Writing Long Sales Copy

This is an interesting article by David Kelly, CEO of Zeald.com
Those visitors that have been to a Zeald.com Website Workshop will recall David talking about the effectiveness of long copy on Product/Content pages.

Preparing to Write Long Sales Copy

An example of the preparation necessary before writing Long Sales Copy
Preparation – Target Customer
1. 35 -65 years old

2. Small or medium business owner, or manager (male or female).

3. Usually work within the business, in operations or business development areas.

4. Huge variance in annual incomes (between $30,000 and $200,000 p/a).

5. Usually very busy, i.e., time-deficient.

6. Are very much results-focussed.

7. Generally have a “Type-A” personality.

8. Are intrigued by the Internet, but are very likely to have been ‘burned’ or ripped-off by a previous website company.

9. Not convinced a website would generate significant extra business.

10. Has a website that is producing poor results!

11. Their approach/image has changed since they originally went online.

12. Are budget-conscious.

Preparation - Benefits
• Feature: Secrets of Website Success
• Benefit: You will receive a reference manual with information that tells you what you need to know in order to set up and run a high performance website. You will be able to use this information to set-up a website that generates lots of new business.

• Feature: Internet Consultant

• Benefit: You will be provided with an Internet consultant who will take you through all the issues that are critical to your website’s success, and advise you on what to do. This will help you to produce a website that provides you with the best possible results.

• Feature: E-business Hotline

• Benefit: You will be able call an Internet consultant and ask them questions about your website and how to improve ‘key’ performance areas. You will be able to get ongoing advice from someone who knows what they are talking about.

• Feature: Zeald E-business Suite (ZES)

• Benefit: You will get a website system that provides all the necessary tools for you to successfully run and manage your website.
You will be able to manage the website content yourself; to track and process all your orders and/or enquiries; to capture relevant customer information; and to generate clear and concise reports on the performance of your website.

• Feature: Clear & relevant reporting

• Benefit: You will have access (at the click of a button) to clear and accurate reports that highlight the key metrics that affect the performance of your website. This will help you to see how well your website is performing and work out any problem areas that need to be addressed.

• Feature: Customised Form Generator

• Benefit: You will be able to specify what information you want collected by your website. Your website will collect the specified information from your customer using a customised form. The information collected will help you make the follow-up process as efficient as possible, saving you time and money.

• Feature: Customer Ordering

• Benefit: Customers will be able to log-in to your website using their email address and password, and then view your entire catalogue, along with their own special pricing. This will reduce the amount of requests for pricing from your customer support staff.

• Feature: Customer Account Management

• Benefit: Your customers will be able to log-in to your website using their email address and a password and update their contact details, view order status, generate return material authorisation numbers (RMA), etc. This will reduce the amount of time spent by your customer support staff dealing with these issues.

• Feature: Integrated Customer Database

• Benefit: The website will capture all your customer details into a database, saving you from having to capture this information manually in an Excel spreadsheet, or some other database. It will also provide you with a valuable database that you can use to send-out further promotions and offers.

• Feature: Content Management

• Benefit: You will be able to update and change any of the content (text & pictures) within the website without any help from Zeald.com. This will save you time and money and will enable you to keep your website fresh and up-to-date, with minimal fuss.

• Feature: Personalised Website Design

• Benefit: Your website will be designed by a professional website designer and will incorporate all the required elements of your brand. This will keep your image consistent across everything that is seen in the marketplace– including shop, brochures, website, company car, etc.

• Feature: Search Engine Friendliness

• Benefit: Your website will be built so that it can be easily indexed by the search engines. This will enable the search engines to catalogue your website, increasing your chances of a higher ranking and increased website traffic.

• Feature: Tracking of Marketing Spend

• Benefit: You will be able to track what parts of your website promotion are producing results and how much those results are costing you. This will enable you to test and measure everything so that you are consistently improving return on your marketing dollar.

Preparation – Unique Selling Proposition

• “Websites that Work!”
• Websites that generate enquiries and/or sales
• Websites that deliver a measurable return-on-investment.

Preparation – Customer Goals

Goal #1: Increase sales or enquiries for products or services.
Goal #2: Increase business efficiencies and customer service.
Goal #3: Increase brand recognition.

Strongest Goal: Increase sales and/or enquiries for products/services.
USP – “Websites that Work!” – this supports the strongest goal!

Strongest benefits

• Feature: Secrets of Website Success

• Benefit: You will receive a reference manual with information that tells you what you need to know in order to set-up a website. You will be able to use this information to set-up a website that generates lots of new business.

• Feature: Internet Consultant

• Benefit: You will be provided with an Internet consultant who will take you through all the issues that are critical to your website’s success, and advise you on what to do. This will help you to produce a website that provides you with the best possible results.

• Feature: E-business Hotline

• Benefit: You will be able to call an Internet consultant and ask them questions about your website and how to improve ‘key’ performance areas. You will be able to receive ongoing advice from someone who knows what they are talking about!

• Feature: Zeald E-business Suite (ZES)

• Benefit: You will get a website system that provides all the necessary tools for you to successfully run and manage your website.
You will be able to manage the website content yourself; to track and process all your orders and/or enquiries; to capture relevant customer information; and to generate clear and concise reports on the performance of your website.

Preparation – Primary & Secondary Objectives

Primary objective: Visitor to register for a free, one-hour Internet consultation.
Secondary objective: None at this stage
Example Long Sales Copy:
Zeald.com – Websites that Work!

[Element #1 - Headline Start]
STOP! Is Your Website Delivering Amazing RESULTS?
[Element #1 - Headline End]

[Element #2 - Opening Hook Start]
Many websites are a complete waste of time and money because they don’t deliver results! BUT if you have a good product or service, it is possible to produce a website that generates excellent results; a website that sells!
[Element #2 - Opening Hook End]

[Element #4 - Introduction Start]
Hello, my name is David Kelly, and I lead the team at Zeald.com. Websites are amazing things! Whenever I think about the characteristics of a website, and the potential that it can offer any business on the planet, I continue to be amazed.

In our first four years in business we strived to develop really good websites for our customers– websites that sell! And we had some fabulous success stories. But, unfortunately almost 70% of our customers were only achieving mediocre results. After many months of ‘head-scratching’, we decided that the only way to find out why this was happening was to become one of our customers ourselves.

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The Undercover Operation
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So I approached a number of our newest customers and offered to manage every single aspect of their website. I offered to do absolutely everything – plan it, oversee the design and build of it, load it with the appropriate information, launch it on the Internet, and then manage every ongoing aspect of it.

It was one of the most interesting and fulfilling experiences of my life. Six months of hard work showed me, among other things, one undeniable fact:
In order to sell successfully using a website, you need far more than just a great website!

There are a number of other ‘key factors’ to consider…
[Element #4 - Introduction End]

[Element #5 - Overview Start]
[Element #3 - Header Start]
So what makes a Website successful?
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From my experience with our customers, the following makes a website successful:
• A great vision and clear website objectives
• A clear website plan for achieving the objectives
• A fast clean website that fits in with the brand
• Compelling sales copy and supporting website content
• Tools for tracking, measuring and improving the website’s performance
• A steady stream of visitors to the website.

In our success stories, all of these ‘key factors’ were in place. Either, the business had the people internally who had the know-how to deliver these factors, or the business had paid-professionals to deliver them. But the problem was, most of our customers were small businesses with neither the know-how nor the funding to deliver all the missing keys to success!

One thing’s for sure, we were not about to change our company focus or approach, and start producing websites for bigger companies, just to get past this obstacle. But, we knew that we needed to change something if we wanted to see more of our clients succeed. If we wanted a higher rate of successful clients we needed to start offering the missing parts. We needed a program for website success …

[Element #3 - Header Start]
Websites that Work! ™
[Element #3 - Header End]

So we created “Websites that Work” (WTW), a program for ensuring website success! It’s the culmination of four years of experience and nine months of hard work! Four years of learning everything we could about the missing factors, and nine months of testing and measuring everything that we had learnt and dropping anything that wasn’t working. The WTW program is a complete system for achieving a website that delivers real business results.

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Program Outline
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The WTW program is a unique seven-step process to achieving website success. But, before we have a look at the different steps within the process let me introduce you to the E-business Bible!

One of the most crucial parts of any program, are the materials provided as part of that program. As part of the WTW program you will be provided with a boxed E-business Bible. The E-business Bible is a set of modules that outline the key things that you need to do and understand in order to produce a successful website. The modules are – Plan, Design, Build, Train, Load, Go-Live, and Promote & Tune.

So, let’s take a look at the WTW program in detail.

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1.Plan
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The first step in the WTW program is the ‘Plan’ step. The ‘Plan’ step is one of the most vital steps in the whole WTW process. It involves building a complete plan for your website with the help and advice from a trained Zeald.com Internet consultant. Your Internet consultant will provide you with advice and guidance to ensure that all critical issues are covered and the plan that is produced forms a solid foundation for your new website.

Areas covered include website vision, website objectives, unique sales proposition (USP), competition analysis, targeted results and calculated return on investment, the domain name, website usability, homepage design & layout, establishing trust and credibility, site map, internal page structure, delivery & payment processing, website promotion and traffic generation, and so on.

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2.Design
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Now comes the time to produce a design for your website. Our design team will investigate all your current branding - logos, brochures, letterheads, packaging and store signage (if relevant), along with any comments you may have about how you would like your online branding to look. The design team will then design a complete look and feel for your website, using our internal website framework that fits perfectly into your brand and models it correctly in the ‘cyberspace’ world. These designs will be presented to you for approval before moving on to the next step.

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3.Build
[Element #3 - Header End]
The next step is to build your new website. The designs for the new website will be handed over to our development team and the new website will be built on top of a software application called the Zeald.com E-business Suite (ZES). ZES is a piece of software that helps you manage every single aspect of your website– the content, the orders/enquiries that your receive, your customers, the promotions and the ongoing day-to-day performance of your website.
Once the website has been built it will be extensively tested and then certified by our engineers for release.

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4.Train
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Now you need to learn exactly how to use the ZES software to manage every aspect of your new website. But don’t worry – that is what this ‘Train’ step is for. In the ‘Train’ step you will be trained in every aspect of your website– how to load and manage content, how to receive and process orders or enquiries, how to collect customer information, how to merchandise and run promotions and how to measure and monitor your website performance on a monthly basis.

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5.Load
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Content loading time! Now comes the time to load your website with content. This is one of the most important steps of the whole WTW process.
You will be introduced, as part of your training, to the different parts of your website that you will need to load. You will also be taught how to write sales content that sells! If you are too busy to write content or proof-read the content then don’t worry! We can put you in touch with expert content writers who can do it all for you, or hand-hold you through whatever stage you need assistance with.

[Element #3 - Header Start]
6.Go-Live
[Element #3 - Header End]
Now your website is ready to be launched live on the Internet! Let the excitement begin!

So there you have it – the six steps of the WTW program and that is where most website companies will stop! However, there is one last crucial step; an ongoing step that never ends!

One of the most crucial (and so-often missing) steps that I found when running my undercover operation as a Zeald.com customer, was the final step…

[Element #3 - Header Start]
7.Promote & Tune
[Element #3 - Header End]
Your website is now live on the Internet! But how will anyone find it? How will anyone know that it is there? How can you attract targeted visitors, who are interested in your products and services, to your website? Enter the ‘Promote & Tune’ step!
The first part of the step ‘Promote’ is aimed at launching initiatives designed to attract targeted visitors to your website. Whether it is search engine optimization, advertising, email promotions, existing company promotion or some other form of website traffic generation– ‘Promote’ is one of the most crucial steps to your website’s success. ‘Promote’ implements the initiatives that were decided way back in the ‘Plan’ step of the process (remember how I told you the ‘Plan’ step was so important?).
The second part of the step is ‘Tune’. The ‘Tune’ step can be summed-up in three simple words – ‘Measure’, ‘Test’ and ‘Tweak’! The ‘Tune’ step is about ensuring that your website is converting as many website visitors into enquiries or sales as it possibly can.

The ‘Promote & Tune’ step is an ongoing step that never ends. Just as you would never stop promoting and working on your business, you should never stop promoting and tuning your website.
But, both website promotion and tuning can be tricky business and you need to know what you are doing.

At this point I think it is a good idea to talk a little bit more about the Zeald.com philosophy.

Most companies who specialise in website design, build their customers a website and send them on their merry way; wishing them all the best.
We do not believe in this approach!
Once your website has been launched the fun and games have only just begun. There is still work to be done! And it is not fair to run off and leave you to face the world alone with your new website!

In fact, most of our customers have told us that they just wish they had someone who knew what they were talking about, right by their side, that they could talk to whenever they needed some advice…

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The E-business Hotline
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The E-business Hotline is one of the most crucial and unique aspects to the WTW program– every month you have ongoing access to the E-business Hotline!
The E-business Hotline is your 9am – 5pm, Monday-Friday access to a Zeald.com Internet consultant for all those tricky website promotion and tuning concerns. You can work with your Internet consultant to ensure that you are getting enough visitors to your website and that those visitors are buying products or services, or making enquiries. And most importantly, you can work with your Internet consultant to ensure that you are receiving a return on the money and time that you have invested in your website!
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So What Does The ‘Websites that Work’ Program Deliver In A Nutshell?
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You get:

• A reference manual containing all the know-how and ‘hot tips’ that you need in order to set-up and run an effective online selling machine
• An Internet consultant to guide you through the critical issues essential to the success of your website
• A website system that provides all the necessary components for you to successfully run and manage your website, such as:

- the ability to manage your website content yourself

- the ability to track and process all your orders or enquiries

- the ability to capture relevant customer information

- the ability to get clear and concise reports on the performance of your website.

• Ongoing access to a website specialist who can advise you on all areas of your website’s performance
• And most of all – a website that works!
[Element #5 - Overview End]
[Element #6 - Price Start]
So how much do you think it would cost to purchase an excellent program for your website’s success? $10,000? $20,000? Maybe even $35,000?
Well the great news is this…

The “Websites that Work!”™ program costs only $4,997 + GST!!… plus an ongoing monthly fee of $97 + GST. Your ongoing fee is for the hosting of your website, five email addresses, and access to the E-business Hotline.
[Element #6 - Price End]

[Element #7 - Bonuses Start]
[Element #3 - Header Start]
Your Free Bonuses!!
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Register your interest in the “Websites that Work!” program today and I will throw-in two FREE e-books that will be emailed to you immediately (click here now to register!):

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• Secrets of Website Success (Usually $29.95)
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The success of a website is usually measured by how many sales or enquiries are made through the website. What most people don’t know is that there are three key ‘success metrics’ that determine the success of every website. Learn what the three ‘success metrics’ are and how to improve each of these to establish a website that is on a fast-track path to success!
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The Website Health Check (Usually $29.95)
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Are you interested in learning how your current website measures-up? This report will show you how to check on the ‘health’ of your current website. It will show you how to answer questions like:
- How long does my website take to load on a 56K modem?
- Is my website registered in the search engines?
- Has my website been built so that search engines can read it?
- Does my website follow clear website usability guidelines?
- Does my website have clear primary and secondary objectives?
- Has my website got the required legal policies?
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[Element #8 – Guarantee Start]
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FREE One-Hour Consultation at your place! COMPLETELY RISK-FREE!
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Register today for a FREE one-hour consultation with a Zeald.com Internet consultant (available in Auckland, New Zealand only; phone-based consultations available everywhere else). Discuss your business, its products and services, and their potential to be promoted and sold online using your website.
[Element #8 – Guarantee End]
[Element #9 – Close the Sale Start]
Click here to register now for this FREE offer!
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Thank you for taking the time to learn about “Websites that Work!”
We look forward to being of further assistance! If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact me, or one of my team, on +64 9 415 7575 or info@zeald.com.

All the best with your future endeavors!

David Kelly
CEO – Zeald.com
http://www.zeald.com

[Element #10 – The P.S. Start]
P.S. If you got buried in the detail of the “Websites that Work!” program, and then jumped straight to the bottom of the page, click here to register your interest in the “Websites that Work” program and collect your two FREE e-books– “Secrets of Website Success” and “The Website Health Check”. Click here now!
[Element #10 – The P.S. End]

A great article by David with heaps of practical tips. If you need some help writing long copy, I can help