On Conversion Rate Myth…
After being involved in the copywriting field since 2008, I’m completely convinced that the conversion rate X% is a myth that no copywriter can guarantee.
Sure, there are many out there who claims the largest or best against the industry standard. You can measure the conversion rate after you’ve done the copywriting and other marketing initiatives, never before.
Working through Proven Principles and Formulas
Copywriters practically follow a formula when writing. It’s not a random string of words that you can ask any Tom, Dick or Harry to do. When copywriters craft and carve out their work, they have only one goal in mind: to sell your product. Here are things which a professional copywriter takes into consideration when churning out copy:
- The limitations and advantages of the medium you are using;
- The position of the copy in relations to the whole marketing initiative. Is it a stand alone marketing collateral? Is it used to supplement the sales executive’s presentation? Is it part of a contest?
- Who is the target market? Even mass market has a niche. What is the product going to do to the user? What perceptions are we trying to create? What collateral damage can arise of using this angle?
- Is this angle consistent with the branding and values of the company/product/service?
- How far does technology plays a role in the promotion of this product? Will it be used online or offline?
- What language does the target market use? Who is reading this? The gatekeeper? The technician? Or the layperson manager? Are industrial terms and jargons necessary? What vocabulary does the target market use?
These questions and factors are designed to ensure your copy is as persuasive as possible so you can convert as many customers/clients as possible.
Factors that Negate or Enhance Effectiveness
Consider this: no matter how good the copy, if it does not work in harmony with the market’s environment, it will never sell. Try selling a Made in Israel product in Malaysia, Iran or Pakistan. Or try selling beef burgers to die-hard or religious vegetarians.
Besides, the copy, there are other factors that come into play. In no particular order, here are some of the factors:
- Boycotts by consumer groups
- Design of the marketing collateral
- Infringement of the sensitivities of local communities
- Public perception towards the product
- Public perception towards the company
- Perception towards the sales team
- Ability of the sales team to sell
- Pricing of the product or service
- Demand for the product or service
- Suitability of the medium
- Goals of the management or decision maker – does he or she knows what she wants?
- Natural disasters or acts of God
- Suitability of the product or service in the target market
- Prior marketing initiatives by the same company
- Prior or current marketing initiatives by the same company
- Prior or current marketing initiatives by the competition
- Availability of alternatives for the market
- Endorsement by celebrities or perceived experts
These are part of the ever-growing list of factors that can and will influence the conversion rate of a copy.
Copywriter’s Job is to Write the Copy, But the Job of the Client…
To quote a UK-based copywriter:
It’s the job of a copywriter to write the copy, BUT it’s the job of the client to market their site and get the QUALITY traffic and the warm to hot leads which can actually convert to buyers.
As a copywriter, I recommend and advice my clients on how to better enhance the copy I supplied to them. Ultimately, the decision is theirs – to follow or ignore the advice given.
Dynamic Occupational Safety & Health Portfolio
Over the last three articles, you glimpsed into the benefits of having a Occupational Safety and Health Portfolio in helping you secure the job of your dreams. You have also been given some tips on how to react towards feedback about your portfolio.
By now you should realise that your OSH portfolio is a dynamic tool.
In some world-class medical universities, medical students are asked to sit for a progressive test each semester. The test contains the same question for that set of students and all students fail in the first half of the semester. Why? The questions asked on subjects, principles and procedures that these students have not study yet. In fact, they’ll only be taught about the answers to the questions in the coming semesters.
So what’s the purpose of the progressive test?
It’s to gauge the understanding and progress of the students.
Portfolio Reflects Understanding
If your understanding of a subject matter has not changed over the course of you preparing your portfolio, there must be something wrong in the process you’re using. If you’re to reflect on the knowledge, principles and theories, your mastery is shown through the many ways you can manipulate and apply that knowledge to find solutions in life.
Your portfolio is meant to reflect your growth and maturity in the field. If you’re a final semester student and yet still thinks like a 1st semester student, what difference do you have compared to your juniors? Why should your prospective employers employ you when your knowledge is no different than someone who has never studied Occupational Safety and Health?
Because your portfolio is dynamic, your portfolio can incorporate change. You can revisit your thoughts and understanding in the past and ratify it through writing a newer article – an update. There are many authors I know – whether OSH related or not – who update their books every now and then.
Knowledge is Dynamic
Your portfolio is meant to demonstrate your mastery of occupational safety and health workplace knowledge. In the Information Age, knowledge and information doubles every two years besides being obsolete in the same time.
Think of the many “miracle substance” which – after a few decades – is revealed to be extremely hazardous to humans.
Knowledge is never perfect, knowledge undergoes the scientific and philosophical debates and with new understanding, the perceptions towards the knowledge changes. Let’s take cheap child labour and slavery. Once upon a time, it’s accepted as true and valid in many countries. Today, it’s condemned by human rights activists and many businesses and democracies.
Realise this: knowledge is dynamic, so your understanding and reflection of that understanding must also be dynamic.
Transition from Generalist to Specialist
Your OSH portfolio is also a marker of your transition from a generalist to a specialist.
For instance at the Diploma or Certificate level, your are taught or exposed to the general principles and practices of workplace safety and health. So few diplomas and certificate specialise immediately in fields like toxicology, occupational hygiene etc.
Thus, your portfolio should represent the transition. Show that you mastered the basic concepts in OHS in the general sense. Based on your focus, company or industry, demonstrate how you can use your understanding and mastery of the knowledge in the circumstances or scenarios that exist in your chosen industry.
Take Action, Draft it Now
You have every reason to promote yourself through an OSH portfolio – online or offline. There is a never perfect timing for action – you need to begin with an action, react to the reactions and take charge by foreseeing the obstacles and challenges of the future.
No amount of literature, video or audio can help you without action on your part.
Take action, draft your OSH portfolio today. Make it a priority.
Handling Reactions towards Your Safety & Health Portfolio
Everyone has their own critic. Open up YouTube and you can read all the hateful comments towards a lot of videos. If you believe in God, even this All-Powerful Being has critics. If you believe in Science, even science has its critics. So, as you put your portfolio out there, be ready for criticisms. The key is to ignore these noise. Here are some ways to handle the reactions towards your online safety and health portfolio:
Have an Open Mind
Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the other person is challenged by the idea you put forth. Perhaps the commenter has done something similar in the past but saw his efforts burn in flames.
If the criticism is constructive in nature, i.e. sheds a light on an unexplored path, use it to your advantage. For the criticisms that purely criticise and call you names, just delete it off.
Having an open mind also means that you must be aware of your own limitations. There could be an error in reasoning due to insufficient or lack of information. If you made a mistake, then admit it and repair the mistake.
Convert Failure into Feedback
Your ability to turn your failures and mistakes into feedback is vital to your long term success. The road to success, as someone once said, is filled with failures.
Many recite the mantra: you either win or lose. I denounce that mantra and replace it with this: you either learn or lose.
Keeping your open mind, find out where it went wrong. Never do it to blame, but do it to repair. Blaming, complaining, cursing, fuming etc. merely drains you emotionally and your energy. It’s easy to slip into the victim mode and do nothing.
Reply after Cooling Down
If you intend to reply to a criticism, never do it while your blood is boiling! Yes, you have the right to give her the piece of your mind, but it doesn’t mean you need to. You never know if that other person can benefit you.
And even if the other person doesn’t benefit you, it wont mean anything if you’ve flamed the person on the Internet. It merely reveals your inability to cope with criticism and ability to be (emotionally) manipulated.
Compile an Action Plan
Use the feedback you get from your safety and health portfolio as a blueprint for an action plan.
What action plan?
The action plan that’s going to take your from where you are to where you want to be. That action plan. If someone recommends that you contact another, why not? Just take action.
It’s so easy to turn seconds into minutes, minutes into hours and hours into days. So easy and effortless that you don’t need to do anything! But for someone who took action, you’ll be eating the dust of his trails.
As they say, the road to Hell is filled with good intentions. Intentions alone cannot give rise to results – it’s your action or inaction.
Ensure that whatever your action may be, it gets you closer and closer to your goal. It’s pointless to allow yourself to deviate from that goal – unless it’s a new goal.
(Posted originally in Ilang in the Sampan 2.0 – http://musings.aldrictinker.com)
Building a Safety & Health Portfolio
Congratulations! You’re studying Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in an institute of higher learning! Perhaps you just concluded a non-OSH programme and doing your OSH certification or academic qualification.
Responsibility to Create Demand
As a student, one of your primary responsibility towards yourself is to ensure that whatever you learn in college, it will help you secure your OSH job of your dreams at the salary you want. In other words, you are responsible to make sure you’re valuable and demanded by many firms/companies.
Showing You’re Practical
To help you started, maintaining and keeping a safety and health portfolio can mould that critical and creative cognitive skills required when you’re an OSH professional. Through this portfolio, you want to show your prospective employers that you can apply the things you have learned – as well as be updated at all times – in the prospective employer’s workplace.
Yes, knowledge is power. Applied knowledge, however, is in demand and makes money. Brian Tracy urges that whatever you learn, make sure it contributes to your bottom line. As an employee, your bottom line is your salary.
We overestimate what we can do in 12 months, but we underestimate what can be accomplished in 5 years.
– Brian Tracy in Ultimate Goals Prorgram
Getting Started
Begin from Day 1. Have a focus: where do you intend to work after graduating? In what industry do you want to start earning the big bucks from? Where do you want to be 5 years from graduation? Are you working in Malaysia or overseas? Use this as the objective(s) and theme of your portfolio.
For example, if you want to work in the shipping industry in 5 years time, mould your portfolio in that direction. Be alert to any and every development in the shipping industry. Start liaising with people in the industry. Find out what the shipping industries expect from the top 5% OSH professionals working for them. And, from Day 1 and as you progress, build up the portfolio or skills that takes you closer to that position.
Case Studies and Reflection
Fill up the pages of your portfolio with case studies. Based on the developments in the news, local and foreign, apply the theories and principles that you’ve learnt in the classroom. Ask:
- How does it apply to the industry?
- How does it not apply to the industry?
- How can it be refined further to be applied in that industry?
- What alternatives are there in applying the principles?
- What are the possible applications of the principles and theories besides the one currently in practice?
- How would new solutions benefit your industry/company?
Do this exercise and you’ll be ahead of many in your class – if not your college.
The perception is students study the syllabus just to sit for the exams. With this portfolio, you think 5 years into the future. You’re forced to see how relevant or irrelevant the principle or theory is. You are beginning to think for application, not theory.
As you find more innovative solutions, you can join the Top 5% of the industry. Why? Only the top 5% do more and beyond what the remaining 95% does.
Offer Review
Use your portfolio to compile your finings in your industry of choice. Critique the current practices in the field and offer alternatives. Rest assured, firms are more than happy to employ people with better and cost effective solutions. It saves money and boosts productivity.
Be Specific, Be Focused
I cannot emphasise this enough. Begin to be specific: which industry do you want to work in? Which company or top 5 companies you want to work with? Based on that, tailor your portfolio to meet the needs of that company/those companies.
Also, as focused as you may be, be consistent.
(Posted originally in Ilang in the Sampan 2.0 – http://musings.aldrictinker.com)
OSH Students: What is a Safety & Health Portfolio?
For the purpose of this entry – and the next three after this – Safety and Health Portfolio means your collection of past work, observations, application of knowledge and case studies that can be used to increase your value in the perception of your potential employers.
Your résumé or curriculum vitae/cv is the summary of your experience. It should be short, simple and concise. If you read Malay, here is one eReport I did on the 33 ways to ensure your résumé is thrown before it is ever read: <Read on Scribd> or <Download from 4Shared>.
For occupational safety and health (OSH) students, you do not have to be at a disadvantage. One way to show that you’re valuable is by building your own early-days portfolio. Show that you can apply what you’ve learned in the classroom or lecture hall into the real world. After all, employers hire you to solve a problem, not talk about theories and principles.
In this four part series, you can form a picture or have an idea of what you want to accomplish and how to go about it.
So, here’s to your employment and professional success!
Sales Copy Copywriting
By Randy Bellerns
I know that headline has probably got you shaking in your boots at the sheer thought of copywriting for your own online sales copy, but there’s absolutely no need to be afraid of a little writing. Granted writing sales copy isn’t easy but anyone can do it if they put their mind to it.
I myself hated writing anything at school in fact I hated school full stop and I learned very little while I was there and if you were to dig up some of my teachers they would tell you the same. It’s different story now though, I actually love writing sales letters, to me it’s the best part of this business.
It wasn’t always fun though, like I said I was no good at writing at school and it was the same when I first embarked on my entrepreneurial journey and started my home Internet business selling information products. I dreaded the thought of having to write sales copy because it made me think back to my school days.
But after a while my writing got a little better and I began to enjoy it, I imagine all the sales letters I have read in the past helped me with my own sales copy writing. Recently things have got even easier for me in my copywriting because I now have a formula that makes it much easier and quicker too.
The way my copy writing formula works is like this… I personally always start with my headline as most people would because it’s the most important part of your sales letter. If people aren’t captured by your headline then they won’t bother to read the rest of your sales page.
Now this is where thing get a little different to what most people will do or tell you to do, you’re probably thinking…" Ok he’s gonna move straight onto his sub heading" and yes that’s what I did in the past I would work down form my headline to the end of my sales copy, and this is the conventional way of writing a sales letter or any other letter, as you would imagine.
Only I’m not too conventional when it comes to copywriting, as I’m going to reveal right now. Instead of getting writers block and spending hours staring at my keyboard wondering what to type because I can’t think of a good sub heading, I will leave it and move onto another section of my sales copy.
For instance I may move onto my guarantee or even my PS’s right at the bottom, now your probably scratching your head right about now thinking " is he mad?" Well no is the answer to that, and the reason I’m able to do this is simply because of my copywriting formula.
I simply break the whole thing down into sections and use sub headers to transition into the following section like this after my attention grabbing headline and sub heading comes a section where I will talk about the problems the reader may be having and which my product will solve.
This then transitions into the section I like to call the imagines which is where I try to take the reader to a place where he or she would like to be, for instance if I was selling timeshare in the Bahamas I would write something like… "Imagine yourself this winter laying on a beach with the crystal clear blue ocean lapping at your feet while all your friends are stuck in the cold damp uk". after a paragraph or two of this I would use another sub heading to transition into "Why I’m the go to person" To buy there timeshare.
This is how I can move from one section to another until I finish my sales copy because every section has it’s own place and function. This is copywriting bliss and anyone can do it by following this simple formula.
If you look to the right of my blog you should see a link to my copywriting video training course which incidentally come with plr. Go take a look it’s well worth it and a damn sight cheaper than paying for you sales copy to be written for you.
Copywriting is a skill all Internet marketers should learn, and learning copywriting couldn’t be easier than with my copywriting video tutorials discover how here Sales Copy Video Training.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Randy_Bellerns
10 Tips for Writing Clearly and Concisely
By Matt Ambrose
There are a lot of badly written websites out there. Copywriting is often the last box to be ticked when websites are designed, which means the copy can be rush or not given enough care.
But having clear, concise copy on your website can be a big advantage. It makes it easier for visitors to understand the benefits of your product and why buying it is the smart thing to do.
However, writing clearly can be difficult if it’s not something you do regularly. So here are 10 tips to help you improve the copywriting on your website:
1. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short. 15-20 words per sentence and 2-3 lines per paragraph is a sensible aim.
2. Focus on 1 idea or point per sentence. If you need to expand, you can use connecting words like ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘because’ to link it to the next sentence.
3. Cut out unnecessary words. Brevity is the basis of clear writing
4. Avoid using long words when a shorter word will do. This makes your sentences quicker and easier to read, and avoids readers having to hunt for their dictionary.
5. Vary your sentences between long and short to give your writing a rhythmic flow that’s enjoyable to read
6. Write in the active voice where the subject comes before the verb e.g. ‘The boy threw the ball’ rather than ‘The ball was thrown by the boy’
7. Avoid using technical jargon and gobbledegook, unless you’re writing for a technical audience that will understand what you mean.
8. Use positive inspiring language with words such as ‘will’ and ‘can’ rather than ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’
9. Split up long passages of copy with subheadings, bullet points and summaries to aid skim readers
10. After you’ve finished writing, read your copywriting out loud. It’s a great way of getting an impression of how it sounds in a reader’s head and whether it needs a bit more fine tuning.
Article provided by Matt Ambrose from the Copywriter Crucible – an award winning melting pot of copywriting tips and marketing ideas.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_Ambrose
Share the Spotlight – A Freelance Writers Guide to Networking Socially
By Joy Lynskey
One aspect of being a freelance writer can be that other freelance writers may come across your work, find it compelling and inspirational, and decide to create their own original article on the same topic. Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, considering a good part of content online is indeed fairly ‘recycled’, it is considered good etiquette, and even better, good networking, to give them credit for the idea. This can be done in a number of ways:
On the original authors blog there can be a short bio with links. If the author who inspired you has one of these, copy paste this to the bottom of your recreated article.
Give the original URL track backs in your blog dashboard.
Leave a message on the original authors blog giving them credit for a great article and let them know you are going to write a similar one.
Contact the original author and ask them for permission to recreate their article on your own site and them their preferred choice for proper crediting
Like, Tweet, Stumble and Digg their article
Link or anchor link their URL on related words within your new original article
All of the methods above will give you the secure knowledge of being a good ethical writer as well as creating helpful networking opportunities for your business or career.Indeed, your willingness to give proper credits may even earn you a link on the original authors page, or perhaps even the original article in question. Just as your linking someones site in properly crediting an article is helpful to the original author, it is also helpful to you even if you are not given a complimentary back link.Additionally, some of the more advanced marketers use programs that will show them who is giving their work "Likes" and who has Tweeted their articles. This can also inspire them to give you a quick like of your own, or even reTweet your message which will contain your account info as well.
In fact, sharing the spotlight on an incredible article is likely to be far more beneficial in the long run by providing you with a few extra back links and other social networking options.
Joy R. Lynskey is the owner of JRL Solutions, a content creation company located at http://jrlsolutions.biz/. Joy regularly provides SEO, keyword rich and content creation information on JRL Solutions WordPress http://www.jrlsolutions-wp.com. Please visit the website and use the contact form if you have any questions!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joy_Lynskey
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