The ones that looked like an article, of course.

The ones with the headline that promised news.

The ones with fonts and type that closely resembled the fonts and type used in articles.

The ones that were placed where articles were placed (as opposed to being placed on a full page of ads, for example).

And the ones with the most compelling headlines that convinced you it’s worth a few minutes to read the copy.

The headline is that powerful and that important.

I’ve seen many ads over the years that didn’t even have a headline. And that’s just silly. It’s the equivalent of flushing good money spent on advertising right down the toilet.

Why? Because your response can increase dramatically by not only adding a headline, but by making that headline almost impossible to resist for your target market.

And those last three words are important. Your target market.

For example, take a look at the following headline:

Announcing… New High-Tech Gloves Protect Wearer Against Hazardous Waste

News, and a benefit.

Will that headline appeal to everyone?

No, and you don’t care about everyone.

But for someone who handles hazardous waste, they would sure appreciate knowing about this little gem.

That’s your target market, and it’s your job to get them to read your ad. Your headline is the way you do that.

Ok, now where do you find great headlines?

You look at other successful ads (especially direct response) that have stood the test of time. You look for ads that run regularly in magazines and other publications. How do you know they’re good? Because if they didn’t do their job, the advertiser wouldn’t keep running them again and again.

You get on the mailing lists of the big direct response companies like Agora and Boardroom and save their direct mail packages.

You read the National Enquirer.

Huh? You heard that correctly.

The National Enquirer has some of the best headlines in the business.

Pick up a recent issue and you’ll see what I mean. Ok, now how could you adapt some of those headlines to your own product or service?

Your headline should create a sense of urgency. It should be as specific as possible (i.e. say $1,007,274.23 instead of “a million dollars”).

The headline appearance is also very important. Make sure the type used is bold and large, and different from the type used in the copy. Generally, longer headlines tend to out pull shorter ones, even when targeting more “conservative” prospects.

Some other sites online where you can get great headlines (from master copywriter John Carlton, no less) are:

• http://www.otsdirect.com/products.html

• http://www.trsdirect.com/product.php

• http://www.ohpdirect.com/product.php

On each page, click on the individual products in order to view the ads and headlines.

It should go without saying that when you use other successful headlines, you adapt them to your own product or service. Never copy a headline (or any other written copyrighted piece of work for that matter) word for word. Copywriters and ad agencies are notoriously famous for suing for plagiarism. And rightfully so.

The More You Tell, The More You Sell

The debate on using long copy versus short copy never seems to end. Usually it is a newcomer to copywriting who seems to think that long copy is boring and, well…long. “I would never read that much copy,” they say.

The fact of the matter is that all things being equal, long copy will outperform short copy every time. And when I say long copy, I don’t mean long and boring, or long and untargeted.

The person who says he would never read all that copy is making a big mistaking in copywriting: he is going with his gut reaction instead of relying on test results. He is thinking that he himself is the prospect. He’s not. We’re never our own prospects.

There have been many studies and split tests conducted on the long copy versus short copy debate. And the clear winner is always long copy. But that’s targeted relevant long copy as opposed to untargeted boring long copy.

Some significant research has found that readership tends to fall off dramatically at around 300 words, but does not drop off again until around 3,000 words.

If I’m selling an expensive set of golf clubs and send my long copy to a person who’s plays golf occasionally, or always wanted to try golf, I am sending my sales pitch to the wrong prospect. It is not targeted effectively. And so if a person who receives my long copy doesn’t read past the 300th word, they weren’t qualified for my offer in the first place.

It wouldn’t have mattered whether they read up to the 100th word or 10,000th word. They still wouldn’t have made a purchase.

However, if I sent my long copy to an avid die-hard golfer, who just recently purchased other expensive golf products through the mail, painting an irresistible offer, telling him how my clubs will knock 10 strokes off his game, he’ll likely read every word. And if I’ve targeted my message correctly, he will buy.

Remember, if your prospect is 3000 miles away, it’s not easy for him to ask you a question. You must anticipate and answer all of his questions and overcome all objections in your copy if you are to be successful.

And make sure you don’t throw everything you can think of under the sun in there. You only need to include as much information as you need to make the sale…and not one word more.

If it takes a 10-page sales letter, so be it. If it takes a 16-page magalog, fine. But if the 10-page sales letter tests better than the 16-page magalog, then by all means go with the winner.

Does that mean every prospect must read every word of your copy before he will order your product? Of course not.

Some will read every word and then go back and reread it again. Some will read the headline and lead, then skim much of the body and land on the close. Some will scan the entire body, then go back and read it. All of those prospects may end up purchasing the offer, but they also all may have different styles of reading and skimming.

Which brings us to the next tip…

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So what’s unique about your newsletter?

Now I know you want subscribers to your newsletter, right?

With ListHero there’s only one way you’re going to do this and that’s by writing a really great advert for your newsletter. This is the reason why I’ve emphasized this so much in this recent series of blog posts… it’s so important for you to understand the power of the written word online!

Part of this is communicating the The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of your newsletter. This is what gives people the “reason why” for subscribing and joining your list

The USP is often one of the most oft-misunderstood elements of a good sales letter or advertisement. It’s what separates your product or service from your competitors. Let’s take a quick look at some unique selling propositions for a product itself:

1) Lowest Price – If you’ve got the corner marketed on budget prices, flaunt it. Wal-Mart has made this USP famous lately, but it’s not new to them. In fact, selling for cheaper has been around as long as capitalism itself. Personally, I’m not crazy about price wars, because someone can always come along and sell for cheaper. Then it’s time for a new strategy…

2) Superior Quality – If it outperforms your competitor’s product or is made with higher quality materials, it’s a good bet that you could use this fact to your advantage. For example, compare Breyers Ice Cream to their competitor’s. From the packaging to the wholesome superior ingredients, the quality is evident. It may cost a little more than their competitor’s ice cream, but for their market, it sells.

3) Superior Service – If you offer superior service over your competitor’s, people will buy from you instead. This is especially true with certain markets that are all about service: long-distance, Internet service providers, cable television, etc.

4) Exclusive Rights – My favorite! If you can legitimately claim that your product is protected by a patent or copyright, licensing agreement, etc., then you have a winner for exclusive rights. If you have a patent, even the President of the U.S. must buy it from you.

Ok, what if your product or service is no different than your competitor’s? I would disagree, because there are always differences. The trick is to turn them into a positive advantage for you. You want to put your “best foot forward.” So what can we do in this scenario?

One way is to present something that your company has devised internally that no other company does. Look, there’s a reason why computer store “A” offers to beat their competitor’s price for the same product by X%. If you look closely, the two packages are never exactly the same. Company “B” offers a free scanner, while company “A” offers a free printer. Or some other difference. They are comparing apples to oranges. So unless you find a company with the exact same package (you won’t…they’ve seen to that), you won’t be able to cash in.

But what if you truly have the same widget for sale as the guy up the road?

Unless your prospect knows the inner workings of both your and your competitor’s product, including the manufacturing process, customer service, and everything in-between, then you have a little potential creative licensing here. But you must be truthful.

For example, if I tell my readers that my product is bathed in steam to ensure purity and cleanliness (like the cans and bottles in most beer manufacturing processes), it doesn’t matter that Joe’s Beer up the road does the same thing. That fact that Joe doesn’t advertise this fact makes it a USP in your prospect’s eyes.

Want some more USP examples?

• We are the only car repair shop that will buy your car if you are not 100 percent satisfied with our work.
• Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s on us!
• No other furniture company will pay for your shipping.
• Our recipe is so secret, only three people in the world know it!

As with most ways to boost copy response, research is the key with your USP. Sometimes your USP is obvious, for example if you have a patent. Other times you must do a little legwork to discover it (or shape it to your target market).

Here’s where a little persistence and in-person selling really pays off. Let me give you an example to illustrate what I mean:

Suppose your company sells beanbag chairs for kids. So you, being the wise marketer that you are, decide to sell these beanbags in person to prospects before writing your copy. After completing twenty different pitches for your product, you discover that 75 percent of those you visited asked if the chair would eventually leak. Since the chairs are for kids, it’s only logical that parents would be concerned about their youngster jumping on it, rolling on it, and doing all things possible to break the seam and “spill the beans.”

So when you write your copy, you make sure you address that issue: “You can rest assure that our super-strong beanbag chairs are triple-stitched for guaranteed leak-proof performance. No other company will make this guarantee about their beanbag chairs!”

Whilst this example refers to a physical product the same principal applies to writing an ad for your newsletter.

For a really in depth look at how to perfect a better USP click here for Informative Books.

Incorporating proof and believability into your ListHero ad

When your prospect reads your ListHero ad, you want to make sure he believes any claims you make about your product or service. Because if there’s any doubt in his mind, he won’t subscribe, no matter how sweet the deal. In fact, the “too good to be true” mentality will virtually guarantee a lost sale…even if it is all true.

So what can you do to increase the perception of believability? Because after all, it’s the perception you need to address up front. But of course you also must make sure your copy is accurate and truthful.

Here are some tried and tested methods that will help:

• If you’re dealing with existing customers who already know you deliver as promised, emphasize that trust. Don’t leave it up to them to figure it out. Make them stop, cock their heads, and say, “Oh, yeah. The ABC Company has never done me wrong before. I can trust them.”

• Include testimonials of satisfied customers. Be sure to put full names and locations, where possible. Remember, “A.S.” is a lot less believable than “Andy Sherman, Voorhees, NJ.” If you can also include a picture of the customer and/or a professional title, that’s even better. It doesn’t matter that your testimonials aren’t from somebody famous or that your prospect does not know these people personally. If you have enough compelling testimonials, and they’re believable, you’re much better off than not including them at all.

• Pepper your copy with facts and research findings to support your claims. Be sure to credit all sources, even if the fact is common knowledge, because a neutral source goes a long way towards credibility.

• For a direct mail letter or certain space ads where the copy is in the form of a letter from a specific individual, including a picture of that person helps. But unlike “traditional” real estate letters and other similar ads, I’d put the picture at the end near your signature, or midway through the copy, rather than at the top where it will detract from your headline. And…if your sales letter is from a specific individual, be sure to include his credentials to establish him as an expert in his field (relating to your product or service, of course).

• If applicable, cite any awards or third-party reviews the product or service has received.

• If you’ve sold a lot of widgets, tell them. It’s the old “10 million people can’t be wrong” adage (they can be, but your prospect will likely take your side on the matter).

• Include a GREAT return policy and stand by it! This is just good business policy. Many times, offering a double refund guarantee for certain products will result in higher profits. Yes, you’ll dish out more refunds, but if you sell three times as many widgets as before, and only have to refund twice as much as before, it may be worth it, depending on your offer and return on investment. Crunch the numbers and see what makes sense. More importantly, test! Make them think, “Gee, they wouldn’t be so generous with returns if they didn’t stand behind their product!”

• If you can swing it, adding a celebrity endorsement will always help to establish credibility. Heck, if ‘ol honest Abe Lincoln recommended your product and backs up your claims, it must be true! Ok, you get the idea, though.

• When it makes sense, use 3rd party testimonials. What are 3rd party testimonials? Here’s some examples from some Web site copy I wrote when there weren’t many customer testimonials available yet:

“Spyware, without question, is on an exponential rise over the last six months.”
-   Alfred Huger, Senior Director of Engineering, Symantec Security Response (maker of Norton security software)

“Simply clicking on a banner ad can install spyware.”
-  Dave Methvin, Chief Technology Officer, PC Pitstop

A deployment method is to “trick users into consenting to a software download they think they absolutely need”
-  Paul Bryan, Director, Security And Technology Unit, Microsoft

Do you see what I did?

I took quotes from experts in their respective fields and turned them to my side. But…be sure to get their consent or permission from the copyright holder if there’s ever any question about copyrighted materials as your source.

Note that I also pushed an emotional hot button: fear.

It’s been proven that people will generally do more to avoid pain than to obtain pleasure. So why not use that tidbit of info to your advantage?

•    Reveal a flaw about your product. This helps alleviate the “too good to be true” syndrome. You reveal a flaw that isn’t really a flaw. Or reveal a flaw that is minor, just to show that you’re being “up front” about your product’s shortcomings.

Example:

“You’re probably thinking right now that this tennis racket is a miracle worker—and it is. But I must tell you that it has one little…shortcoming.

My racket takes about 2 weeks to get used to. In fact, when you first start using it, your game will actually get worse. But if you can just ride it out, you’ll see a tremendous improvement in your volleys, net play, serves, …” And so on.

There’s a tendency to think, with all of the ads that we are bombarded with today that every advertiser is always putting his best foot forward, so to speak. And I think that line of reasoning is accurate, to a point.

But isn’t it refreshing when someone stands out from the crowd and is honest? In other words, your reader will start to subconsciously believe that you are revealing all of the flaws, even though your best foot still stands forward.

• Use “lift notes.” These are a brief note or letter from a person of authority. Not necessary a celebrity, although that can add credibility, too. A person of authority is someone well recognized in their field (which is related to your product) that they are qualified to talk about. Lift notes may be distributed as inserts, a separate page altogether, or even as part of the copy itself. As always, test!

• If you are limiting the offer with a deadline “order by” date, be sure the deadline is real and does not change. Deadline dates that change every day are sure to reduce credibility. The prospect will suspect, “if his deadline date keeps changing, he’s not telling the truth about it…I wonder what else he’s not telling the truth about.”

• Avoid baseless “hype.” I discussed that in my previous tip. Enough said.

Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons!

This is where research really pays off when you’re writing your ListHero newsletter advertisement …don’t forget it’s the persuasive power of your ad that gets you more subscribers! and pushing emotional hot buttons is all part of this. Because in order to push those buttons, you need to first know what they are.

Listen to this story first, and I’ll tell you what I mean: Once upon a time a young man walked into a Chevrolet dealer’s showroom to check out a Chevy Camaro. He had the money, and he was ready to make a buying decision. But he couldn’t decide if he wanted to buy the Camaro or the Ford Mustang up the road at the Ford dealer.

A salesman approached him and soon discovered the man’s dilemma.

“Tell me what you like best about the Camaro,” said the salesman.

“It’s a fast car. I like it for its speed.”

After some more discussion, the salesman learned the man had just started dating a cute college cheerleader. So what did the salesman do?

Simple. He changed his pitch accordingly, to push the hot buttons he knew would help advance the sale. He told the man about how impressed his new girlfriend would be when he came home with this car! He placed the mental image in the man’s mind of he and his girlfriend cruising to the beach in the Camaro. How all of his friends will be envious when they see him riding around with a beautiful girl in a beautiful car.

And suddenly the man saw it. He got it. And the salesman recognized this and piled it on even more. Before you know it, the man wrote a nice fat check to the Chevy dealership, because he was sold!

The salesman found those hot buttons and pushed them like never before until the man realized he wanted the Camaro more than he wanted his money.

I know what you’re thinking…the man said he liked the car because it was fast, didn’t he?

Yes, he did. But subconsciously, what he really desired was a car that would impress his girlfriend, his friends, and in his mind make them love him more! In his mind he equated speed with thrill. Not because he wanted an endless supply of speeding tickets, but because he thought that thrill would make him more attractive, more likeable.

Perhaps the man didn’t even realize this fact himself. But the salesman sure did. And he knew which emotional hot buttons to press to get the sale.

Now, where does the research pay off?

Well, a good salesman knows how to ask the kinds of questions that will tell him which buttons to press on the fly. When you’re writing copy, you don’t have that luxury. It’s therefore very important to know upfront the wants, needs, and desires of your prospects for that very reason. If you haven’t done your homework, your prospect is going to decide that he’d rather keep his money than buy your product. Remember, copywriting is salesmanship in print!

It’s been said many times: People don’t like to be sold.

But they do like to buy.

And they buy based on emotion first and foremost. Then they justify their decision with logic, even after they are already sold emotionally. So be sure to back up your emotional pitch with logic to nurture that justification at the end.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk a moment about perceived “hype” in a sales letter. A lot of more “conservative” advertisers have decided that they don’t like hype, because they consider hype to be old news, been-there-and-done-that, my customers won’t fall for hype, it’s not believable anymore.

What they should realize is that hype itself does not sell well. Some less experienced copywriters often try to compensate for their lack of research or not fully understanding their target market or the product itself by adding tons of adjectives and adverbs and exclamation points and big bold type.

Whew! If you do your job right, it’s just not needed.

That’s not to say some adverbs or adjectives don’t have their place…only if they’re used sparingly, and only if they advance the sale.

But I think you’d agree that backing up your copy with proof and believability will go a lot farther in convincing your prospects than “power words” alone. I say power words, because there are certain adverbs and adjectives that have been proven to make a difference when they’re included. This by itself is not hype. But repeated too often, they become less effective, and they take away (at least in your prospect’s mind) from the proof.

Which brings us into our next tip…

(Subscribe to this blog now and be the first to know when the next tip is ready!) 

Emphasize Benefits, Not Features!

What are features? They are descriptions of what qualities a product possesses.

• The XYZ car delivers 55 miles per gallon in the city.
• Our ladder’s frame is made from a lightweight durable steel alloy.
• Our glue is protected by a patent.
• This database has a built-in data-mining system.

And what are benefits? They are what those features mean to your prospects.

• You’ll save money on gas and cut down on environmental pollutants when you use our energy saving high-performance hybrid car. Plus, you’ll feel the extra oomph when you’re passing cars, courtesy of the efficient electric motor, which they don’t have!
• Lightweight durable steel-alloy frame means you’ll be able to take it with you with ease, and use it in places most other ladders can’t go, while still supporting up to 800 pounds. No more backaches lugging around that heavy ladder. And it’ll last for 150 years, so you’ll never need to buy another ladder again!
• Patent-protected glue ensures you can use it on wood, plastic, metal, ceramic, glass, and tile…without messy cleanup and without ever having to re-glue it again—guaranteed!
• You can instantly see the “big picture” hidden in your data, and pull the most arcane statistics on demand. Watch your business do a “180” in no time flat, when you instantly know why it’s failing in the first place! It’s all done with our built-in data-mining system that’s so easy to use, my twelve year-old son used it successfully right out of the box.

I just made up those examples, but I think you understand my point.

By the way, did you notice in the list of features where I wrote “steel alloy?” But in the benefits I wrote “steel-alloy” (with a hyphen). Not sure off-hand which one is correct, but I know which one I’d use.

Here’s why: you are not writing to impress your English teacher or win any awards. The only award you’re after is your copy beating the control (control being the best-selling copy so far), so take some liberty in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. You want it to be read and acted upon, not read and admired!

But—back to benefits…

If you were selling an expensive watch, you wouldn’t tell your reader that the face is 2 inches in diameter and the band is made of leather.

You show him how the extra-large face will tell him the time at a glance. No sir! He won’t have to squint and look foolish to everyone around him trying to read this magnificent timepiece.

And how about the way he’ll project success and charisma when he wears the beautiful gold watch with its handcrafted custom leather band?

How his lover will find him irresistible when he’s all dressed up to go out, wearing the watch. Or how the watch’s status and beauty will attract the ladies.

Incidentally, did you notice how I brought up not squinting as a benefit?

Does that sound like a silly benefit? Not if you are selling to affluent baby boomers suffering from degrading vision.

They probably hate it when someone they’re trying to impress sees them squint in order to read something. It’s all part of their inner desire, which you need to discover.

And which even they may not know about. That is, until you show them a better way.

The point is to address the benefits of the product, not its features. And when you do that, you’re focusing on your reader and his interests, his desires. The trick is to highlight those specific benefits (and word them correctly) that push your reader’s emotional hot buttons.

How do you do that? Stay tuned by subscribing to this blog!

If I join your list what’s in it for me?

Focus on them, not you…

When a prospect reads your ListHero newsletter advertisement the one thing she will be wondering from the start is: “what’s in it for me?”

And if your copy (advertisement text) doesn’t tell him, it’ll be pushed to one side faster than he can read the headline or subscribe to your list.

A lot of advertisers (and other ListHero members make this mistake). They focus on themselves as a company (or business opportunity). How long they’ve been in business, who their biggest customers are, how they’ve spent ten years of research and millions of dollars on developing this product, blah, blah.

Actually, those points are important. But they should be expressed in a way that matters to your potential customer. Remember, once he’s thrown it in the garbage, the sale is lost!

When writing your copy, it helps to think of it as writing a letter to an old friend. In fact, I often picture a friend of mine who most closely fits my prospect’s profile.

What would I say to convince this friend to try my product? How would I target my friend’s objections and beliefs to help my cause?

When you’re writing to a friend, you’ll use the pronouns “I” and “you.” When trying to convince your friend, you might say: “Look, I know you think you’ve tried every widget out there. But you should know that…”

And it goes beyond just writing in the second person. That is, addressing your prospect as “you” within the copy.

The fact of the matter is there are many successful ads that weren’t written in the second person. Some are written in the first person perspective, where the writer uses “I.”

Other times the third person is used, with “she,” ‘he,” and ‘them.”

And even if you do write in the second person, it doesn’t necessarily mean your copy is about them.

For example:

“As a real estate agent, you can take comfort in the fact that I’ve sold over 10,000 homes and mastered the tricks of the trade”

Although you’re writing in the second person, you’re really still focusing on yourself.

Login to your ListHero account now and take a look at your newsletter advertisement on step 5 and take a look at how you’ve written it. Who does it focus on?

So how can you focus on them?

In the next post I’ll reveal the answer… so subscribe to this blog and stay tuned!

Don’t forget to post a comment below, let me know how you’re getting on, ask me any questions or just simply say “hello!”. Be sure to include the url to your website when you do which will get you more traffic and a boost in the search engines. 

How to build your list with better ListHero ads

Listen to this… it’s critical to your success with ListHero…

To succeed with ListHero you need to have a great advertisement for your newsletter otherwise no-one will join your list. What ListHero does is it gets an ad for your newsletter seen on many, many other websites who also have the ListHero “squeeze box” installed, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll get subscribers and will take some work on your part (there’s no such thing as a free lunch!).

To help you write better ads for your newsletter here’s the first of a few great ad writing training articles (learn how to write great ads and your online success is much more certain, so pay close attention, take notes ad apply all you learn.

What is advertising?

Is it something to be regarded as a work of beauty or art? Is it clever slogans or amusing prose? Is it workmanship to be judged for an award or recognition?

It’s none of the above.

Advertising is salesmanship multiplied.

Nothing more.

And advertising copy, or copywriting, is salesmanship in print.

The purpose of a copywriter’s job is to sell. Period.

The selling is accomplished by persuasion with the written word, much like a television commercial sells (if done properly) by persuading with visuals and audio.

As Claude Hopkins wrote in his timeless classic, Scientific Advertising:

“To properly understand advertising or to learn even its rudiments one must start with the right conception. Advertising is salesmanship. Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman’s standards.

“Let us emphasize that point. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.

“It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before the people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make. Then you will not go far wrong.

“The difference is only in degree. Advertising is multiplied salesmanship. It may appeal to thousands while the salesman talks to one. It involves a corresponding cost. Some people spend $10 per word on an average advertisement. Therefore every ad should be a super-salesman.

“A salesman’s mistake may cost little. An advertiser’s mistake may cost a thousand times that much. Be more cautious, more exacting, therefore. A mediocre salesman may affect a small part of your trade. Mediocre advertising affects all of your trade.”

These points are as true today as they were when they were written nearly one hundred years ago!

So the goal then becomes: how can we make our advertising as effective as possible.

The answer is to test. Test again. And then test some more.

If ad “A” receives a two percent response rate, and ad “B” rec