southnick wrote:

John

I rather enjoyed writing the copy with your headline. It actually fitted rather well.

I even added the yellow highlighter that I hate so much and was disappointed to discover that it worked rather too well.

Your Inner consultant. A new way to build your business.

Yes I'm certain if you put this version up, Nick would make bags of money.

And that concerns me deeply...

BMcKenna wrote:

Yes I'm certain if you put this version up, Nick would make bags of money.

And that concerns me deeply...

...and at what cost to his soul?

BTW it's a bit on the short side, really excellent copy has to be at least 2 metres long so that the reader doesn't realise you are repeating yourself 5 times.

John

When the devil comes to collect his dues don't be surprised if the interest is higher than you expect

At the risk of my eternal soul and because it looks ugly I have removed the yellow highlighting. I should have sold my soul last year before the market went south.

The 2 Meter versions annoy me and I don't think they work as I always jump to the end and read the last paragraph.

The rest I shall leave up as I want to compare some different approaches.

It seems to me the trade off is between getting more people to experience my stuff and having a mismatch between what I do and the advertisement for it.

On one level you could say that anything that sells is OK, but I think it can set up false expectations. I'd be interested to discuss this further, I currently make assumptions about the communication style of a product based on the advertisement.

southnick wrote:

On one level you could say that anything that sells is OK,

Isn't that marketing in a nutshell?

My question is where does excellence fit in to that paradigm.

Unless of course you presuppose that anything that sells is automatically excellent by definition.

John

Why do they put Braille characters on the drive-through bank machines?

I currently make assumptions about the communication style of a product based on the advertisement.

I do too. Part of me doesn't want to engage with that style of selling at all, and another part tells me to do what's required to sell. I'm currently working on using language persuasively and keeping the look of my pages congruent with who I am and what I produce. If someone were to convince me I could double my income by using yellow highlighting, loooooong sales letters and over-the-top headlines maybe I'd go for it though ... and as John asked earlier, where would my soul go?

Unless of course you presuppose that anything that sells is automatically excellent by definition.

That's one way of looking at this - it is good seeing payments arrive in my bank account. To me excellence would be getting the sales AND marketing in a human, authentic, congruent way. Am I expecting too much - is this why six figure NLP remains on my wish list and not on my bank statement :-) ???

z8000783 wrote:

Isn't that marketing in a nutshell?

My question is where does excellence fit in to that paradigm.

Unless of course you presuppose that anything that sells is automatically excellent by definition.

Ok, I've been thinking about this for some time.

I believe that every part of what you do is part of the service you supply. The marketing and the delivery.

If the marketing is not up to your usual standard then the whole service is devalued.

I am currently writing a landing page that has the same values as the product. I will put this up on Sunday and monitor it against the sales letter.

iansharp wrote:

That's one way of looking at this - it is good seeing payments arrive in my bank account. To me excellence would be getting the sales AND marketing in a human, authentic, congruent way. Am I expecting too much - is this why six figure NLP remains on my wish list and not on my bank statement :-) ???

I agree with your approach Ian. I wonder how many people make 6 figure NLP incomes. Very few I suspect.

There are some amazing people on here who are at the top of their game but I don't get the impression that they are in six figures.

I think most high earners use leverage, getting lots of other people to help sell and deliver their products/service. You have to decide if that is the game you want to play.

Hi Nick

Had a listen - really enjoyed it!!

With regards to advertising It's interesting the whole long copy approach versus the more measured subtle approach.

I'm not always sure which one works best, but I've had success with long copy in the past, but I know some people are turned off by it.

I think both are valid - having 2 pages / sites with 2 different approaches would be a very interesting experiment!

Another approach might be to use a video intoduction?

Have a great weekend!

Marc
www.marchoganonline.com

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the support, means a lot coming from you.

The measured subtle approach is taking a little longer than I expected, perhaps I'm keen that it should be better than the long copy. Maybe it was just having a great weekend.

I'll consider the video as I am recording some videos for my electronics business this week and while I'm up to speed on that I can work on this too.

I'm going to keep all landing pages variations on the site and plan to put links to all of them from the home page so that anyone can read and compare. I guess it gives me a way of giving the message in 3 ways too.

Big thanks also to James Lavers for pointing out that when I took off the yellow highlights I also broke the long copy page. It is now corrected if anyone else had a problem with it.

The link is Your Inner consultant. A new way to build your business.

I'm not convinced that the distinction in this realm is long copy v measured and subtle. In fact, with my copywriting hat on, I'm sure of it. Subtlety is not always the way forward...

A long time ago I was writing a job advert for a civil engineering company. They wanted someone who was kooky about concrete, knew all about it, the different sorts and applications. I came up with the headline/job title Concrete Evangelist and it went down a treat: two words that were anything but subtle when put together.

Sure, subtle can work -- I did a strapline for a leisure complex that ran Work Out, Eat Out, Time Out accompanied by relevant photos of people doing said stuff -- which to this date ranks as the highest I've been paid based on wordcount, more so since half the words used are the same.

Is subtlety the best yardstick? I suspect not. What matters is making an impact. How you do that can be all kinds of ways.

Heyya friends,

I see that a One-Meter length would have been better in my ops, BTW whoever is on the internet does not read Wordsworth but Wikipedia. I would not curl up on a nice sunny morning with a book written on Keats , Shelley, Byron or William Shakespeare although I may have even read it in my education days at University of Bombay(Mumbai, now).

There are a lot of such sales ads, going on the net urging one to be "The Lawn Chair Millionaire" , frankly I aint give a dime for them, nor do i have that much of a patience to go through them even upto 100centimetres words. Forget, the rest of the Two-meter kerb on the word-side.

Anyways that reminded me of asking anyone to have a look at my Blogsite helped by a friend of mine, it goes as---

https://reiki2u.wetpaint.com/

Happy surfing
Cheers.

Long copy, short copy, subtle copy or direct…

…here’s the deal:

Your copy should be long ‘enough’ and direct ‘enough’ to do one thing...

…sell the product.

Whether you’re selling for money – or ‘selling’ someone on the idea of trying out your thing for free – your copy must do that job.

Unless of course you want to write cute taglines and slogans in an (probably expensive) endeavour to form some kind of long-term 'hook-up' in your prospects mind…

...that’s cool – but I think we’re talking about writing copy that convinces right?…copy that moves our customers…copy that sells….copy that can strengthen and grow your business – immediately – not in 5 years from now.

Bottom-line: knowing which style to use is down to how well you know your customer…how well you ‘get where they’re at’, how well you can (as Robert Collier put it) “…enter the conversation already going on in your customers mind.”

Would you wade through 10 pages of long-copy about a one-armed golfer with a weird technique for driving a ball farther??

If you’re not into golfing…probably not.

Would you enter your name and email address on a short, 162 word webpage that promises “secrets about women, most men will never know”??

If you’ve been happily married for 10 years, again…probably not.

So. If you’re fretting about copy from a purely stylistic what-do-people-like perspective…you’re missing the point – and worse – you’re ignoring your prospect, and what they want.

Writing copy to ‘please’ everyone is doomed to failure.

My copy pisses off a lot of people –

- and it makes me and my clients a lot of money selling products that our customers want…and those same customers actually thank me for the way I market to them.

Does it make us 6 figures?

Abso-frikkin-lutely.

See. There are many other NLPers and Coaches making frankly silly amounts of money – serving their customers – living their version of a ‘dream’ lifestyle…

…and in many cases it’s not because they’re worrying about whether to highlight a piece of text in yellow or whether to do a red headline…

…that shit misses the point.

They’re getting the job done to sell to their prospects and customers.

If they understand their customers, they get money.

If they don’t…they don’t.

Now.

I went to your page Nick.

Bought the audio…(as an exercise in curiosity rather than conviction based on your copy.)…I’ve listened to half of it and will comment fully when I’ve finished listening.

I will say this – the cognitive dissonance I’ve been describing here is rampant on your page(s)…I get that you’re kinda testing at this stage so I’ll refrain from an all out assault – but from a marketing and copywriting perspective, this has a long way to go in my opinion…and Nick, you know that’s coming from a place of genuine caring…

…yeah, I even got feelings too! J

J.

Thanks James. I'm not surprised you find cognitive dissonance in that copy.

I have made it very clear that that is not my style and I am not comfortable with it. The reason I wrote it was partly as an exercise to see if I could and also because lots of people seem to think that that sort of copy is what is required.

My preference is to write in the style that I do on NLP connections, a style that I think you will agree is present in the audio. Considered but strongly grounded and a touch of humour. I am selling myself and my approach to getting creative about your business so I think my copy needs to reflect me rather than some anonymous third person hard sell.

I shall add it when I am happy with it, my electronics business is hectic at the moment and I believe in enjoying my leisure time too so it may be a little longer.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the Audio soon.

Nick

I admit that I am not very good at the hard sell and I don't really want to be, so I have decided instead of trying to copy something I will do something different.

There is a new landing page

Your Inner consultant. A new way to build your business.

but my main change is to add

Diary of Spidey. A Plant with a view.

My Spider plant now has it's own web page and twitter account. I think doing creative but slightly off the wall stuff is more my style.

Great idea :-) I'll be really interested to learn how well this approach works. Give my love to Spidey.

I think you're right, in the end it's best to use an approach that feels right - people respond well to honesty.

I'm developing a programme called 'The Real Me'. I mention that only because I added it to my e-mail signature and immediately good a booking from someone who'd been hestitating for a while - something about my wording really clicked with her and she was after an appointment the same day.

Nothing magical about the words I used, I just hit the right tone at the right time for her. In the end we have to write what feels right, yes take into consideration what the marketers tell us works too, and go for it.

Thanks Ian. I have given your love to Spidey, there are quite a few visitors to Spideyworld webpage but not many followers yet so Spidey could do with some support.

Nick (SpideyWorld) on Twitter

It works rather well I think, although spidey doesn't go anywhere or do anything so it looks at though it will be mainly comments on conversations with plants outside the window, "Rosemary" ( who is always quoting stuff that her grandmother told her) and "Magnolia" (who specialises in wisdom of her ancestors). It may go off in a totally different direction, quite looking forward to finding out. Nothing to do with me.


I'll let you know in a week or so how downloads of the audio book progress. I am working on the next one at the moment.

I thing "the Real Me" is a great starting point for any journey. Sorting out beliefs and values is the key to making changes, or deciding to be just the way you are. I think a lot of the problems are due to the disguises that people wear, or feel that they ought to. I think it is related to Michael Neill's idea of finding a wow.

I'm following a spider plant on Twitter. Wot'll they think of next...?

The latest blog seems a bit different but I hope that the message behind it is useful.The key ideas are

1. Look not for what is there but how and when it has changed.
2. Something that applies to a small part of it usually applies to the whole.

Reading the signs. What can you learn about an organisation from its car park.

Your Inner Consultant

When writing this I thought of a great idea to market a therapy practise at very low cost. I'll make that the subject of my next blog.

[QUOTE=southnick;86825]Thank you for your feedback Ian.

When I started the project last year it was totally based around buying the plant and how that helped my business, so I spent months finding plant metaphors. The inner consultant idea then occurred to me and it tied everything together.

I think everyone with a business should have a plant, there "if my business were a plant, how would I keep it healthy". The main lesson for me is that a business is an organic thing that needs frequent attention to to small things rather than huge bursts of work every month or so.

Interesting that you mention keeping audio stripped back. I was thinking about adding some acoustic guitar motifs in the next book to signify changes in pace ."

"If the plant got serious, then it will have to be placed in proper Healthcare,NLP-clinics? A book can be re-written with new title , just musings of my own,well= " Inplant implants,Organic Gui-ytars Pacemaking."

=yadsan