PureBlogging

PART TWO: COMPONENTS OF A SALES PAGE

Note: As bloggers, we often branch out into other forms of advertising in order to monetize our VRE (virtual real estate). The Pajama Professional Sales Page Series was written by Sara Christensen in an attempt to help facilitate this often natural extension of blogging. After you finish the article, you can follow the links to parts one and three of the series.

In the last installment of the Pajama Professional Sales Page Series, I discussed the questions you should ask yourself before you begin writing your ad copy. In this part of the series, I will outline some of the rules I will follow as I create my ad:

Start by writing the offer. Many copywriters will tell you to start with the headline and I’m not going to tell you that’s the wrong way to go. From my background in journalism, however, I know that if I write my copy first I’ll be better able to write a fitting headline. In my copy, I will include the answers to some of the product questions I asked in the last installment of the Sales Copy Series.

First, however, it is important to always keep in mind that people buy based on emotion. They justify with logic later on, but you must compel your visitors to purchase by targeting certain triggers. Here are the five primary triggers on which you should focus as you craft your letter:

1. Fear of Loss
2. Hope for Prosperity
3. Hope for Beauty
4. Hope for Health
5. Fear of Failure

The triggers are basic, but they are key to converting prospects into paying customers. you don’t need to use all of them in one sales page or address them directly. Just remember that you can list numbers all day long, but you won’t really start moving product until you make people feel. There are, of course, certain facts that cannot be overlooked in a sales letter; things like price, cost, etc. must be included.

One of the most important things to remember is: don’t save the best for last. If you start out listing minor features, you’re going to lose many sales. Start with the key deal-maker and work your way down. Your copy can be as long as you need it to be, but if you save your best feature for the grand finale, you can bet that very few people will sit through the entire show. Hook them with the headline and hold them there from the very start with your hottest points.

For instance, if I’m writing an ad for an iPod, I’m not going to say:

Choose from black or white!
Free ear buds included!
Pretty cases sold separately for easy customization!
Small enough to take on a jog!
Super-clear video screen makes it easy to create playlists and watch movies!
AND…
Put your entire CD collection in one place and carry it with you all the time!!!

Frankly, with that copy (I don’t suggest using the word “pretty” either - for any product) I’ve lost the visitor at ear buds. By the time they would have read “video screen,” my potential buyers have downloaded half a movie from a torrent site. If I flip the ad, people will stay tuned to see what’s next. In other words, don’t bury the lead.

After you’ve listed all the killer features, shared the price and let your customers know exactly why your product/service is worth what they are going to pay for it, you need to include three more elements to seal the deal: a time limit, testimonials and bonuses.

Read more »

Most bloggers rely on Google’s AdSense or Yahoo’s Publisher Network to monetize their blog, but there are various other means that are more profitable, offer you more control over the content on your blog, and are simply more fun! One very lucrative method of monetizing your blog is through accepting paid reviews.

Paid reviews hit the spotlight with the launch of Pay Per Post in June of 2006 and since that time numerous companies have cropped up offering bloggers the ability to easily accept payment from advertisers to write about their products. Pay Per Post is still the leader in this market, but others you should check out include ReviewMe, SponsoredReviews, and LoudLaunch.

These services offer various terms you must abide by - usually consisting of link requirements (a specific number of links, to specific URLs, using specific text) and word counts. These services also have differing rules in regards to disclosure - take it from me and only go for the services that allow you full disclosure and open, 100% honest reviews. You don’t want to abandon your readers for a few extra bucks.

Pay Per Post
Pay Per Post is seen as the fore-father of the paid reviews industry - being the first to launch out of the gates and the most highly trafficked. Being accepted into the Pay Per Post program is a bit more difficult than the other programs as they validate various stats and metrics from your blog. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t make it the first time - Pay Per Post rescans all blogs in the queue once a month and they’ll let you know once you’re able to accept reviews.

ReviewMe
ReviewMe is probably a close second place finisher compared to Pay Per Post and has a much more use friendly interface in my opinion. ReviewMe’s primary function is allowing you to place a widget/link on your blog that will allow advertisers to submit a review request directly to you. Although, ReviewMe does offer an open marketplace where advertisers can submit requests to the entire userbase, I have found this isn’t used very often. You may find it difficult to generate any substantial amount of revenue off of ReviewMe without dedicating yourself to promoting it within your blog.

SponsoredReviews
SponsoredReviews is probably the least recognized of all the programs but it is by far my favorite. They offer the ability for advertisers to purchase a review directly from your site (like ReviewMe does), but their open marketplace is much more widely used than any of the other services. I have found it easy, and lucrative, to find review requests on SponsoredReviews. One benefit is that they don’t lock you into a specific pricing scheme - you determine the price (based on the advertiser’s budget) and it’s up to the advertiser to accept.

LoudLaunch
LoudLaunch has received a lot of press lately - they are very professional in appearance on par with Pay Per Post. Unfortunately, I have little first-hand knowledge of LoudLaunch because their campaigns are generally too spammy for my purposes. In my experience, LoudLaunch will work great if you enjoy writing about timeshares and vacation packages for $15 a review. Definitely, not my cup of tea (nor my niche).

Michael Wales is currently a Senior Airman in the United States Air Force awaiting a June-July promotion to Staff Sergeant. Michael also writes a blog at http://www.betaflow.com/ about Web 2.0 companies and new media.

PayPerPost recently announced the release of a new product called PayPerPost Direct. This new product allows bloggers to display a badge on their site which when clicked sends potential advertisers to a purchase page where they can buy a review on the blog. In essence, PPP Direct now allows for a more direct relationship between the blogger and the advertiser.

In the past, bloggers had to browse through listings on the PPP website looking for sponsored post opportunities. The result was typically a fee of around $5 to $10 that would never attract the more established blogs. Now, similar to ReviewMe, bloggers will be able to set a price and let advertisers come to them so we may see a few of the larger blogs begin to use the new system.

From the PPP blog:

You have two badges on your site, both for $200. An Advertiser clicks one of them and you make $100 and the blog marketplace makes $100. They click the PPP Direct badge and you make $200 and the blog marketplace makes $20. Why would you ever want to take less money? Why would the advertiser want to give half to the blog marketplace? With PPP Direct the advertiser gets more bang for their buck and you make more money.

I’ve never really considered using PPP mostly because it allows advertisers to require positive writeups and they do not require bloggers to disclose that posts are sponsored. But I have to admit that I am intrigued enough to actually create an account and check it out.

I guess time will tell if PPP Direct will be able to attract larger blogs and be a viable competitor for ReviewMe.

As the author of multiple blogs I often times find it difficult to determine exactly which blog to publish a new article to. Especially as I continue to build content on certain blogs that are still within the “launch” phase of their lifecycle. More often than not, we follow our instinct and publish to that new project, hoping that this is the article that will bring an increase in traffic.

As you continue to build your blog portfolio this can become an increasing problem and one that can cost you dollars. Google’s AdSense has a wonderful tool to help make this decision easier: ad channels. If you aren’t using channels I highly encourage you to take some time out this weekend and establish channels for all of your ad units, across all of your blogs.

After you have established your ad channels you can now go look at what makes the most sense to your checkbook when an article’s home is in question. Out of my two blogs, my personal blog has a higher click-through rate and is therefore the prime target for some of the more questionable articles I write.

Of course, maintain your niche - and think of your readers as well. I definitely wouldn’t abandon Betaflow and post a review of the hottest new web 2.0 application on my personal blog just because I might a little more. But, in times when you just don’t know - ad channels can really help. I recently published an article title “Windows Software You Need,” which would have fit in easily over at Betaflow, but after a quick review of my ad channels it was clear where that article needed to be headed.

Not many of us are blogging to pay the bills, but that is no reason to intentionally hinder yourself. Use all of the tools available to you to determine what best suits your budget, your niche, and your readers.

_____________________
Michael Wales is currently a Senior Airman in the United States Air Force awaiting a June-July promotion to Staff Sergeant. Michael also writes a blog at http://www.betaflow.com/ about Web 2.0 companies and new media.

AdSense announced today that they’ve given their AdSense units a new look. The change comes as a result of testing and research and that indicated the new look ads would lead to better performance for both publishers and advertisers.

“After extensive testing and research, we’ve found that the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers. We’re in the process of rolling out this change to all ad units, and you should see that your ad units are automatically updated over the next few days.”

AdSense also notes that you cannot opt out of the new designs but indicates that there will be more format options available “in the future”.

Here’s how the new ads look…

Serving Pay-Per-Action (PPA) ads through Adsense is not exactly the same as being an Affiliate Network but is Google now a threat to the Affiliate Networks. According to Andy Beal:

“…after years of hinting, Google is finally ready to let us test their platform on a CPA (cost per action) model. (If this sounds familiar, reports surfaced back in June, that Google was offering a limited test of CPA) ”

“…this is a significant expansion of the CPC (cost per click) model, with advertisers being given the option of paying when a customer buys a product, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other actionable task on the advertiser’s web site.”

“….it sounds like a clear threat to the likes of Commission Junction or LinkShare – or any other affiliate marketing network. Google, for all intents and purposes, has just entered the affiliate marketing arena, with the battle cry that they can do affiliate marketing better than the affiliate networks can. “

Basically, advertisers will only pay when someone buys something, fills out a form, or takes some other action and not for every click, as they do now. But don’t expect PPA ads to completely replace Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads.

This is just the next step in the evolution of online advertising.