No Testimonials? No Problem!

Testimonials are important in marketing. Nothing beats a real testimonial singing the praises of your product or services.

When I write marketing copy for a client, testimonials are among the first inputs I ask for. They really make a difference in the tone and credibility of the copy.

But sometimes the business would be so new that the client would not have any testimonials yet. So what do you do then?

My solution is to write “hypothetical testimonials” that express my client's rendering of what an imaginary prospect would have thought or said had she in fact used the product or service in question.

This way I avoid committing a misrepresentation (by inventing a real testimonial that does not exist) while planting the seeds of a realistic and positive outcome in the prospect's mind. When a real testimony does not exist, I think that's the best a copywriter can do without crossing over into the misrepresentation territory.

For example, imagine you are Linda Smith, a (fictional) Real Estate buyer's agent and you have commissioned a copywriter to draft a copy introducing your services without any real client testimonials.

Then I would recommend something like the following, written with your voice:

“...

And imagine yourself moving into that home of your dreams overlooking the Pacific Palisades, with three bedrooms and a media room in the basement. I can imagine you out there in the balcony enjoying the sweet ocean breeze and thinking:

This is exactly what I always wanted, down to the monthly payments right within my range! I have no idea how Linda Smith did this but I won't worry about that part...

...”

The copy in italics clearly is a hypothetical testimonial since it expresses your thoughts (as "Linda Smith") about what a prospect MIGHT be thinking after purchasing a hypothetical home of her choice.

I think a sales or web copy with such hypothetical constructs would be more powerful than without them. And since you make it very clear that it is no more than a figment of your client's imagination (“ I can imagine you out there ... and thinking”) there is no misrepresentation either.

A “hypothetical testimonial” is a legitimate copy device that you may choose to employ when you do not have any better input from your client.

Avoid Unparallel Construction

“Unparallel Construction” is the bane of commercial copy.

Sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs of copy, lose their direction and fail to communicate their core message if they are composed with unparallel components.

Here is a current example.

As I was driving this morning I heard the following radio commercial:

First sound clip -- a pizza shop, taking orders over the phone. The customer keeps adding ingredients to his order… “pepperoni, extra cheese, anchovies, onions, mushrooms, …”

A lively sound clip with good actors. Pleasant to listen to.

Second clip – we switch to the anchor, who explains to us that there are TWO types of people in the world: those who order pizzas loaded up with multiple toppings like the customer we’ve just heard, and… those who would not put a slice of pizza into their mouths no matter what.

So far so good. We clearly understand the initial set up. TWO types of people – the pizza lovers versus pizza haters.

Okay. We are already wondering if this is some sort of pizza commercial…

But then comes the Grand Disconnect, thanks to the obviously faulty and unparallel construction of the whole copy.

We are next told that, SIMILARLY (?), there are also TWO types of HEARTBURN! And such-and-such brand of over-the-counter anti-acid medication takes care even the worst of them!

Hello?! “Two types”?

WHAT two types of heartburn? Since the whole analogy is based on the conceptual parallel established with the previous dichotomy (pizza lover vs. pizza haters) the intended parallelism breaks down.

Yes, people who order their pizzas with massive toppings may and do get a heartburn. We know that.

But why should the other group have heartburn as well if they are not eating pizza at all? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Those two dichotomies are not parallel at all since the former cannot cause the latter.

That’s why this commercial confuses the listeners rather than make an easy and obvious point.

All throughout the commercial I found myself wondering why people who avoid pizza at all cost do get a heartburn JUST LIKE (?) the hard-core pizza lovers.

The first set-up intro of the commercial is totally wasted.

Instead, the commercial could again start with that great opening sound clip of a worker taking a pizza order with mega toppings, but then would immediately switch to the PROBLEM created by that order: a massive heartburn.

SOLUTION? Our wonderful anti-acid medication of course. Okay, it's a bit boring. There is no great punch line there, I admit. But at least it makes sense and does not confuse the listener.

By setting up this Rubic Cube of unparallel dichotomies, the commercial really bites more than it can chew and listeners are the ones who get a heartburn while listening to it and trying to decipher the enigma thrown at them.

It’s great for exercising your brain while driving on the road. But probably it’s not very good for selling a whole lot of anti-acid pills.

A Personal Milestone: 400th EZ Article in 365 Days

Today I've published my 400th online article on www.ezinearticles.com

I initially did not realize that it has taken me exactly one year to date to write these 400 articles.

However, I must note that there were many months within the last year when I did not contribute any articles to EZ at all due to other pressing (and paying) writing assignments. So had I written regularly, I probably could've been up to perhaps 700 articles by now.

I am thinking to write a brochure on how to market goods and services through article writing. It certainly did me good, so good that recently I started writing for another similar ezine article web site as well -- The American Chronicle.

Here are my EZ and Chronicle links:

Ezine Articles

American Chronicle

QR Code Revolution is on its way

A sample QR Code

Barcode, move aside! QR CODE is here.

Soon we will be pushing flash movies, coupons, MP3 files, good-old text and god knows what else to our cell phones by pointing their tiny built-in cameras to a QR Code, taking a snapshot, and then pressing the SEND button.

The revolution is already well underway in Japan and it's just a matter of time before it reaches the American shores.

Imagine, you are at the supermarket. You see an odd looking bottle of something on the shelf with a QR Code on it.

You point your cell phone camera at it, take a snapshot and push SEND and presto!

Soon you are watching a video about how to use the product, its benefits, complete with a 15% discount coupon that you can use right there at the same store!

Welcome to the 21st century and make all your marketing plans accordingly.

Click here for an excellent article on QR Codes

"People's Princess" and the Power of Words

As I was watching the movie QUEEN yesterday (for which the lovely Helen Mirren has won an Oscar this year), I was once again reminded the power of words and how the right phrase coined at the right moment in history can sway the masses in one direction or the other.

After Princess Diana dies unexpectedly in that car crash in Paris, PM Tony Blair's chief aide and writer comes up with the phrase "People's Princess" for him to use during his public condolence speech.

The phrase, pure invention of a gifted writer, catches on like wildfire. It captures and expresses the British public's love and adoration for the fallen Diana so well that in the end even a reluctant Queen has to come down from her high horse and pay due respect to the memory of her former and still-resented daughter in law.

An 11,158 Word Sales Letter

Most of the time my clients think an online marketing copy should be as short as possible in this day and age of short attention spans.

But, believe it or not, that goes against the practice of some of the most successful online marketers today.

Why?

When a targeted group of potential buyers are about to make a decision to purchase a very expensive product or service, they do not mind to read as many supporting arguments and as long a list of benefits as possible. The logic of "short is better" simply stops there.

In a previous posting I have mentioned a financial newsletter subscription letter distributed by Agora Publishing that was over 7,000 words.

Today I have received a well-crafted sales copy from American Writers and Artists Institute, promoting a 3-Day $9,000 seminar that was over 11,000 words!

There is a lesson there for all copywriters and direct marketers.

“Link Popularity” versus “Search Engine Saturation” Indexes

“Link Popularity” (LP) and “Search Engine Saturation” (SES) indexes are two different and complementary ways of measuring your web site’s ranking and relative importance on the web.

LP indicates the number of web sites with links to your domain.

SES, on the other hand, indicates the number of pages on your web site indexed by various search engine robots.

In general, the higher these numbers are the better it is.

However, there are caveats as in everything else in life.

High LP numbers, for example, can be generated by links coming in from web sites that nobody is visiting anyhow. All links are not created equal. A link from yahoo.com is perhaps worth a million links from nobodyvisitsme.com (just an example).

In the infancy of the Internet, “Directory Farms” were created to drive up the LP numbers. These were web sites with nothing in them but a bunch of web links. But these days you will be penalized by most search engines if your link is included in such “farms.” So you have to be as concerned about the quality of your links as their quantity.

SES has its own issues too. You can create thousands of pages, for example, to generate a higher SES index but…

Are those new pages related to the main topic of your web site?

And do they make it easier or more confusing to navigate around your web site? When visitors get confused by your inconsistent navigation and unrelated content, they may leave forever.

There is a point where “abundance” tips over into “confusion” and to know when to add things and when to stop is at the heart of search engine “optimization” process.

(If more was simply better under ANY conditions, the process would be called “Search Engine Maximization” and not “Optimization.”)

There are many sites out there that generate both LP and SES reports; some even provide comparative data on competing web sites. One such site that I use and like is www.marketleap.com.

Check the LP and SES numbers of your web site regularly since they change frequently. The best practice is to take regular measurements and then take their average for a reliable benchmark.

If the numbers are good, try to understand what you did right and replicate it.

If, on the other hand, the numbers are falling, analyze the reasons why and take appropriate measures to counter the trend.

About "Knowing"...

“It’s not what you know, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows what you know.”

~ Ed Sykes. Motivational Coach and Speaker

Karan Bilimora - An Indian Succes Story

Karan Bilimora is a name not well known in USA but he is the owner of Cobra Beer, a company worth 100 million pounds and named as one of the 100 fastest growing companies in the UK.

"The initial years were full of struggle," he says. "But I have made it, despite a number of factors that went against me when I started. The worst recession since World War II was on, and I was obviously a foreigner trying my hand when I had never even sold a beer bottle earlier."

Click here for the rest of this story

6 Success Secrets of NFL Great Jerry Rice

Jerry Rice gew up in Crawford, Mississippi and he worked as a brick layer when he was a teenager to help his father build house foundations. Brick laying was tough work but it also helped him develop his legendary work discipline and hand strength.

He later went on to become the most successful NFL All-Pro wide receiver of all time with the San Francisco 49ers.

The following are the six success secrets that Jerry Rice used that can easily motivate you to achieve success in any aspect of your business, career, and life...

Click here for the list

Top 10 Success Tips for Interns

From Penny Loretto,
Your Guide to Internships.

Organizations seek interns who are motivated and exhibit a "go-getter" attitude. Employers also want people within their company who have a strong work ethic and are dependable and work well independently and in a team environment. Many Human Resource Departments report that they seek many of their full-time employees from interns exhibiting these skills who have previously interned with their organizations.

Click here for rest of the article

Aweber's "Split Test" Functionality

Autoresponder company Aweber offers a great "split test" option to its customers that I just found out.

Imagine you have a subscription box on your web site, just like I do here in the right sidebar.

Let's say 1% of those who visit your web site are actually signing up.

The question is, could that have been 2% or more if you tried a different sign-up box and/or you gave out a different download premium... Wouldn't you like to find that out?

Aweber allows you to test exactly that by running a "split test."

This is how you do it:

1) You design two different sign-up boxes, with perhaps different text, different colors, different font family and font sizes, or a combination thereof.

2) You either link those different boxes to the same free download (or what Aweber calls a "message"), or come up with a second free download for the second signup box.

3) Then, you tell Aweber the probability with which those boxes should be displayed every time their page is viewed. (There are other and multiple pop-up options of displaying the box as well.)

For example, you can have Box A displayed 50% of the time and Box B displayed the other 50%.

4) Aweber composes a Javascript code for you based on the above steps. You copy that HTML code and insert it in your web page, in the appropriate location.

And you are done!

Not only your boxes are displayed according to the probabilities you have defined, but detailed statistics are provided about the performance of the alternative sign-up boxes. That way you can easily determine if your design changes have improved or actually deteriorated your conversion rate.

A very useful functionality that should help you improve the performance of your web site through a controlled and scientific method.

Write Powerful Copy by Eliminating Old and Tired Expressions

You'll increase your web site traffic faster if you use clean and short sentences.

Remember: less is more.

Eliminate all hackneyed expressions from your prose for some snappy copy.

Examples:

--------------------------------------------------------

Ring the bell in order to get service.

BETTER: Ring the bell to get service.

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Truth of the matter is, there is something fishy with this deal.

BETTER: There is something fishy with this deal.

--------------------------------------------------------

In a manner of speaking, he was the black sheep of the family.

BETTER: He was the black sheep of the family.

--------------------------------------------------------

To be perfectly honest with you, I don't like the way things are going.

BETTER: I don't like the way things are going.

--------------------------------------------------------

To be perfectly frank about it, I wish I had another option but I don't.

BETTER: I wish I had another option but I don't.

--------------------------------------------------------

The long and the short of it is, Frank has to pay that hundred dollars back.

BETTER: Frank has to pay that hundred dollars dollars back.

--------------------------------------------------------

Well, what do you think?

BETTER: What do you think?

--------------------------------------------------------

Worrying about the past does not make any sense and you know that.

BETTER: Worrying about the past does not make any sense.

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Needless to say, Hawaii is a gorgeous place to live.

BETTER: Hawaii is a gorgeous place to live.

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You will be able to leave on Sunday.

BETTER: You can leave on Sunday.

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You have the ability to learn.

BETTER: You can learn.

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The brigade was not enabled to deploy.

BETTER: The brigade could not deploy.

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Make sure to click the Start button.

BETTER: Click the Start button.

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Ideas in themselves cannot be copyrighted.

BETTER: Ideas cannot be copyrighted.

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Doctors recommend taking calcium in conjunction with vitamin D.

BETTER: Doctors recommend taking calcium together with vitamin D.

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The information in this document is considered the property of ABC Corporation.

BETTER: The information in this document is the property of ABC Corporation.

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In the event that your roof leaks, call a roofer.

BETTER: If your roof leaks, call a roofer.

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It simply works.

BETTER: It works.

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We were totally amazed

BETTER: We were amazed.

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He was really lost.

BETTER: He was lost.

“Fewer” or “Less”?

FEWER should be used when one can count the items/subjects in question. It is usually used with a following “THAN”.

For example:

1) Today I had fewer than ten phone calls.
2) Fewer awards than advertised were distributed at the Honors Ceremony.

LESS is used for items/subjects that cannot be measured.

For example:

1) You should work less to be healthy.
2) Since we had less snowfall this year, we decided not buy that snowblower.

Power of FRAMEMAKER Markers

There is a reason why professional technical writers authoring long complex documents almost always use FRAMEMAKER.

There simply is no comparison between FM and MS Word, for example, when it comes to industrial-strength heavy-duty documentation with multiple levels of numbering, indexing, TOC, multiple lists, etc.

One look at FM’s Marker functionality, and you realize right away how deep its marking capabilities are.

Here are just some of the markers you can use to tag your FM text with:

Index – the most obvious one, used for indexing terms.

Pending – used for not-quite-finished items that you would like to revisit at a later date.

Conditional text – used to generate multiple versions of the same document geared towards different audiences or markets.

Glossary – used to tag the items to appear in a Glossary.

Header/Footer – FM easily creates running headers and footers from existing paragraph tags. But if the text that you’d like to convert into running headers/footers is not styled as paragraph header, you can select that text and tag it with this marker.

Cross-ref – used to identify any text as a cross-reference to appear in the Cross-Reference dialog box.

Comparing Autoresponders Feedblitz vs. Aweber

Autoresponders is one of the must tools that should be used by all serious bloggers and online marketers. It is an excellent way to keep up with your readers and clients with minimum of effort.

Here is a brief comparison of the two autoresponders I’ve used in the past:

FEEDBLITZ

Major advantage: it’s free. You can broadcast your blog content automatically to your list.

Also has: double opt-in subscription engine. It eliminates people subscribing other people without their consent.

Support: so-so. You are basically on your own.

Questionable feature: number of subscribers are displayed under Feedblitz’ subscription box. That’s great if you’ve got 10,000 subscribers but it looks bad if only 2 people have subscribed to your newsletter.

Major drawback: you cannot schedule an e-mail campaign well in advance, with certain pieces mailed out on certain days.

Visit www.feedblitz.com for more info.

AWEBER

Big advantage: You can not only broadcast your blog content automatically to your list but you can also schedule an e-mail campaign well in advance, with certain pieces mailed out on certain days.

Also has: double opt-in subscription engine. It eliminates people subscribing other people without their consent.

Major drawback: it costs $19.95 a month.

Note: Aweber allows an “infinite” number of autoresponders for multiple websites.

Support: very patient people answer your questions politely and they never give up on you.

Too many configurable features to count here.

Visit www.aweber.com for more info.

My New Logo, thanks to Wikipedia

I use the public domain images of Wikipedia frequently and publish under GNU Free Documentation License.

In this logo, the earth image was also legally borrowed from Wikipedia. The rest was rendered in Adobe Illustrator.

Top 5 Sectors that Generate Maximum Online Leads

When it comes to generating a lot of online leads, all sectors are not created equal.

According to a recent Pew Internet & American Life survey, here are the 5 top sectors that generate maximum amount of leads:

1. Pharmaceuticals
2. Retail
3. Travel
4. Education
5. Personal finance

“79 percent of respondents said they turned to the web for health research. 91 percent of consumers who responded to a 2007 Prospectiv Consumer Preference Index (CPI) survey expressed interest in visiting websites focused on treatments for their ailments; 47 percent indicated they would like to receive treatment information via email,” according to iMedia Connection.

A Firefox Secret to Blogger Productivity

Darren Rose of PROBLOGGER writes:

"One of the little tricks that I use every morning when I first log onto my computer that gets me off to a flying start is to open up my ‘StartUp Folder’ on Firefox.

This is a bookmark folder that contains 15 or so key sites that quickly give me an indication of what is going on across my blogging business. Within 60 seconds I know what’s hot, what’s broken, where there’s a fire that needs to be put out and where I can give things a nudge to make them go viral.

Here’s how it works.

Firefox (and other browsers) allows you to arrange your bookmarks via folders and place these folders in your bookmark toolbar across the top of your browser. These folders can be accessed in two main ways:

* by clicking the folder and selecting a bookmark from the drop down menu
* by right clicking the folder and selecting ‘Open in All Tabs’ (if you have tabbed browsing turned on).

It’s this second method that I use every morning (and 2-3 times per day)..."

Click here for the rest of the story

Joy of Editing

“Honda recently announced that it is soon going to start its Mexican-built Civic exported to U.S.”

BETTER: “Honda recently announced that it will soon start exporting its Mexican-built Civics to the U.S.”

“upon the advertising campaign going active…”

BETTER: “when the advertising campaign is launched…”

“The signal to unlock a barrier can truncate upon the door position input going active."

BETTER: “The signal to unlock a barrier can truncate when the door position input is active.”

“They determine whether the authorized party is present prior to the start of a transaction.”

BETTER: “They determine whether the authorized party is present before a transaction begins.”