I think I speak for most of my fellow online entrepreneurs when I say that it’s pretty awesome to set our own schedules, be in control of our own incomes, and to work from anywhere with an internet connection.
In fact, I think those are the main reasons most of us got into online entrepreneurship in the first place.
And most of us, at some point relatively early in the game, start to figure out what our on site conversion rates are. Once we know those numbers, it becomes a numbers-in, numbers-out game to ensure our profitability.
But just because we start out with one conversion rate doesn’t mean we can’t improve it.
In fact, one of the best ways to improve your conversion rate is to start with a hook that’s impossible for your target audience to ignore. They won’t have any choice to but keep reading about your offering… and we know that the more someone sticks around to read, the higher your chances are of selling to them.
In today’s video, I walk you through two examples of how to identify and write a more effective hook for whatever it is you sell online.
Online entrepreneurs, webpreneurs, whatever you guys prefer to call yourselves, you’re awesome.
(And I’m one of you too, so that’s automatically even more brownie points.)
You work online for location independence, flexible income, the ability to grow your income to whatever level you want, and way more free time than any of your 9-5 friends would ever even dare to dream of.
So today I want to focus on the kind of copywriting online entrepreneurs use on their websites to support that awesome, awesome dream lifestyle.
As an online entrepreneur, you’ve either already got some sort of info product you sell that generates a passive income for you, or it’s one of your goals.
And even if passive income from an info product isn’t one of your goals, you still sell something (like a service) that’s far more information-heavy than it is about the tangible, deliverable product.
And to sell you thing—whether it’s an info product or a service—you need a sales page.
And the idea behind the sales page (in a nutshell, I know it’s way more complicated than this) is to lead traffic to it, and let that traffic convert into paying customers.
Once you know your numbers of what percentages tend to convert, it’s really easy for you to figure out how to best get more traffic there to buy.
But what if you could convert more of your traffic into paying customers?
It’d mean less money put into generating that traffic… and if you’re not totally hands-off in your business, less work for you in generating that traffic for the same amount of income.
Less work for the same or more money is ALWAYS a win, so let’s look at some ways you can do that with your info products.
Today I’ll walk you through improving the copy of one info product-style offering and one direct time-for-money service offering that online entrepreneurs are using to make money.
In particular, you’ll notice that hooks are incredibly important to getting people to read more about what it is that you’re selling…. and with online selling, the longer you can keep someone’s attention, the more likely you’ll be to sell to them.
[page 1] – http://leavingworkbehind.com/lwb-bmp/ <- instead of “Join the program” focus on an end-result benefit
The first page we’ll look at today is Leaving Work Behind’s blogging mentorship program, and we’ll focus on the hook.
As you can see, the hook now reads “Join the Leaving Work Behind Blogging Mentorship Program!”
Now, I just want to say that I’ve been following this guy online for a number of years, so I know he’s good at what he does. This is not me picking on him in any way, this is just a way to illustrate my point.
While “Join the mentorship program” is what you’d be doing if you signed up, it’s not all that compelling.
Sure, it’s implied that you’ll get to work directly with this successful guy in some way, but it doesn’t actually spell out any immediate benefits to get us absolutely hooked on the offer.
I read through all of his sales copy on the page to uncover a great hook, and I realized two things:
1-You get direct email communication with him
2-It’s fucking free
It’s free because he gets a commission when you sign up for hosting via his affiliate link, but still. Come on. That’s something you’d be paying anyway if you had a blog.
So if he changed his hook to something like “Join My FREE Mentorship Program & Get Weekly, Personalized Email Responses to All of Your Questions.”
Then he can go on with talking about the details of how he can help you decide on a good domain name, build an audience, write better content, and so on.
But do you see how that updated, more specific hook makes a HUGE difference?
[page 2] – http://www.nextscientist.com/hire-me/ <- need to have some compelling REASON to hire you discussed on that exact page – need reminders of how great you are/how badly they need you – chance to invoke emotions
The second example is a website where the online entrepreneur is selling coaching and consulting. I found this in a random Google search for coaches, so this guy could be the best PhD coach or the worst PhD coach in the world.
But that’s not what matters right now.
This is his “hire me” page, so it stands to reason that anyone interested in hiring him would come here after checking out his home page.
I’ve clicked through to read the sales copy for each of these services, and it’s not bad.
The problem though, is this page—this step in the process—is boring, expected, and underwhelming.
This line which is there to prompt action—“Click the images below to see in detail my coaching/consulting services for PhD students and scientists.”—kind of states the obvious. If you come to this page to learn about how to hire him and these two images are all you see, of course that’s what you’re going to do.
Instead (and again, as you might have guessed), getting specific about the benefits of these services will drive way more interest and entice a reader’s appetite to devour the information that’s on the other side of that button.
Reading through the sales copy for this second service, I saw the bolded phrase “multiply their impact with a science blog” which I think is a perfect phrase to capitalize on this the real estate available here.
For the first service, he asks the question, “Do you feel like quitting your PhD and you need to recover your motivation?” which is exactly the kind of thing I’d image a PhD student would be feeling if they got desperate enough to search for a PhD coach.
So let’s play with this text a little bit.
**Read first one out loud**
In the first sentence, I’m capitalizing on that frustration and pain point he highlights on his sales page for this service. I decided to mention the price because it’s not expensive, let them know what they can expect by the end of the call, and even mention his money-back guarantee.
Can you see how this would make a PhD student so much more hungry to know more than “Click on the images below”?
**Read second one out loud**
Here I took that phrase I saw on his sales page and just modified it a bit so I’m talking directly to the reader. I also eliminate some doubts, because for someone who isn’t totally familiar with online marketing or growing a blog (like I’d imagine most serious scientists wouldn’t be because they have other important things to focus on), it can seem like a lot of work with little return.
This works a lot better than the “Click on the images below” line because it actually gets someone thinking about the potential benefits of making more impact with the research they’re working so hard on… especially if they feel like their online reputation is already fine.
Takeaways – camera back on me
So those were some pretty big copywriting improvements for the on-page selling these online entrepreneurs were doing, weren’t they?
I hope they’ve also given you an idea on how you can improve the hooks of your own sales page copy to keep more of your visitors reading and interested in whatever it is that you’re selling to support your online, location-independent, non-9 to 5 lifestyle.
And if you don’t remember anything else, remember this: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS write a hook that spells out some clear, exact, end-result benefits of your service… particularly ones that speak to pain points your visitors already know they have.
Call to action
If you like this video, I have plenty more where it came from. If you’re watching on my blog, you can click the title at the top of my screen to get to my YouTube channel, where you’ll see all my past videos and subscribe to get in on the future ones.
I publish a brand new video every other week with ideas and examples of how to improve online copywriting to improve conversions and sales. I might not be the best on camera, but the information itself is golden, so you should definitely check them out.
I’ve also pasted a link below to my ebook that has five easy-to-implement copywriting tips that’ll help you decrease your bounce rates and increase your conversions and profits for any page on your website. You’ll be able to read through it in 20 minutes, and it’s definitely worth the download.
Thanks for watching today’s video—cheers to all of your copywriting success!