I am speaking at a Networx event in July with the wonderful Marissa Tree on the topic of Persuasion. The idea is we are going to go through different methods that you can use to persuade people to get them to do what you want.

I was sharing this with a friend, who looked at me, rolled her eyes and said

“You mean you are going to tell them how to trick people.”

I was actually quite shocked.

Then by chance I saw an advertisement on TV for an upcoming current affairs show that was going to “expose the tricks that supermarkets use to get you to buy more groceries”.

It all sounds so negative.

Sure, there are unscrupulous people out there who deceive and lie about their products or services, and as a result consumers feel ripped off.

But I firmly believe that if you have a great product or service that is relevant and useful for your audience – then what’s wrong with ensuring you do you best to sell it? It doesn’t even have to be something for sale. You may want people to register for community consultation, download a whitepaper, sign up for a newsletter. Whatever your call to action is.

Sometimes understanding just a little about the psychology of persuasion will make a huge difference to your conversions.

What are your thoughts?

If you are in Brisbane on 28 July 2010, keep an eye out on the Networx site for ticket details.

Persuasive writing is all about understanding your target audience, their motives, their goals, and their problems (that you’ll hopefully solve with your product or service). By knowing all of these elements, you can shape content that will make them want to buy (or call, or register etc).

But one thing to keep in mind is quite often the end user of your product or service has one (or more) ‘gatekeepers’ that stand in the way of making a purchase. This is especially true if they are part of a larger organisation that could have complex approvals processes, procurement teams, or even purchasing policies to abide by.

• Gatekeepers may want a different set of benefits from your product or service than the end user (such as value for money, locally made, or warranty)
• Gatekeepers may receive their information in different ways than the end user.
• Gatekeepers may also have gatekeepers.

The best thing that you can do is to not only understand your target audience, but also understand their gatekeepers. Make  it as easy as possible for them to persuade their gatekeepers why your product or service should be used.

Do this by:

• Using scenarios that show the benefit of your product or service not just to the end user, but also to the gatekeeper.
• Including fact sheets that can be downloaded and attached to procurement requests.
• Include a ‘how to convince your boss’ section if appropriate. I like the one that Usability Week has.

What have been some gatekeeper hurdles that you have overcome?

If you ever need help persuading gatekeepers to buy your product or service, get in contact with me and we’ll work out a plan of attack.

I’ve got a sneaky little side project on the go. Very exciting.

Without giving anything away, it has something to do with books. Real books.

My question to you is:

What’s your favourite copywriting, usability, information architecture, writing for the web, or content strategy book?

Let me know.

In two weeks I’ll be guest lecturing at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The topic will be web content writing (plus blogging and internal communications), and the audience will be (mainly) first year undergrads studying public relations. It’s a subject that I took in the very same degree 15 years ago.

I’ve been trying to compile a list of things that I’ll cover. How people read on the web, breaking content with headings and bullets, keeping sentences snappy and short etc. But I think the main thing that I’ll emphasise to the students is…

it ain’t about you, it’s always about them.

Whenever you are writing, you always need to keep your target reader in mind. You have such a short amount of time to get your message across, don’t waste it by focusing on your business instead of the customer.

What this means is that you should always focus on the benefits of your product or service, not just the features.

So instead of:

Our new iron has an automatic switch-off. (Just the feature is mentioned.)

Try:

Our new iron has an automatic switch-off, so there’s no need to worry if you can’t remember if you turned off the iron or not. (Both the feature and benefit is mentioned.)

It’s such a simple thing to remember, but it will make such an improvement to your content.

What are the benefits of your product?

If you ever need help identifying the benefits of your product or service, send me an email and I’ll give you a hand.

A short and sweet post for a Monday morning.

At the moment, there is a massive conference being held in the US call SXSW. The conference has an interactive stream (SXSWi), and I’ve been carefully watching the different content related presentations and panels.

The good news is that content strategy seems to be gaining more momentum as an important element of any organisation (about time really).

This reflects my own recent experience with clients. I’m beginning to have more conversations about how the content I write fits in with their overall goals, and also how they plan to manage the content that is already there. It’s something I’ve been pushing for a while, but now it appears the timing is finally right. It’s a very exciting time.

What’s your content strategy?

I’ve knocked back a couple of jobs this week. Not because they didn’t sound interesting (actually one would have been really interesting), or because the brief wasn’t complete.

No, it was the deadline. Both had a deadline of this Friday. Neither were small jobs, and the content had to be written from scratch.

And (without sounding too big-headed) I’m pretty busy at the moment. With clients who booked me in weeks (and months) ago.

So why do people get caught out? I think it’s because they underestimate the time it takes to create great content. They often give it (the writing) a go first, then realise at the last minute that they need help.

Why I need time to write

Content creation involves far more than just typing words into a document. I also need time for:

• Making sure I have a comprehensive brief before I start anything. This may involve a lot of back and forth over email, the phone, or for big projects I will require a face-to-face briefing session.
• Extra research. I will look at competitors’ sites, industry sites, blogs – whatever is relevant for the project. I also have a fantastic collection of books that I’ll often refer to.
• Leaving the work and coming back to it later with fresh eyes. I rarely sit down and write a complete project in one go. Often I’ll start a draft, leave it, come back to it, leave it, then finally polish it before I’m happy for the client to see it.
• Revisions. I have a one revision policy – clients receive a draft, they provide feedback, and then I send a final version. If a lot of people need to provide feedback, this process takes time.

So, if you are currently planning a new website, a newsletter or something else you would like me to work on please contact me now so I can give your project the time it deserves. Because great content takes time to write.

Some products (or services) are easy to sell. There are obvious benefits to talk about, clear points of difference to focus on, and a strong desire from the customer to have/buy/hire.

Unfortunately, you may not have this luxury.

Your product or service may be mundane, embarrassing to talk about, even ugly. You may be in a market that’s saturated, or even regulated – so it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. How on earth can you come up with some unique selling points when you really can’t think of anything positive to say?

Here’s a tip:

Think of all the reasons why a customer wouldn’t buy your product or service, and turn these into why they should buy.

Turn their fears into a motivation to buy. Put their concerns out there, then dismiss them. Confide that you’ve had the same thoughts too. Be open and honest.

You’ve probably heard that there has been a problem in the past with xyz product. Well luckily the issue has been identified and none of the new range of xyz have been affected. We are so confident that we have a money back guarantee.

Yes, we know that it’s embarrassing to go to the doctor to talk about having this test. That’s why we’ve developed this free information pack so you can be better informed at your next visit.

You may be tempted to choose your insurer by price alone. But make sure you check that you are comparing apples with apples. Even though we seem a little more expensive than Budget Bob, our package covers you for a lot more…

See what I mean? There isn’t much that you can’t turn into a positive.

If you are struggling to come up with some unique selling points for your product or service, contact me at info [at] snappysentences [dot] com to find out how I can help.

As part of my initial quoting process, I ask all clients to complete my client brief. Some do this with ease, others find it more difficult as some of the questions in the brief include:

• What are your unique selling points?
• Who is your target audience?
• What do you want you call to action to be?
• What is the personality of your business?
• What is the objective of the copy?

Most of the time after a telephone call these questions can be answered. After one such phone call, a client said to me:

Hey, you should offer this as a service!

What a great idea.

So now I have added content workshops to the range of services provided by Snappy Sentences. They will be almost like an extended briefing session, but I will write a report at the end for clients to keep and use for other communication activities too.

I’ll go through (and document) things like:

• The target audience of the site.
• The language and tone to be used.
• Key messages and calls to action.

So what do you think? Would this be the type of service you would find useful?

A simple style guide is a must for any business – no matter how big or small.

Head over to www.snobs.com.au for my new post on developing a style guide for your business.

Glenn Murray is a SEO copywriter who I admire. He’s always got good things to say on Twitter, his blog posts are really informative, and his SEO e-book rocks. So when he said that he was busy writing a new SEO copywriting e-book, my ears pricked up. I got my hands on a copy as soon as it was out, and it’s good…really good.

Practical SEO copywriting tips

The main thing I like about Glenn’s books is that they are very usable. He practically holds your hand as he takes you through his tried and tested techniques. He doesn’t hold back…he shares his secrets in a way that anyone can pick up and use – it doesn’t matter if you aren’t a natural writer, you can still apply his techniques.

Focusing on the client, not Google

While I do write optimised content for search engines, I am more from the point of view that good content (written for the client) will naturally be optimised. And I’m happy to report that Glenn thinks so too. Which is refreshing, as too many ‘SEO gurus’ out there seem to forget that people buy products, not search engines.

Real SEO copywriting examples

There’s nothing worse than getting a whole lot of tips, but no examples of how to implement them. Luckily Glenn has dedicated a good section of the book to scenarios. Actually, the only peeve I have with the book is that a lot of the scenarios are split over two pages. I wouldn’t mind the extra white space if it meant I could see the whole thing on one page.

Forget keyword density

Another refreshing point that Glenn makes is to forget keyword density. Hallelujah! Score one for readability! I totally agree with his point that density should be thrown out and replaced with frequency instead.

So in summary, I recommend Practical SEO Copywriting for anyone trying to get their head around how to write SEO copy that is still readable by real people. It’s great because it’s so practical. The real content examples make sense to non-writer types. Oh, and I love the word clouds. I may just steal that idea.

You can purchase the book by clicking on the image below.

Practical SEO Copywriting e-book