Freelance Copywriter Secrets 10 Steps to Writing a Powerful USP
Despite your best efforts (and a lot of money out of pocket) your advertising and marketing just aren’t producing the sales you had hoped for. For some reason, your message just isn’t connecting with the people you’d hoped would become your customers.
As a freelance copywriter, is see this situation a lot when I am called in to fix advertisements, web copy and other marketing materials that just aren’t living up to my clients’ expectations.
More often than not, the problem is my client hasn’t developed a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to set their company, product or service apart from the competition.
A USP tells the world you are different from all the rest. It creates a brand new category for you to be the biggest – or better yet, the only – fish in the pond.
One of my loftiest ambitions as a freelance copywriter is to someday create a USP as powerful as Domino’s Pizza’s one-time promise,
“Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.”
Until some unfortunate accidents involving some of their delivery drivers forced them to soften their message, Domino’s rode this 10 word USP to the top of their industry. That is the power of a compelling USP.
Now does that mean that Domino’s was the only pizza chain that made fast deliveries? Not at all. In fact, I am sure some restaurants out there were probably faster. But Domino’s had created a whole new category in the minds of people who were hungry and wanted their pizza delivered fast. And they owned that category.
Another surprising (or actually not so surprising, when you understand the power of a great USP) effect of their USP was that they re-positioned their competitors as all belonging to the “slower” category. In the perception of people who wanted to order pizza because they were hungry right now, the other guys were just not as fast.
So how do you create a powerful USP that creates a whole new pond in which you become the big fish? Here are a few ideas I have put together:
- Specifically target a need your buyer has that you want to appeal to. These needs can be things like, “to make more money,” “professional advancement,” “better health,” or “to save money/ to get a bargain.” I recently explored how to appeal to your buyers’ needs in an article I wrote called, Freelance Copywriter Secrets: How to Tap Into Your Readers’ Deepest Needs
. Click on this link if you want to read more on the subject. - Make a clear promise that you will deliver a benefit. Your benefit statement should promise to solve a vexing problem or bring about a desired change. If your statement does not make a promise, or if it promises something other than a solution or a change; chances are you are talking about a feature instead of a benefit.
- Make the solution seem as fast and easy as possible. Your USP is all about chipping away at buyers’ mental barriers. If you can truthfully promise fast and easy results, you have chipped through another excuse NOT to buy from you.
- Make sure your claim is believable. If Domino’s had promised 5 minute delivery, no one would have bought in to their concept.
- Avoid making a “me-too” type promise. You are trying to create your own category, your own pond. The goal here is not to dive into everyone else’s pond and to out muscle the competition.
- Promise a distinct before vs. after contrast. Does your USP help potential customers to visualize a real change doing business with you can bring about?
- Talk about your edge, your advantage over the competition. What can you promise that no one else can do? Or, in the alternative, what is no one else talking about? Domino’s was not the first pizza chain to deliver pizzas quickly, but they were the first to make that their claim to fame.
- Address your customers in the second person. This is a good rule for writing headlines that I carry over to writing USPs. My own USP is, “I am a freelance copywriter who turns readers into YOUR customers. People respond when you talk directly to them, not when you talk about a subject in the distant third person.
- Incorporate key words. In many ways this is the hardest idea on this list to incorporate. But if you are writing web content or if your USP will be prominently displayed on your web site, you just can’t ignore key words. My own keyword is “freelance copywriter,” and I make sure it appears on every article I write. (Did you notice how I just cleverly made the opportunity to use it once again?) Keywords are how people find you on search engines, so you cannot afford to make it harder for them to locate you by not including keywords as part of your USP.
Not only is your USP what positions you as different from all the others, it also tells them why you are the only logical choice in your industry. So go back and look at all your ads and all your marketing efforts that produced less than stellar results. I just bet the problem you need to fix is a broken USP.
freelance copywriter, freelance commercial writer
COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
Charles Brown is a Dallas, Texas based freelance copywriter who writes web copy, advertisements, newsletter articles and direct mail that turns readers into YOUR customers. Visit his blog at http://dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com or contact him at 817.715.3852 or **charbrow@gmail.com**.
Freelance Copywriter Secrets How One Simple Idea Can Flood You With New Business
Right now, no matter what time of the day or night you are reading this, someone’s website is making money -a lot of money- using one simple idea.
It’s an idea you should be using to increase the profitability of not only your website, but every aspect of your marketing efforts as well. And even if you are using this idea to some degree, even small improvements can produce huge gains on your return on investment.
What can this idea do for you?
- It can create a large list of people who identify themselves as being interested in your product or service.
- It can also produce a list of people who ask to receive your marketing materials.
- It eliminates forever the problem of sending out untargeted junk mail that does not get opened or read.
- It generates repeat traffic to your website as long as you keep producing fresh and useful content.
- And most important of all, when your marketing message is requested, welcomed, expected and read by interested prospects; your sales rates increase exponentially.
What is this simple idea? No doubt you’ve already guessed it is Permission Marketing a phrase coined by Seth Godin when he literally wrote the book on the subject.
Mr. Godin defined Permission Marketing as the very opposite of Interruption Marketing, such as the telemarketer who calls right in the middle of your supper. The Permission Marketer instead obtains your consent to market to you often with the offer of a free booklet or some other free product of value.
A free offer “lowers the bar” for a reader to respond and it subsequently enables you to build an ongoing relationship with that person. The whole idea behind Permission Marketing is that it breaks through the clutter of all the other messages bombarding your prospects every day.
Godin calls this getting the prospects to “raise their hands” or volunteer to participate in your marketing. Thereafter, any marketing message they receive is by consent, and they can “opt-out” at anytime they choose, so their involvement is always with permission.
Godin sums up the concept of Permission Marketing as, “turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers.” If you aren’t already using Permission Marketing along with your other marketing strategies, you need to get this ball rolling right away.
If you already have some aspects of it in place, keep improving, it will be the best investment you will ever make.
And finally, if you haven’t read Seth’s book, Permission Marketing, I just cannot recommend this book enough. It WILL make you money.
COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
Do you need to turn the written word into profits? Charles Brown is a freelance copywriter who writes professional web content, advertisements, organizational newsletters, direct marketing material and other copywriting projects for businesses and non-profits. Put Mr. Brown on your team today. Visit his “Dynamic Copywriting” blog today at http://dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com or contact him at either 817.715.3852 or **charbrow@gmail.com**
Freelance Copywriter Secrets Testimonials Pull in Huge Profits
freelance copywriter, freelance commercial writer
As a freelance copywriter, I love it when I get to use real customer testimonials in the copy I write for one of my clients.
No matter how much experience I may have as a freelance copywriter and no matter how much effort I put into honing my craft, a real customer’s words of praise will always out-sell anything I write.
When a freelance copywriter has a few really good testimonials to work with, the job is to write good copy which highlights these customer comments and uses them to support key selling points.
So how do you get customers to give you glowing testimonials?
Well you certainly can’t wait for the rare customer to pick up pen and paper and write out a thank you note. Yes, they will arrive in your mailbox every now and then, but there is a better way.
Here are a few tips on how to prime the pump so you never run out of good, strong customer compliments that you can use in your advertisements, direct mail and on your web site:
- Call your customers. Call them just after they have made a purchase, after they’ve been doing business with you for a while, after they needed service or after you haven’t heard from them in a while. On one hand, your call is a good will call or after the sale call to see how satisfied they are, how helpful your people were or if they have any suggestions for you to improve the way you do business.
- Listen to the customer feedback. While you are hoping to generate customer testimonials, keep your eye on the ball and use this opportunity to really listen to what your customers have to say. If they have complaints, treat them as opportunities to wow them with your extra-mile service. But if they have good things to say, jot down some notes while they talk. You may need to reword their comments slightly (people ramble, fail to talk in complete sentences or wander off the subject sometimes). But don’t reword their statements to the point that you put words in their mouths.
- Thank them for their kind words, and ask if you can quote them on some of your company literature. In most cases they will say yes.
- Read back their comments as you have reworded them (slightly) and ask, “does that sum up what you were saying?” If they agree, go with it; but if not, keep working with them until you have their own words in a form of a strong testimonial. But be very careful that you don’t go too far and try to make them say more than they actually intended.
- Send them a copy of the quote.To make sure they know you have quoted them correctly, mail or email thank you notes for their compliments and include a copy of the wording they agreed to.
- Make it easy for them to put the testimonial on letterhead.In some cases you might request that they copy the testimonial onto their letterhead for you to use in that form. In other cases you will simply quote them as part of your advertisement, direct mailer or a separate section on your web site called “Customer Feedback.”
There are more reasons to take these steps than just to enhance you advertising copy. After you have completed these six steps, you have done more than obtain testimonials. You will also have thanked the customer after the sale (an all too rare courtesy in business these days), you will have learned about any problems and given yourself a chance to fix them, and you will have obtained real feedback that can’t help but improve the way you do business.
As I said before, the words of actual, satisfied customers are far more compelling than anything I, or any other freelance copywriter, could ever write, so get your customers’ praise in writing and watch your marketing materials take you to the next level.
COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
Charles Brown is a Dallas/Fort Worth based freelance copywriter who writes professional web content, advertisements, organizational newsletters, direct marketing material and other copywriting projects for businesses and non-profits. Put Mr. Brown on your team today. Visit his “Dynamic Copywriting” blog today at http://dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com or contact him at either 817.715.3852 or **charbrow@gmail.com**
Freelance Copywriter Secrets Laying the Groundwork to Write Great Copy
As a freelance copywriter, I am keenly aware that my work will often be the first impression many people have of my client and my client’s product or service.
As in all areas of life, preparation divides the winners from the rest of the pack. But how can a freelance copywriter lay the groundwork to write great, compelling copy that produces new customers, new sales and new profits?
It comes down to two things: (1) Know your customer; and (2) Know your product.
Knowing Your Customer.
- Why would a customer buy this product? What need does it appeal to? What reason motivates a customer to buy something like your product? If you cannot find the need you are appealing to, all the rest of your work will fall flat. I have explored this whole topic in another article called Freelance Copywriter Secrets: How to Tap Into Your Readers’ Deepest Needs, which you might want to check out.
- What problem does your customer need to solve? What changes do your customers want to bring about? These solutions and changes are the benefits they are looking for that you can highlight.
- What motivates your customers to buy NOW? What cretes urgency? What events can trigger a decision to seek out this type of product or service?
- When considering a product like yours, what is a your buyer’s main concern? Is it price, selection, performance, reliability, how long the product will last, customer or technical support after the sale, the warrant and guarantee, the seller’s reputation or how quickly it can be delivered? All these are common factors that go into a buyer’s decision, but you must know what they are before you begin to write.
- What demographic type of person is a buyer for your product and how can this demographic type be targeted and reached? In other words, how will you choose the media to advertise in or the list to buy for direct mail?
Knowing Your Product.
- Know the differences between the product’s features and benefits. Familiarity with a product can sometimes be a handicap because features can come to be “buzzwords” for what the product will do for a customer. For example, for insiders in the auto industry, ABS braking systems are synonymous with safety and skid protection on slippery roads. But don’t assume your reader makes the same mental connection.
- What problems does the product solve? This is one of my main techniques to help me distinguish features from benefits. Solutions are benefits. The things that aid in bringing about the solution are the features.
- Find out what tasks or work the product or service makes easier and faster.
- What does your product do better than anyone else’s product? What is its edge over the competition? If your product does not stand for something unique, it will get lost in the marketplace. If this is difficult for you to distinguish, try reading my article called, Freelance Copywriter Secrets: 10 Steps to Writing a Powerful USP. Just click on this link to find out more.
- Describe the quality control methods used in developing, producing and supporting the product.
- Why does your product cost more that its competitors (if applicable)? You MUST have an answer to this question if you sell a premium product.
- If the product is part of an entire product line, what makes this model different from the models you make that are ranked above and below it?
- How is this product positioned in the marketplace? Again this has to do with the product’s unique selling proposition (USP) mentioned above. Your goal is for your product to be the big fish in its own pond, rather than having to compete for dominance in someone else’s pond. To have a strong USP, you must OWN your category.
- What are the economics of using this product? Does long term savings justify a premium price?
- Is the product guaranteed? If yes, describe how your company stands behind the product.
- What support is available after the sale?
- How does the product work?
- How reliable is it? How long will it last? Is headache-free ownership one of your selling points?
As you can see, laying a thorough groundwork is difficult and very intensive. But in the end, it not only makes a freelance copywriter’s job easier, it will also help produce compelling copy.
And can you think of any area in life where you can ever be too prepared?
COPYRIGHT(C) 2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
Charles Brown is a Dallas, Texas based freelance copywriter who writes web copy, advertisements, newsletter articles and direct mail that turns readers into YOUR customers. Visit his blog at http://dynamiccopywriting.blogspot.com or contact him at 817.715.3852 or **charbrow@gmail.com**.