It doesn’t matter if your blog post or newsletter is literary gold. With a crummy subject line, people won’t read the message you’ve painstakingly crafted.

In today’s environment of digital mania, less patience and  overstretched schedules, you need to show your reader that clicking and reading is worth her time. Conveying that value in a handful of words takes thought, time and practice.

Write better subject lines with these tips:

1. Keep it short and sweet: 35 characters or less.
2. Promise some kind of benefit.
3. Be fun, quirky or intriguing.
4. When in doubt, ask a question.

Brainstorm a few ideas. Before you click “send,” try the subject lines on for size. Here’s how:

1. Would you click? Look at each line alone and see if it’s something that would intrigue you to click. If the words are even remotely boring or generic, go back to the drawing board.
2. Would they click? Think about which subject lines your audience would open. What are their needs? What information do they want? Your opinion matters, but theirs matters more.
3. Visualize it. Send the subject lines to yourself so you can see them in your inbox. You’ll know right away which one stands out.
4. Get a second, third, and fourth opinion. As individuals, we can be biased, especially towards our own creations. Ask a few colleagues what would compel them most. The most votes wins.
5. Learn from your stats. Check your email newsletter and blog open rates! You will gain insight into what makes your audience click.
6. Ask for help. If you know you’ve written something powerful, and don’t want it to be rendered invisible by a bad subject line, get some help. (We’re here, and we think fast.)

As I said in an earlier post, Is Less Copy a Good Idea?, in writing, shorter is harder. With only 35 characters to attract the attention of an overstimulated audience, boring just won’t cut it. Make a good first impression and take extra care to pack your subject lines with attention-getting value.

What’s the single-best subject line you received this week? Please share below. (If your own email marketing needs a boost, call us to schedule a free 30-minute assessment. No strings attached.)

Think less copy on your home page seems like a good idea? We do, too – usually. But having less copy isn’t as simple as it might sound. Light copy might seem ideal, but it can backfire unless it’s done right. When it comes to home page copy, balancing lightness with effectiveness is tricky.

What you should know:

1. Copy that’s light—is harder to write. Mark Twain said, “I don’t have time to write you a short letter, so I’m writing you a long one instead.” Crafting a short, powerful message takes time. When fewer words need to say more, it’s often a case of refining, editing and reassessing. Most good writers can fill a page with words. Great writers can fill half a page—and say the same thing.
2. Less space = Less time to communicate. If you only have “room” for 25 words, you could be limiting yourself. Yes, people are tired of reading long marketing copy, but they also need to be informed and to feel welcome. Are too-tight layouts limiting your ability to communicate?
3. Give ‘em a clue. Some companies don’t want any copy on their home page, assuming visitors will click in to get the real story. In reality, they usually click away. Your home page must tell prospects who you are and what you do. Share—or at least hint at—your story to compel visitors and make your sales easier. Remember, you know how exciting your business is, but your prospects don’t—yet.
4. What’s your message? Think of your goals. What main idea you want to communicate? Do you need visitors to sign up for something? Figuring out your goals should be your first priority. Once you have goals, you can decide how to achieve them. Here’s where you think about length. Your home page is often your one shot to capture prospects’ attention. Don’t blow it.
5. Look at why you want less content. Do you want less copy because people are busy? Or because you don’t want to pay for content? (Less content can cost more!) Don’t let the wrong reasons drive your content length. Otherwise, you’re doing your goals, and your audience, a disservice.

Let your business strategy—not your web design—drive your copy length. No matter what the length is, in website content, every word needs to count.

While we write for a living, we’re also huge fans of concise copy. Please share your favorite examples of websites that are light on copy, heavy on impact.

And if you need help keeping your own copy short and sweet, yet packing a powerful punch, just say the word.

“What is the writer’s first job?”

Award-winning mystery novelist Reed Farrel Coleman asked the question at a recent workshop sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America.

A few attendees ventured educated guesses like “develop plot” or “sit down and write.”

Some enlightened soul soon voiced the answer Coleman was seeking: “To entertain.”

Exactly. He expanded this concept by restating it as “to engage the reader.”

The goal of the first sentence is to grab readers by the throat and convince them to read the second sentence, which is designed to propel readers toward the next sentence… and the next… and the next.

While Coleman was educating a room full of mystery writers on the editing process, his advice also applies to marketing copy.

• In creating a direct mail package, for instance, the job of the envelope is to get the recipient to open it.
• The role of the headline is to encourage the recipient to read the lead paragraph.
• The goal of the lead paragraph? To invite the recipient to read the next paragraph.

And so it goes until, hopefully, the prospect has reached the end of our brilliantly crafted pitch and found himself powerless to resist the compelling call to action.

If only it were that easy… Still, if you lose the reader before that point, your chances of a sale or donation go into the trash, along with your package.

Taking the Mystery out of Better Sales Copy

Follow these tips from the fiction pros to improve your response rates:

• Hit the ground running. People are too busy to wade through the marketing equivalent of “It was a dark and stormy night.” Find that emotional hook that will snatch the reader’s shirt collar and hold his attention. To gauge your success, copywriting great John Forde recommends covering your lead with a sheet of blank paper. If the second paragraph works just fine without the intro, start the message here. Repeat this process, cutting all unnecessary paragraphs.
• Read your work aloud. According to Coleman, we write with our eyes, but we edit with our ears. If the language sounds awkward and stilted when read aloud, it needs work. Make no mistake: readers “hear” your voice in their heads. Either this voice rings true, or they move on.
• View the writing with fresh eyes. Once you’ve finished the draft, set it aside at least overnight—ideally, for a few days or more. Then, go back and read the work out loud. Again. This distance from the writing process often uncovers new problems you might have overlooked.

At the end of the day, good writing is good writing. Whether you’re a mystery writer spinning a tale of whodunit or a marketer promoting a service or product, you must respect the reader’s time by making every word count.

Try these tips and let us know what you think. Did they work for you? Do you have other suggestions to help marketers—or mystery writers—cut out the parts that people skip? Please share.

Try this exercise.

• Take a sample of your marketing materials, something that will likely form a prospect’s first impression: your website home page, a brochure.
• Take a similar sample from two or three of your competitors.
• Read these passages and highlight any similarities among them.

Do you stand out from the crowd? Or are you saying the same thing as everyone else?

Maybe you’re thinking, “But we mean it.” Or, “That’s what customers are looking for.”

In either case, you’re missing the chance to tell your story. What really sets you apart from the competition?

From boring…

Last week, I met with two different businesses:

• A construction company that touted its track record of delivering on time and on budget.
• A marketing firm for nonprofits that talked up its mission to design for the greater good.

“What’s wrong with that?”, you might ask. These sound like fine messages that would appeal to prospects.

You would be correct.

Unfortunately, every other competitor is saying the same thing, often the same way.

To bravo

Let’s take another look at the examples above.

• This contractor’s track record of quality extends nearly a half-century, resulting from the principals’ involvement with each and every project. This personal service is equally evident in their cultivation of client relationships.
• The founder of this agency brings an exceptional level of passion and intellect to every engagement. Under his direction, this creative team helps clients achieve marketing and business development goals on multiple levels.

These are the stories that should come through in their marketing materials, not the generic drivel that populates most collateral.

Your turn

Now let’s go back to your own marketing messages.

What’s the story that’s not coming through? What distinguishes you from the other businesses or agencies in your sector?

• Pick one point of differentiation (e.g., innovation, customer service). Note: The key is to be different. Even if competitors do the same thing, it’s fair game if they’re not talking it up. Remember the famous Coors campaign highlighting the purity of their steam-cleaned bottles?
• Identify specific proof points. For instance, if you’re innovative, do you encourage and reward employee suggestions? Share examples of how clients benefit from these creative solutions.
• Tell the story. Show your audience that you’re different. Start by telling them something fresh and new, something they haven’t heard from everyone else in your industry.

Do you have a great story to tell? Please share. We love to highlight companies and organizations that really do things right.

We all know the type: He’s the one at the cocktail party or networking breakfast you can’t escape fast enough.

Why?

Because he’s going on and on about nothing that you care about.

Recently, a friend introduced me to a web developer, usually one of my favorite new contact categories. He heard what we do at Market It Write – and proceeded to educate me on search engine optimization.

I (politely) interrupted him and told him that, yes, I understood what he was saying. We partner with many web development firms to create sites that combine relevant content with social media tools to achieve high organic search engine rankings.

Next, he tried to explain how descriptive file names and page titles can also boost your site rankings.

Before he got too far into his lecture, I spilled my drink and dashed to the ladies room.

Not really. I was, however, sorely tempted.

Where did he go wrong?

To start, this prospective partner didn’t consider his audience before launching into his pitch. He has identified what sets him apart from other web designers and relentlessly steers networking conversations in his direction.

• He did not acknowledge the fact that I was educated in his area of expertise – essentially insulting my intelligence. (Hint: Not a good way to impress a prospective client.)
• He did not consider my needs and how his services could help fulfill those needs.
• In fact, he didn’t bother finding out much about me before starting his spiel.

This example sounds pretty silly and obvious, but many websites commit the same sins.

• Focus on the business or organization
• A generic message intended for all visitors
• Lackluster organization and content, showing little regard for audience needs

The fix?

If you’re still operating a simple brochure site that lists name, rank and serial number (About Us, Products/Services, Contact Us), you probably need to start from scratch. Largely because the technology has evolved so quickly that sophisticated web solutions are available for all budgets.

To avoid making the same mistakes, ask yourself the following questions:

• Who are my target audiences?
• Why are they coming to my site?
• How can I make their lives better?

Answer these questions, and watch your online marketing ROI increase. If you need some help, we’re only a phone call or email away.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? How did you respond? (For the truly brave, have you ever found yourself on the wrong end of this situation? How did you recover?)

Evoking response is the primary duty of any marketing campaign. Generating more sales and revenue than the campaign cost to produce is the bottom line. Any good marketer knows that the first step is understanding the benefits of the product or service. Why should the customer care about what you’re saying? How can your widget make their lives better?

Advertising legend David Ogilvy realized that the best ads focused on one major benefit and included the others in subordinate roles. Stressing the strongest benefits creates the strongest possible response. But you can’t just say what the benefits are. You have to make them dramatic, so that they fling themselves at your prospect’s mind and stick there. You want to make them keep reading, call, click, whip out their credit cards.

A powerful way to do that is to turn your benefit into a promise.

“How to Make $1M in Two Years—Tax Free”

Makes a pretty strong headline, doesn’t it?  Why? Because it promises a benefit—making $1M within two years, tax free—and promises that if you keep reading, you will know how to do this. This headline conveys authority and success. It sounds like a wild claim; so your copy has to deliver on the promise, and so does your product.

What if the headline read:

“Our Company Can Make You $1M in Two Years”

This headline is inherently weaker, because it sounds like empty boasting. The benefit is there, but the previous example presupposes that it will be done, not that it can be done.

Making benefits immediate, concrete and dramatic increases their power and effectiveness. Whether you’re writing the copy, or approving the particulars of an advertising campaign, keep this in mind: Seize the audience‘s attention with big promises and powerful benefits. If you can do that, your widgets and services will practically sell themselves.

But let’s take it up a notch. What if you could paint a picture of the prospect’s success in their own imagination? How’s this one?

“They Laughed When I Said I Could Make $1M Tax-Free Within Two Years, but When I Bought that Ferrari…”

This headline paints a powerful picture. You can see interactions between people and feel the speaker’s final triumph when he stood victorious over the naysayers. This picture and the feelings it evokes capture the essence of the drama you want to create in the reader’s mind.

What kind of headlines/taglines/slogans have you found particularly effective? Can you put your finger on why?

The Myers-Briggs Temperament Test is an increasingly popular way to identify what makes a person tick. The Myers-Briggs Test, originally developed in the 1950s, is now used worldwide to identify patterns of behavior and attitude. The expansion of the test’s popularity has been spurred in large part by Dr. David Keirsey, who refined and expanded the Myers-Briggs types in his books, Please Understand Me and Please Understand Me II.

Human temperament theory states the following: all individuals can be categorized as one of four basic personality types. These personality types can each be broken down into four sub-types based on introversion/extroversion and the person’s preferred role as leader/follower, but those sub-types are irrelevant to the core values of the main types. Each holds a specific core value–the thing that drives people of that type.

Artisan (Sensing Perceiving – SP). There are many Artisans, perhaps 35-40% of the population. Artisans want to be excited, stimulated, to make an impact on the world.  They trust their impulses and aspire to virtuosity in their chosen field.

Guardian (Sensing Judging – SJ). Guardians are the most common, making up roughly 40-45% of the population. They are concerned about their lives, families, communities, responsibilities. They trust authority and seek security and belonging.

Idealist (Intuitive Feeling – NF). Idealists are rare, making up no more than 8-10% of the population. They are enthusiastic and romantic, seeking self-discovery and recognition of their efforts. They help others, and in so doing walk the path to enlightenment.

Rational (Intuitive Thinking – NT). Rationals are even more scarce, comprising as little as 5-7% of the population. They are calm, collected, trusting their reason and intellectual capacity. They live their lives in search of knowledge, fascinated by the systems that drive the universe.

With this basic knowledge, a good copywriter can craft a message to appeal to  all these types, or even more specifically to those types most likely to be interested in the message. One can develop marketing messages to maximize impact on certain personality types, or include hooks to appeal broadly to all four. Most of the hooks that will work on a Guardian will not likely work on an Idealist, because each type is driven by different internal forces.

One general difference between the types is that Artisans and Guardians operate most comfortably, and respond most favorably, to concrete things, such as tools, results, real-world things. Idealists and Rationals, on the other hand, are more likely to respond to abstract things, such as holistic concepts or systems.

Your job as a marketer is to craft a compelling message, and human temperament theory can be an absolutely priceless tool in your inventory.

How do you visualize your target audience when crafting copy? Are you a Myers-Briggs fan? Do you use a different approach? Please share what works for you.

Source: Keirsey, David. Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence. Del Mar: Prometheus Nemesis. 1998.

Any good copywriter knows how to capture and lead the audience’s wants and capitalize on its needs, and he knows how to help the audience justify assenting to the call to action. All persuasive writing, including marketing messages, asks the audience to agree and to act based on an endless variety of specific reasons.

For example, in a clothing store:

Retail Seller: You look amazing in this dress!

Customer: Really?

Retail Seller: Absolutely!  Add these shoes and you look like a model.

The sales pitch here goes like this: You should buy this outfit because it will make you look like a model.

The call to action is to buy the outfit. The reason is that the customer will look like a model.

But there is a third element here: the value judgment underlying the reason. It is the unstated assumption that the customer wants to look like a model, that for the customer looking like a model is a good thing.

But what if the customer is more concerned about cost than appearance? What if the customer wants to look like a skater chick?

If the audience does not share your message’s value judgment, your unstated assumption, then your message will fall flat, no matter how good the reasons.

This concept applies to all copywriting. You have to think about what value judgments you are asserting and whether your audience shares them.

Your persuasive writing can (and should) use a variety of reasons and unstated assumptions. However, if the unstated assumptions conflict, your message will contradict itself, and the audience will recognize this.

What if the sales pitch above continued…

Customer: But I’m not interested in looking like a model. I’d rather look more like a professional.

Retail Seller: This would be an excellent dress to wear to the office.

Customer: I said I want to look like a professional, not a “pro,” if you know what I mean.

The customer then shrugs and leaves, and that’s exactly what your audience will do if your underlying assumptions are inconsistent with themselves or with your audience’s.

Remember that the unstated assumption is a value judgment that says something is good, something is bad, something is worth doing, worth having. If you craft messages that share these values with your audience, your message will find fertile soil. Without them, your message will wither like trees planted in a desert.

How do you identify and test your underlying assumptions? Do you have any war – or success – stories to share?

Lift notes, also known as lift letters, are so-called because studies have shown that they can increase the response rate of a sales letter by as much as 50%.  But what is a lift note exactly?

A lift note is a short letter or note from someone other than the writer of the main sales letter—editor, director, expert, creator of the product, etc.  There are three powerful reasons why this is an effective tactic for increasing direct marketing response.

1. The lift note’s physical difference and separateness from the main letter are one more chance to grab the prospect’s attention.  It’s often short and less intimidating to read than a full letter.  The difference in style or voice can also appeal to different types of readers. Furthermore, a good lift note will usually offer benefits not described in the main letter, something special about the product or service, or a special, “personal” offer.
2. When the lift note gets the prospect’s attention, it can bring them into the main letter with positive feelings. Excitement, curiosity, peace of mind that the reader has already read your guarantee, testimonials, special benefits, etc. The lift note compartmentalizes the reader’s attention, similar to a text box. Its brevity is its greatest strength, in that many readers are more likely to read it carefully and hit all your high points.
3. A lift note can give an extra impetus for the reader to act after she reads the letter. It’s an extra opportunity for a call to action, one more perspective on why your product or service is essential for the reader. A lift note works even better if you can take the reader’s interest and build on it with tantalizing leads such as: “Read only if you’re still not convinced…” or “Would an expert’s assurance help you decide?”

A good lift note should do only one thing—whatever that might be—and do it well. Whether that’s offering a “hidden” benefit, “secret” information, or an expert testimonial, the lift note should add another dimension to the sales pitch, not summarize what’s already being said elsewhere.

Does anyone write letters anymore? We have e-mail, text messaging, social media web sites, and the soul of communicational brevity, Twitter. With all these other forms of communication, do we still need to know how to write a good letter? Whether you’re seeking employment, trying to sell widgets, or contacting business associates, now, more than ever, a good letter can raise you above the crowd. The quickest way to disqualify yourself from consideration from a world of business opportunities is to not know how to write an effective letter.

1. In business or marketing communications, the cardinal commandment is this: Know Thy Audience. Don’t even start writing without a firm vision of whom you’re writing to. As a general rule, it’s nearly always more effective to be more formal, at least until a clear personal relationship is established. “Dear Mr. Jones:” versus “Hey Jim,” or even “What’s up J-Dawg?” Courtesy toward an employment superior or a potential sales prospect still goes a long way. Tailor the voice of your communication to your audience, and remember that your letter represents you. What kind of impression would you like to convey?
2. Margins, line spacing, position of the date, address blocks, salutation lines, all have long-established parameters for what is acceptable. Reference books abound, describing the intricacies of letters. Nowadays, software generally takes care of those things with templates, but some formats are more formal or traditional than others. A standard business letter most often uses block format, where all paragraphs, salutations, date, and address blocks are left-justified with a double space between each element and no indentation.
3. For print letters, use a serif font (fonts with the little curly-cues, called serifs on the letters), such as Times New Roman, Garamond, or Courier. As a general rule, do not use sans serif fonts (fonts without serifs) like Arial, Trebuchet, or Calibri for print letters. Sans serif fonts are generally viewed as too informal and are more tiring to read. For easy reading, your audience will also thank you if you use 12 pt.
4. When in doubt, check the reference books. If you don’t have one handy, the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Purdue OWL, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/) is a fantastic web resource for all kinds of writing questions, including letter writing formats.

Does all this seem pretty basic? That’s because it is. But managers, professionals, and business people everywhere can tell you stories about how so many people don’t know these bare basics. Do you?