When it comes to selling and promoting products, there are a number of tactics that you can use to help sell more, and the most known one is to utilize the power of storytelling. There are a number of advantages you’ll find with this method, and adding in a personal touch can really get the customers on your side and realizing that you can relate to what they are going through.

Why Does Storytelling Work?

There are a few different reasons why storytelling works, and in fact, Amish people use it which is why their businesses thrive.

Everyone likes to hear a story and in most cases, we are more inclined to purchase a product or a service from someone who has a good story we can relate to.

Telling a story is how you can get people to remember your business or your product. It differentiates your business from the next one and it can help you keep the attention of your readers and interested customers. This can help you get a point across and to sell your products.

Having a good story is memorable for readers and it can remind them of a problem they may be looking for a solution to. Good stories can stick with people longer and they remember the product it was selling. It hits your audience closer to home and can make them act on it a lot faster.

If you have the ability to use a story this can influence your potential clients to act now. You’ll see customers are more loyal to you and then word of mouth starts happening bringing in even more business.

Rules to Using Storytelling

If you’re going to use storytelling to market, there are a few ground rules to help make it work for you the most.

• Ensure your story makes sense
• Keep it short and to the point
• Make sure you have a unique story
• Make sure your story relates to the product and your audience
• Make it convincing
• Stick with one story
• Put a few details to pull on their hearts a little bit
• Make it believable

What if You Don’t Have a Story?

When you’re using storytelling to market a product, you don’t need to have one based on a personal experience. You just need to be able to make something believable. Make it something based on a real event and as long as you capture your audience, you can create any story you need to get the point across.

You can make a story up about a fake event or about an imaginary friend if you need to. You can make the story target issues your readers might be facing. When it comes to using a story the possibilities are limitless and endless. Every business has the ability to make a profit on their product or service by using the storytelling method.

As long as you have a product or service to market, you can use storytelling to your benefit.

Related posts:

1. How a story will keep people reading your sales letter
2. Applying The KISS Factor To Your Copy

Writing a sales letter for your product or service ‘can’ be a nightmare…

If you’re scared of writing or cringe at the thought of writing sales letter, this blog post is for you.

It’s not really though if you’ve got a simple system to follow.

But, writing copy is one of those things we all have to do…. (unless you pay a copywriter a hefty amount to write one for you

If you can write copy yourself, then you can save a few bucks.. and really, once you finally get your butt in the seat and start writing, it doesn’t seem so bad after all.

Here is a simple formula for writing a sales letter in as little as 30 minutes..

1. Know the basic structure of a sales letter..

This is a basic structure I use to write sales letters (and emails too)

Up the top goes a headline,

Then you’ve got the lead-in (write about a problem or opportunity)

Then introduce the solution (your product)

Finally, tell them how they can get it!

Knowing the structure of a sales letter will let you think out your sales letter before you write it.

2. Know your target market intimately

You’ve got to speak to your target audience as though you are their best friend recommending this product or solution.

You’ve got to know their problems and the feelings these problems are causing them.

This is so you can push those hot emotional buttons and make them feel and say to themselves, ‘this is exactly what I need’.

3. Know your product inside out

When you know what your product does and how it is going to make your customers lives easier/better/pain-free, it’s so easy to write the copy.

And speaking of products, you have to have full confidence that it really is going to help your customer.

Otherwise, if you have doubt in the product, your writing simply won’t give the message of ‘this is the best solution for me’ to your customer..which is super important.

4. Set Yourself a Block Of Time

You’ll be amazed at how much you can actually get down in 30 minutes. If you allot a block of 30 minutes to just write. (this post took me about 15 minutes to whip up)

It doesn’t need to be perfect… or long!

Some of the best copy I’ve written was done in an afternoon!

The key was that I followed this simple formula.

It might take you longer than 30 minutes to write a sales letter.. but hey, if it takes you 3 hours, that’s 3 hours well spent.

That’s a better use of your time than watching vids on Youtube or Facebook, wouldn’t you say?

To your copy writing success,

Stuart Stirling

Related posts:

1. How a story will keep people reading your sales letter

Having a good looking sales letter can help your sales conversions.. but remember, graphics alone will not help if your copy stinks.

If you’ve got great copy, then having nice looking graphics can enhance it. Graphics on your sales letter can also give your letter a different feel to everyone elses.

Graphic intensive sales letters are all the rage these days. I’m sure you’ve seen them on the WSO forums and sprouting up elsewhere in the MMO/biz opp niche.

So I’ve out together a completely free sales letter graphics kit as a gift for coming to check out my blog.

There is no optin or other action you need to take. Just download from the link below and enjoy!

Here are some samples of graphics that are contained inside the ZIP file….

Belcher button order buttons (with multiple price points)

Guarantee certificates (generic wording)

OTO Headlines (multi-use)

Download Free Here (.zip file) - FreeSalesPageGraphics

note: The zip file includes the graphics you see above and more.. (13 graphics in all)

Enjoy!

Stuart Stirling

p.s. Want to make your own custom sales letter graphics like these and more? Check out this cool suite of point and click graphics creators… (pssst… it’s same set of tools I used to create the free graphics above)

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My name is Stuart Stirling and I’m an expert copywriter. I specialize in copywriting for the web but can help you with any kind of promotion you have.

In my several years of experience, I’ve written copy for several big name internet marketers as well as myself.

My copy has sold millions of dollars worth of products and services online.

Hire me to write compelling copy that will make your campaign a success too.

You can expect great communication from start to finish to make sure you get quality, professional work that will get results – for a very reasonable investment.

So stop looking for copywriters and let’s talk about your project!

I’m only an email away

Read more about my Copywriting services here…

- Stuart Stirling

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[This article appears courtesy of THE SUCCESS MARGIN, the Internet's most valuable success and marketing e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.tednicholas.com/

I’m constantly hammering away on the importance of the words used in sales copy. Especially in headlines.

But, dear reader, the reality is few really “get it.”

Today my goal is to change all that for you.

How?

By using several examples that I believe will drive home the importance of words even further for you. And hopefully inspire you as well.

I will share valuable lessons based on experience which also taught me so much about the power of words.

My goal is to help you become a far more successful marketer.

A few brief background experiences may be of help.

My first business beginning at age 21 was a roadside candy and ice cream parlor.

The first name I used was:

Peterson’s Home Made Ice Cream and Candy

Then I simply changed the name to:

Peterson’s House of Fudge

The result was an immediate sales increase by 10 times. That’s 1,000%!

My first promotions for my new confectionery business were not in print. They were on giant roadside signs at least 50 feet wide.

You know the kind -14 miles to Peterson’s House of Fudge. 10 miles… 7 miles … 1 mile…

I began experimenting by adding small additional signs with a few words of copy on the large billboards.

The number of customers who stopped and spent money in my shop was amazingly different depending on the copy used on each sign.

For example, when I added two words “Free Samples” on the sign 1 mile away. Result? Business doubled instantly!

I also had good success with added signs on each billboard with the following copy:

– See Candy Made

– Bring the Children

– Meet Miss Fountain Fresh in Person

– 77 Flavors of Fudge

– Try Delicious Mint Velvet

Words used in naming any business are also vitally important.

There is no question that creating your company name is a crucial marketing decision.

Here is an example.

I founded the very first direct to consumer incorporation company in the U.S. in 1972. Unlike competition, I dealt directly with entrepreneurs. Competitors at the time would only deal with lawyers.

I named the business:

The Company Corporation

Is that a good name?

Everyone who heard it seemed to remember it. And comment about it.

The Company Corporation soon became the largest incorporation company in the U.S. and the world.

When I sold it in 1991 I had over 125,000 clients.

After I sold, I acted as The Corporation Company’s marketing consultant for several years, until it was re-sold. Today the business has over 350,000 clients.

I’m always astonished by what seems to me the little attention most entrepreneurs give to the words in their company name.

I love to create great company names. It’s so incredibly important.

And it costs you no more to have an exciting and memorable name than a dull and boring one.

A brief story.

In early 1993 at one of my first seminars, one of my attendees, Lori Prokop, approached me.

Lori explained she was homeless and living in her car just 2 years earlier.

She and her husband owned a butcher shop in a small Minnesota town.

But they were about out of money. They were planning to pursue what they saw as their only option – to file bankruptcy.

She asked me if there was anything that could be done to save what seemed like a hopeless basket case.

My response was that I wasn’t sure what to suggest until I had more information. “Tell me more,” I said.

Lori went on to say that the butcher shop was on the outskirts of town. There was new road construction in front of their business.

So when you visited the shop, it was impossible to avoid getting muddy shoes.

I then asked Lori to tell me about her husband, the butcher. Lori described how the customers loved him and how he hugged each of them when they shopped.

Then an idea popped into my mind.

I then posed this question to Lori.

Do you know a good sign painter?

She said yes.

I then suggested the following plan (which would cost less than $250 total).

(1) Change the name to:

The Hugging Butcher

(2) Install a giant wooden sign on the front face of the store with the new name in giant letters.

(3) Create 5,000 flyers announcing the grand opening of the new butcher shop.

(4) Distribute the flyers on car windows in the nearby communities to the shop.

(5) Offer an amazing guarantee. Guarantee that every Hugging Butcher customer would get a warm hug from her husband!

(6) Continue to offer the best, quality meat in town. (Which was also the highest price.)

The local newspaper heard about the shop. They decided to do a story about the interesting “new” butcher shop. They ran the story.

Result of the publicity?

A huge turnaround for the butcher shop and remarkable success!

The very first weekend after the grand opening the shop was packed with customers.

A few years later the shop was sold at a big profit.

Today Lori and her husband are publishers of information and success products. They now live on a 20-acre estate.

What power do you think the new three-word name change, The Hugging Butcher, had? Can you see that it helped to reposition the entire business? And generate such a success?

Product names are also highly important.

A good name has an enormous impact on sales. Up or down.

Yet few entrepreneurs have really good names for their products.

After working hard on building the business and having good products, it’s astonishing to see boring product names used.

Yet success or failure does not depend on quality alone. It often rests on a “hot” product name.

It’s no wonder that even world-class, successful marketing companies such as Proctor and Gamble with amazingly dull product names succeed in just one out of five new product launches.

I love to shop in supermarkets. It’s always a kind of marketing lesson for me.

When I look at the names of most new products on the market, I can understand the high failure rate.

The next time you visit a supermarket I suggest you look more closely at the names used on products.

How many really great names can you find?

Perhaps books are the number one example of the importance of a good product name.

A book title is really a headline for a book.

Yet it’s well known that 95% of all new books published never sell out the first printing of usually around 5 to 10 thousand books.

Book titles are usually given to books by editors who, bless their souls, tend to know zilch about marketing.

Look at my book titles:

– “How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer For Under $75″

I wrote 217 titles before choosing this, the longest one. This is the largest seller of any title in history on incorporation. Sales to date are over 2,000,000 copies!

– “Magic Words That Bring You Riches”

A perennial best seller.

– “How to Turn Words Into Money”

An “evergreen” book which will sell forever.

– “Billion Dollar Marketing Secrets”

My latest “baby.” When I state the name alone, most people want to buy it.

Because it’s so important, I invest lots of time to come up with my book titles.

Most writers will spend a year or two writing a book. And 20 minutes on the title.

This is dead wrong.

I write hundred of titles and choose one before I write a single word of copy for inside the book.

(In fact, I write the table of contents using magic words for the chapter titles before writing a word of the book itself.)

Of course, I emphasize the very same elements for copywriting and joint venture clients.

Bill Fischer, for example, came to me with two failed books.

He really needed help. I turned both into best sellers.

The first I renamed “How to Fight Cancer and Win.”

The second was originally called:

“The Mysterious Causes of Disease”

I changed it to:

“The Mysterious Causes and Cures of Disease”

Adding a single word to the title made all the difference between failure and success.

One fact is certain, consumers don’t care nearly as much about “causes” as they do “cures!”

I also created five free bonuses and created names for them. They were offered to the prospects as an added inducement to buy the book at once.

1. The Truth About a More Exciting Sex Life

2. How to Take Off the Pounds and the Years

3. Nutritional Secrets to More Youthful Skin

4. How to Improve Brain Capacity Naturally

5. How to Increase Your Energy and Enjoy Living Longer

These days free gifts are a must to help induce highly successful offers.

However, as with products you sell, the title of your free gifts are very important. And has everything to do with the success of your offer.

Tip: To be successful, any free gift you offer must be so appealing the prospect would gladly invest his/her money to buy it.

What about a weak or a poor free bonus? What will happen to sales?

A poor free bonus with a dull name will not boost sales. In fact, it will dramatically reduce sales!

One of the main secrets of creating a successful marketing program is this.

Really study the product wearing nothing but your marketer’s hat.

Your job. To identify as many benefits for the reader as possible.

For example, when I wrote the headline for Bill Fischer’s book eventually titled “How to Fight Cancer and Win,” I didn’t find the headline until I studied the whole book. I came across the winning “big idea” on page 117. Here is the final headline for the 16-page sales letter mailed in the millions.

“How to Prevent and Even Cure Cancer by Eating Two Natural Foods!”

I’ll bet you’d like to know what these foods are.

Am I right?

The mailing offline for this book averaged 500,000 to 750,000 pieces. They cost about $1.00 each to mail.

Bill Fischer is now retired due to this one sales letter. He loved the copy don’t you think? And my successful copy for the book is still being used today. Online and offline.

Final point. Testing of all elements of copy is necessary.

Possibly the very best thing about the Internet is how fast and inexpensive it is to test important elements of your copy.

This, of course, includes product names, company names, headlines, offers, the all-important body copy, and the P.S.

Good testimonials are also very important and should be tested as well.

When I began direct marketing offline in 1973 there was no Internet. Testing was much more expensive and time consuming. It could take 2-3 months to get a read on any test.

Now on the Web you can get an accurate “read” in just 24-48 hours!

There is every good reason to frequently test and re-test your copy elements online.

And remember.

A single magic word can be the difference between earning great wealth. Or being unsuccessful and flat broke!

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Everyone goes on about the “sales letter” as though it’s the only thing that counts in marketing….but the truth is, it’s merely a piece of the conversions puzzle.

Have you ever seen those marketers who have a JV sign up page and rave on about how they got a killer copywriter to write the copy so us JV’s can expect “out of this world conversions”?

Well, getting a good copy writer to write a sales letter is all great but aren’t they forgetting something?

Recently, I came across a brilliant copy writer and marketer by the name of John Ritskowitz…. (I know, I’m plugging another copywriter ) but I was instantly impressed with the content he shared on his blog so I signed up for his newsletter and was even more impressed with his last email.

He talks about the “Money Zone”.

The money zone is what he calls the synergy between three important areas that make up a successful advertising campaign. It’s nothing new, it’s very fundamental, but often us little guy marketers forget about it.

The 3 things that make up the “money zone” are….

1. Your market
2. Your offer
3. Your sales copy or salesletter

Each of these 3 ingredients play an essential role and when you get them all right, you can be assured you’re hitting the bulls eye for great conversions.

If you get 2 of them right and just 1 wrong…get ready for a loud backfire!

For example, if your offer and copy is spot on, but you’re mailing to the wrong list of people, you won’t get people to see the offer.

If you get in touch with the right crowd but your offer is weak, then good copy just won’t cut it.

And if you send targeted people to a good offer but it’s not sold strong enough by the copy, you won’t convert any visitors into customers.

See how important it is to get all three right? When they are all fine tuned, you’ve got a hit that will go right to the center of the “Money Zone”.

Take the big launches you see every day for example.

Do you remember John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0, Frank Kern’s Mass Control, Eben Pagan’s Altitude?

They had awesome sales letters and I’m sure they paid through the nose to get the sales letters written.

But notice that they also had the other 3 factors lined up perfectly.

A lot of people were already convinced and waiting to buy the products before they even saw the sales letter!

Of course, some people were still on the fence about buying it and that’s where a good sales letter can help close sales.

So when marketing your product, yes, you need a good sales letter, but you also need to pay special attention to hitting your market with a great offer…because that’s the way to enter the “Money Zone”!

John Ritskowitz talks more about the Money Zone and how it affects your business in his Fool Proof Profits course, so if you’re interested, I recommend checking it out.

Please leave your comments and thoughts below.

Stuart Stirling

Related posts:

1. How a story will keep people reading your sales letter
2. What To Test With Sales Letter Split Testing

You might think it’s marketing suicide to tell your prospect that “this product might not be for you”.

But more often than not, this little trick can increase response dramatically!

Have you ever seen on a sales letter phrases that go “for serious marketers only” or “don’t buy this product if…”?

This is what copywriters call “qualifying your prospect”

And it works because it’s a type of reverse psychology. It throws the reader off…it makes them think “huh? now I’m not allowed to get this? oh yes I am!” and it ups their urge to want the product that much more.

On the other hand, this idea is also related to the 80-20 rule.

The 80-20 rule is a universal rule…it can be related to anything in life, time management, and business.

For this example, we’ll say that 80% of our sales will come from only 20% of those targeted to our offer. The remaining 20% of our sales will come from the remaining and bigger 80% of our audience.

We know that a 100% conversion rate is not going to happen..ever. Not everyone that sees your sales letter will buy. So what’s the point of trying to target everyone? You only really want the 20% who are suitable for your offer.

Narrowing down your suitable customers and talking to that 20% qualifies them. Stating that this product may not be for everyone qualifies them.

For example….

“this product is not for lazy people…it takes some work to get the results”…

“this product is not you you if you’re looking for a quick fix… you must understand that it takes time to see the results, but the results are well worth the wait…blah blah..”

This is the way to really pin point your prospects situation and talk to them directly. It quickly gets rid of the chaff..which doesn’t matter because the other 80% isn’t as significant.

You’ll get much better response from the 20% if you can get into them and target them with accuracy. And you can do that by qualifying them.

Stuart Stirling

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As a beginner online marketer or affiliate marketer you are probably coming to realize that you need to write more persuasive copywriting for your email ads and other promotional material so you can sell more stuff and make more money.

Learning copywriting for beginners isn’t that hard. The basics of copywriting are easy to undertand and you’ll see that they make sense.

Here are a few essential copywriting for beginners tips…

• Benefits. And lots of them! The people you are trying to sell to are only interested in one thing..and that’s W.I.I.F.M. (what’s in it for me). So make sure you are highlighting the benefits of the product or service.

• Use the words “You” and “I”. Some copywriters will say that you should strictly use “you” and never use “I” in your copywriting. I would say that “I” is just as important because it gives the reader a feeling that a real person wrote the letter. Of course you need to address them as “you” when you are telling them the benefits for example “this is what it can do you for you!”

• Make it easy to read. The layout of any piece of copywriting must be easy to read and understand. People don’t want to spend time reading trying to work out what your offer is all about. Don’t write long sentences, don’t use words that only brain surgeons and physics professors can understand.

• Strong call to action. Once you present your offer, you need to tell them exactly what to to get it…and why they need to get it now! Tell them to “order now”, or “click on this link now” and tell them how horrible their life will be if they don’t! Your chances of getting those who don’t take action the moment they see it to come back at a later date and take it are extremely low (less than 0.5%) so make your first chance count!

These are the most important copywriting for beginners tips I think will help you the most when you are just starting out.

There are many more elements to learn about sales letters and email copywriting and you can learn about them when you download my free copywriting tips report.

And please leave your comments below….feel free to add any more tips on copywriters for beginners you want to share.

Stuart Stirling

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It’s a problem a lot of marketers and copywriters face…

Or maybe it’s just a habit of us humans – but we have a tendency to presume that everyone already knows what we’re talking about.

In marketing, presumption is a huge killer!

Just because you may be an expert, does NOT mean that everyone else is…not even those who you think are your perfect target market.

So instead of presuming…it’s better to assume that people know much less than you think they know…and the reality is it’s even less than that!

The best way to get your message across without going over your prospects heads is to apply the K.I.S.S. factor in all of your marketing messages…

K.I.S.S. stands for….

• Keep
• It
• Simple
• Stupid

The KISS factor applies to all things educational….because when something is simply explained, we can understand it better.

Copywriting essentially is this…to educate people about an offer that will make their lives better.

People are lazy…so if something is too complicated for them, it’s easier to just skip it and move on to the next thing.

It’s the same thing with your copywriting…when your prospect sees your offer….your words…they have to be able to understand it quickly or else it’s out with your ad and in with the next.

- Here are some tips to keep your copywriting simple…

• Use simple vocabulary…one rule I and other copywriters live by is to make sure the vocabulary is simple enough for a junior high school student. Especially when you’re writing about a topic with a lot of specialized terminology, you still need to choose words that a complete beginner to that topic can understand.

• Use short sentences…and space out your lines. I mentioned white space and other design tips in my last post..but again, people would much prefer to read short sentences than long ones. The less they have to think, the more chance you have of keeping their interest.

• Present the offer clearly…for what it is. Call apples, apples…oranges, oranges. If you’re trying to twist words around to make it sound more appealing…or hid something to create mystery…it can have the opposite affect. Your prospects just want to know what it is they’re getting and how it’s going to help them. They don’t care about how fancy you can string your words together.

• Keep it precise. Stay on topic. The moment you go off on an unrelated topic, you’ve lost them. This includes writing too much as well. One great copywriter once said something like “each line of copy is there only to urge people to read the next line” so be careful of writing anything that will throw your prospect because you miss the mark with just one off-target line of copy!

KISS is important to remember in copywriting and all aspects of marketing.

There may be times when you feel stupid writing such basic copy but the copy is not there to entertain you or feed your ego….instead it’s to educate your reader about the benefits and to urge them to take action as simply as you can.

To your success,

Stuart Stirling

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An effective sales letter design is not just about the words you use, but the complete well crafted picture that entertains your reader.

Common Website Design Mistake…

Have you ever seen a sales letter or visited a website that had so much jammed into it that you couldn’t see what the heck any of it’s about?

Some people think the more they can cram onto their website, the more effective it will be.

But in fact, bunching up all your text, links and ads in the one space has the opposite effect.

Remember, “the confused mind always says no”.

If you want your visitors to stay on your website, you need to think about the layout and design.

Copywriters are Artists

You might think copywriting is just about the words we use.

Words are very important to communicate the meaning but designing the words in such a way that is creates an attractive overall picture is key to getting readers’ attention and keeping it!

Tips On Text, Color, White Space Etc.

…
TEXT

First, let’s talk about text formatting and design.

There are a few text design elements worth considering.

• Font
  - choose an easy to read font (particularly for headlines – Tahoma, Arial, Georgia)
  - be consistent! use same font for paragraphs and same for headlines.
• Sentence length
  - not too long – keep sentences short and simple
• Paragraph length
  - never go over three lines
• Bolding, emphasis, highlighting
  - use sparingly

COLOR

A word on color…

• Black text on white background
  - never type white on black
• Headlines in Red/Blue
  - or another contrasting color that matches the website theme
• Yellow highlighting
  - super effective when used sparingly
• Website background color
  - choose a color that’s easy on the eye. Eg. light grey, light blue, white or black
• Avoid bright fluorescent colors
  - eg. pink, orange, yellow, green…anything that will burn your reader’s retinas.

WHITE SPACE

White Space is what we call the space on your website or sales letter that is just bare space….just blank white space.

At first, you might think that having white space on your page is a waste of space….but white space is not a waste of space at all.

It’s very, very important if you want your readers to stay on your page.

Like I mentioned at the start of this post, a cluttered website (no white space) is going to confuse your visitor.

Visitors will leave before they read even one line and this is because they won’t know which line to read first.

Cluttered websites are ineffective. Use white space to make your website easy to read and understand.

Places to look out for white space include…

• Line spaces
• Paragraph spaces
• Margins
• Between images and text (more about images below)
• Padding in cells and tables

OTHER TIPS

A few other design tips to stop your reader from skimming and offer a little entertainment value your reader include video, images, johnson boxes, bullets, etc.

Basically, the purpose of these are to give your page some contrast. A page that looks the same from top to bottom won’t intrigue the reader much.

Images and johnson boxes will break up the monotony and stop the reader from skimming.

Images can really enhance the experience for your visitor but using too many or distracting images will take away from the effectiveness.

Images are great, but they are not everything.

You can take away the images and your words can still do a good job selling. But take away the words and only leave your images…how well do you think your images can sell?

Thanks for reading!

Stuart Stirling

Related posts:

1. Which Colors for Headlines?
2. How a story will keep people reading your sales letter
3. 10 Tips For Writing Better Bullet Points