How to Write Sales Copy Effectively

Surfing the web, you often find websites with large or flashing graphics to grab your attention. While this may "wow" you initially, it does not pull the visitor through the site to get the order and make a sale. This should be the ultimate purpose of your site if you are trying to sell something.

On the other hand, writing effective sales copy will generate a much more favorable response, whether it is long copy or short copy.

16 steps on how to effectively write sales copy:

1. Research keywords - use wordtracker or the overture suggestion tool to find keywords related to your product. Weave them throughout your web site sales copy, including your meta tags. Try to find alternative keywords to your main ones.

2. Create a slogan - capture your visitors’ attention by creating a slogan that stresses the benefits (not the features) of your product. For example for the phrase "Affiliate Programs" use a slogan such as: "Best Affiliate Programme Ever imagined"

3. Write a powerful headline - the headline should appeal to the benefits of the product not the features. Try to put yourself in the customers’ shoes so you are seeing the product from their viewpoint view(not yours).

4. Appeal to visitors’ emotions - writing sales copy for the web is more difficult because you are not physically interacting with the person. Therefore you need to convey some emotion in the words that you use so they will continue reading. In the above headline example, "This product is a necessity for kids...that you can't do without it. You will feel some loss if you don't buy it now"

5. Make it personal - write as if you are sitting next to the person trying to persuade him to buy the product. Use words such as "you". ( ie "people will notice you when you smile") or"your" instead of "we" or "our" which sounds very impersonal.

6. Don't use capital letters - using capital letters in your sales copy is like yelling at them to buy. Instead, use different colored text or bold text to emphasize the points you are trying to make.

7. Write an introductory paragraph - this should support your headline and outline the clear purpose of your site and include your keywords. Often a personal story helps to personalize the product. I have also stressed the benefits of the product (what's in it for me) and given a clear purpose of what the site is all about.

8. Create sub headlines - these should continue to support the introductory paragraph. Use bullet points and plenty of white space so your visitor can read your sales copy with ease.

9. Use testimonies - obtain testimonies from satisfied customers and include them throughout your web copy. These are powerful motivators because it is someone else (not you) testifying to the use of your product.

10. Include graphics - graphics should only be used to support the content of your web copy.

11. Get the order - include several ways for your visitor to take action and order your product. Include order buttons throughout the sales copy (sometimes visitors have read enough and want to order immediately without wanting to read through the whole page). Use several payment methods (ie credit card ,E-gold, paypal etc) to capture the largest number of paying customers.

12. Include bonuses - most people love to receive something extra on top of what they are getting already. This increases the perceived value of your product. Add a few bonuses to the end of your sales copy. This may consist of e-books, offering extra help after the sale, or having access to special information only available to those that purchase your product. Create a password protected directory on your site where only people that have purchased your product, have access to this special information.

13. Create a sense of urgency - it's very easy for visitors to procrastinate, thinking they will come back later...they rarely do, especially on the Net. Most will purchase on impulse. You could write something like:

"Get your order now as supplies are very limited" or "These bonuses are available for only a limited time"

Be truthful in what you say. You don't want a visitor to return to your site and still see the same number of products listed from when they last visited your site. There may be a script you can use on your website that automatically shows the decreasing number of products or time available to receive the bonuses.

14. Provide a solid guarantee - guarantees help reduce the anxiety the customer may have ordering from you. ie "30 Day Money Back Guarantee". The longer your guarantee, the fewer returns you will receive. You will receive fewer returns for a one-year guarantee than you will for a 30-day guarantee. This is because they won't feel rushed to return to review your product in order to return it.

15. Provide contact information - this allows visitors to ask questions which you may not have clearly addressed in your sales copy. You may also want to include a personal photo of yourself or an "about us" page. This shows customers you are not trying to hide yourself behind your site but want to win their trust.

16. Check spelling, grammar and formatting - run your sales copy through a spell checker like MS Word. Typos in your sales copy project an air of unprofessionalism, sending your visitors away.

Keep your sentences short and to the point. Most Internet users will scan your sales copy for headlines, sub headlines, bulleted, bold, or colored text. Proofread your sales copy several times or have someone else read through it.

By following the formula outlined above, you can now create sales copy that enables visitors to stick to your site and purchase your products instead of trying to "wow" them with flashy graphics that may take forever to download.

Read more about this at www.isitebuild.com/sales-copy.htm

Making Use of AutoResponders.

Autoresponders are automatic response to emails you receive when you
email someone.They are used to give instant feedback to people who
email you about request for some informations about a product or
programme.
There are basically two types of autoresponders viz: There are the ones that come with your email either free or paid email. It is only used to responds to messages once. Most especially to inform people that you are not around or you an on vacation. They are used to give notices, telling their correspondents that they are currently on holidays and will be responding to email as soon as they are back.
There are the ones you will need to use if you must send morethan one message or if you need to schedule messages to be sent at interval for a period of time. You can either programmed this on your dormain or you use one of the free or paid (commercial) autoresponders around. Some of the good ones are: Awebber, Sendfree, freeautobot, getresponse etc.

In configuring autoresponders, the initial message should be a
permission message asking the receivers to permit you to send messages to them or if they will need to receive messages from you about what you do. When they have accepted this, they are automatically added to your list and will be getting messages from you on the product(s) from time-to-time (reasonable interval) These intervals are programmed depending or how you like it. It can be two days interval, five days interval , weekly, monthly etc. depending on what you really do and how you want it.

Above all, if you use autoresponders to send a series of messages, you might also want to include some sort of note at the beginning of the autoresponder to remind your subscribers why they are receiving this.
There must also be some way for them to stop receiving those messages i.e There should be a removeme link. This link automatically delete the customer from your list when he click on it and fill the information requested by the removeme link. This is necessary to prevent one from running into spam offenses.


Usefulness Autoresponder to Affiliate marketers.

1.For technical Support: To inform your customers that you have
received their messages and that you will get back to them.

2. To inform your prospective customers detail information about your product like the price list, the frequently asked question about the products or your organization.

3.For fixed or first hand information about the product(Launching a new product or updating an existing product)

4.For sending course modules to your student during seminars or normal academic work. The audience can be given email to send messages to in order to get the course or e-book.When you request your students to send their addresses to your autoresponder. The autoresponder will then reply to your students with the course package at the scheduled times.

The use of autoresponder saves time and energy and minimizes costs.
It also helps to maintain a list of targeted audience who need your
products.
In conclusion, one is not wrong to say that the essence of using
autoresponders is to make the products known to the customers and bringing the products to their doorstep for the sake of profit maximization.

TRAFFIC GENERATION

Having been used to the meaning and types of Affiliate Marketing, it is your time to choose on what exactly to market and how to market it. Professionally, it is best to get a full domain and all the needed tools. Get a website designer to design a quality website for you if you can not do it yourself and get it hosted. This will cost you as little as $10 for one year domain registration and $20-$100 1 year hosting package.
The website should be rich in content and should reflect the kind of business you do.

Now that everything is ready, you need to make your product known to the people/consumers. If you escape from everything, you can never escape from this- Traffic!
The success of your online business depend on the number of people that visit your website, if you do not get traffic to your website, you do not have to expect any good result.

Ways to Generate Traffic to your website Generating Traffic to your website is done in many ways!

1. Article writing and submission
2. Forum Posting
3. Ad Swaps
4. Blogging
5. Joint Venture
6. Link Exchange
7. Sales Letter
8. Pigging Backing.
9. Offline traffic- This is done locally.

.Follow-up

No matter the kind of method used, you have to do a thorough Follow-up. Most people do not exhibit any form of commitment at the First visit to a website. Always stay in touch constantly when you get their contacts. Establish constant relationship, let them see you as a friend that is ready to offer solution to their needs.

The best way to do this is to get their email addresses and send them messages and follow-up messages with the use of auto responder. This will assist you to build an unending trust with your subscribers.
The more your traffic, the more your list of subscribers increases.
Then you have a constant list of valued subscribers. This is what makes you a successful or Super Affiliate Marketer.

Importance of Two-tier Affiliate Programs

You provide a link on your website and when someone follows it and buys a product, you get a piece of the profit. It’s easy. But there is a new and another way to make some serious money in affiliate marketing.It’s called two-tier affiliate marketing. It’s basically as easy to make money from two-tiered marketing as it is from the traditional type.


It’s called two-tier affiliate marketing. It’s basically as easy to make money from two-tiered marketing as it is from the traditional type.
You do not only make a buck or two when someone follows a link from your site and then buys a product or service, but you also make a buck whenever someone follows the link from your site and then signs up to become an affiliate marketer just like you! It’s like getting double the profits for no extra work!


And every time that new affiliate marketer makes a sale of a product or service, you continue to make a few extra bucks. Not only that, but when they get someone to sign up for affiliate marketing, you get a piece of their profits too. And above all, If you can get a whole host of people to sign up for affiliate marketing through you, you continue to make money off of their sales as long as they are in the program.


Two-tier affiliate sites might just be the best and easiest way for you to run a business from home( Work at home) that is profitable and has almost no hassle. So, what are you waiting for? Join up today and start collecting commission now!

Types Of Affiliate Marketing Programs:

Affiliate Marketing programs has never been as popular before as it is today.
There are different types or classes of affiliate marketing programs the number of types will depend on how one will classify them. The most basic affiliate among them are,: Pay-per-click (PPC), and Pay-per-performance (PPP).

• Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is the most popular type of affiliate marketing and probably the easiest way for them to earn money. In this affiliate marketing type, the merchant pays his affiliate whenever a visitor is referred to his site, that is whenever someone clicks through the merchant’s banner or text ads. The affiliate gets paid a certain amount even if the visitor he referred does not purchase anything from the merchant’s site. However, typical fees for PPC affiliate programs are small, usually not exceeding a dollar for every click. It is commonly used by the small websites owner.

• Pay Per Performance (PPP)
PPP affiliate marketing is the most popular among merchant and is also the most lucrative type for the affiliates. In this type of affiliate program, the merchant only pays the affiliate whenever his referral translates into an action—that is whenever the visitor he has referred actually buys something from the merchant’s site or when the visitor becomes a lead. This means a lot of savings for the merchant. On the other hand, it becomes the most lucrative type for the dedicated affiliate, for commissions in PPP affiliate marketing usually comes in the range of 15% to 20% of the actual product sales.

Pay-per-performance Affiliate Marketing can be further classified into two popular types: pay-per-sales (PPS) and pay-per-lead (PPL).

o Pay Per Sale (PPS)
In a pay-per-sale type of affiliate marketing, the merchants pay the affiliate a certain fee whenever the visitor he has referred to the merchant’s site actually buys something from the merchant’s site. Affiliates are often paid on commission basis, although other merchants would opt to pay a fixed fee. But no matter what the basis of the fee is, it is generally higher than the fee paid to affiliates in a pay-per-click affiliate program.

o Pay Per Lead (PPL)
The pay-per-lead type of affiliate marketing is a slight variation of the PPS type and is often used by insurance and finance companies and other companies who rely on leads for their company to grow. In this type of affiliate marketing, the affiliate is paid whenever the visitor he referred to the merchant’s site fills up an application form or any similar form related to the business of the company. Compensation for this type of affiliate marketing is based on a fixed fee whose rates approximate that of the fixed fee in the PPS type.
Aside from these three specific types of affiliate marketing, a lot of other affiliate marketing types exist. If the classification is based on the depth of the affiliate network, it can be classified as single-tier, two-tier, and multi-tier affiliate marketing. There is also another type of affiliate marketing that pays the affiliate each time the customer he has referred purchases something from the merchant’s site.

• Single-Tier, Two-Tier, and Multi-Tier Affiliate Marketing
These types of affiliate marketing are based on the different levels or tiers in the affiliate network by which payments are made. In a single-tier affiliate marketing program, the affiliates are only paid based on the direct sales or traffic he has referred to the merchant. All previously mentioned affiliate marketing types (i.e. PPS, PPL, and PPC) fall under the single-tier class.

• In two-tier affiliate marketing programs, the affiliate is not only paid for the direct traffic or sales that he refers to the merchant’s site, but also on every traffic or sales referred by various other affiliates who joined the affiliate program through his recommendation. Multi-tier affiliate marketing works the same way, although the affiliate gets additional commission for a wider number of affiliates in different tiers in the affiliate network.

• Residual Income Affiliate Marketing
In residual income affiliate marketing, the affiliate gets paid not only once for every customer he has referred to the merchant’s site. Rather, the affiliate is also paid whenever the customer he has referred returns to the site and purchase another product. Compensation for such type of affiliate marketing is based on either sales percentage commission or fixed fee basis.
The different affiliate marketing types would virtually work differently for merchants and affiliates alike, and each would generally have their own list of benefits.

What Exactly Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest and most interesting business models , this is why many new entrepreneurs begin with these programs. All you need to do is send warm ready to buy visitors to your sponsor’s site and his compelling sales page will close the sale. You are just a salesman for other people’s products!
This all sounds simple but there are a few things you should know to make an affiliate program work:

Choose the right programs! Choose the right programs!! Choose the right program!!!.Be wary of the programs you join. Review them carefully. They should have good support, and real time reliable tracking. A good commission should be paid monthly basis with no more than $20 limit payout. Above all the products should be good and targeted to your particular market.
Do not sell: One of the big mistakes affiliates make is selling Sponsor’s product. They send the visitor to their sponsor’s page where they will be confronted by a second sales page. Double selling will discourage people from buying. Let your sponsor’s sales page do the selling.
Build your business as well as your sponsor’s: You are sending all these potential customers to your sponsor and building his customer list. In order to build your businesses have a way to capture these potential customers yourself. Offer a free newsletter on your site and build your own subscriber list.

It is better to have your own website and drive targeted traffic to it: Do not rely on your Sponsor’s mirror site. Have a theme website of your own. You will be able to set up your own newsletter there and have multiple related affiliate products. The essence is to drive large amounts of traffic to your website and pre sell them to get the click through to your sponsor’s site.

Use these points to build your affiliate marketing enterprise. You will gradually increase your business until you become a “Super Affiliate.”
In recent times affiliate marketing has grown to become one of the most popular, the most effective and efficient ways to advertise on the Internet. A company, let’s say Google, goes to another web site and asks them to place a banner or link to google on their site. Every time a user clicks on that google banner and visits the site, the owner of the original site gets a commission. It’s as simple as abc!

The history of affiliate marketing dated back to 1994 with www.CDNow.com. They were, as far as most people know, the first site to pay other sites for directing Internet traffic to them. Internet giant Amazon.com soon caught on and became the site most associated with affiliate marketing. Today, the practice of affiliate marketing is used by essentially every major web site in the world.