Some of the greatest products are created by people who had a problem themselves, and worked out a solution. They share so many characteristics with their audience, it’s easy for them to connect with potential buyers, and they go on to sell millions. But we don’t always get to market products and services that we’re intimately familiar with or passionate about.

When I was contracted to rework a landing page targeted towards people in need of international and cross-country vehicle transportation, I knew NOTHING about the market. If I was going to successfully sell this service, I was going to have to get to understand what made people who are in search of such a service tick.

If you are unable to understand and connect with your audience, and if they won’t listen, well, you’re screwed.

Below are a 3 tools that can help you understand your audience, which will help you excel in all areas of your business.

• Quora - Quora is a social questions and answers that brings people together with similar interests, and covers just about every niche you can think of, and more. Plug your niche, product, company name, or competitor into the search field (registration required), and in most cases it will return a string of different conversations, all with deep insights into what your customers are thinking. Particularly, what concerns and fears they have. Yahoo! Answers is a similar service, but not as well organized.
• Quantcast - Quantcast is my favorite tool out of all these, and although I have no idea how accurate it is, it has yet to steer me wrong. Quantcast won’t provide you with your audience’s deepest most secrets, but it will give you a general idea of who they are. Simply type in the URL of one of the leaders in your industry, and you’ll be presented all kinds of interesting demographic info (age, gender, ethnicity, education, etc), some of which is sampled here:
  
• BoardReader - It’s amazing what people will reveal when they’re in their comfort zone. Niche forums are a hotbed for niche product discussion and general banter, both of which can be very useful. The general banter will help you define your tone when talking with your audience, and the benefits of observing product discussion should be pretty obvious (I hope). BoardReader aggregates discussion board content into an easily searched, regularly updated database.

These few online tools will make researching your audience easier than ever before. Don’t be afraid to get involved in the discussion. Can’t find the answer to your question in what’s already being discussed among your customers? Just ask!

Get involved as a peer, not as someone selling something or a creep, and they’ll give you everything you need.

For more posts like this, don’t forget to subscribe via RSS!

The post Know Your Customers Like a Stalker (without being creepy) appeared first on Landing Page Copywriter.

Over the next couple months I’ll be rereleasing a section of the checklist each week with updated tips and more in-depth explanations of why each item on the checklist will help you increase conversions.

Get notified of new posts by using the form in the sidebar, or subscribe directly using your favorite RSS reader. At the end of the series you’ll be able to download them all together in a printer-friendly pdf.

If you have any questions or would like to debate the validity of a particular point, I encourage you to leave a comment here or in the comments sections of the corresponding post.

Part 1: Getting Started
Part 2: Headlines
Part 3: Call-to-Action
Part 4: Social Proof
Part 5: The Guarantee
Part 6: Lead Generation
Part 7: The Copy
Part 8: Landing Page Design
Part 9: Prelaunch

Headline and Subheadlines

It’s no secret that a strong headline is essential to the success of your campaign. So important that I often spend more time on the headline than I do on all the rest of the copy. Your headline is your only opportunity to draw prospective clients into reading the rest of your pitch, and ultimately take action on your offer, so you better make sure it’s a good one. The following checklist should help.

_____ Is your landing page’s headline relevant to the ad/source they arrived from?

You want to make sure there’s a smooth transition between the ad and your landing page. Don’t entice them with a story about a 34 year old mother of two that lost 40 lbs., and then direct link them to the diet offer. At best they’ll be confused, at worst they’ll feel deceived. Neither are good options.

_____ Does the headline include your product’s primary benefit?

Your headline needs to instantly convey the value to your customer. It can be tempting to try and be witty with your headline, but prospects are interested in what you can do for them, not how well you can spin a web of words. Be clear, focus on value, and guiding your reader through the rest of the copy will be much easier.

_____ Does the headline tie into the first paragraph of the main body of copy?

Most of the hard work is drawing the reader in with your headline. Don’t waste it all by throwing them off at the very beginning with some irrelevant point.

_____ Does your headline arouse curiosity?

Your headline should make it clear that there’s something in it for the reader, but you don’t want to give everything away in your headline. Otherwise there may not be any reason for them to continue on. The key is to balance clarity with a little mystery.

_____ Do your subheadlines help the reader transition between paragraphs/ideas?

Your subheadlines should help the reader flow through your copy, pick up the points that are relevant to them, and keep them moving to your call to action.

_____ Reading through the headline and subheadlines, from start to finish, does the offer/pitch still make sense?

This is very closely tied to the previous point. Many visitors will skim through your landing page, paying attention only to headlines, and largely ignoring the copy in between. This is especially true of long form sales letters. Copy that can be basically understood, with the headlines/subheadlines alone, will help keep skimmers engaged through to the final call-to-action.

The post Landing Page Conversion Optimization Checklist: Headlines appeared first on Landing Page Copywriter.

Over the next couple months I’ll be rereleasing a section of the checklist each week with updated tips and more in-depth explanations of why each item on the checklist will help you increase conversions.

Get notified of new posts by using the form in the sidebar, or subscribe directly using your favorite RSS reader. At the end of the series you’ll be able to download them all together in a printer-friendly pdf.

If you have any questions or would like to debate the validity of a particular point, I encourage you to leave a comment here or in the comments sections of the corresponding post.

Part 1: Getting Started
Part 2: Headlines
Part 3: Call-to-Action
Part 4: Social Proof
Part 5: The Guarantee
Part 6: Lead Generation
Part 7: The Copy
Part 8: Landing Page Design
Part 9: Prelaunch

Getting Started: Background and Research

Before you jump into creating your landing page, you need to do your homework. In fact, these points are something that should have been taken into consideration long before this point. If you have yet to find answers to these questions, don’t neglect to answer them now, or your business will almost certainly fail.

Write down answers to these questions now and as you piece your landing page together. Check back frequently to make sure your actions are in tune with your objectives, your offer and, most importantly, your audience.

_____ Define your audience.

Who are the people that will be receiving your message, what are they like, and what problems do they face? You can shine some light on this question by either analyzing your own traffic, or using a service like Quantcast to see the demographics of authority sites in your niche.

_____ Create Personas.

This helps to visualize your customers and get in their heads a little bit more.  Create your personas before you start writing or designing your landing page, so you’re able to better imagine how your various personas will react to your page. I’ve included an example persona for a skin care product below. It seems like a silly exercise, but it works wonders.

“Kelly”
-21 year old
-College student
-Has had bad skin for a long time now, and was teased about it in high school.
-She has desperate for a solution to her skin care problems, but due to tuition costs, can’t afford to pay for expensive skin care systems. Her mother, on the other hand, has money to spend.

_____ Define your offer and benefits. 

What exactly will you be offering to visitors of this page? In what specific ways will readers benefit from your offer?

_____ Define Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Without going into too much detail, your USP is a brief description of what you have to offer, and why it is better than all your competitor’s. This is probably the most important step, and will be one of the main focuses of your landing page. If you are unable to define your USP, it’s probably a good idea to go back to the product development stage and figure out a way to give your customers something they won’t be able to find anywhere else.

_____ Define the goals of your landing page.

At this point you should a deep understanding of what you’d like to accomplish with your landing page. It’s still a good idea to write it down now, so you don’t lose focus once you dive in. Go for the direct sale, offer them something in exchange for their contact info, get them to download your software, or something totally out of the box. Whatever it is, don’t attempt to accomplish it all with a single landing page. With goals in mind, you can define a metric to rate your success by (conversions).

_____ Define Your Traffic Sources

If you’ve been able to successfully define all of the above, you’re now in a good position to figure out the best way to drive traffic to your page. The more you can figure out about how you’re going to generate traffic at this early stage in the landing page creation process, the better you’ll be able to cater the copy to your visitors. For example, if you’re able to come up with your Google Adwords ad copy and keywords before you start writing your landing page, you’re able to define expectations and get a better idea of what part of the buying process they’re in.

The post Landing Page Conversion Optimization Checklist: Getting Started appeared first on Landing Page Copywriter.

After all, you are a salesman (or you should at least be thinking like one), and salesman are notorious for being scoundrels. A lot of us are actually pretty good guys and gals, even if the average person doesn’t tend to agree. So you’re going to really have to work for it.

Trust Must Be Earned.

Even well-established brands like McDonalds and Wal-Mart spend millions each year on marketing campaigns that aim to build trust with masses of consumers. Your brand and/or product is not different. You too must build rapport with visitors to your landing page or website if you expect them to hand over their credit card information, or even something as commonplace as an email.

You may not have a multimillion dollar ad budget to spend on TV spots and billboards, but you too can build trust and sell like the best of ‘em. Not only can you, but you must be able to effectively build trust with prospective customers if you hope to succeed in any kind of business.

Identifying and Overcoming Buyer Objections

In order to gain trust, you must be successful in overcoming all objections, either by addressing them directly or increasing the perceived value of your offer so dramatically that some of their objections suddenly become insignificant. Though I will say you’ll have much more success with the former.

Before you can figure out how to gain their trust, you must first identify what reasons they have to mistrust you or what you’re offering. These are what we call “buyer objections” and they’ll vary dramatically from product to product and customer to customer. This is where it really helps to get into the head of your customers, which is an art in and of itself.

Tip: If you segment your traffic into distinct demographics, you’re going to have a much easier job overcoming specific objections as opposed to attempting to tackle ALL objections ANY of your customers may have.

Some buyer objections will be universal, like “can I trust this individual with my information?” While others are going to be specific to your offer, such as “is this product really capable of delivering X?”

Do you know what specific buyer objections are preventing you from making the sale? You better find out.

The post Your Customers Don’t Trust You appeared first on Landing Page Copywriter.