When considering email marketing, most of us are thinking: Not this; not again! And we shouldn’t be surprised either, because checking our inbox takes up 28 percent of our time and the word email reminds us of the tons of spam awaiting.

There are 196.3 billion emails sent everyday, and 64 percent of those are spam!

Maybe it’s a cliché, but there are only two approaches to email marketing: you either love it or hate it. The fact is that:

• According to Salesforce, 95 percent of consumers use email.
• 61 percent of emails are opened on smart devices.
• For every dollar spent, there is average return of $44.25.

These few statistics are a friendly reminder that the risk is worth the gamble. Why? Because email is about to change. Let me explain.

As I stated before, a lot of companies underestimate emails, mostly because their marketing is ineffective – they keep trying, but get poor results. Take a moment to think of three emails you like – three newsletters you are waiting for. That isn’t an easy task, is it? But hey, truth to be told, it’s good news for you.

As full stack marketers, startup founders, growth hackers, and sales guys (and gals), we should benefit from the ignorance of average marketers. It sounds harsh, I know, but believe me, it’s the only way to restore faith in emails and achieve the results we all need and/or want.

Here’s the theory: email isn’t stagnating, but the way we use it is. If we approach email marketing as one of our many responsibilities, we simply won’t find a golden mean. We should keep evolving. Let’s take a look at Sparrow.

Sparrow was an iPhone email client designed to provide an efficient and pleasant mailing experience. This startup from France changed the email inbox forever. Sparrow’s panel navigation, threading system and many features led to its 2012 acquisition by Google. I encourage you to read the whole Sparrow story, as it’s a very interesting and valuable one.

Another example of handling email with pleasure is Mailbox. Mailbox allowed different ways of accessing email, including retrieving a message after a few days or hours, and organization of color-coding. In case you missed it, watch this video:

Such experience is valuable – 37 days after launch, Dropbox acquired Mailbox for a reported $100 million.

The last example of a growing trend in email marketing is Paperfold. Paperfold has designed a fast and functional iPad app that lets you “see” the visual story of your email.

I read the transcript of an interview with Paperfold’s team. Co-Founder Eva Liparova said:

“Good design can change behaviors… I’m interested in how brands can engage customers. When I saw Paperfold, I thought, this feels really good. It doesn’t look like email. It creates emotion. There are emails out there that have changed our lives”.

If There is a Demand For Beautiful Email Apps, Email Marketing Has to Keep Up

The evolution of email apps and the inevitable trend of beautiful usability aren’t mentioned here to inspire you to change the face of email marketing (but of course – dream big!). I have a strong background in running startups, and what I always love to repeat is this: automation is the key.

Let’s be realistic. Even if we are capable doers, we won’t reinvent emails. Building a company email marketing strategy is a long and tiring process – it’s one of the major pains in your sales & marketing plan. I am not the first, and I won’t be the last, to state that you have to test and optimize until your results are satisfactory. But this process gives you more than failures, disappointments and a feeling of resignation – it gives you experience. And that’s something that’s hard to ignore. Once you hit the spot with flow and content, you should take one step more. Emails can be easily automated without losing quality.

It’s almost the same as content marketing on your blog. All you want to do is give quality stuff to people who want it. But emails have one tiny advantage: you can deliver them to specific people. What’s more, you can collect more information about this person than you can extract from Google Analytics.

This is lead “pre-warming”, and it’s not complicated. Let’s start with 3 pretty popular places.

I would like to show you one easy example of finding and winning a lead. I assume you have a blog with solid content that solves one of the many problems of your customers.

Quora

Check out Quora – it’s the most incredible source of content inspiration. There are lots of questions waiting for an answer. I picked one question on Quora which, in my opinion, may get very interesting answers.

126 potential leads on Quora (notice the amount of people that want an answer)

It’s a good question, and you can write an amazing post on your blog about it if it’s your niche (Sprout Social did). But take a closer look. I just found 126 people potentially interested in your product/service, 126 people with names and social media accounts hooked up. For me, that’s a lot of leads.

I bet Quora isn’t a big surprise to you. To be honest, there are a lot of places like that where you can find a batch of quality leads. For sure, there’s input needed to get them, but I would like to remark that this way is somehow scalable. So, if it turns out fine for you, then you probably just hit the jackpot.

Yelp

Another example of a place full of leads is Yelp. It might be a great source of contact information such as addresses, post codes, emails, websites, etc. Finding a target on Yelp and building your database there can be useful for your email marketing and lead generation. Thinking about and researching this case I found two interesting things: first, a Yelp scraper tool. As you can see, the creativity and business instinct of some people is alive and well.

Udemy Course

Second, and more serious, a Udemy course about Web scraping. Matt Ellsworth, owner of the course, claims you can get the data you need from Twitter, Yelp, Reddit, Hacker News and many more.

The idea in itself is quite interesting, and with such tricks you can find people with specific demands you can probably fulfill. It seems to be the direct way to grow your business.

GitHub

As a last example of such place, something a little bit different – GitHub. It may be a place unfamiliar to marketers, but GitHub offers plans for repositories and free accounts that are usually used to host open-source software projects. As of 2015, GitHub claims to have 10.9 million users, which makes it the largest code host in the world. As you are probably already figuring out, it’s a great place for lead generation. Just take a look at the user accounts – there’s a lot of data available with clearly specified requirements.

As a bonus, I present to you Scrapy, an open-source framework for extracting the data you need from websites.

These three examples are perfect for preparing a lead-generation process and email campaign because of two things:

1. By knowing the environment and ecosystem of every targeted group, you are making your goal measurable and achievable.
2. By combining knowledge and cleverness, you are getting tools to achieve your goals.

Since we have a base full of leads, let’s warm them up with 3 killer outbound tactics!

I like to rely on Twitter and LinkedIn, especially when we’re talking about outbound. Here are three step-by-step ways to pre-warm your target using social media channels:

#1: We got 10% conversion rate from a tweet to inbound leads. How?

• We made a list of 100 potential customers active on Twitter and put them on the list – they have to be a really great fit.
• We checked the list everyday and tried to start a conversation/share their blog post, etc. (Focus on commenting on articles they share – it gives the best response rate).
• When they discovered our engagement, they checked our site and asked about the product themselves (keep communication consistent).

From a tweet to inbound lead:

And even to a homepage testimonial:

#2: We generated a 75% response rate after the first email (using Twitter + email). How?

• We used the sequence described in way number one, but we added email as one of the steps but…
• This can’t feel like a crappy generic email. Here’s an example of our template:

“I’m Greg (@pietruszynski) from Growbots. We were tweeting about the article you shared: ‘[title]’. I did some research and saw that you may be responsible for outbound sales at [company_name], so I decided to get in touch.

With our tool you can generate a new list of prospects, send automatic email campaign – leads are automatically uploaded to CRM. I’d really love to show you our tool and get your feedback – would you like to have a look?”

Can you see the pattern? Point of touch, openness to discussion on shared interest, and awesome pitch.

#3: We created an outreach campaign which aimed for 100% response rate (using Twitter + email + LinkedIn + call). How?

We used the second strategy but added LinkedIn, Twitter Ads and a call. We made a cadence out of it, which looks like this:

a. Twitter Ad (lead prewarming)
b. Tweet
c. Email
d. Call
e. LinkedIn invitation
f. Second email
g. Second call
h. Second Tweet
i. LinkedIn message
j. Third email
k. Third call

It’s a long road, but believe me – it’s worth it!

Since we know what to do and what our goal is, let’s take a look at things that can help us. But here’s a disclaimer: these are just tools. They will make your job easier and save you time, but never mistake tools for know-how. Your abilities, skills and ideas are the most important things here.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a powerful tool for creating personalized, automated and effective newsletters and targeted emails. It has a built-in analytics section that allows segmentation, conversion analytics and tracking your email campaigns.

Klaviyo cites nice examples on their blog. In How Tortuga Backpacks Increased Email Subscriptions 7x With Content Marketing they describe how Packsmith used the Klaviyo Shopify app to drive subscribers with their content. The trick is simple: after leaving your email on their landing page, you receive a packing list so you won’t forget anything for your trip. They claim that since adding the list guide to their blog’s homepage, they have increased monthly email subscriptions by seven times. That’s a lot, isn’t it?

PersistIQ

I read an article on TechCrunch in which the founder of PersistIQ said that sales statistics show that it often takes up to seven interactions with a potential client before you get a response, and most sales people don’t have that kind of patience. That was the reason he created a tool for smart drip campaigns for outbound sales. PersistIQ works in three simple steps: it imports your leads, you create a campaign, and finally all you have to do is wait for a response. The level of automation saves you a lot of time.

QuickMail

QuickMail.io provides a process through which cold email prospects transform into warm leads. It allows you to set up automatic follow-ups and run a drip campaign from your inbox.

On QuickMail’s blog you can find a few interesting case studies. I particularly like this one:

“Over four months, Fabi Mersan, CEO of ClinicBuzz, was constantly trying difference sequences to see which one had the most success in her market.

Initial email response rate: 5.0%
First reminder response rate: 15.0%
Second reminder response rate: 12.5%
Third reminder response rate: 5.0%
Fourth reminder response rate: 1.67%”

First of all, it’s a good idea to think it all through. Take a look at how many reminder responses Fabi set. Second of all, focus on the results – they are pretty amazing. It would be a waste of leads if we had stopped at the first reminder response. As Fabi states in the interview, and I agree with her, smart follow-up is crucial for success.

We wanted make this process scalable. I believe that data and outreach should go along, so we decided to create our own lead generation tool. First, we generate highly qualified prospects lists:

Then we focus on our copy and shoot automatic email campaigns at selected leads (as you can see from Quickmail.io case studies you have to be persistent):

After those steps email campaigns are automated, we only need to use other channels, which we mentioned before.

Recap

To wrap this up in simple steps:

• Analyze your existing base of active customers.
• Find cool online places where your target hangs out.
• Profiles on social media are crucial to the pre-warming process.
• Get involved in creating a valuable, persistent and painless email campaign.

Because I’m a sales guy and I use email every single day, I believe that in five years cold emailing won’t exist. No one will open such email. It may sound horrible, but it’s a call to action. Realize it now and start preparing. “Native” email is the future – reaching people with things they want while saving time spent on their inbox is the future.

About the Author: Greg Pietruszynski is a serial entrepreneur and growth hacker. He reached and engaged millions of users for companies such as MTV and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Pietruszynski is responsible for over 200 marketing campaigns. You can follow him on Twitter (@pietruszynski) or his Growth Hacking Blog.

Source: KISS

Here is the common situation of many startups. They have no money, but they have to do marketing.

What’s to be done? Instead of focusing on costly marketing methods, such startups must focus on low-budget marketing hacks.

The beauty of growth hacking is that it engages alternate methods of growth, methods which are sometimes lower cost.

Where marketing and engineering meet, growth hacking happens.

Obviously, growth hacking isn’t free. Strictly speaking none of the techniques in this article are “free.” Anytime you involve people, employees of the company, there will be payroll and associated costs.

But here’s why these methods are so powerful. They don’t require a huge marketing budget. All you need is some time, some savvy, and the kind of focused and driven perspective that smart marketing requires.

1. Get Links From Your Service Providers

To rank well, a website needs high-quality backlinks. Where do you get these backlinks? Obviously, buying links is not advised. What should you do?

If you’ve built partnerships with service providers or business partners, you have an instant source of untapped link potential. Reach out to these service providers and ask them to link to your website.

You gain a few nice links,and all it cost you was a few minutes of emailing.

2. Search For Unlinked Mentions

Another great way to get links and boost your site authority is to look for unlinked mentions of your brand or company name.

If you find such mentions in online publications or websites, email the site editor and ask them to provide a link. You might discover plenty of brand mentions all over the web.

A quick search and a few emails later — presto. Free backlinks. The good kind.

3. Host a Webinar

Free webinars introduce your brand and product to a wider audience. The more appealing the topic, the better you’ll attract interest.

Kissmetrics has been hosting webinars on a regular basis for a long time, with surprisingly powerful results.

Webinars take time. You’ve got to brainstorm topics, plan the webinar, and spread the word. The benefits, however, are top-notch.

4. Cross-promote

One explosive method of marketing that some companies use is cross-promotion. Cross promotion allows you to partner with related businesses who can market your services, in exchange for your marketing their services.

For example, if you are providing consulting services for online business owners, you may recommend that they use a certain web designer to create their website. The web designer is your cross promoting partner. This web designer works with business clients, and she points these clients your way for consulting services.

It’s a win-win, and apart from a signed document and an easy conversation, doesn’t require much work at all.

5. Be a Blog Commenter

The idea of marketing is to make your brand presence as well known as possible. One way of doing so is by commenting on blogs. Here’s how this works:

• Identify the top 5 blogs in your niche.
• Read and comment on the blogs on a regular basis.
• As people see your name and associated brand, they become familiar with it and perhaps even curious about it.

With every comment, you’re establishing a persistent brand presence. Just make sure you’re not making dumb comments. Customers’ perception of your brand is shaped by the quality of your comments.

6. Help a Reporter Out

Occasionally, you’re going to come across some newsworthy information in your niche or business. Sign up for Help a Reporter Out (HARO). It’s a free service that reporters often use to find stories. If you have a story you can help a reporter out, and gain publicity.

7. Create a Robust Google+ Presence

Google+ is one of the web’s foremost places for building brand exposure. Google uses your business information to form a web presence in Knowledge Graph boxes and wider indexation.

The better your Google+ profile, the better your brand will be featured and published organically across the web.

8. Network in Person

Don’t neglect the opportunity to market in person. You’ll meet great people in person whom you may never come across online.

Every person you meet is another marketing possibility. Obviously, you don’t want to go around shoving your business into people’s faces, but as the issue of work comes up in conversation, tell them about it.

The whole idea of networking is basically marketing. You get to introduce other people to your business live and in person.

9. Go Ahead and Run a Contest

As much as they’ve been sullied and scammed, online contests are still a great way to get low-cost marketing publicity. Giving away the cliche iPad, cash prizes, or other merchandise is an easy way to gain some viral potential and improve your brand’s image.

10. Build a Referral Program

The best forms of marketing are those that you can set up, turn on, and they grow — organically, automatically, and without too much effort. A referral program or affiliate program may not work for every business, but it’s worth a try.

Creating an affiliate program essentially turns your customers into a de facto marketing department. You don’t spend marketing money unless they first make a sale on your behalf.

11. Tweet Up a Storm In Your Niche

Twitter is a killer marketing platform. With its instant reach and massive output, Twitter can produce high levels of referral traffic, plenty of brand exposure, and nonstop social buzz.

What I suggest is following at least ten influencers in your niche, following their followers, retweeting their tweets, and mentioning them in comments. As you associate with their platform, you’ll begin to build your own platform.

12. Upsell Your Existing Customers

Too often, we view “marketing” solely as a method of gaining new customers. In reality, some of the best marketing happens with existing customers. Econsultancy and PredictiveIntent report that upselling is “20 times better than cross-selling.”

Source

Marketing back at your own customers is relatively easy and low-cost. The benefits are extraordinary.

13. Get Cozy With Niche Influencers

Within every industry are a group of power players. They control the conversation, shape the contours of the market, and reach a huge audience.

Make these people your friends. You don’t need to be schmoozy about it. You can be direct. Providing them with a product or partnering with them on a project are simple and mutually helpful ways to grow your brand and ride their wave of influence.

14. Claim a Hashtag

Hashtags are the billboards of the Internet. Since hashtags are now available on every major social platform, you can create a hashtag for your business and use it everywhere you post.

A hashtag is a searchable and interactive extension of your brand, and has the potential to spread virally.

15. Get More Email Addresses

Growing your email list is one of the most enduring and effective methods of marketing. I suggest using Hello Bar as a simple and cost-effective way of harvesting more addresses.

16. Get More User-Generated Content

Everyone knows that content marketing is effective for inbound marketing. If you’re not careful, however, content marketing can be expensive. How can you gain more content without blowing your entire marketing budget?

The answer is user-generated content. Motivate your existing fans and customers to tell their own story and write content, and you’ll instantly open the floodgates to tons of fresh and engaging content that your audience will love. Your fans will be creating and sharing content for you.

17. Talk to Your Fans

Customers and fans love to be loved. The way you show that love is by retweeting, favoriting tweets, liking the comments, and sharing their status. Don’t simply expect that your social media presence is going to work for you. You have to work for it, by talking to your fans.

They will return the favor, and engage at a deeper level.

18. Produce High-Quality Press Releases

Press releases have past their heyday as an SEO tool, but they still hold sway in marketing. If you use a source like PRWeb, you’ll be out a few hundred bucks anytime you pop out a press release.

A source like PRLog.org, however, is free of charge. The amount of syndication you get may not be as high quality, but it’s something. And, hey, it’s something for nothing.

Just be sure to write very high-quality releases, and nofollow any links back to your website.

19. Hack Craigslist

Craigslist is the 59th most popular website in the world. Airbnb, valued at 24 billion, used Craigslist to skyrocket its growth. You can use Craigslist, too. Try using Craigslist’s geographic focus to target specific areas and markets.

Make sure that you’re complying with the site’s terms of service. Use Craigslist in the way that it was intended. Violators will be banned from the site.

20. Blog

I can’t create list of marketing techniques without mentioning blogging. A business blog is an indispensable strategy for online marketing. Use it, work at it, and make it work for you.

If you’re frustrated with the current condition of your business blog, read these 35 tips that will make it better. If you’re struggling with traffic, read this post.

21. Guest blog

If blogging is awesome, then guest blogging is doubly awesome. When you post an article on another blog, you are instantly gaining that blog’s audience. The cost of guest blogging is free, less the time you spend. Create a killer article, appeal to the blog’s audience, and you may be invited back to contribute more.

I’ve used guest blogging with incredible success. My 300-and-counting guest blogs are still paying me back in terms of referral traffic, leads, and customers.

22. Create a LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn is free, and yet it gives you incredible marketing opportunities. Many professionals use LinkedIn as static social media tool — a place to put up their resume, and not much else.

LinkedIn is so much more than an online resume. I’ve used LinkedIn to publish content, connect with powerful people, and build a marketing group with thousands of members.

All of this cost me zero dollars and zero cents, but the marketing upside has been incredible.

23. Give Free Help to Others

If you make marketing all about you and your business, you’re going to be frustrated and unfulfilled. Try giving to others, free of charge.

Obviously, you’re not a charity; you’re a business. But why not give away a product, an hour of your time, or a membership for a customer who can’t afford your services?

Some of the best business opportunities I’ve had were consulting gigs with customers who couldn’t pay. These opportunities have been beneficial in ways that I couldn’t have predicted.

Even today, I give away virtually all of my content without charge. Doing so is fulfilling for me personally, and it provides an opportunity for improved marketing.

Conclusion

Marketing doesn’t have to break your bank, blow your budget, or cost you thousands of dollars. Like I mentioned in the beginning of this article, marketing can require nothing more than the investment of time.

Chances are, you can increase your marketing presence today by implementing one of these methods. Pick one and run with it.

What is your favorite no-cost marketing technique?

About the Author: Neil Patel is a lifelong evangelist of Kissmetrics and blogs at Quick Sprout.

Source: KISS

Killer copy is the backbone of marketing.

Creating it is a powerful art and sweet science.

And it’s not about being clever or cute.

It’s about getting the person who’s reading your words to do one thing, and one thing only…

To take the desired action you want.

That’s it.

However to get your prospect to act, you need to grab his attention and keep it…all the way down to the last word. You need to push his emotional hot buttons and bring him to boiling point. And you need to lift risk off his shoulders, overcome objections, ask for the sale and justify your price.

Doing the above–without sounding like a robotic product description with a buy it now button–sounds like a handful doesn’t it?

Don’t worry, I got you covered. After reading this guide you’ll be equipped to:

• Create straight-for-the-jugular headlines that grab attention
• Nail your openings and introductions
• Craft a smooth sales message that propels your reader forward
• Create copy that keeps readers straightjacketed to the page
• Comfort your reader’s gnawing objections
• Learn how to hook your prospect with (proven) psychological hacks

So get comfortable, it’s time to harness the power of the written word to beef up your business with higher conversions.

Let’s go.

Get Into Bed With Your Customer

You can have beautifully written copy. You can have a gorgeous website design. You can even have a kick-ass product.

But if you don’t have a firm, white-knuckle grasp on the nightmare inducing pains and heart warming dreams of your customers; you’ll get as far as a solar powered snail…in an eclipse.

Think about it…if you aren’t aware of what fears make your customer’s throat dry and his heart heavy, and what goals he continually “replays” in his head when nobody is watching. How on earth are you going to convince him that your product/service can help him?

You can’t.

Velocity partners boasts a good understanding of their customers:

They could have spoke about anything related to content marketing, but they know their audience values the concept of branding.

This understanding allows them to create hot topic that emotionally resonates with their audience.

Here’s another great example from the Myfitnesspal mobile app:

They know their audience is serious about losing weight; serious enough to track every calorie they consume.

They also know that people think counting calories is time consuming and difficult. So they stress how effortless it is to log recipes, and how easy the app is to use.

This snags the attention of anyone who’s committed to tracking calories without ripping their hair out or being robbed of their time.

To unearth the desires and pains that’ll sway your prospect towards action, start by resting your marketing hat for a minute and donning your “sales detective” one.

Becoming A Sales Detective

This is where you roll your sleeves up and start sleuthing behind the scenes.

Infamous copywriter John Carlton calls this becoming a sales detective and getting into a “ bogart-like gumshoe frame of mind.” You’re going to:

• Dig through previous copy or sales literature
• Interview customers
• Interview employees
• Scout out your competition, James Bond style
• Pump Google Alerts for info
• Analyse your web analytics

Becoming a sales detective is all about using research to step inside your customer’s world.

It will inject empathy into your copy and answers the all-important question…“who are you dealing with here?”

With the “preliminaries” out the way, let’s dive into the “nitty gritty” details of creating powerful copy.

Crafting Headlines That Jar Prospects Into Attention

Famed copywriter David Ogilvy said:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

Or in other words: A weak headline can make your business bleed money.

A case study by contentverve.com shows the huge power behind headlines. They switched the landing page headline for a local scandinavian gym from, “You Work Out Smarter at Fitness World” to “Group Training and Fitness at Your Local Gym”.

The results?

A 38.46% increase in memberships sold.

All from changing a headline.

When it comes to your copy, your headline has two main jobs:

• To snag the attention of your audience
• And seduce them into your pitch or ad

Different headlines work for different pages and user goals. But most high performing headlines usually do the following:

• Offer a mouthwatering benefit to the reader
• Tickle the reader’s curiosity
• Promise specific results within a certain time frame

One simple but effective headline formula you can follow is:

Benefit to customer + Time Period Where He’ll Get The Benefit + Overcome His Objections

“Double Your Website Traffic + In 2 months + Or Your Money Back”.

Another way to strengthen your headline is to attack it from a different angle. To do this, run it through a filter.

The Benefit Driven Filter

This attacks from a benefit driven angle, and simply focuses on telling the reader what’s in it for him.

Here’s an example from Box:

“Securely send & share large files without email or FTP client.”

It’s quick, clean, and does what any great headline should do; tell the reader what’s in it for him.

The Inspirational Filter

Applying this filter forces you to focus on how your product/service will help your reader achieve an “inspirational” goal or result.

Here’s an example from Tom Ewers Paid to Blog subscription service:

“It is possible to make $100+ Per Hour From Freelance Blogging. I want to show you how.”

Some freelancers are skeptical about making a comfortable living with blogging.

This headline confronts that doubt by claiming that it’s possible, and that the product will show you how.

The Aggressive/Competitive Filter

Who doesn’t like sound of of being the best or beating the competition?

That’s what aggressive filters focus on: Leaving the competition coughing in your dust bubbles.

Here’s an example from webprofits.com:

“Get a free backlink analysis and find out how to beat your competition on google”.

It conveys a solid benefit to the reader, and promises information on how they can overthrow their competition on Google.

Looking for more ways to come up with attention grabbing headlines? Here’s 9 more proven formulas.

The AIDA Formula

You have a white knuckle grasp on who your prospect is. You know his pains and desires. And you have a headline that’ll drag him in like demonic tornado.

Now it’s time to lay down some copy.

Productivity usually plummets at this stage. People find themselves drowning in writer’s block… wondering “what now?”

Well fear not, the famous AIDA formula (popularized by the legendary Gary Halbert) will pluck you from the crushing coils of writer’s block. Just like a superhero swinging down to pluck you from a speeding car.

The AIDA formula acts as a skeleton for most sales letters. It is structured around the wavering interest levels of your reader. Which helps you anticipate his thoughts, questions and objections.

This magnetizes your copy and gets your prospect to act.

So what exactly does AIDA stand for?

A – Attention
The opening, where you snag your prospect’s attention and quickly convey that what you have to say will benefit him. Usually the headline and the opening sentence.

I – Interest
This is where you pique the interest of your reader by either “rubbing salt in his open wounds” (agitating his pain), or by weaving a story that highlights how he’ll fulfill his desires.

D – Desire
Your reader is interested in your offer. Now it’s time to “stomp on his greed glands” and arouse his emotions by describing how your product/service will enhance his life.

A – Action
After your product sweeps the reader of his feet, this is where you invite him to take action. Usually to buy, download, click or subscribe.

Here’s an example of the AIDA formula from Get Response.com:

The headline “world’s easiest email marketing” grabs your attention.

And the bulleted list of benefits, sows the seeds of interest by telling you how their software will power up your email marketing.

The page then mentions who the product is for, and describes how its features and perks can help you, regardless of your skill level. This piques your interest, works up your desire and begins to chip away at your objections.

The page then intensifies your desire and tackles objections further. This is done by showing testimonials from industry leaders who you probably look up to.

The page then calls the reader to action by inviting them to a 30 day trial.

If you spend too much time gazing at a blank screen with a blinking cursor…use the AIDA formula. It’ll inject your copy with a smooth flow and structure that holds your readers attention and doesn’t let go.

Apply the Boxer Mindset To Copy

Writing copy is like boxing.

Especially when it comes to your openings.

In the ring, if you don’t want to be eating the canvas, you have to think 3-4 punches ahead.

You have to predict your opponent’s counters, slips and movement patterns before he even thinks of doing them. Will you throw feints to keep him on his toes? Or mix up your style to land more shots? Or close the distance for more impact?

Similarly, if you want to keep readers hooked to your copy, you have to anticipate their thoughts and be mindful of each word, sentence and paragraph you deliver.

To hit hard and get results–like a boxer’s punches–your words have to flow. Non-stop.

Are you going to mix up long and short sentences to keep your copy exciting? Ask questions that flow into the next paragraph? Or deploy an analogy to bring home the point you’re trying to make?

Whatever you do, remember that your reader should smoothly slip into each new tightly woven sentence and paragraph.

You’re essentially guiding his thoughts, just as you would aim to guide your opponents movements and strikes in the ring.

Crafting Openings That Suck People In

If you don’t have a killer opening that goes straight for the jugular, you don’t stand a chance at converting your prospect.

Because if your opening doesn’t motivate him to, he isn’t going to travel down your sales letter and click your buy it now button.

So how do you create openings that nudge your reader along? Here are 3 ways:

Open With a Question

Opening with a question is a great way to start your sales letter.

It almost forces your reader to mentally respond, creates a little conversation, and keeps your copy fresh. This helps streamline your reader’s thoughts on to the next sentence.

Keep It Short

Short sentences and paragraphs are like grease on a slide, they keep you moving forward, fast.

They also make for great openings.

Think about it, you’re more inclined to read a series of sweet, short 2-3 sentence paragraphs over a huge mammoth-like chunk of text, right?

Why? Because short sentences and paragraphs feel easy, and people take the path of least resistance. They also build momentum, which makes it easier for the reader to continue reading.

Joe Sugarman (renowned copywriter) describes this as being like a locomotive:

“When the locomotive starts to chug from a standing start, it really works hard. The amount of commitment the train must exert is monumental. But once this train starts to move, the next few feet become easier and the next few even easier. So it is with copy.”

Wistia does a great job of combining the two techniques above:

Notice how their copy feels engaging and conversational? That’s the questions at work. The questions also do a great job of setting the reader up for the next sentence and keeping him speeding through the copy.

Also, notice how you float from one sentence to another? That’s those short sentences at work.

State Your Claim

No fancy stuff.

Just be blunt and let readers know what you’re about.

Here’s an example from the Kissmetrics homepage:

There’s no cuteness. They lay it out in the open by telling you exactly what they can do for you.

And because it is blunt and upfront…you will either instantly prickle with recognition, or pay no attention at all.

Lighting Up Your Prospects Greed Glands

Gary Halbert said:

“When it comes to writing copy, far too much attention is paid to the actual writing and far too little is paid to ferreting out facts about that which the copywriter is trying to sell.”

You’ve opened your copy with a bang. Got your reader’s attention and have captured his interest with a killer opening.

Next comes the meat of your sales letter.

Where you switch to full-auto, releasing a barrage of benefits that make your reader’s heart swell with desire, and create a burning itch that has to be scratched.

Benefits transform an ember of interest into a raging fire of desire that motivates people to act.

Michael Aagaard blasted conversions up 80% by adding three benefit driven bullet points to his opt-in form. That’s the kind of power benefits have.That’s why they are a must if you want to sell anything.

Here’s a lovely example of benefit driven copy from Wrangler:

Wrangler could have listed their features and said:

• These regular rise jeans have slimming side seams and a subtle boot cut
• They also have a reverse yoke
• The jeans also have vertical back pockets and a contour waistband

Instead, they harnessed the power of benefit driven copy by showing how the features of their products benefit the user.

• Slimming side seams and subtle boot cut to flatter your shape
• A reverse yoke lifts the seat
• Vertical back pockets are proportion to make the most of your assets
• Contour waistbands means these jeans won’t gap in the back

Each feature constantly relates back to how it will make the reader look sexier, slimmer and more desirable. Which doesn’t just describe what they’re selling. It seductively drip feeds the product benefits into her brain.

A Note on Bullet Points

Bullet points are easy to read, make your copy more scannable, and allow you to pile on the mouthwatering benefits of your product.

But two lesser-known ways of maximizing your results with bullets are to mix them up with…

Blind Bullets

Blind bullets can be described as teaser bullets.

They provide a clear image of the benefit you receive, but not the specifics or the“how” behind the benefit. This deliberate vagueness arouses the reader’s curiosity and keeps him interested.

Take a look at these examples from the sales page for Doberman Dan’s newsletter:

See what’s going on here?

There’s a juicy benefit being offered, and its value is made higher with specific numbers. But the benefit still shadow-dances around the edges of the “how”.

It’s blind.

This prompts the reader to think “what secret food will give me a 5% edge?”, and “what is the master key to making serious money?” Adding to his curiosity and desire.

Open Bullets

Open bullets are the opposite of blind bullets.

They wow the reader by giving away detailed specifics behind the benefit.

Just like this opt in page:

Each point has a “blind” style headline. Followed by detailed information on each case study and the benefit it offers. This soars the value of each point, and helps establish the idea that the seller “knows their stuff”.

Be sure to mix in blind and open bullets to keep your copy more engaging.

Take The Weight off His Shoulders

Your reader has breezed through your copy.

He’s ready.

He knows your offer will greatly benefit him. And his credit card is peeking out his wallet. But if only he could squash those doubts pecking at his brain…

“What if you don’t deliver?” “What if he doesn’t make extra money with your product? “What if he doesn’t save time?”

We’ve all felt this to some degree, right?

You’re at a checkout page and you love the product. But you’re just not sure.

I’ve experienced this many times. I’ve thought, would I get results from this? What if it tanks? And guess what?

After knowing that I didn’t risk a penny and there is no risk on me. I could just return the product or ask for my money back, I whipped my card out and completed the check-out.

Because I felt safe in buying the product.

That’s why guarantees are such an important part of your copy. They help you eliminate the risk of your prospect being “taken”.

Now, you don’t need a groundbreaking guarantee.

A guarantee that shows that your prospect isn’t at risk and stands to lose nothing will suffice.

If you’re selling software, you can offer trials and let your prospect try before they buy. I recently made a purchase from GetResponse, but only because they offered me a risk free trial beforehand.

A free trial also does your marketing for you. And it allows you to put your money where your mouth is.

Your prospect gets first hand experience of the benefits of your product. He could potentially boost sales/conversions without spending a dime. And nothing sells someone like fresh cash, or concrete results.

Create a Greased Slide

How your copy is written will impact your results greatly.

That’s why it’s important to make sure that your copy is easy and fun to read.

As Joseph Sugarman said, your copy should read like a greased slide.

There are 101 ways to power up your writing, but some basic techniques that you should stick to are:

Keep Sentences Short, But Vary Your Pace

Gary Provost sums this up perfectly…

Deploy Powerful Action Verbs, Kill Fluff

“Adjectives are just fluff and air. Like tossing flowers out of your ad to get your prospects attention.” — John Carlton

Here’s a written scene that relies on adjectives instead of verbs:

“He quickly raised his combat knife to see where his attackers were. He composedly stepped out of his life-saving cover. The black gun menacingly fired two loud shot that quickly found their targets.”

The same scene after powering it up with action verbs:

“He used the reflection in his combat knife to gather a rough idea of their location and stepped out of cover. The gun rattled to life. Each shot whizzed to its destination with lightening fast speed.”

See the difference here?

One description is heavy and hard. It requires the reader to wade through bloated words and mundane text.

The other packs-a-punch, and delivers powerful imagery straight into the reader’s brain. Because it uses action verbs to describe and removes the fluff.

Make it Easy To Swing From Paragraph to Paragraph

Ever heard of transitions?

They’re words and phrases that can be viewed as “literary tubes”, because they connect ideas and sentences together.

For example, the sentence below uses “so” as a transition:

“You want to boost your conversions without spending tons of money, so you tweak your copy.”

Unless you want to sound like an illiterate robot, transitions are a must in all forms of writing. But they are even more effective when they become delayed transitions.

Delayed transitions place the joining phrase, or word, at the beginning of the next sentence or paragraph.

Here’s an example from Apple’s watchOS 2 preview page:

Delayed transitions are used at the beginning of each sentence to connect and flow right into the next.

Using delayed transition makes your copy better because:

• They make it easier to start reading a new line.
• They help create shorter sentences. This keeps readers engaged and builds momentum.
• They switch up your flow, which as we know, prevents your copy from becoming stale.

Psychologically Advanced Copywriting Tricks

The basics have been covered.

Now it’s time for some advanced copywriting tips to magnetize your copy.

Boost your Perceived Value With Re-framing

According to Wikipedia, “reframing is a psychological technique that consists of identifying and then disputing irrational or maladaptive thoughts. Reframing is a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives.”

With regards to marketing, reframing is when you increase the perceived value of a product by tweaking the buying lens from which your reader views it.

And it’s been proven to work.

Here’s an example of reframing from Volkswagen:

The price of a brand new car is reframed with the price of two lattes a day. This instantly makes the offer more appealing because it softens the blow of the price.

Here’s another more detailed example:

What price can you place on learning how to get more copywriting clients than you can manage? $2,000? $3000? $5000? (You can easily earn all these numbers back within a month of learning how to secure clients.)

This takes the reader’s view of the product from being just a “$260 video course” to a wise educational investment in which they save $4460.

Keep Readers Hooked With Open Loops

Open loops are everywhere.

And they’re powerful, because our brains have a natural craving for completion.

As discovered by scientist Bluma Zeigarnik, our brains undergo a state of tension when they view something as incomplete.

A tension that won’t be relieved until you feel the task at hand, or whatever you’re involved in, is complete.

It’s the feeling you get when you’re immersed in a book that you just can’t seem to put down.

The feeling you get when your favorite TV episode ends, and you’re itching to find out what happens next.

It’s the gnawing feeling in the back of your brain when leave your keys at home and step out the house.

When it comes to writing copy, an open loop is a portion of your sales letter that doesn’t immediately tie up.

Here’s an example from Jon Morrow’s Serious Bloggers Only sales letter:

Jon opens an itching open loop in the reader’s brain at the start of the sales letter. He does this by mentioning the “biggest secret to taking your blog to six or seven figures per year”.

After opening this loop, he doesn’t tie it up immediately.

Instead, he teases the reader by asking if they’d like to know. And mentions how people pay him up to $5000 for his expertise and advice…

A deeper mental itch is then created because this causes the reader to question “why is his knowledge so valuable?” and “what makes him so special, whats this secret?”

This motivates the reader to travel further down the copy. Where he ties up the open loop, and pitches to the reader.

The easiest way to implement open loops in your copy is to ask more questions.

Or…ask questions and delay the answer to keep your reader invested.

One Final Thing

“You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

–Stephen King, On Writing

Ever seen an athlete or world-class performer come to his task lightly?

You don’t.

Because to give a riveting performance, or win, they have to be focused, charged, and ready to spring.

The same mentality applies to writing copy…or anything that moves people to action.

Jon Morrow put this perfectly when he said:

“Your readers are the dead batteries. You are the live one. The written word is your pair of jumper cables.”

Charge yourself with emotion, close your eyes and imagine yourself as your customer, feeling the pain that your product/service solves.

You’ll instantly add a flaming intensity to your copy that snaps readers out of their slumber, and connect to the living, breathing human who will benefit from your offer.

Conclusion

What design converts better with your copy?

What words or phrases seem to click with your readers?

Where do reader’s lose/gain interest?

You can only know if you test.

Be sure to experiment with different calls to actions, headlines and benefits for maximum conversions.

What do you find most frustrating about writing copy? Let me know in the comments below.

About the Author: Hassan Ud-deen is a content marketing consultant who is addicted to words. He’s a specialist in article and case study writing for traffic generation. Hit him up on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Source: KISS

Back in January of this year, we launched a free Chrome extension (Datanyze Insider) targeted for sales and marketing pros.

In the first 6 months following the launch, marketing resources were extremely scarce. When I say bootstrapped, this is what I mean:

• 2 marketers (myself and our marketing manager, Michael)
• A $5k budget
• Limited design and technical resources
• A marketing automation platform
• Analytics

Over the course of this post, I do my best to outline and explain the tactics that got us to 10,000 installs in 6 months.

If you’re thinking: “Great, but I don’t have a Chrome extension” — don’t sweat it. These tactics are highly translatable and can be used to launch and grow any new product or offering.

Alright, let’s get going.

The Proof

For the skeptics, here’s a snapshot of our month-by-month progress. We launched Insider on January 21st and hit 10,000 users by early July. By July 21st, we were almost to 11,000 free users.

In this case, the goal completion can only be triggered when users submit our sign-up form. (We’ll talk more about the install spike in June later on.)

The Plan

Before the launch, we devised a plan that focused on 3 main deliverables:

1. Attracting new users (for free)
2. Optimizing for conversion and user success
3. Creating advocates and getting referrals

Each of these deliverables has been absolutely crucial to the success of the campaign. While driving traffic and acquiring new users may seem like the most crucial element, I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure your first users love the product and are willing to spread it around. Let’s dig in.

Step 1: Attracting New Users (For Free)

Starting out, we had little budget and little design or technical resources. We did have time though (lots of it), and we chose to spend it familiarizing ourselves with the key players in our space. Our main questions were:

Where do our potential users live?
How do they look for new tools?
Whose opinion do they trust?
What makes them tick?

Having these questions top of mind made it easier for us to focus on the right acquisition channels and get the most out of our efforts. Here are the tactics we employed to get the ball rolling:

Tactic 1: Guest Blogging

If you only have the ability to execute on one tactic, make it this one. Guest blogging gave us a highly effective, free way to get in front of new audiences, provided that we could bring an interesting topic to the table. (Yep, I’m guest blogging now. ☺)

Starting out, we did a bit of research to decide which blogs to approach. We used a combination of BuzzSumo and Moz for this.

With BuzzSumo, you can enter in any keyword phrase, author or URL, and it will send back the most shared articles for that search term. You can filter results to identify which topics are trending this month and you can even view who’s sharing each article on Twitter.

The free Moz Chrome extension allows you to employ a similar technique with Google search, but puts an emphasis on SEO rather than social. (Granted, these two spheres are becoming more and more intertwined, but I thought it would be nice to show both.)

In the search results, Moz will provide the domain authority for each page and the number of websites that link to it. We focused on the results with a high domain authority and lots of inbound links.

Once we had a nice sized list of blogs we wanted to post on, it was time to start reaching out. Kissmetrics contributor, Kristi Hines, wrote an awesome post on how to do this, so I won’t try to reinvent the wheel. However, I will offer up one piece of advice: BE AUTHENTIC.

When you’re reaching out to someone for the first time, you need to find a way to quickly humanize yourself to your recipient. This means doing a bit of research on the blog if you’re reaching out through a Contact Us page or the author if you’re reaching out directly. Remember, if you want to get value, you’ve got to provide it first.

Tactic 2: Influencers

Put simply, influencers are industry experts that your buyers trust. When they tweet, buyers retweet. When they blog, buyers share. When they speak, buyers listen. Identifying and engaging with influencers correctly was a key piece of our acquisition strategy.

First off, we set out to identify the main influencers in our space. A great free tool for doing this is Topsy. It helps find out who’s driving your preferred topic of conversation on Twitter by keyword or hashtag.

You can sort results by timeframe or use the “Influencers” tab to check out which handles get retweeted the most on a given topic.

Another great way to find influencers is on Quora. A quick search for the topic “sales development” brings up a number of frequently asked questions and a preview of which responses received the most upvotes.

Once we had compiled a nice list of influencers, we wanted to get them interested enough in our extension to share it on social or (hopefully) write a nice blog post. This is the hard part. Here’s a little step-by-step process that worked pretty well for us:

1. Interact with each influencer on social. Retweet their posts on Twitter, follow their answers on Quora, comment on a blog post they wrote and, if possible, mention them in your own blog post.
2. Connect on LinkedIn. Before reaching out, connect with each influencer on LinkedIn. This helps humanize your outreach by putting a face to your name when the time comes.
3. Ask for advice. When it comes time to reach out, don’t ask them to share or write about your product right off the bat. Instead, ask for advice. Influencers love digging into new tools and sharing their expertise.
4. Take their advice. If you’re able to get some feedback on your product, make sure you take the necessary steps on your end to incorporate their advice into a V2 of the product.
5. Show them V2 and ask for help. Once you’ve got something new to show them, write your influencer back and note the changes you made. This will show them that you’ve invested in their feedback, making them more likely to become invested in your product. Then (and only then) should you ask for their help with promotion.

Remember that install spike in June? It came from an influencer blog post.

We even got some influencers to tweet out our posts:

If you don't use @datanyze, you're prospecting blind. http://t.co/77NA8nVoBr #sales #marketing

— Kyle York (@kyork20) June 26, 2015

Datanyze: Give us your Salesforce, we’ll fill your funnel http://t.co/0ODhXyzhL4 via @VentureBeat @Datanyze #saas #insidesales <love it!>

— Trish Bertuzzi (@bridgegroupinc) May 4, 2015

Tactic 3: Quora

Quora is an absolute treasure trove when it comes to new users. Thousands of new questions get asked, answered, and upvoted everyday, and top answers often hit the top result on Google (and stay there).

To keep up with questions on Quora, we used a free tool called Feedly. With Feedly, you can copy any topic URL from Quora and create an RSS feed that will alert when new questions are asked. Here’s an example of a feed we used that covers Chrome extensions. Check this out if need help setting it up.

Once we had our feed setup, we needed to answer questions TACTFULLY. This meant:

1. Addressing our prospect’s question in full.
2. Providing more than just a link to our product.
3. Organizing our answers with helpful pictures and bullets.
4. Furthering the discussion by commenting on or citing other helpful answers in the thread.

Once we answered each question thoroughly without being too product pitchy, we chose to ask some co-workers for a little upvote love. This helped get our answers higher in the thread and generate more views.

Step 2: Converting users and making them successful

Once we started driving a great deal of users to our sign-up page, we needed to accomplish two things:

1. Make them confident enough in our extension to fill out a form and install something on their computer.
2. Help them find success quickly so they are comfortable recommending the extension to their network.

Tactic 1: Reviews

At first, we spent a lot of time brainstorming creative ways to ask our customers for reviews. Here are a few of the (semi) interesting ideas we came up with:

1. Pick out several power users and ask for a review in exchange for more credits.
2. Send hand-written letters to influencers. (oof)
3. Sheepishly ask our friends and family to write something nice…

After a good amount of back and forth, we decided to take a risk. Our plan was to add an email to our existing nurture track that simply asked for a review.

The email would be sent out to everyone 5 business days after they installed the extension – whether they used it, liked it, loved it, or not. Here’s what we sent:

This email has been responsible for 90% of the 78 reviews we’ve collected to date. Though it’s automated, I believe it works for a few reasons:

• It comes from the engineer who created the extension.
• It puts a face to the name.
• It asks for both positive AND negative reviews.

Putting ourselves up for both positive and negative reviews was, admittedly, a huge risk. But it was one we were willing to take, because we were confident enough in our product and onboarding flow that users would be successful enough to react favorably.

Tactic 2: Onboarding

“How can we make our first users successful without being too hands-on?” was a question we started to ask ourselves as the installs rolled in.

First things first, we decided to spend a little money. We needed a how-to video that could quickly explain the value of using the extension without digging too deep into the features. We did a bit of research and wound up using SmartShoot, an Elance of sorts for outsourced video production. The video doesn’t exactly bring you to the edge of your seat (we’re no Slack or HubSpot) but it does get the point across.

Next, we created a help center focused on providing answers to questions new users might have. We covered all the basics from install to account creation, and also provided video tutorials on how to use the most prominent features. We then rolled these two assets up into a welcome email, keeping things simple and brief.

You’ll notice that there are quite a few links in there, which may lead to sensory overload for some users. However, we tested a variety of different email styles and found that users who received all resources in the first email, performed nearly 25% more actions in the first week. For us, this was a HUGE piece of knowledge.

After the initial onboarding email, we continued with a 6-email nurture track that focuses on tips and best practices. We figured that if users were successful with the extension, then they would be more likely to refer their friends – a topic I’ll discuss in the following section.

Step 3: Creating advocates and getting referrals

Tactic 1: Growth analytics

Many readers may be familiar with HubSpot’s Chrome extension, Sidekick, which was launched back at the end of 2014. One of the most fascinating articles I’ve read (and one that should be on every data-driven marketer’s short list), is a post that outlines their growth approach for this product.

The HubSpot team stuck to a pretty simple plan:

1. Choose a goal
2. Build a model
3. Analyze the inputs
4. Identify opportunities

HubSpot’s main objective was to find gaps in their existing acquisition and onboarding flows that could be closed up to increase weekly active users. Here are the reasons their users dropped off, which feels pretty typical for most online products:

We are currently taking a similar approach, but aren’t getting quite as in the weeds as HubSpot did (…bootstrapped, remember?).

Currently, we’re focused on increasing the number of credit-based actions a user takes. This means identifying the demographics of the users that drop off, figuring out when they drop off, and why.

I should mention that we’re still very much in the middle of this process, but if you’re interested in our preliminary findings, feel free to shoot me an email!

Tactic 2: Referral program

Nothing spreads faster than a free tool people enjoy using. In our quest to drive more installs, we decided that it was worth using what little design and engineering resources we had to get something off the ground.

Building a successful referral program is no easy task, but luckily there are plenty of awesome examples out there to help get the creative juices flowing. In particular, we decided to emulate Dropbox’s referral campaign, which was a key ingredient in their whopping 3900% growth. Here’s a look at our referral page.

…I’m not a big fan of the confetti either.

A few things to note:

• We highlighted a target goal of “500 credits” to give users something to work towards.
• We chose to make Invite Gmail Contacts the focal point. This is the holy grail of referrals, but not always the first one on a user’s mind.
• We provided a shortened URL for users who prefer not to share on social. Some of our most viral sign-up chains came from links copied to an internal chat tool like Slack or HipChat.
• We gave users the ability to track their referrals and even resend the referral email to prompt friends to sign up.
• We gave both the referrer AND the referee 10 additional credits as a reward for signing up.

Since implementing the program back in March, referrals have accounted for nearly 25% of all new installs. It has also helped our sales team identify which accounts are most likely to convert based on the number of active users on the same domain.

Bootstrapping Can Work If You Have a Solid Plan

So there you have it — a little over 10,000 installs in 6 months! Perhaps not all of this advice is uniquely relevant, but hopefully there are a few nuggets in there that you can take away. Would also love to hear about any bootstrapped marketing tactics you’ve used to supercharge a marketing campaign and get results.

About the Author: Sam Laber is the director of marketing at Datanyze, the all-in-one sales intelligence platform. For more content, check out the Datanyze blog or follow Sam on Twitter @SLaber89.

Source: KISS