Thanks to Justin and Jason of TechZing for having me on their show!
You can listen to the whole discussion – including the “Top 9 Tips for Instant Copy Hacking Success” and live workshops of Pluggio and AnyFu – here: http://techzinglive.com/page/857/153-tz-interview-joanna-wiebe-copyhackers
So, when might you listen to an hour-long [fascinating] podcast on copywriting?
- While your father-in-law is talking politics (just put one earbud in and tuck your hair around it – solved!)
- When you’re out for a work-off-2-pounds-so-I-can-eat-more-Halloween-candy jog
- While preparing to fall into a deep slumber in which you dream up the headline that’ll double your conversion
- Right after you’ve written V1 of your site – and right before you revise to V2
- When the house gets quiet at night… and all those scary movies you’ve been watching on AMC start to take over your better judgment… and you need to drown out the creaks & groans that are definitely masked psychopaths creeping out of your closet to stand over your bed as you sleep
Listen to the Podcast
Oh, and you can (obv) check out the 150+ podcasts Justin and Jason have done here: http://techzinglive.com/
The UpUp.com Copy Assessment: Because There Wasn’t Time in the Show
Our plan in the podcast was to address some startup copy questions during the show. But our discussion ate up all the time.
So I didn’t get a chance to say much about UpUp.com, which is a site for a cool website monitoring service, founded by Stephen Sotelo.
Stephen wrote to me the other day with a few questions about how I would optimize his copy.
Here are the responses I didn’t get to give on the show.
QUESTION FROM UPUP: Our service is such a simple product at this point in its life cycle. That being said, would you recommend us to keep the homepage simple with very clear features, or try and get more content that describes the features in more elaborate ways to make it understandable by a larger group of people…?
ANSWER FROM JOANNA: Before you give people content, you need to tell them that you understand them (i.e., know who they are) and that you have something they want. Let me repeat, these two things need to be communicated:
- I know you and understand you
- I know what you want
With that in mind, I wouldn’t jump straight to creating extra content. Rather, I’d recommend 2 changes to the home page:
- Write exactly who UpUp is IDEAL FOR so visitors can self-identify. I always recommend targeting your marketing to the 20 to 35% of your visitors who are most likely to convert. (That is, not the hard sells.) Your “ideal for” statement should include exact references to that large visitor segment. For example: “Ideal for digital agencies and small, tech-focused businesses”. Visitors who identify with those groups will be more likely to stick around; other visitors who don’t identify may still recognize how their needs are similar to those of a digital agency and tech-focused small biz – and they’ll better understand your offering.
- Support your headline with a statement that unpacks the core benefit. Your headline states that UpUp is an ‘ease’ solution; that’s great because that shows that you know what your visitors want. (Assumption: you know that they care about ease more than speed, cost, etc.) But where your benefit falls short is in the support for it. You should write a subhead that describes – succinctly – what it is about UpUp that makes website monitoring easier than ever. Is it something unique about your software? Is it the 24/7 live chat support? Your visitors will wonder what the feature is that makes your benefit possible. TELL THEM.
From that point, I would amp up the “ease” message, if – as I mentioned – that’s what matters to your visitors. I would “amp it up” by collecting testimonials from people in the “ideal for” industries you listed… and I would ensure that those testimonials explicitly reference ease, simplicity, lack of frustration, etc. Let your customers do your marketing!
A great testimonial isn’t just a statement that says how awesome your company is. A great testimonial replaces copy. It:
- Overcomes objections
- Neutralizes anxieties
- Speaks to reasons to believe in your company (e.g., beautiful UI, money back guarantee)
Once you’ve addressed these points, you could consider adding content that better explains how it works.
That, or you could simply drive people to a page that takes its time explaining how UpUp works and why UpUp’s inner workings make it the only solution for people in the ‘ideal for’ category.
QUESTION FROM UPUP: Should we keep the signup boxes (the call to action) on the home page, or just a button?
ANSWER FROM JOANNA: This is one to test – first by seeing how users react to your current sign-up form (use UserTesting.com for this) and then by seeing how your traffic overall reacts to it (i.e., A/B testing).
The rule of thumb in the land of high-converting copy is always “make it easy to buy” – or, in this case, to sign up. (Buying and signing up are both converting.)
The easier you can make it to convert, the better – for you and for customers.
Making it easy to buy DEFINITELY includes limiting the amount of information a visitor needs to provide. But if they will need to provide the info anyway, then you have to choose to ask them for that info immediately or to wait until they’ve learned about your product.
You won’t know which is the best choice to make until you do an A/B test.
I’ve seen test results that show a single email field + button does better than a multi-field form, but this form is only 4 fields – which is not asking a lot.
That said, before people sign up, they tend to want to see what they’re getting themselves into. So show them what they’re signing up for.
How?
I’d suggest you replace the screenshot with a clear demo, which could be a great “click trigger”. Once people watch the demo, they may be more willing to fill in all 4 fields.
I’ve also seen a test run where the winning recipe had more fields presented up front than down the road. The effect is one of “getting the work over with”.
But I have no idea what will work for your particular audience and your particular solution.
Nobody knows that.
Hence the need to test; there’s no golden rule here. Just remember: make it easy to convert.
QUESTION FROM UPUP: Should we put pricing information on the homepage, or keep that on a pricing page within the navigation?
ANSWER FROM JOANNA: As it stands, it’s hard to find pricing anywhere on your site.
I’d expect a “Plans and Pricing” link in the global nav – where you currently show Home, Sign Up, FAQs, Sign In – but it’s not there. FAQs usually tack on underneath a pricing chart, so you could combine FAQs with Plans & Pricing nicely.
But your question was about putting pricing info on the home page! So let me respond to that… from a copywriting perspective.
Unless your prices are so hugely offputting that they require some finessing and persuasion to get people to convert, I can’t see a reason not to put the price front-and-center. (WakeMate.com does this well.)
- If your prices are reasonable, show them and avoid forcing people to go looking for them.
- Even better, if your prices are awesome, put them near the “Sign Up” button as a strong click-trigger… along with a crisp message that compares your low price to something else low-cost. The idea of saying “costs less than a cup of coffee a day” is frowned upon by hoity-toity types… but most people who write high-converting copy know that customers make decisions by comparing and contrasting info; if you give them a point to compare against, you can help them decide. Help is a good thing! They’re on your site for a reason. Why not help them buy? Then they can get on with their lives.
- If price is not an object to your target audience, don’t bother them with info they don’t need yet.
- If your prices are high, give your site copy some time to win people over… and leave the prices off the home page for now. (Better: test!)
IN EMAILS: I’ve seen countless email marketing agencies tell their clients to leave the price out of the email. That’s because they know people will want the price – especially on discount items – and will click through to the landing page to get it. This artificially increases click-thru rates. You’d be amazed at the wars web and email marketers have over this!
Moral of the story: Delaying the reveal of the price can manufacture a sense of engagement with the site (i.e., number of page views) and can cause high exit rates on pages where the prices are finally revealed.
Check your analytics to see if this is happening. If people are bailing once they see the price, that means something. What it means requires a bigger discussion than this one, though. Subject for another blog post! 
QUESTION FROM UPUP: Should we have more content pages? Would adding pages increase the value potential to new users (the more pages the more content the more time spent on the site)?
ANSWER FROM JOANNA: The only time content is king is when content is relevant and useful to the visitor/user.
If you can draft content – or pull in user-generated content – that is both relevant and useful, bam! Do it.
Create targeted pages that address whatever it is your customers and potential customers need you to address. (Find this out by doing your research, of course.)
If you don’t know what sort of content your visitors need, go ahead and ask them before you write a word.
Hope those tips help you, Stephen, and anyone else with similar questions about their home page copy/content.
Best!
Joanna
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