12Copywriting Tips to Make Your Advertising More

12Copywriting Tips to Make Your Advertising More Profitable

by: Thom Reece

Year after year people make the same mistakes in directresponse copy and advertising. You can avoid the most common and costly blunders by following the following proven tips…

1. WRITE IN DIRECT RESPONSE LANGUAGE:

Use short paragraphs and short words. This article has 68% short wordsfive letters or less. Strive for at least 65%75%. Never go under 50% unless you are writing to Ph.Dกs.

Make your sentences and paragraphs flow like a breeze.

Ignore good grammar when you have a good reason.

Keep the bucket brigade going: Start paragraphs with And, But, So you see, However…

Use the freshest concepts and the most colorful language you can without disturbing the flow.

Use hot words: free, profit, new, now, secret, easy, save, guarantee, today… and the hottest word of all: YOU!

Use bullets… lots of them.

2. WRITE LOTS OF HEADLINES.

Always think up dozens of alternative headlines. Put your strongest benefits in them and test your best alternatives. When writing headlines for web sites make sure they include key search words and phrases along with the benefits.

3. DROP THE WARMUPS…

Youกll destroy your entire letter/ad by starting off, กAs a homeowner, you know how maintenace costs are climbing every day…ก. Take your first draft and try cutting out the first two to three paragraphs… youกll usually find the real กmeatก starts to appear in your copy after you have started to กwarmupก to the writing.

4. STAND OUT.

Separate yourself from the competition as clearly as you can. Discover, isolate, and dramatize all the reasons for doing business with you…today…, instead of your competitor. Build your entire package or ad around these reasons (benefits).

5. SELL BENEFITS, NOT FEATURES.

Readers don’t buy products or features of products. They buy the benefitsofuse of the product or features. Be humble enough to realize that a buyer will not give you one red cent for any product or feature until you convert the features into benefitsofuse.

6. LEARN TO GIVE.

Most advertisers and charities think of direct response strictly as a device to กgetก. Unfortunately, most readers also want to get. So, to succeed, you must adopt a กgiveก attitude… beyond what you offer in the product or service. Give them something immediately in your ad, your letter, your web page. Give them news, business tips, interesting stories, resources, freebies, special deals.

7. USE TESTIMONIALS.

They’re proof that you’re as good as you say you are, and that youกll do what you say will do. Like…

กI increased profits by $100,000 last year using your services…ก Joe Smith, President, Smith Corporation

The more specific the testimonial the more power it has. Give full attributions whenever possible. Testimonials give you believability and credibility. You can’t do successful directresponse without these two essential factors.

8. OFFER A MONEYBACK GUARANTEE.

Whatever you are selling, make sure you offer a moneyback guarantee. Itกs a critical factor in getting someone to send in their monty to someone they don’t know or maybe never heard of.

9. CREDIT CARDS, TOLL FREE NUMBERS.

Credit card purchases and tollfree ก800ก numbers can increase your response by as much as 50%. If you’re on the web make sure you opt for secure online transmission (SSL) of credit card orders… or allow other means for your customer to provide their credit information to you.

10. ASK FOR ACTION.

Itกs amazing how often otherwise good copy never gets around to asking for the order. If you don’t ask for action… you won’t get any.

11. BUDGET YOUR TIME.

Devote about one third of your writing time to the lead elements, headline, subheads, teasers, opening paragraphs.

12. KEEP CURRENT.

Directresponse is more scientific than other types of advertising. Like any fastmoving science, it has itกs discoveries daily. This is especially true of writing for the Internet/World Wide Web. Subscribe to industry trade journals such as Target Marketing, DM News, Direct, and other relevant publications.

(C) Copyright 2004 Thom Reece All Rights Reserved

About The Author

Thom Reece is the CEO of OnLine Marketing Group, a direct response marketing agency with headquarters in Hawaii. He is the creator of the Online Marketing Resource Center [ http://www.ecomprofits.com ] & the major portal for the network marketing industry MaxxMLM.com [http://www.MaxxMLM.com]. Thom can be reached by email at: [email protected].

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 04

by Thom Reece

FIVE ADVANCED and Essential features of Your Follo

FIVE ADVANCED and Essential features of Your Follow up Autoresponder

by: Radhika Venkata

If you are not using a follow up autoresponder until now, just buy it. Follow up autoresponders are very valuable tool for online business.

You can offer free email courses

Send ezines, ezine articles

Follow up your customer

Conduct polls and quizzes

*****Your personal Follow up autoresponder software:

These software should be installed on your web site. You are completely in control of your software. These are affordable with good features.

http://www.autoresponseplus.com/

http://www.scripts4webmasters.com/arpproadv/

*****Five Advanced and Essentials features of a follow up autoresponder:

1. Personalization of Your emails:

If your subscriber sees his/her name in the subject field, they will stop a second at your email. Well… itกs human nature to respond to their names. Once they stop at your email subject, more chances of clicking on your email and go in to the message.

2. Email un/subscriptions:

Advanced feature that needs some email forwarders to redirect subscribers emails to the cgi script. In this feature you can offer un/subscriptions through emails apart from form subscriptions.

3. Broadcast emails:

Broadcast emails also called onetime emails. Means instead of follow up emails at specific intervals, you can send promotional emails, ezines to your subscribers one time.

4. Bounced emails:

Very good feature. You can use this feature to clean up your lists. Your host will be happy as bounced emails uses the server resources and you delete them with your autoresponder script. Some free email services put your emails as spam or your subscriber no longer at their subscribed email or other problems like your subscriber email server is not working at the time of your emailings… Any of these reasons. The email will bounce back to your server. All these emails should be cleaned up once in a while, otherwise your host will send you email telling you are using too many resources.

5. Custom fields:

These are the fields to keep certain text in their text areas and if you keep the defined tag, the script replaces it with the text you provided. Great for keeping ads, signatures, links in your emails.

FIVE BASIC and Essential features of Your Follow up Autoresponder: http://www.webmasterscentral.com/wp/em/5basic.shtml

About The Author

Radhika Venkata

Subscribe to กEbookBiz Magazineก which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!

http://www.ebooksworld.com/freetosell.shtml

Webmaster Resources: List Your product, ezine or web site free!

http://www.webmasterscentral.com/

This article was posted on October 23, 2003

by Radhika Venkata

Extend Your Book’s Life With a Sales Letter

Extend Your Book’s Life With a Sales Letter

by: Judy Cullins

Authors, publishers and business owners are great at getting their books written and launched. But after the initial oneyear honeymoon, sales slow down. To counter this, make sure to let your audience know about your bookกs benefits and how it can help them in their lives. Keep your book alive and selling well for years when you write a sales letter.

You can write your first sales letter in less than two hours. As you practice, you will be able to write a short one in only one hour.

What Every Sales Letter Needs to Pull Orders and Profits

1. Start the letter with a benefitdriven headline and include headlines throughout.

Example: กWant a Quick and Easy way to Quadruple your Online Income in Four Months?

If you answered, กYesก to yourself, the headline succeeds, because you will keep reading. If you said, กNo, I don’t believe this, but Iกm curious about where this is going,ก the headline still succeeds. You win when your headline seduces your potential customer to read on in your sales letter and finally to decide to buy.

2. List the top five benefits of your book with bullets.

To define your top benefits start with a list of challenges your client or customer wants solutions for. If you are not rock sure of who your audience is and what they need, your sales copy won’t work.

Essentially, you need to say how your book will make someoneกs life easier or richer in time or money; how it will entertain or inspire; how it will make readers be more successful, more attractive, healthier; how it will help them feel better and avoid catastrophe, sickness, or surgery.

Remember to highlight your bookกs ultimate benefit above the others. This could be the opening headline. If you list more than five benefits use the strongest three to five as your bullet points. Sprinkle the rest throughout your copy.

3. Address your potential buyerกs resistance.

Tell a background story about where your audience is NOW so they will connect emotionally with your solutions. If your book is designed for people who want to write, the sales letter should focus on the fact that many people don’t write books because they doubt that their books will sell well enough to justify all the effort; they worry that a book may not be significant enough, that writing it will take too long and publishing it will cost too much; and besides, they really aren’t writers.ก One, by one, a good sales letter will address a potential buyer’s major concerns.

4. Provide a quick overview of the book’s features.

One client wrote a book on ways to live a successful life. Her top features included *a doityourselfข approach, *reallife coaching examples *mastering the art of ‘moseying’ and *practical tips and strategies that can immediately be implemented into your everyday life.

Example: In this treasure chest you will….

Impact your letter more when you combine your best benefit with a feature such as ขBalance work and home by mastering the joy of moseying.ข While benefits sell and features explain, your web or shorter email sales letter needs to mention features so your potential buyer will know what’s inside your book.

5. Sprinkle testimonials throughout your sales letter.

Since people who learn about your book are more likely to buy it when they think other people already have, it’s important to offer testimonials from experts in your field, relevant celebrities, and satisfied users who have profited from your advice. Don’t send the whole book to people when you ask for testimonials. Just send them a list of the benefits and phrases to make it easy to respond as well as the title and introduction.

6. Offer your potential buyers three or four chances to buy.

They may have already decided to buy before encountering your sales letter, so put กBuy Nowก information near the top and present more buying opportunities along the way after your list of benefits, your summary of the book’s features, and your testimonials.

7. End your sales letter with a 100% moneyback guarantee.

When you offer an ironclad guarantee’this product comes with a 100% Money Back Guarantee. Read the book cover to cover, and if the strategies don’t work for you within 60 days, weกll cheerfully refund your money, and you can keep the product too! people see your book as valuable enough for you to put yourself on the line for it. They will be more likely to buy and be satisfied with their purchase.

8. Share the downside of your book.

Being up front about your bookกs limitations can increase your credibility and create empathy.

Example: ‘this ebook won’t write the book for you, or even get it published, but it will show you the steps and resources you need to write compelling copy, finish fully and sell well.ก

9. Include your credentials.

Obviously, expertise is important. One author wrote a book on stress and how it affects relationships. Her sales letter included ขI interviewed 30 couples and included their answers to my ขwhat do you do daily to keep your relationship alive and joyful? My 20 years background as a marriage and family therapist includes 10 years coaching, consulting and presenting 25 seminars a year.

Keep your book alive and selling well for years with a sales letter emailed out and on your Web site.

Judy Cullins ©2004 All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Judy Cullins, 20year Book and Internet Marketing Coach with small business people who want to make a difference in peopleกs lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent lifelong income. Author of 10 eBooks including กWrite your eBook Fast,ก กHow to Market your Business on the Internet,ก and กCreate your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,ก she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, ‘the Book Coach Says…ก and กBusiness Tip of the Monthก at http://www.bookcoaching.com/optin.shtml and over 155 free articles. Email her at [email protected].

This article was posted on November 19, 2004

by Judy Cullins

Your Business At Stake

Your Business At Stake

by: Daira Winkler

http://www.esvon.com/pg/consulting/c_articles/ads/

(c) by Daria Winkler

We do believe in healthy sense of paranoia. Not the paranoia, which makes us feverishly try to distinguish ourselves from our competitors, but the paranoia, which makes us feel the iron hand of competition and gives us the stimulus to constantly develop and improve.

It is difficult to survive in the media, where everybody claims he is the best and where somebody is indeed better than you. It prompted us the idea of carrying out a kind of analysis of the products offered on the Web, similar to Esvon Classifieds. In no shape of form, we are going to judge or criticize the web applications, listed below.

The search engine has brought us to the following software products:

http://www.interactivetools.com/products/realtymanager/

The first impression is that Realty Manager is quite a professional solution. Scanning the pages, and studying this product more carefully we learn that the script is realized using Perl and text files and its functionality is really worth being paid for. PHP/MySQL and Perl/text files solutions don’t have any distinction in kind when it comes to their functionality. But PHP code is more consistent and modular and it runs faster. The advantage of PHP is also the ubiquity of web server platforms supporting PHP and MySQL. Fact: Over 25% of the internetกs web sites are running PHP and nearly 63% of the internetกs web sites are running the Apache web server, so give it a thought.

Those, who have encountered the problem of a script running slowly, probably know, that the faster grows your database of users, the slower your script works. In the end, it just breaks. (it happens because it is based on text files). Thus, such solution can be used only when the web site you are going to build is simple.

Moreover, with their license you are not allowed to edit scripts; it can be a disaster for you when you want to customize your solution.

The web site itself is very informative; it seems to give the overall description of the application. In general, this software script is enough if your web portal needs don’t go far. Yet, it is quite simple and friendly but has much fewer functions than Esvon Classfieds does.

http://www.mojoscripts.com/products/mojoestate/index.shtml

The web site layout and the product presentation resemble a bit the previous one. The application is Perl/MySQL solution, which however costs less. The price, as we have already indicated, is not a No.1 factor for making decision. But $199 seems nevertheless too little for a powerful script with ขtons of featuresข.

MojoEstate includes a lot of features: internal mailbox system, saved search system, multimedia file gallery, advanced admin and member panels, powerful search facility, detailed whoisonline display, autogenerated thumbnails for uploaded images, etc.

We won’t enumerate all the product features, described at the web site. When a visitor reads the content, it is often enough for him to know what is described. But developers and more competent users know that it’s just a surface. When it comes to the product in action, they might face with the problem of handling extreme amounts of traffic the database queries, which can bring your server down. Some customers just may skip this peculiarity.

The product is also presented in a wellstructured manner and seems to be a good costeffective solution for budgetminded people.

http://www.smartisoft.com/products.php?product=phpBazar

We see that the script manufacturers have preferred PHP code in this case. As we have already mentioned, we also consider it to be better for such kind of applications in view of its open source technology and the fact that it is firmly implanted in the LAMP family (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) of open source web development platform technologies.

The given page describes the product features. It is a long and detailed fivescroll list. The demo is actually well presented, yet has an erotic shadow. If you are looking for a PHP script to build exactly this kind of web portal, then you are all set. But if you are in search for a program, say, for a real estate site, such demo confuses a bit… Driven by common sense you get back and click ขI am not over 18ข. I was a bit taken aback when I was redirected to a disney web site.

http://www.eclassifieds.net/products/index.html

We should surmise that this solution looks professional. The abundant choice of editions is a good prove to it. Still, the researches show, that the bigger the selection is, the more difficult it is to make a decision. And it is really so. Say, you decide that you need one solution and proceed to the following edition to make sure you did not skip the features that are necessary to your online business. And it turns out that you did. You change the decision. While you proceed to the third one, you might discover that it has the features of the second edition, but lacks for the features of the first. You feel frustrated.

Yet, you can see the demo of every edition directly without filling in any web form before it. It contributes to the web site popularity and makes the product more available.

The script is also realized using Perl and text files and the customer support of the manufacturer costs $75 $100 per hour. Maybe this rate is the confirmation that the company really guarantees an irreproachable performance of their product, and you won’t have to refer to them too often; but support is required more often than you might think, since the situations differ.

http://www.esvon.com/products/cl/

Of course, we do pay attention to what the program looks like, but its internal mechanism does play a great role. The Esvon specialists have seen to this. You can’t see it, but you can be sure Esvon Classifieds script runs well and allows you to avoid the typical problems, the web applications owners might encounter.

The well thought out and powerful script, its modularity and flexibility are the best qualities distinguished by our customers. It is difficult, however, to judge ourselves, thus, we will enumerate the features, which were marked by our customers as practically unique in comparison to other similar solutions:

Static HTML pages generation allows you to have the fast web site, indexed in search engines by more keywords and much more accessible to web surfers.

The script allows you to handle much more site traffic/visitors queries, then other existing applications; the fast running PHP code is also marked as an important peculiarity of the program. Just as an example, Esvon Classifieds has unique category tree building engine: it is very fast, with only 2 SQL queries to build an unlimitedlevel category tree with ads amount per category calculation; it will ensure you that your server won’t be brought down by amount of database queries executed!

While we were preparing this article, we received one more email from our customer, where he compares our product with GeoClassifieds (http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm), and marks the following features as award winning in Esvon Classifieds: template system, Gd or imagemagick thumbnail images, very good support, reviews writing and voting, blocks engine, absolutely custom database fields settings.

http://geodesicsolutions.com/products/index.htm

GeoDesic product features are very attractive. Here it is: the case, when you should go deeper. A typical user can claim that it doesn’t matter, what’s inside; it just should work and do what he expects from it. But the deeper approach reveals, that the script is not able to process properly growing database queries, its templates are not very flexible, it runs slow and it is unable to generate static content.

Using such script you take risk to be very soon removed from the shared web server, since your traffic might exceed the maximum allowed server load limit very quickly.

Thus, be meticulous while choosing the script fro your online business.

We hope, that this analysis has contributed to your knowledge of what you are looking for on the Web. In the end, you decide, we just help you to see deeper; we hope that we do.

About The Author

Daria Winkler is Cofounder and Principal of Esvon LLC (http://www.esvon.com/) information technology company, providing cost effective software development and outsourcing services to our clients and professional classified ads software for website owners.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 18, 2003

by Daira Winkler

Why ReDesign?

Why ReDesign?

by: Craig Kistler

My site is working fine. The links work. Content is added regularly. We have new features. Why does my company need a redesign?

Those are all great things. Sites should be updated regularly, have new features added, and by far have working links. However, as the site grows it soon outgrows its foundation. Leading to an unorganized use of content, poor usability, and eventually chaos. A redesign is a perfect opportunity to take an inventory and put things back on track. It will also allow for a better user experience.

New Foundation

With any redesign it is a great time to do a little rethinking. Looking at the current site a question needs to be asked. What is it that people want when coming to my site? By understanding what it is people are looking for from your site you will be able to better position that information within the architecture of the entire site.

Judging by the Cover

The old adage กNever judge a book by its coverก doesn’t apply to your website. Users to your site make quick and often harsh judgment calls within seconds of viewing your homepage. By making outstanding first impression with a crisp, clean, professional look the user gets a sense of trust from the company behind the site.

Follow the Leader

Your site could have the exact information a specific user is looking for. However, if it takes too long for them to locate it chances are they will go somewhere else to find the information. By making your site as user friendly as possible you will be able to guide the user to specific areas of content. Bringing content that is hidden under multiple clicks to the forefront makes it easy for a user to locate. As well as, leads the user to other areas of your site that they might not have known about.

New Experience

New features can dramatically improve the user experience. Online calendars that allow a user to register for events are a perfect example of how a simple feature increases the value of a site. No longer does the user have to call or mail in an RSVP card. As such, the company doesn’t need a person to answer the phone for every registration.

Cheapest Employee

Your website could be your cheapest employee. It has already been mentioned that your site could make your daytoday tasks a think of the past. By adding features to your site that help educate your user base, ehhance marketing efforts, as well as, develope a sense of who your users are you are in reality making your site work harder for you. The simple fact is that you have a site. Why not make it work harder and do more for you and your company? An offshoot of adding features like this is that your users have more interaction with your site and your company.

Your Future Customers

The whole goal of a redesign is to create a better experience for your users. There are many approaches to attain such a goal. Maybe it is a new look, a revised navigation scheme, or a complete overhaul. Whatever the outcome, your site should reflect the company behind the site and insure a sense of trust with you future customers.

Contact SFD today to schedule a FREE consultation on your current website. And get ideas on who you can make your website work harder for you.

About The Author

The talent behind Small Farm Designกs creative endeavors is Craig Kistler. An awardwinning designer with years of experience in graphic design, print advertising, illustration, identities, and web design.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 24, 2003

by Craig Kistler

Writing BenefitDriven Web Copy – 4 Steps to More

Writing BenefitDriven Web Copy – 4 Steps to More Sales

by: Glenn Murray

Youกve identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers?
Recently I wrote an article explaining how to identify the benefits you offer your customers (http://www.divinewrite.com/benefits.htm). That article challenged business owners and marketing managers to think in terms of benefits rather than features when writing their web copy.
What the article didn’t discuss was how to actually write the web copy once they had identified their benefits. That’s what this article is about. (It even gives you a couple of templates you can use to make your job a whole lot easier!)
As a website copywriter, many of the projects I undertake are completely new websites. The client has some general ideas about what they’d like to convey, but they need someone who can finetune their message, and create web copy (and a web structure) which engages their readers. As a result, over the years I’ve developed a process for doing this effectively. There are four main steps:

Identify benefits
Identify how you deliver these benefits
Prioritise your benefits
Write the content

Although this article touches on step 1, it’s mostly about steps 2, 3, and 4.
STEP 1 – IDENTIFY YOUR BENEFITS
Branding aside, most websites are about selling. Customers don’t want to know what you can do; they want to know what you can do for THEM. That means the first question you should ask is, ขWhat benefits do I offer my customers?ข This is usually the first step toward identifying the key message to be conveyed.
That’s not to say that your website shouldn’t describe your products and services. You just need to make sure it describes them in terms of benefits to your customer.
But benefits identification is outside the scope of this article. If you’d like to find out more about how to engage your customer with benefits, go to http://www.divinewrite.com/benefits.htm.
STEP 2 – IDENTIFY HOW YOU DELIVER THESE BENEFITS
Of course, you can’t just claim to deliver benefits and stop at that. You need to support that claim. On your website, you’re going to need to convince your audience that you actually do deliver these benefits. Anyone can say they deliver benefits, but few can say it persuasively.
From step 1 you’ll have a list of benefits. Now you need to think about how you deliver each benefit in that list. This is where you start talking about features – price, product highlights, distribution channel, competitor weaknesses, external factors, USPs, etc. It’s helpful if you draw up a table with one column for benefits and one for the features which deliver those benefits. (Click http://www.divinewrite.com/downloads/benefitsfeatures.doc to download an example BenefitsFeatures table – 20KB.)
You’ll probably find this process much easier than identifying benefits. In fact, you’ve probably got most of this information written down already… somewhere. If not, chances are you uncovered a good portion of it when you were brainstorming for benefits.
TIP: If you’re having trouble identifying supporting features, before filling out the table, try listing everything you can think of which relates to what you do and how you do it. Don’t worry about the order. Just braindump onto a piece of paper, a whiteboard, a Word document, anywhere… Don’t leave anything out, even if it seems unimportant. (You’d be surprised how important even the most insignificant details can become once you start assigning them to benefits.) If you start getting lost, think back to the question you’re trying to answer: How do you deliver your list of benefits to your customer? Once you’ve done your braindump, read through it and decide which specific benefit each feature delivers.
STEP 3 – PRIORITISE YOUR BENEFITS
Now that you’ve identified all the things you COULD say, it’s time to figure out what you SHOULD say and where you should say it. This is where your benefitsfeatures table comes into play. Read through your list of benefits and prioritise them according to how compelling they will be to your reader.
The reason for this? Priority determines prominence. The most compelling benefits will need to be prominent on your site.
TIP: Be aware that your list may include some benefits which everyone in your business category could claim. In other words, they’re not just specific to your company, but apply to the type of service you offer. For example, if you sell a Content Management System (CMS) for website creation, you may list ขGreater control for marketing managersข and ขLess expense updating contentข as benefits. Every CMS vendor could claim these benefits, so you’ll need to question their importance. Will they differentiate you from your competitors. Generic benefits can be useful if none of your competitors are using them, or if you feel you need to educate your market a bit before launching into companyspecific benefits.
STEP 4 – WRITE YOUR CONTENT
So now you know what you’d like to say, it’s time to decide how to say it. This is about three things:

Subject – What is the subject of your site; features or benefits?
Structure – How do you structure your site such that your customers will read your most compelling benefits?
Words – What words should you use to best engage your audience (and the search engines)?

The remainder of this article is dedicated to Subject and Structure. For further discussion of Words, see http://www.divinewrite.com/webwriting.htm and http://www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm).
Subject
What is the subject of your site; features or benefits? The answer to this question lies in audience identification. If your audience knows a bit about the type of product or service you’re selling, lead with features (e.g. processor speed, turnaround time, uptime, expertise, educational qualifications, wide product range, etc.). But make sure you talk about their benefits, and make sure the features offering the most important benefits are the most prominent.
Here’s a simplified example…
ขCool Widgets offers:

Standard Operating Environment – Significantly reducing the complexity of your IT infrastructure
System upgrades which are less expensive to license – Providing excellent TCO reductionsข

In cases where you’re selling to an audience who knows very little about your product or service, lead with benefits (e.g. if you’re selling something technical to a nontechnical audience).
Here’s the same simplified example, reversed for a novice audience…
ขCool Widgets offers:

Reduced complexity of IT infrastructure – We can implement a Standard Operating Environment for your organisation
Reduced TCO – We can upgrade your IT to systems which are less expensive to licenseข

Structure
How do you structure your site such that your customers will be sure to read your most compelling benefits? The answer is, keep it short ‘n sweet. And make it scannable. This doesn’t mean you have to cut features or benefits. You just have to structure your site to accommodate your message.
While every site is different, as a rule of thumb it’s a good idea to introduce your main features and benefits on your home page. Summarise them – preferably using bullet points, but at the very least, clearly highlight them so that your audience can scanread (e.g. bold, underline, colour, link).
Then link from each summarised feature or benefit to a detailed description. Try to keep each page to approximately 200400 words. You may need several pages to detail all your features and benefits. (Click http://www.divinewrite.com/downloads/pagestructure.doc to download a page structure template – 29KB.)
TIP: In cases where you need to introduce features and benefits which are generic to your field (rather than specific to your offering), your home page is generally the best place to do it. From there, you can lead to a second page summarising the specific features and benefits of your offering.
Conclusion
Web copy is about far more than just clever words. It’s essential that you identify the benefits you offer your customer, and that you can convince your customer you actually deliver those benefits.
I hope that the guidance and tools provided in this article will help you on your way to engaging web copy which converts to sales.
Happy writing!

About The Author

Glenn Murray heads advertising copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at [email protected]. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.

This article was posted on July 28, 2004

by Glenn Murray

Broadband Features

Broadband Features

by: Neil Shevlin

Internet service providers are becoming more and more present as the internet makes its way into more and more homes in America. This is making it harder to decide which ISP to subscribe to. In fact, most of them have a list of benefits to entice customers into subscribing from their ISP. Here is some information on the basic features that should come with a good ISP.

First, is of coarse security. With new viruses circulating the internet everyday, you can’t be too careful. That is why it is critical for ISP’s to offer virus protection. However, they are now offering popup blockers also. These troublesome ads can become so frustrating that they too can be considered harmful to your computer. This is why ISP’s have started furnishing tools to speed up customer’s computers and create a more enjoyable internet experience. They are also protecting children from the net by providing blocks controlled by parents to block adult material on the net.

Another, feature you want to have from your ISP is multiple email accounts. In fact, many ISP’s provide between 5 and 10 email accounts to one subscriber. This allows every member of the family to have their own email account. That way a father doesn’t have to put up with the cutsie forwards his daughter receives, and she doesn’t have to put up with her father’s daily stock tips. This is the best way to go if you have a family. The more email accounts the better since it is best to have a professional email account, and another for less formal messages.

If you want your own web page posted on the net, you may be able to get one without the unwanted ads. This is because ISP’s are now offering free web space. This space is limited in size, but does not always have the ads that come with other free web spaces. In fact, your ISP may also provide a template or special tools such as counters to place on your site. You should check with your ISP before placing a business site on the web space provided by them. A lot of ISP’s will not allow that kind of use.

Your ISP may also provide for use from multiple computers in your home. This may be free or may cost you a small fee. However, with multiple access you can have the freedom of completing your work assignments online, while your son is researching for a school paper. Whatever you are looking for you may find it. The key is looking around and comparing the features with more than one ISP. This way you will find just the right features for you and your family.

About The Author

Neil Shevlin is the owner of EUK Broadband which is a great place to find broadband links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.eukbroadband.com.

www.eukbroadband.com © Copyright 2005

Please feel free to copy and paste this article and itกs resource information.

This article was posted on August 02

by Neil Shevlin

Searching For The Right ISP?

Searching For The Right ISP?

by: Neil Shevlin

When searching for the right ISP there are a number of items to look at. How much is it going to cost me? What is the connection like? What are the Features? Is it available in my area? You will soon find that there are many ISP’s to choose from. So, it is beneficial for you to pick the right internet service provider.

The cost is probably the most important aspect to most subscribers. Yet, many are not willing to put up with the low quality provided by free ISP’s. This leaves them looking for low cost ISP’s. The best way to find the lower cost ISP’s is to search for them. Most of the ISP’s you are going to see advertising are going to be a bit higher than those who do not have as much advertising. A search of the internet may help you find some of these ISP’s.

Although the price may be right, if your connection is weak you may not to go with that ISP. This can happen because problems with the cable or phone lines are common with the ISP. It can also occur if your ISP has a large volume of users trying to access the internet at the same time. This is particularly true with dialup ISP’s that do not have enough phone numbers. Also you want to make sure that the ISP is compatible for the tasks you want to do. For instance, AOL users sometimes have problems with some aspects of the net. This is because the program that runs AOL is so dominating. If you frequent certain sites, they may list ISP’s that have problems using the site. This usually applies to sites that have music, video and effects but don’t really apply to straight text.

The features are also important. In fact, if you don’t want to be frustrated with popups you may find yourself drawn to ISP’s that offer popup blockers and virus protection. You may be worried about your children surfing the web. A feature to block adult sites may be what you are looking for in that case. ISP’s are coming up with new features all the time so you really do have some choices here.

Another important aspect is availability. Not all ISP’s are widely available. This is especially true for ISP’s that are free or low cost. Even if an ISP is available in your area, there may not be an available local phone number. When you use your dialup modem with a long distance number you may incur long distance charges while you are on the net. In addition, if there are local numbers but not many of them, you may have trouble connecting to the internet.

About The Author

Neil Shevlin is the owner of UK Broadband Review which is a great place to find broadband links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.ukbroadbandreview.com

www.ukbroadbandreview.com © Copyright 2005

Please feel free to copy and paste this article and itกs resource information.

This article was posted on August 09

by Neil Shevlin

Feature Your Benefits

Feature Your Benefits

by: Janice D. Byer, MVA

Sales Copy… eventually every small business owner must consider what needs to be included in order to produce a successful advertisement or piece of marketing material.

You begin with a fancy graphic, your company logo, a slogan, and perhaps a special offer. However, more needs to be included in your sales copy to actually get your customers to buy. You need to include some your product’s features. But, more importantly, you have to list the benefits of your product or service.

Let’s begin with your product or service’s features. These can include the price, colour, options, or availability. Your customer will need to know some of these features to determine if what you have to offer is what they want to buy.

But, it’s the benefits of your product or service that may be the deciding factor in whether they buy from you as opposed to from your competition.

Benefits are advantages your customer gets from the purchase of your product or service. What does it offer the buyer that will be advantageous to them; that will fill a need; that will make their life easier; or that will solve a problem?

Acquiring new customers from your advertisement or marketing material will be more likely to happen if you show them the benefits they will receive from the purchase of your product or service. Show them ขwhat’s in it for themข.

Let’s look at Webster’s Dictionary’s definition of a feature and a benefit (in the context of a business’ product or service):

Feature: noun: a prominent part or characteristic; the structure, form, or appearance.

Benefit: adjective: receiving or entitling one to receive an advantage; help; useful aid.

Incorporating your product’s benefits with its features will help to get your customer excited about your product and how it will fill a need or solve a problem. Keep your customer and their wants and desires in mind when producing sales copy and you will have tremendous success.

For an example of how to turn your product or service’s features into benefits, let’s look at one of our particular services.

Product/Service: Virtual Word Processing

Feature: Over 15 years of experience in both the corporate and small business sectors.

Benefit: Your customers will have peace of mind that the work will be done accurately and to their specifications, with little or no need for them to use their valuable time to train. (Save Time)

Feature: Competitive pricing

Benefit: Your customer will save money by using the services rather than spending money on a temp who may sit idle for periods of time. (Save Money)

Feature: Globally available

Benefit: Your customer does not have to worry about where they are located, geographically. They can receive the help they need from anywhere in the world, whenever they need it. (Save Sanity and reduce stress levels)

For every feature of your product or service, you need to show that there is an advantage to your clients… something that will make their life easier.

To briefly sum things up, there are two basic rules when putting together sales copy:

1. Establish a need. (Do some research and find out what your clients have to have.)

2. Show how your product or service satisfies that need.

Don’t ever forget that your potential customer wants to know what’s in it for them. So, outline your product or service’s features in your sales copy or marketing material but, more importantly, reel them in by associating the benefits.

About The Author

Janice Byer is a certified Master Virtual Assistant and owner of DocuType Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net). See this and other articles on her website.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 18, 2002

by Janice D. Byer, MVA

Guide To Buying A Digital Camera

Guide To Buying A Digital Camera

by: Maui Reyes

If you’re one of those people who have never owned a digital camera in their life, go to a corner and cry for ten minutes. Then get back to this list before hopping into your car to purchase one.

• Find out what you’ll be using it for. Walking into a camera store can be quite overwhelming—hundreds of cameras ranging from the size of a credit card to as wide as a computer manual. It may be cute to carry around a sleek little red digicam, but you will have to consider what you’re actually going to use it for.

Do you need a compact one to store in your handbag? Are you planning to take professional photos for work? Does the number of features matter to you? Do you want a camera with manual functions? You don’t want to bring home a camera that doesn’t satisfy your needs, or purchase one with so many features that you won’t be able to use.

• Be familiar with camera specs. All those fancy words on the box might make it look like your wallet sized camera will turn you into a professional shutterbug. Mega Pixel is the maximum resolution per photothe higher the MP, the bigger the prints you can get without it looking blurry. If you’re only planning to exchange photos on the internet, then a 2MP camera is fine. Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom are two different things—most pros snub Digital Zoom, since this is actually a software function that crops the image, which makes it lose its quality.

• Budget. We’re not going to lie: digital cameras don’t exactly come cheap. When budgeting on which camera to take home, consider the features, its size, its Mega Pixel count, and the brand.

Most photographers swear by one brand over the other—if you’re particularly loyal to just one brand, then you can shun the others and bask in just one aisle. But if you’re a little bit more openminded, then you’ve got a bigger playground to frolic in.

You’ll also need to see what kind of memory card (which is sort of like the ขfilmข of the camera) the camera needs, and what kind of batteries fuel it. Most digital cameras use AA batteries, so investing in a bunch of rechargeable ones is key.

• Try it out. Most people make the mistake of reading the box, swiping their credit card, and coming home to find out that they’re not comfortable with their latest purchase. While in the store, try taking a bunch of photos. Make sure it fits well in your hand, and it’s easy to use. The most userfriendly cameras out there are Canon, Casio, and Kodak—but you might want to try out others. Take your time in familiarizing yourself with the possible units you’ll be taking pictures with.

About The Author

Maui Reyes has written various articles of different topics. She has a clever writing skills that isnt just good for marketing strategies but also in reviews of products, news, technological innovations, health problems, legality issues and many more. Another factor that made her land into this job is her flexibility in her writing just about everything under the sun.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 10

by Maui Reyes

Basics of Scanning

Basics of Scanning

by: Carla Ballatan

Are you getting exasperated with all the stacks of negatives and prints warping into unruly shapes and colors that’s been holding your desk drawer hostage but haven’t got the heart to deposit them into the dark recesses of your attic/basement?

Fret no more! By scanning your pictures, you will be given an opportunity to edit and organize your pictures. Once your images are digitized, you can export it into Photoshop to make adjustments. Also, by having your prints or negatives get digitized, you get to archive, email, fax, save them to a CD or even publish them on a website. You may even get to build a photo gallery and let your whole family and friends access them.

Scanning technology has come a long way since being introduced. With only about US$150, you can already have a fine scanner with all the software you need. Of course if you fancy a scanner that handles slides and negatives, you’ll invest a little bit more than this amount.

Before rushing out to buy a scanner, do some research on the gadget, first, like figuring out the features you need and how much you want to spend. Then, know the scanner jargons that describe it’s factors and features. There are two crucial measurements when it comes to scanners – bit or color depth refers to the number of bits of image data the scanner will use for each pixel, and resolution/DPI, which tells you how many spots of information there are in a given area.

You have to consider other features, too. Like the scanner’s speed, ability to scan negatives/slides, software bundles to manage the scanning process, interface between your computer and scanner, and scanner size.

So, now, if you have your scanner already, it’s best to start with a low resolution setting and work your way up from there. The default resolution of 150 DPI might not be a bad place to start. Then, the next important setting is the ขoutput typeข which describes what type of image you’re scanning. Save space and time by cropping the pictures before scanning them and closing some other applications on your computers. If you’re having trouble with the scanning software, consult the manual.

To top all scanning basics lessons, remember that scanning is a twopart process. The first part is setting of the resolution and output and making the scan, and the second is saving and editing the file. Saving is an important process and it’s a good option to save your files in BMP or TIFF, especially if you plan to import them into Photoshop for adjustments. Try keeping images bound for website under 40 KB. And for images that you want to print out, save them as TIFF uncompressed or BMP and use a high DPI setting (300 and up) when scanning them.

Have fun editing your image once you’ve scanned them…Remember, if you foul up, you can still start the whole scanning process – as long as you have your scanner handy!

About The Author

Lala B. is a 26 yearold Communication Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right after graduating last 1999, she worked for one year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication and Documentation Program Director at a nongovernment organization, which focuses on the rights, interests and welfare of workers for about four years.

Her writing prowess began as early as she was 10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing, she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints and assert it, to bring out all concerns imagined and observed, to bear witness.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.ucreative.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 07

by Carla Ballatan

Beyond the box with Googleกs Web API

Beyond the box with Googleกs Web API

by: Jakob Jelling

Google, the most popular, and many say best, search engine, offers searchers many options to help them zero in on just what they’re looking for. Although these search modifier features are documented on own site, many searchers, including experienced marketers and technically savvy people, simple don’t know these features are available. But these features, along with the Google search box, are only available to human searchers, who can type in their search parameters, and perhaps some keyboard scripting programs as well. But there is a way for programmers and web site designers to access Googleกs database from their own sites, in the exact way they need. This is done by using Googleกs Web API (Application Program Interface).

With the API, programmers can use most any web programming language, such as PHP, ASP, Perl, .NET, and Java. Googleกs Web API provides กdata hooksก that allow a remote program to access certain portions of Google easily.

You must be very aware of the Google Web API Terms of Service. You must obtain a developer key that you will include in each API use, you are allowed only 1,000 automated queries per day, and perhaps most important, you may not use the Google API for commercial purposes. It is only for your personal use, and you of course may not violate any laws or copyright protection.

Google provides a developerกs kit to help you get started. Data is interchanged between Google and the application program using an XML structure, so the results from Google should be relatively easy to parse even for only moderately experienced developers. If you have problems or questions, Google offers Getting Help, Reference and FAQ links, and you will find help and discussions on any of several forums should you need more help. Just search Google from the search box!

By Jakob Jelling

http://www.sitetube.com

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

This article was posted on October 11, 2004

by Jakob Jelling