Why Your Sales Copy Gets Ignored and How to Fix It

• Posted in Copy Writing

A member of my Authority Blogger forum asked how to increase the perceived value of her ebooks, and why people did not want to buy.

“people will never want to pay for it. This ebook I wrote does not feel like it is worth $39.90 to me or $19.90 or whatever. How could I make it worth that?”

Creating copy that attracts interest and generates sales actually has many misconceptions, wrong thinking that could be killing your conversions …

First off, if you do not believe in the value of what you create then it will be difficult for any potential customers to!

The question you have to ask yourself is how much value will the customer gain and how you can most convincingly demonstrate that?

Darren Rowse and I wrote the ProBlogger Book which has an obvious benefit statement (“six figure income”), but it doesn’t even need to make you half that to be of sufficient value relative to the price, you just need to learn something useful. Each chapter will contain something that enables you to make more than the cover price back. If you just learn one thing then it is worth more than you paid. Make sense?

If you can show your content, advice, whatever provides more value than the person pays then it is a fair investment of your customers money.

Even entertainment has to provide more value than you pay. We over-pay for satellite television in our home and I keep meaning to reduce our subscription. I don’t even like sports, so don’t get value out of those channels, and we pay extra to have channels in our bedrooms and we never watch it there. I am paying more than the value I receive.

It’s easier in business to business contexts where you can show return on investment directly, other niches you have to think harder about it. For example A photographer friend found it much easier to change focus from teaching beginner photographers to teaching beginner “pro” photographers – the former were hobbyists, the latter were hoping to charge for their work. By aiming for people who would be directly compensated for having this knowledge it was a much easier sell.

Bottom line is you must solve a problem, but more important solve a problem people are willing to pay to solve.

So many people think the benefits of what they offer are obvious, but they are not.

Remember also you have to relate to a real and current problem.

What is more compelling?

1. Features
2. Benefits
3. Problems

The answer is they increase in engagement as you go down the list. That is why the 10pm news is advertised using the biggest problem/disaster/warning/etc of the day.

“Could Coca-Cola make you grow a third nipple? … News at 10”

If you walk down the street and see a sign that says “fully charged phone battery, $100” you probably wouldn’t give it a second thought, but if you were in a broken down car, on a dark, empty highway with a dead cell phone, you might think that was a steal!

Look over your marketing copy. What real and current problem are you addressing? If all you talk about are features and benefits then there is no urgency.

Find out how your prospects are hurting, address that in your content, then show your solution.