11 Ways to Improve a Boring Sales Page Without Resorting to Hype
Whether you sell car widgets, consulting, cab service, camping stoves, or customized cabinets, the day will come when you have to write up something to sell them.
The best advice is to be straightforward: Simply write who
it's for, what it is, why people should buy it, and how to order. If your clear
and direct draft then seems just too boring to you, you don't have to do the
verbal equivalent of dressing up in a plastic burger suit and jumping up and
down at passing cars.
You can give your copy a little rhythm and oomph with one or
more of these more subtle jazzifying moves:
1. Alliteration
In the first sentence of this article, it was purposely overdone
alliteration by having five things in a row that started with the letter
"c." When you use only two or three sequential words beginning with
the same letter or sound, however, it tends to stay under the radar while
perking up the reader.
2. Anecdote
Tell an illustrative story in only a sentence or two.
For a lightweight camping stove, your story could be,
"One of our customers came in after hiking the whole Pacific Coast Trail
and thanked us for all the cold mornings the stove had enabled him to have hot
coffee and oatmeal instead of granola, granola, and more granola."
In the description of a program on information marketing, the writing goes, "In the 1990s, my husband and I would sit in our living room
opening bins full of envelopes, then stacking checks and money orders in one
pile and dollar bills in another heap so high they'd begin to topple
over."
3. Before and After
Right after that sentence about the dollar bills, the scene was contrasted with the present day: "These days it's not as much
work to count the money, but it's just as much fun to tell each other how many
orders came in while we were sleeping, enjoying the outdoors, or traveling for
weeks and months at a time."
Likewise, you can add color to your pitch by comparing how
something used to be and how it is now: "Five years ago, Fineran
Consulting had only three clients. Through word-of-mouth, it grew in leaps and
bounds until its client list looked like the Who's Who of the Twin
Cities."
4. Sentence Variety
To inject life into a page that seems like a snoozer, simply
fiddle with the sentences so some sentences are short and others much longer,
rather than all being of average length. How short? Very short is fine.
Inserting a question here or there livens things up also. Notice how this was done in this tip.
5. General to Specific
Suppose this post started like this:
"Whatever you sell, the day will come when you have to write something up
to sell it." It's OK, but the actual opening sentence is spiffier.
Look for
places in your text where you made general statements, and bring them to life
by substituting or sprinkling in particulars. Phrase patterns that accomplish
this include "ranging from X to Y" and "such as A, B and C, to
name a few."
6. Freshened Cliché
A cliché is a phrase so familiar that everyone can finish
the wording if you stop halfway through:
- Dead as a doornail
- The real McCoy
- Read you the Riot Act
Foil the reader's expectations by changing one of the words
so the phrase still means much the same, but gains an interesting twist or
takes on the opposite meaning. For instance:
- "In 2009, the local real estate market was dead as a doorstop."
- "Bill Barringer, our founder, is the real McSpy of competitive intelligence."
- "When you come to Gentle Waters, we read you the Relaxation Act."
7. Translated Jargon
Most of the time you're wrong when you think everyone
understands the insider lingo that's etched deeply into your brain cells. For
that reason, and also for a change of pace, it's a relief to readers when you
add a plain-English explanation of industry terminology, as in "Human
capital—that is, people viewed as company assets," or "We bring
together all the stakeholders, which in most cases means the landowners, people
from town government and representatives of local environmental groups."
8. Unexpected Word
Is "jazzifying," in the third paragraph of this
article, a word? Maybe not, but you sure recognized it meant "to make
more jazzy." Don't be afraid to use one or two words that aren't normally
part of business talk.
Those words shouldn't be graduate-level, abstruse terms like
"ossification" or "anthropocentric," but, rather, colorful
verbs, nouns, and adjectives, like "bamboozle,"
"poorhouse," or "antsy."
Foreign words, too, like "hara-kiri," (ritual
suicide, Japanese), "alfresco" (outdoors, Italian), and
"verblunget" (totally confused, Yiddish) simply have a certain
"je ne sais quoi" (an elusive yet pleasing quality, French) that adds
sonic texture to your prose.
9. Shorter Paragraphs
Divide long
paragraphs in half. They then read much more crisply on the Web.
Try it yourself.
10. Examples
If you've read this far, guessing one of the reasons is
the examples. When someone not only says what you should do but also rounds out
the advice with examples, readers' minds get spinning more usefully than from
the same advice with no illustrations of how to do it.
11. An Exception
Dial back on a positive attribute of your product or service
by describing an instance when that attribute isn't or wasn't true.
Adding such an exception often has a humorous effect, and it
makes your overall claim more believable: for example, "Unless you stick
them in a meat cooler for a month, our widgets start up instantly."
The best example of this approach in
business is by The Linton Company, which says, "Where nice people answer
the phone (with possibly one exception)."
A little of the above goes a long way. If every sentence
dances at the reader, you'll provoke dizziness rather than desire to buy. Use
just enough to wake the reader up so he or she pays attention instead of
skimming on by. If you start getting comments about your writing, you may have
done a bit too much.
The feedback that indicates you've done it just right? More
people inputting their credit card information, opting in, or calling you for
appointments.
If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or e-mail me at john@x2media.us.
X2 Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it is not only seen and heard, but remembered.
Until next month….remember, “you don’t get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression”. Always make it a good one!
From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.
John E. Hornyak
X2Media, LLC
If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or e-mail me at john@x2media.us.
X2 Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it is not only seen and heard, but remembered.
Until next month….remember, “you don’t get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression”. Always make it a good one!
From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.
John E. Hornyak
X2Media, LLC
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