Today I want to share with you something that very few new online marketers are ever told about.
Anyone setting up an online business MUST get 3 important marketing elements in place and working properly otherwise all your effort of setting up your business will be a complete waste of time, money and effort – to put it bluntly …you will FAIL and fail big time!
No more monkeying around!
So forget all the technical website stuff and get these things understood and implemented BEFORE you do anything else.
1. Your marketing MUST grab the visitor’s attention. Without achieving “attention” the rest of your marketing is totally wasted. This applies to everything on your website – check out your home page and ask yourself “Would this grab my attention?”
You only have 5 seconds to make an impact on your readers before they decide to move on, so you MUST make your headline work.
Headlines are everything and their ONLY PURPOSE is to get your attention long enough to make you look at the next part of your page.
That’s all they do but if they don’t stop the reader by getting their attention in some way then you lose!
It needs to be eye catching and with a sub headline that reinforces the headline message.
People’s attention can be grabbed by focusing on their “pain” or problem that you can solve.
It’s important to know that people will do more (and pay more) to avoid pain than to achieve pleasure!
The marketing headlines for your website, blog posts, advertisements or videos that use the “How to avoid pain” approach are using one of the most powerful emotions to your advantage. But don’t lose sight of the fact that once you have grabbed the reader’s attention by identifying their pain, you must then show how your product or service can remove, prevent or relieve these pains for the reader.
The most common “pain motivating” headlines include fear of failure, rejection (and loss of face) or looking stupid or foolish in front of their peers and friends.
To be effective with this marketing approach to grabbing people’s attention you better make sure you have done some research about your possible website visitors and if you are going to use this approach then the fear must be seen as real to the reader – then and only then can the reader start to believe that what you are offering them as a way of escape will actually work for them.
Here are some examples:
“To men who desperately want to meet women but are too shy to ask”
“How to be a confident public speaker quickly and easily”
Other powerful headline motivators are ANGER and JEALOUSLY. Feelings like “being ripped off”, “scammed” or “being taken advantage of” are equally powerful punchlines.
Example:
“Are you sick and tired of discovering that the business systems you purchased simply don’t work!”
Creating SCARCITY or URGENCY in your headline is another effective way to grab attention. Show the reader how they can gain, save or achieve something by using your product that will have a positive impact on their life. Or focus on the negative side that the reader is trying to avoid – embarrassment of failing, financial loss, etc.
The real key of adding scarcity or urgency to the headline is to make them feel they need to act now or miss out on this opportunity. Examples include limited supply of the product or an expiry date after which the product will be removed from sale.
Example:
“Limited to a very small group of action takers today”
“We are only releasing 200 copies of this amazing software to ensure it’s value remains!”
“I reserve the right to change the price at any time without notice!”
2. Your marketing MUST encourage the prospect to seek out more information from you.
Once you have grabbed the reader’s attention the very next thing you have to do is engage with and educate them. These days people are overwhelmed with information so this is a challenging task for your marketing approach.
If you have done your market research correctly then you will have some idea of the main problems being faced by your prospects and you used this to create your headline and grab their attention. Now you need to quickly establish yourself as an authority and worth listening to.
One key aspect of establishing authority is your ability to differentiate yourself from your competitors. 
So what is your USP – your “Unique Selling Proposition”? What makes you different and worth staying around for? More important is to be seen and perceived as “authentic” – this is critical to your chances of getting the reader to not just stay with you but also to start to believe in you and your offers.
Added to this is your ability to tap into the emotions of your readers by showing you really do understand their “pain” points and can relate on an emotional level. Then and only then can you make them carry out any desired actions like staying on your website or clicking a link.
Here’s an example of relating emotionally as you encourage your prospect to seek more information from you:
“It was only 5 years ago that like you, I was really struggling as a new marketer. Learning how to setup a blog and create content, wondering what autoresponders, squeeze pages and lead magnets where all about let alone how in the heck do I find the traffic to drive to my website. Apart from becoming completely confused and frustrated sometimes, I only ate one meal a day because I was so busy trying to make everything work plus the fact I wasn’t making any money from my online business. My credit cards were maxed out until finally I discovered….”
The “emotional selling” is the key to building some sort of relationship with your prospect. This is a powerful way to encourage your prospect to start to believe in YOU and your offer. Once you have some sort of relationship created with your reader/website visitor then and only then will they even consider making a some sort of decision about you and your offer.
To ensure you are connecting emotionally with your prospects make sure in your marketing you know very clearly:
- What market niche you are in?
2. What are the most effective words/stories/problems and pains that he people in your niche can identify with
3. What is the best way to “communicate” your message to this niche? Written word, audio, video or a combination?
However, please ensure that you do not simply tell lies about your past challenges – keep it real and then you will build your authority via your authenticity.
3. Your marketing MUST include a clearly identified, low-risk and easy to implement offer that will promote the action you desire.
If your offer is perceived to be too complicated or something they are not sure they could do then you will NOT GET THE SALE!
Your “Call to Action” is a crucial component of your marketing.
Firstly you need to decide what is your desired outcome? Maybe you are seeking comments on a blog post or optins on a landing page or click thoughts on your emails or perhaps a “buy now” decision on your sales page.
Once you are clear about the outcome you seek then your call to action must tell the prospect EXACTLY what they need to do next. Never assume anything, especially on your sales page. Tell your reader what the next steps are so that they can be relieved of their pain.
At the same time your offer needs to be seen as something easy to do – that’s why “step-by-step” or “done for you” product offers are so popular.
Finally you need to supply some sort of guarantee to the prospect that reduces their purchase risk, 
preferably to zero! Offering an unconditional “30 or 60 day guarantee of satisfaction or your money back” is a common way to go although I personally prefer the “conditional guarantee” approach.
By this I mean that provided the purchaser has tried to implement my product or service and still has not achieved the outcome they were after then I will refund their money “at any time in the future!’
Words of Advice:
Always provide VALUE BEFORE trying to sell anything. Even on your website homepage try to be conversational and not a “product basher.” You MUST build some sort of relationship in order to eventually sell anything.
Keep a swipe file of headlines, ads or videos that really grabbed your attention. This will become one of your most valuable assets and it s free!
Final Thoughts
Your online success WILL be determined by your marketing effectiveness. Your job as a marketer is to learn, practice and implement these 3 key elements on a daily basis. Do not be discouraged if your first marketing/copywriting efforts crash out.
Look at what you did and you will quickly uncover what you did wrong. Learn from these mistakes – it’s the only way to go. Just keep tweaking your marketing, your sales pages, your headlines and always test, test, test.
There is a process called “split-testing” that you should become familiar with. It simply involves making small changes in your marketing and testing the results of these changes.
Marketing is a PROCESS that will never finish – the better you get with your marketing, the faster you will be able to implement your approach and the more money you will make.
Your Turn:
If you're a new marketer did this help you? Are there other things you would like me to cover in future blog posts? All you have to do is ask. Please leave me your thoughts, fears, suggestions or ideas below in your comments (this is my call-to-action!)
