Street-savvy ad writing that sells anything

Sell Solutions, Not Just Features.

Dear Reader;

We’ve all encountered door-to-door salespeople. Yes, in this century – and most are shocked. I mean, who knew this kind of work still exists?

Some homeowners are so shocked that they whip out their pistols, call the cops, drop the F bomb, or sic their dog on you.

Talk about the school of hard knocks.

I still remember when I learned the secret of door-to-door sales. We called it power-selling.

First you’d clear your head…

Then, as you walk up to their door, you try to find anything to build rapport (without looking like a stalker).

• Out-of-state license plates result in shared experiences
• Having pets creates common ground
• Children’s toys foster empathy

You’d knock on a door. Ask the right questions. Listen. Show empathy. Be intuitive and understanding of their wants and needs.

• mirroring and matching their mannerisms and speech
• Are they looking at you? (Do they seem comfortable?)
• What does their body language tell you? (Are they looking to shut the door politely?)

It is one of the best power-selling methods for any product or service.

• It gives you the ability to uncover hidden needs
• It allows you to drive emotional connections and positive buying decisions 
• It makes walking a mile in the buyers’ shoes and closing the sale easy for you

So you have something to sell, say this power-selling method, and you run a small ad with a call to action that directs people to your sales page.

Your headline reads, “Best Kept Power-Selling Secrets For Any Market.”

And then you start talking smack about how it made you BANK…

• how you only use old-school proven and tested methods of direct selling
• how your method is only used by companies that made the Fortune 500 list
• how you’ve been successfully using this method since 1988

You’re focused on selling all your features, and not on what people really want.

Instead, give them what they want to buy—the transformation. 

• This power-selling book helps you predict objectives and sell faster.
• You’ll be highly respected and very desired once you read this eBook.
• Get this book and confidently travel the world with a legion of digital nomads

This is what your buyer wants to hear. All the ways your power-selling method will help make their life easier or better in the long run. Stick that in your ads and sales pages. 

Reader-focused copywriting uses a basic rule. Talk about the benefits, not the features. 

Lesson from an Egocentric Robot

We want to make a good first impression on our prospects as business owners and marketers. So, we list a number of qualities that we believe make us more desirable in our marketing messages.

“We have been providing services at Neverland since we were created in 1904”.

“We at Acme Corp. believe that protecting roadrunners is critical to the global ecosystem.”

“We at Virtucon Industries feel it is our moral obligation to hatch schemes to terrorize and take over the world.”

“Us, ours, and we have heard enough about you.”

And I completely understand. As a business owner or entrepreneur, you care about all of those things. However, your prospect doesn’t really give a shit about them.

Here’s an approach without the BS.

I want you to try to see things from your prospect’s point of view. Imagine you ordered a humanoid AI robot that needs an out of the box update, but you accidentally trigger a marketing message (robot voice), ” I am warm to the touch with over 100 complex sensors and intelligent algorithms.”

The robot never shuts up and shows little or no interest at all in getting to know you or what’s important to you. It doesn’t seem to compute.

Talk about a lame robot. 

What are the chances of ever letting that robot handle your business? 

Next to none, right? 

When people see your ads and go to your sales pages, they want to read what matters to them. They want to know that you’ve got their back and care about what is important to them. So…

Stop sounding like a self-absorbed robot.

Give them exactly what they’re looking for and what they care about most. Their desires, fears, and the positive impact you will make on their lives once they accept your offer.

People are more likely to believe in your ability to help them if you can express their issue more clearly and concisely than they can explain it to themselves.

Oftentimes, if you do this one thing correctly, people will ask you how to buy before you even make your offer.

Make others more important

• Less we, us, our and I
• And more you, you’ll, your and ad ROI
• Make your ads all about your prospects so they’ll pay attention.

Clear Your CTAs Conversion Path

Aside from the headline, the call to action is the most important part of your ad.

People pay attention to you because of your headline. Your CTA makes them give you money… This is also where most advertisements go wrong.

Talking clearly and confidently about something you’re passionate about is a breeze… You know, that thing you’re trying to persuade people to buy.

Yet, asking for money seems like a drag… You know, that thing you have to do at the close of your sales message.

Here are the three biggest mistakes I see advertisers make with their call to action:

1. Not placing a Call-to-Action at the end of their advertisement.

In the industry, this is known as “Reminder Advertising”.

If you are Amazon, Apple, or Disney, this type of advertising is OK. These brands are only looking to preserve their market dominance by reminding you of their existence. But you’re not Disney.

You cannot invest so much time and effort to advertising without receiving some sort of return.

If an ideal prospect reads your advertisement and it speaks to them, but there is no call-to-action at the close…

It’s like going out on a date with someone, you find yourselves constantly locking eyes, there’s no doubt the chemistry is on fire between you…

And then, at the end of the date, instead of getting their digits or asking them out again, you say, “Well, that was nice, maybe we’ll bump into each other or something.”

That’s not a good way to get people to buy your product.

Using such tactic in your advertising isn’t very smart.

At the end of every ad, you need a clear call to action; that next step you want your prospects to take so you don’t waste your time and money on the ad.

That takes us to another way people mess up their Call to Action…

2. Having more than one call to action.

I get it. You don’t want your advertising to miss out on any potential sales. You don’t want to totally lose someone who isn’t ready to buy.

So you add a Add To Cart button, a Download Now button, a Buy It Now button and a Sign Up Now button.

Your sales page has a toolbar at the top that includes buttons for  “Home,” “About,” “Contact,” “Shop Now” and so on.

A lot of money was spent getting people to land on your sales page. And then you give them 20 different ways to bail. With only one that leads to the sale.

If you are writing a sales page, remove everything from it except the one thing you want people to do… Buy Now.

You should do the same thing in an ad or a marketing email: offer people one CTA. And your message can change depending on your goal.

Sometimes a landing page is used to collect a person’s email address or encourage them to schedule a call. 

Other times its only objective is to serve as a “Lift” note, to get your prospect to do only one thing like move the prospect to the next step of your sales funnel.

In any case, you should only have one “Call to Action” in every ad or marketing piece you create.

Here is another less known CTA button mistakes that cost you money.

3. Avoid using Weasel Words with CTAs.

When it comes time to ask for money, a lot of marketers, copywriters, and businesses approach the message too cautiously.

This ties to people’s deep-seated aversion to asking for money.

We start to use weasel words, like should, probably, might, could, perhaps, aim, etc.

“Buying this product MIGHT help your business in the long run.”

“ Purchasing this item COULD easily be your best buying decision.”

You get the drift.

When you use weak, vague language, it obscures the point. It shows you don’t stand behind your offer. And if you lack confidence in your offer, why should your prospect?

So remember to clear Your CTAs conversion path. End each piece of copy with a more direct and candid, singular call to action.

Stand Out in a Ad-Heavy World

Let’s face it. Most ads are lame.

They’re annoying. They invade our personal space. And they simply get ignored.

People have the ability to become legally ad-blind or partially ad-sighted.

But here’s the reality: Good luck convincing someone to give you their money when you can’t even grab their attention.

Most advertisers try to replicate what works well in their own market. Any idiot can be different. The tricky part is to be different in a way that is relevant to your audience.

Take a look at Batman, he’s different because he created his own powers.  He’s a self-made superhero . But do people care? Turns out that comic fans care.

Disguise your ads

I’ve discovered that making ads that look like ads gets ignored.

A better way is to create ads that people can relate to, ads that tell a story or look like content. Do not forget to use direct-response techniques. Tell people what to do next. This is the clear, single “Call to Action” I was talking about before.

Stop mimicking what any brand is doing, especially the big ones.

Let’s face it; what works for them may not always work for you.

Big brands have higher brand salience, whereas your brand has little or none. So, trying to imitate them would simply be throwing money away.

Also, big brand ads are boring as hell. You can’t bore people into buying. This happens when they write-by-committee, inserting non-synonyms and mixed metaphors, highlighting key points, adding vagueness, weak words, or cutting out words due to the fear of legal ramifications.

It’s uninteresting. It’s difficult to read. It irritates me.

People will simply ignore it

And I feel you, big brands are afraid to offend boycott-ready consumers. Their focus is on survival rather than growth, too afraid to speak their mind and take any political or social stance. But overly-cautious brands rarely inspire action.

So, instead of mimicking the large advertising agencies, don’t be afraid to call out and challenge the villains of your industry.

Don’t be perceived as a opportunist. Be the idealist in your industry, a brand activist, taking stances on social, cultural and political issues.

As long as those topics are consistent with your brand, stake out a clear and coherent position, and stick to it.

Yes, you might have a few that turn their backs, but they weren’t the kind of loyal, lifelong customers you were trying to cultivate in the first place.

The customers who really care about it will thank you, and buy everything you produce. They’re the ones who will stand up for you. And if you are attacked, they become your marketing advocates and spread the word about you.

You have to be willing to stand out from the market if you want to cultivate lifelong customers.

So create ads with purpose, and avoid making them look like ads. Avoid boring af, safe, corporate, big brand style advertising.

This type of advertising is reserved for huge companies more concerned about losing market share. Your goal is to increase your market share. It’s two entirely different approaches.

Target the right people

Education-based advertising gets all the hype. But trying to educate someone into becoming a buyer doesn’t come cheap.

• First, you have to get someone into believing there’s a problem.
• Then, you have to get someone into believing there’s a solution.
• Then you have to get someone into believing your solution is the best solution.
• Finally, you have to get someone into believing that your solution is worth more to them than the money they have in the bank.

That’s a great deal of work for only one ad.

Why do all that education-based marketing? Especially when there are lots of people out there who are already so close to becoming your ideal customer?

That’s where Eugene Schwartz’s classic book Breakthrough Advertising comes in.

Schwartz broke down prospect awareness into five distinct phases:

1. Completely Unaware:
2. Problem-Aware: 
3. Solution-Aware: 
4. Product-Aware: 
5. The Most Aware: 

These are the five different types of people you can advertise to.

Imagine you’re trying to drum up business for some surf lessons in Bali, and you’ve got a fresh list of five potential buyers. But you can only try to sell it to one of these five people.

Do you waste your time and money trying to sell to someone completely unaware? 

A person who’s never been in the ocean in their life or even heard of Bali. These are people who are not seeking any information related to a surf lesson in Bali. 

Do you target somebody who is aware of the problem? 

Your prospect senses that taking a surf lesson in Bali could be a good thing, and they’re open to reading more about it. But at this stage, they’re less likely to request service or product information from you.  

Do you target people who are aware that there is a solution? 

These are the people who like the idea of taking a surf lesson in Bali but are not sure that your product provides a solution. 

Do you put your efforts and advertising dollars into targeting people who are aware of your product?

These are people who have planned their trip to Bali and are actively looking to book surf lessons.

Do you spend your time and money on advertising to reach the people who are the most aware?

These people really love your surf lessons in Bali. They need surf lessons right now and only need to know “the deal.” 

You’ve got all five groups of people out there, but you’ve only got enough money to advertise to some of them. 

Which people do you target? 

Do you target completely unaware people? The problem-aware people? The solution-aware people? 

Or, do you target the problem-aware people? The most-aware-people? 

If you want to get the most out of your advertising dollars, you only advertise to the problem-aware and the most-aware people. 

It’s easier to sell to someone who already recognizes the need for a product or service than to convince them of the need and persuade them to purchase it.

Education-based advertising is a complete waste of money since you might not ever get it back in sales. 

Go after the people ready to buy now first before going after people who will need more time and money to persuade. 

Don’t try to sell to people who are hard to persuade until you’ve run out of people who are ready to buy now. 

Show your ads to the people who are most open to influence first 

You hardly need to educate them.. You don’t have to use any special formulas to get them to buy. You just need to tell them why they should buy from you instead of your competitors. 

It’s a lot simpler to accomplish this with your advertising. 

Avoid the completely unaware. Avoid the problem aware. Go after the product-aware people. Go after the most aware people.  

That way you will reach them at moments of maximum influence. 

Don’t neglect your Back-End

When most people think of advertising, they think of “push” advertising on the front end.

Forcing prospective new consumers to stop and act. Create leads out of those potential new customers.  Then turn these prospects into paying clients.

Front-end offer advertising eats up most advertising budgets. while ignoring back-end advertising’s lower cost.

Advertising buys you consumers. You are essentially buying a sale to profit.

Acquiring clients is cool and all, but generating a sale is the goal of all your advertising.

And almost always, winning new customers will cost more than repeat customers.

It is far easier to sell to a happy client than to an on-the-fence prospect.

let’s say a homeowner is interested in buying a new roof for their house. They’ve contacted a roofing company and received a quote, but they’re still unsure about committing to the purchase.

Meanwhile, another homeowner who recently had their roof replaced by the same roofing company is very satisfied with the work and has recommended the company to their friends and family.

The roofing company could try to convince the first homeowner to buy the new roof through various advertising and sales tactics. However, they could also reach out to the satisfied customer and offer them a referral discount for any new customers they bring in.

If the satisfied customer refers the first homeowner to the roofing company and they end up purchasing a new roof, the roofing company has made a sale without spending as much on advertising and marketing. Plus, the first homeowner may also become a satisfied customer and refer others to the roofing company in the future.

Spend some of your advertising budget on remarketing to existing customers rather than trying to get new customers.

A study by Adobe found, one repeat customer generates nine times the revenue of a new customer, especially during periods of slow economic growth.

I strongly advise you to spend no less than 20% of your ad budget on retargeting your current customers.

This 20% frequently generates as much revenue as the 80% targeted at generating new leads.

Profits may skyrocket just by including an upsell or cross-sell at the point of sale. That’s why Amazon usually offers a lot of impulse purchases at checkout… You know, that inspiring stuff you add to your cart.

Create a buyer list and start sending them unique offers if you haven’t already.

Offers to people who have already said “Yes, I like doing business with you” by raising their hands will bring you the best return on ad spend time and time again.

So, if you want to get the most out of your ad spend, pay attention to your backend.

Make yourself an ad-tracking fool.

This is what separates the real direct response advertisers from the rest of the advertising boys and girls… We track everything.

Spending money on advertisements is a surefire waste if no effort is made to track their performance.

Most business owners don’t track anything, so they can’t even tell you what their best-performing ads are.

Their best-performing ads fall off the horse long before the peak is reached. And they keep pumping thousands of dollars into ads that aren’t working for them.

They handle their advertising like throwing money into the wind and hoping that something sticks, and not even tracking what sticks or why.

I could understand the frustration if tracking was difficult. Of course, that’s not the case. The process is straightforward: just send similar ads to similar people and test out one variable at a time.

You just need a way to track which ad performs better.

This is the process.

You send out two ads that are the same in every way except for the headline and call to action. The goal is to find out which headline is more effective.

In the ad with headline A, people are told to call 555-3226 (Mr. Plow).

In the ad with headline B, people are told to call 555-0123 (Bruce Almighty).

Headline A is sent to half of your market, while Headline B is sent to the other half. Then you keep track of which phone number receives the most calls. This tells you which headline was the most effective.

You can track your ads by using a specific coupon code for each tactic. Custom URLs or toll-free numbers can be used to track them, as can cookies, pixels, UTM codes, and other types of analytics software.

The goal is to determine which messages are effective, which traffic sources are effective, and which are not. Then, you’ll know where to spend more advertising dollars and where to spend less.

When you direct people to your sales funnel, you can also track them through each stage. You can determine which parts of your sales funnel are performing well and which need to be reworked.

You’ll have a clear idea of which ads to pull and which to scale by tracking which advertising efforts are working and which aren’t.

That’s the biggest benefit of tracking your ads.