I needed to lower my Adwords costs. After 3 days of trying, my frustration turned into anger.
You only get this far if you can actually listen.All the ads I wrote where a miserable failure. Then it hit me. The reason I failed was because I didn’t take the time to listen. I didn’t take the time to learn the dance I was engaging in. I couldn’t find someone to dance with me.
I’d like to share with you an insight that I use every time I’m struggling with copy. It helps increase my click-through rate and teaches me market lessons that give me an advantage over my competitors.
Whether you write Adwords ads like I do or create pages for SEO and social media, this will help you craft messages that resonate strikingly well with your prospects.
Search advertising is like a dance that starts with a search and ends with a conversion. If you don’t know the moves, nobody wants to dance with you.
Before engaging in the dance, you need to know the song and whom you’re dancing with. Once you’re in the dance, you need to lead with simplicity. Once the dance is over, you need to be grateful. Those are the basics. Let’s dig in deeper.
Know Her and What She Wants
Your potential dance partner is already dancing. The question is: Will she choose to dance with you?
If you don’t know the tune she’s dancing to, if you can’t hear the rhythm to which she’s moving, you can’t possibly hope to attract her.
On the other hand, if you can demonstrate very early on that you’re more in tune than anyone else and that you can listen, she will come to you over and over again. Listening is more important than you think, because too many people act on first impressions that can be wrong. Continuously gather information, or, listen.
To figure out her rhythm, know her environment. Research the keywords she’s using, the websites she’s visited before finding you.
You’ll find two main environments online — informational and commercial — and you need to understand how both of them work.
If the keywords she’s using return websites that educate her on the topic, she’s looking for information. She’s less likely to dance with you if you try to sell her something right off the bat.
Is her environment commercial? If the websites she’s visiting before you are selling her on the benefits of their products, you know she’s doing comparison shopping. She wants to buy. And she wants the best deal. Let her know instantly that you have the best offer (if you really do).
Is she a she? Or a he? How old is she? What does she do? What does she really want? Answer those questions and you will have the ability to connect with her on a level that eludes most of your competitors.
During The Dance: Use Your Tools
Once you know who she is, where she’s from, what she actually wants, you have all the tools you need to attract her attention and sweep her away.
Here’s how to use those tools.
Grab her attention by shouting that you know what she wants. OK, maybe you don’t need to shout, but it is the first thing she has to know.
If you want to write a better Adwords ad title and description, your title has to demonstrate succinctly that you know what she wants. Your description should reinforce the headline and provide a short introduction to the solution without revealing everything (you won’t have enough space anyways).
Your site has to mirror everything she read in the ad. Write a headline that tells her you know what she wants and a sub-headline with a glimpse at the solution. Whatever you write, the message has to be evident to her in a split second. Her attention span is very short and you can loose her very fast.
Now keep her attention. Remember the two types of environment we talked about? Now’s the time to show that you really understand the moves.
Was her environment informational? You need to educate her. Your copy has to explain the problem better than she ever could. She has to feel understood. Then you have to provide a comprehensive explanation of the solution. If that includes buying your product, go for it, but not before she understands exactly why.
Was her environment commercial? Then, she wants to buy. The sooner the better. Tell her how your product will solve her problem, feature by feature. Tell her how you’re better than the competition (without sounding negative). Tell her how other people have used your product, and, if possible, let those people say it themselves through testimonials. Anything you can do to help her make an educated buy decision is welcome, and she will thank you.
Embody authenticity and simplicity. Show that you understand the problem and that you can deliver a solution. Make prominent the logos of esteemed partners as well as certification seals. And package it all in an elegant site design.
Keep it simple, stupid. That’s how to “kiss” her. And that’s what she expects. Don’t make her hunt. Make every step intuitive, and she will glide with you to the conversion you both want.
After The Dance
Congratulations! You’ve done the hardest work. You did the research to understand her needs. It helped you grab her attention, to take her by the hand and to trip the dance floor that is your site all the way to conversion.
But it’s not over yet. You want her to know that she made the right decision in trusting you. Show your appreciation. Let her know that you’re available if she needs more help. Ask her if she enjoyed the dance.
If she tells you that she did, she won’t object when you ask her to tell her friends about her experience nor when you invite her to the next dance.
You are a virtuoso.
What if everything was going well and then you were suddenly dumped? Here are some tips for dealing with an unexpected, significant drop in conversions. And what about your landing pages? Make sure they are doing what they can to convert, too.
