Words are so very important in marketing, especially for an internet business. Many times we online marketers have only a ten word chance to impress a prospective customer before they move on to something else with the click of a mouse!
My friend, Lisa Sparks, a professional freelance business writer, agreed to do an interview to help online business owners realize the absolute importance of the few words their customers might read.
She credits email marketing with taking her business from paltry to high profits. Through her email newsletter "Copywriting Secrets Revealed," Lisa teaches national and international companies about starting and sustaining profitable email marketing campaigns.
She has also written an ebook, Power Words (http://www.howtoworkfromhome.info/powerwords.html), a step-by-step guide for writing email promotions that get you more clients, higher sales and a greater response from your target market. In this interview, Lisa talks about the key elements of successful email newsletters.
Brian: Lisa, your monthly email newsletter "Copywriting Secrets Revealed (CSR)" helped you more than double your volume of business within a two-month period. Tell us more about that.
Lisa Sparks: When my fax newsletter became too costly I switched to email marketing, using one of the vendors I continually heard about during my time as an editor. And I've never looked back. After publishing my first few issues I received two lucrative copywriting contracts and one deal for a monthly project that has consistently grown into more work - any copywriter's dream!
Brian: In your ebook you go into great detail about creating persuasive email promotions that get results. Can you give us a quick summary of what you think it takes to make a great email effort?
Lisa: Good headlines and subject lines are key to a solid campaign. And I always include links for more information relatively soon in the promotion. That way, if readers want to read more or just order already, it's their choice. Giving choices and options is great for email marketing. It shows that you respect the reader and you know they can make their own decisions. That kind of respect will be rewarded many times over.
Brian: It's interesting that you say that you need a good subject line as well as a good headline. Is there a difference in the type of information that goes in them?
Lisa: Headlines and subject lines have one very important element in common: They spur the reader to action. With a headline, they're prompted to read on, but with a subject line, you have to make them open up your email and then read on. Since the subject line has to do double-duty it has to work harder in a shorter amount of words.
I look at headlines as coffee and subject lines as espresso - especially subject lines for promotional emails that you send out between issues of your ezine.
Here's a sample ezine subject line: Painting the Right Picture.
Here's a subject line for a promotional email: Power Up Your Ezine Today!
Brian: That's great advice. Are there any other techniques or formatting changes of which we should be aware?
Lisa: Some people say that HTML emails (the ones with all the graphics) are better for sending out communications. I've found that it's more about the copy than anything else. No matter the format, HTML or text, you still have to make a compelling sales proposition to your audience. Specifically, be sure to convey benefits and keep your copy squarely focused on the reader.
Brian: What advice would you give to people who are nervous about taking on email marketing campaigns to build their own businesses?
Lisa: Start small and build your way up to bigger things. But definitely start now.
Also, read everything you can get your hands on about email marketing, especially ezines. I made so many mistakes in the beginning because I wasn't willing to get off a dime and learn from others' mistakes.
The money I later invested in resources was well worth it because it stopped me from using disreputable vendors and following email marketing scams.
Once I began to educate myself, my email marketing business grew by even larger leaps and bounds. And the investments I made almost instantly paid for themselves many times over.
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There is quite a bit to learning how to master business writing, however, as Lisa stated in the interview, now is the time to start! You could study a whole series of articles on copywriting for a whole year and just barely scratch the surface of many of the powerful techniques in today's copywriting repertoire.
Lisa's Power Words ebook is truly a great beginning! It teachs you the most useful and effective copywriting techniques known without the usual fluff and filler commonly found in other copywriting ebooks. It's been endorsed and recommended by some of the best and best-known internet marketers and copywriters of today! If you're interested in looking into it, just go to the URL listed above.
Remember, as a web site and email marketer, you have a very short time to impress your prospects enough to make them want to read further into your email or click a link that will take them to a sales information page.
Often, you have ten words or fewer to make that impression, so those ten words really need to count!
Improving your copywriting skills can only help but to improve your bottom line and your enjoyment of your home based business.
© Brian Schaeffer, editor of the How To Work From Home eZine, has been involved with the internet, online home based business building and netpreneurism since 1995.
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