First Impressions or Last?
The saying has always been that first impressions are the most important! And the thought that I always have in my head is that what my Dad always says is;
“Make sure when you meet people that you always have clean shoes”
As that is what people always see first off! But the lesson of today is not related around having clean shoes do not worry about that! The lesson is that even though people state that first impressions are important, the last impression that you leave on someone is as important as the first. This is no difference when it comes to Internet marketing and I will give you an example in just a second. The reason why I continue to use this exact theory is the mere fact of when I used to work within retail as a sales assistance at a mobile phone store. We were not just marked on sales buy our bonus also relied on customer experience.
So the trick that I always used which worked like magic was off course still give a great first impression and great customer services when a customer came into store but what I strived to do is finish off on a high with each and every customer.
Im not going to go into to much detail but how the customer experience score worked was by the customer would get a text message after leaving the shop with 2 questions which were:
- How was the advisers attitude
- Would you recommend the store to your friends and family
So you think of this, yes giving a great first impression is wonderful but if the customer is getting a text when they step out the store what are they going to remember more, the fact that I was great when they walked through the door, or the fact that I pushed to do everything to help them when completing a sale. If you did not guess the answer was the fact that I pushed to do everything to help them when completing a sale. With me having this mentality your probably not going to guess who was top of the experience score.. ME! So now what I have done is taken the same principal into Internet Marketing and it works particularly well when it comes to sales letters and email writing.
So am going to use sales copy as an example here. Your typical start of sales copy would look something like this:
So to start off you have your header your opening paragraph then you go hard into the sales copy. So if you refer this back to my example. Your header basically acts as your greeting message on your page. If your greeting sucks your customer is going to leave your page, and this was the same for me in the shop, if my collegues didn’t greet customers right you would find that they would leave the shop, or that collegue member would get the lower experience points.
So your main objective is to keep your customers ingaged from your header and your first paragraph. The truth is hardly anyone is going to read all your copy on your page that is fact (so remember this before you fork out thousands hiring a copywriter!) What most people do when they come to a sales page is read the header then scroll down to the bottom to see if they can afford the product. If so then they may skin through the copy. The main points on the page what a potential customer will look for I will come to in the “Last Impressions” section.
So this is where the last Impressions come into play.
This is what it all comes down to as you can see in this image below (Don’t Ask about the colours!)
This is what I mean when it comes to last impressions are more important than first. Yeah fair enough you need that first impression but if you cannot finish off without a last Impression, then your basically screwed! So by this you have to make your last impression what I like to call The SKHEL Approach. Which is:
- Strong Testimonials
- Killer Bonuses
- Honest Guarantee
- Eye Dropping Price
- Last Attempt P.S
In a nutshell if you can do this then you are going to have the all important last impression! So trust me it is better off to concentrate on your close than your open in every area of Internet Marketing whether its writing a article, email, sales letter, blog post etc.
So on that note am off to clean my shoes 
Spy On Your Competitions Email Copy ;-)
Here is a sneaky Ninja Marketing strategy that I have just picked up myself, so I just had to share it with you!! Take a look and use it to your advantage…
If you think this is clever, just hit the retweet button in the top right corner and leave a comment!
Keyword Use That Goes Beyond the Search Engines
It seems to be a single-sided debate. When you mention keyword use, all thoughts normally go to the search engines. Copywriting, however, is more about your human visitors than it is the engines. In fact, even the mainstay of SEO copywriting (keywords) is based on a need to spur visitors along as they work through the information on your site. If you want truly effective SEO copy, you’ll take time to learn that keyword use goes beyond the search engines.
Let’s go offline for a moment. Go get your telephone book. If you were going to conduct a search for, say, an office desk, how would you go about it? You’d look in the Yellow Pages™ under office furniture. Next you’d drill through the ads in search of ads that specifically mentioned “desks” or perhaps the particular kind of desk you want.
SEO for Newspapers?
When looking through the inserts that come with your Sunday newspaper, your eye would be especially drawn to office supply flyers that featured the word “desks” or a picture of desks. Why? Because you’ve got desks on the brain right now. You’re going to be especially sensitive to that word because that’s the current need you’re trying to fill.
The same, exact thing applies when someone searches online. Keywords started out because human Internet searchers typed them into the search engines, not because the search engines selected the terms. The same holds true today. You don’t just make up keywords. You use services and programs that allow you to research the exact phrases human beings are typing to Google, Yahoo! and other engines. When you incorporate those words and phrases into your website copy, you’re doing way more than attempting to boost your rankings; you’re also helping to navigate the site visitor from the search engine to the right page of your site.
If you’re the owner of the office supply store we’ve been talking about and you want to create a newspaper ad to sell a new line of desks you carry, what do you think might appear in the headline? The word “desk” or perhaps the phrase “office desks.” Why would you do that? There are no search engines to optimize for in the newspaper industry. You’ll include those keywords because it makes sense to do so. You’ll include them because they are descriptive of what you’re selling. You’ll include them because it will attract the readers’ attention and draw them to your store. That’s not search engine optimization; it’s just good marketing.
Lead, Don’t Shove
The same applies when writing copy for your site. There’s more than one reason to include keywords in your copy. The primary one is not the engines…it’s your site visitors. Strategic keyword placement helps guide your visitors to the information, products or services they are looking for. Don’t shove keywords in everywhere you think you can possibly fit them. Instead, use keywords to lead your visitors in the right direction.
Even if there were no such thing as search engine optimization, your copy would almost certainly still contain keywords. It only makes sense to have keywords in the headline, so visitors will know what the page is about. Sub-heads? Sure thing! People scan more than they read, so having keywords in sub-heads is a great idea. And in the body copy? You bet! After all, it’s pretty hard to sell desks without actually using the word “desk.” Since there are school desks and computer desks and many other desks, you’ll want to make it clear that your sale is for “office desks.” That, too, only makes sense.
As you can see, keyword inclusion has been going on far longer than the Internet has existed. It’s been an important part of copywriting since marketing was invented. When you create a copywriting plan for your site pages, think through which keywords you should use and where the most effective places to position those keywords would be. Then develop your SEO copy with a goal of directing your visitors to the right information. When you do, you’ll naturally optimize for the search engines at the same time.
