Writing for selling or writing for relationship-building?

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In her comments to my post on spelling, Heidi Miller points out that ‘definately’ is a much overused word that really annoys her. After all, one either is or isn’t going to do or be something; adding ‘definately’ ‘definitely’ is overkill — and I am fully and totally 100% in complete agreeance with her on that {smile}.

But her subsequent comment about a friend who “Insists on Capitalizing any Word she feels is Important for some Reason I can’t Fathom” brings to mind a recent running series of asides by Shel Holtz and Josh Hallett on For Immediate Release.

Shel and Josh were lamenting the design inadequacies of internet sales letters — those websites that have one massive page of text that, when printed off, equal anything up to 36 pages of print. The design is invariably the same: large headline, lots of garish colour, lots of yellow highlighted text, bullet points galore, lots of testimonials from satisfied, nay deliriously delighted, customers.

Shel and Josh agreed that they were indeed awful to look at. They are very oftentimes awful to look at but I think, with all due respect, that they are missing the point.

The majority of webpages and websites aren’t built to sell anything; they are built to provide information or to build trust via the opportunity to enter into a relationship.

Yet sales pages/sites have but one purpose — to make a sale. There is no interest in building a relationship — you either want to purchase the product or you don’t. The purpose of the page is to steer you towards a positive purchase decision and neither waste your time nor the writer’s time if you aren’t interested in the product or benefit in the first place.

Communicating on the internet, via webpages, has some basic rules:

• use plenty of white space
• use short paragraphs and short sentences
• aim to develop ’stickiness’ so that the reader will return at some future point and begin to develop a relationship

But sales pages/sites on the internet work to a different set of guidelines, guidelines built upon the successful implementation of such guidelines in Direct Marketing. That is:

• use a compelling, benefit-driven or cost-avoidance headline
• use plenty of bullet points to drive your benefits home
• use plenty of testimonials so that the prospect doesn’t feel like they are alone in considering their purchase (because research shows that we are less likely to make a risky decision if we can see no one else similarly making the same decision)
• use compelling benefit-laden subheads
• make frequent calls to action (i.e. order now)
• offer free or heavily discounted valuable bonuses if they take action now
• clearly outline the costs of inaction
• create a scarcity factor — time and running out of it; number of items left
• use a P.S. to drive your scarcity and benefit factors home once again, because the P.S. is often the second most read part of a sales letter, after the headline

Donna’s friend who insists on capitalising every word shows someone who has taken an interest in Direct Marketing. But even my personal hero of Direct Marketing, Ted Nicholas, has proven that capitalised initial letters over non-capitalised letters makes no difference. So what a capitalised lettered headline shows is someone who is a possible graduate of Direct Marketing 101 without knowing why it works or why you don’t have to use capitalised first letters of every word in a headline.

For reasons of confidentiality I cannot show you any of the sales letters I have created for clients, but I can certainly show you one of mine that uses these principles — the sales letter I wrote for creating an interest in taking out a SiteSell webhosting package, for which I would receive a small gratuity if the reader subsequently made a purchase.

The reason it is so clearly a sales letter is because in such communication strategic intent (making a sale or driving someone to consider making a purchase) Direct Marketing principles have been shown time and time again to work, even on the internet.

The point to all this
The point to all this is this — consider carefully your strategic intent in your communication.

If it is to foster a relationship, then do NOT use such a heavy-handed and obvious tactic as a DM sales letter. But if your strategy is to drive someone towards a purchasing decision straight away, then obviously a long, drawn out multi-part communication sequence is the next tactic to consider after a straight DM letter has failed.

But don’t confuse your tactics with your strategy — pick the right tool for the job.

Tagged as: nonverbal communication