[MUSIC] Hey there, in the last lesson, I introduced you to the first three steps of a one, two, three, four, five formula, as it applies to the action A of the seven A framework. In this lesson, I'll continue summarizing the steps within the formula by discussing the 4th and 5th steps. You'll be able to apply and use these steps within your content marketing strategy, to turn your work into a sale or some other desired behavior. So let's dive in. The next thing you want to do is describe specifically what the person does next to move forward with the purchase. It's called a Call to Action. Some of you are very familiar with this, some of you this might be some what new. A call to action is extremely specific, it is clear, and it is not clever. So for example, click here to add the item to your shopping cart. Okay, usability experts and search experts will tell you, click here is terrible, everybody knows to click on a link, it's embarrassing. Okay, but the fact is with the words click here will very often test better. Telling someone click here to complete your purchase will very often test better than just having a link that says complete your purchase. And we'll talk about testing in a little bit. But sometimes calls to action are so specific and so clear they feel a little strange when you're writing them. And very often if somebody, for example in your organization says, well this sounds kind of salesy, and they're making that face that people make. It's because it feels like advertising. Well clear calls to action do feel like advertising because effective advertising uses very, very clear calls to action. So I'm not telling you make your company sound like some kind of a Sham Wow infomercial. But you do have to make sure that it is extremely clear and simple, simple language, direct language. And you're going to tell the audience member what action to take to move forward with the sale. And you know, not every sale progresses in just a, I read a page of web copy and then I click a link and then I put my credit card information in. So it's about moving forward toward the purchase, whether it's towards the final point where you enter your credit card, or if it's leading up to that point like signing up for a email list. Very very clear and specific. And I have an additional article for you that will help you understand how to formulate calls to action. And in the fifth element, it doesn't have to be in place but it will normally tend to make things work much better when it is. Is what's called Risk Reversal. For most products and services, this would be a money-back guarantee. So if you're not happy with how this is working out for you, you have 30 days to get your money back. But it's not only that. Risk reversal is about reversing or reducing the anxiety that the customer or client has when they're moving forward with the purchase. And the biggest thing that we're anxious about when making a purchase will boil down to, if this thing doesn't work, if this is just all a cleverly written ad for something that's not good quality, I'm going to feel like an idiot. I'm going to feel dumb for making a poor purchase. That's the primary risk that you're actually trying to reverse here. So guarantees are excellent when you can offer them. When you can, put them close to your call to action because the idea is to reduce the anxiety at that moment, when they're going to take the action. There are some other good things you can do like, for example, the badges for website security. If you have one of these that says, we're following the correct practices for handling your credit card. Those can be very good to have, again, at the point when the person's entering that information. A Better Business Bureau badge can be very useful because it helps alleviate our anxiety. Something like a testimonial can be a great risk reversal strategy. Because right at that point, when that person's a little bit on the fence, yes or no, I want to do it, my emotional brain is telling me that it wants all these benefits. My logical brain is backing it up and saying, well, there's good evidence here, this is a good thing to do. But my fear brain, and we all know it's what's called the lizard brain, it's the little part deep inside the brain. It's very primitive, it's very old, and it's very powerful. And if the fear of making a mistake is too great, even too great in the sense that it's just creating a question in that person's mind, that person won't move forward. And a testimonial from someone saying, I was afraid that this wasn't going to work well for me but actually, it worked fantastic. It just worked really, really well for me. Something that sends that message can be what's needed to quiet the fear brain down and let the buying brain move forward. And incidentally, most good copywriters, persuasive copywriters, are students of neuroscience, brain science and psychology. What motivates people to do things? What motivates people to take this action versus that action? So I will include lots of resources for you, both copywriting books, but also a few scientific books and psychology books that will help you understand more about why people make the decisions that they do. So that you can influence them positively in of course an ethical way. And the reality is although there are people out there who try to sell you something different, you cannot mind control your prospects. There's no copywriting trick that you are ever going to learn that is going to make people magically move toward the buy button and enter their credit card number when they don't want to. In Glengarry Glen Ross' fiction doesn't work that way and it really doesn't work that way with web copywriting, it's just to easy to click away. So a lot of good writers are very nervous about selling because they feel like it's unfair or deceptive or manipulative or unethical. But I will reassure you now there is nothing you're ever going to learn that's going to make people buy something they don't want to buy. Unless you just out right tell lies, and you're not going to do that. You're not going to lie and say it's taller or bigger or whatever it is that it is. And if you are non-deceptive in your marketing there are no tricks you can play that will magically hypnotize people. So that might seem odd for me to bring up but I've talked to enough writers who get queasy about persuasive writing because they think they're somehow there's something, forceful about it or coercive about it. It's not coercive, all it is is just presenting your product or service in a way that lets people make the right decision. And the right decision might be no, it's not for me, and that's totally okay. Okay, so this one, two three, four, five formula or framework can be delivered over time. So it can be delivered in an email sequence, and that online has historically proven to be a very high ROI, very effective way to go. It can also run as a series of threads through your blog content. So that on a regular schedule, you would have some content that was designed to communicate risk reversal. And you would have some content that was designed to let the prospect see themselves enjoying the benefit of the purchase. And you would schedule regular time to talk about the logical and emotional benefits of your solution. And of course these elements sometimes are also delivered on a single page, this is often called a sales page. And this is an art form, but if you cover these five elements you'll know that you've taken a pretty good shot at it. There are people at it who are brilliant and command hundreds of thousands of dollars to write a single, web page of copy. Most of us aren't there and most companies that's not a resource that is going to work for them anyway. So, you just try and become a student of the art form and keep testing yourself and keep getting better. So speaking of testing, the true direct response methodology coming particularly from direct mail, from junk mail, if you will. We'll take different approaches and test them against each other to see which one wins. So, a classic example would be, they have an envelope for a financial newsletter and the envelope has some wording on the outside designed to get you to open the envelope. And I'll test that wording. Well this phrase worked better than that phrase. And then they go and they keep trying to improve their copy by sending it out and seeing which one gets the best response. Some organizations are setup for this and some aren't. If you want to be a ninja you should really make a point of getting this practice into your experience set. If nothing else you can write a short e-book on some topic you know something about and test different sales approaches. You're going to learn a lot by doing that. You set up a program called Google Analytics, it is free, you learn how to use it. Google has just a ton of information about how to set it up, and you set up a couple of simple tests. There is really not a lot of substitute for just trying it out but you can try it out on a really small scale. And again we do have quite a few resources for you on this topic because it's a study intensive topic. And so the most important thing is just get those five elements of the framework kind of as part of your DNA. So that you know that you're going to need to cover those bases if you want to persuade someone. Remember, it applies just as much for a nonprofit or a political organization as it does for a commercial enterprise. Persuasion is persuasion. And if you are interested in moving forward with this, this is a very valuable skill set for you to have as a writer, to be able to write persuasively. It is well compensated. So we'll give you a lot of resources if you want to go deeper on that and really become a student of that kind of writing. Some content marketers are, and some aren't, and it's perfectly great both ways. We all have our strengths. So, go with what interests you, what you're willing to practice, what you're willing to study. And develop the strengths that are natural to you. And that's how you're going to be most effective as a professional. So that's the Action A. Hope that has been useful and helpful to you. And in the next session we're going to talk about acceleration. So looking forward to seeing you there. This is Sonia Simone.
