Amazon truly is a jungle, and now that so many more predators have found their way in, how do you avoid getting eaten?
Of course, having your listing appear in searches has always been a problem, and some have developed the necessary jungle survival skills using PPC and some other tricks. That is not my field of expertise, so I will leave it to experts in that field to chime in.
My point in this thread is that once you have paid to get someone to view your listing, that listing now holds the key to possible sales. Don’t blow it by being ordinary. Don’t simply present facts. As I emphasize in my labeling book, emotions outsell facts by a huge margin.
My successful marketing by direct mail and print Yellow Pages, (Any oldies here remember them) was a direct result of devising killer headlines.
Those headlines might appeal to the author, who might even read them repeatedly, relishing the written evidence of his/her cleverness, but it’s the customers that you need to entertain, startle, shock, give a warm feeling, excite, cause to salivate, or inwardly say “Yes, yes, yes!”, or “me, me, me”.
So how do you make those headlines relevant to your target demographic?
The answer is glaringly obvious. Put yourself in their shoes. Identify with them. Think about their needs (although you know they are really wants). Maybe the product is not one of life’s essentials, so why would they want to buy it? What emotion is driving their interest in your keywords? What socio-economic definition would fit? How well educated would they likely be?
I will now let you in on the best headline I ever wrote. The conversion rate from that direct mail letter was staggering.
Annually, I and my franchisees mailed the Principal of every school in the four countries where we operated. Now, school principals tend to like rules and I broke a big one. In those days when grammar was taught even in primary schools, students were taught to not use colloquialisms.
The principals in Australia, which at the time was our largest market, spoke British English, and had a knowledge of Australian colloquialisms. Those in the other countries we served also spoke British English, but would almost certainly have been curious or shocked enough to search for the meaning of the saying that I used.
Here’s the headline:
She’ll be right mate………….
Shock! Horror! Addressing a school principal as “mate” was bad enough, but saying in that extremely casual colloquialism that “everything will work out alright” had to appear contrary to everything they would expect from a company known for enhancing the image of schools.
The orders rolled in at an amazing rate. This result was achieved because I understood the conservative attitudes, social standards and norms of school principals. I shocked them into feeling compelled to read on.
Clearly it was essential that the following copy had to convey an impelling sales message, which the results showed was the case.
I should add that the apparently handwritten PS was the clincher.
Walter
Of course, having your listing appear in searches has always been a problem, and some have developed the necessary jungle survival skills using PPC and some other tricks. That is not my field of expertise, so I will leave it to experts in that field to chime in.
My point in this thread is that once you have paid to get someone to view your listing, that listing now holds the key to possible sales. Don’t blow it by being ordinary. Don’t simply present facts. As I emphasize in my labeling book, emotions outsell facts by a huge margin.
My successful marketing by direct mail and print Yellow Pages, (Any oldies here remember them) was a direct result of devising killer headlines.
Those headlines might appeal to the author, who might even read them repeatedly, relishing the written evidence of his/her cleverness, but it’s the customers that you need to entertain, startle, shock, give a warm feeling, excite, cause to salivate, or inwardly say “Yes, yes, yes!”, or “me, me, me”.
So how do you make those headlines relevant to your target demographic?
The answer is glaringly obvious. Put yourself in their shoes. Identify with them. Think about their needs (although you know they are really wants). Maybe the product is not one of life’s essentials, so why would they want to buy it? What emotion is driving their interest in your keywords? What socio-economic definition would fit? How well educated would they likely be?
I will now let you in on the best headline I ever wrote. The conversion rate from that direct mail letter was staggering.
Annually, I and my franchisees mailed the Principal of every school in the four countries where we operated. Now, school principals tend to like rules and I broke a big one. In those days when grammar was taught even in primary schools, students were taught to not use colloquialisms.
The principals in Australia, which at the time was our largest market, spoke British English, and had a knowledge of Australian colloquialisms. Those in the other countries we served also spoke British English, but would almost certainly have been curious or shocked enough to search for the meaning of the saying that I used.
Here’s the headline:
She’ll be right mate………….
Shock! Horror! Addressing a school principal as “mate” was bad enough, but saying in that extremely casual colloquialism that “everything will work out alright” had to appear contrary to everything they would expect from a company known for enhancing the image of schools.
The orders rolled in at an amazing rate. This result was achieved because I understood the conservative attitudes, social standards and norms of school principals. I shocked them into feeling compelled to read on.
Clearly it was essential that the following copy had to convey an impelling sales message, which the results showed was the case.
I should add that the apparently handwritten PS was the clincher.
Walter
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