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Writing for the Web
Subject Line: The Write Market Release - Issue #3 - July 1999
CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Editor's Remarks
2. "Writing For The Web - Part I -
Before You Begin" - Renee Kennedy
3. "Make Your Site a Winner in the Monthly
Game of Contests!" - Ray and Martha Durgin
4. What's New at The Write Market
5. Free Monthly Drawing - sign up today!
6. A little begging
7. Information
EDITOR'S REMARKS
Welcome all new subscribers! People are joining by
the dozens this month!
This month we are proud to tell you that we have
co-founded a new community. The group is called
Marketing Course Newsletter Network (MCNN).
To learn more about MCNN - please go to
http://www.thewritemarket.com/newsletter.shtml
Our newsletters are still going to follow the same
basic format. However, since we've joined MCNN,
we will now be providing you with ongoing "tutorials"
or "courses" on web marketing and promotion.
Our first series will cover "Writing For The Web".
We hope that by offering you a course - a series of
articles which focus on specific topics - you will learn
more about web marketing.
We also have an article on contests this month by Ray
and Martha Durgin, they've had great success with
their contest and they'd like to share that information with you.
Enjoy our third issue!
Renee Kennedy
rkennedy@thewritemarket.com
WRITING FOR THE WEB - Part I - Before You Begin
By Renee Kennedy
The following series will take a "marketing approach".
What that means is that I am going to focus on writing in a
way that will help you sell your products or services.
In this section, I am going to discuss three things that you will
need to think about - before you even begin to write
your web pages:
1. Benefits of Your Product
2. Your Target Market
3. Your Target Response
Benefits of Your Product:
Before you start to write your web pages, think about the
benefits of your products. Sit down with a piece of paper and
answer these questions:
1. What is unique about my product?
2. What can my product give someone that no other product can give them?
3. What emotions can I evoke when someone reads about my product?
a) Greed - will it save them money, make them money,
make them look like they have money?
b) Leisure - will it save them time?
c) Happiness - does it provide relaxation? (hobbies, travel, collecting)
d) Pride - is it something that will make them proud - make them achieve?
e) Health - will it improve health or ease their pain or make them look and
feel younger?
f) Belonging - will it make them feel as if they belong to something - an
exclusive group?
g) Basic Needs - does it fulfill basic needs - hunger, sleep, love, shelter,
safety?
h) Love - does it involve romance/sex?
Out of your answers, create one sentence which will describe
the the most important benefit of your product.
Make sure it includes what this product does that
no other product can do. You can use the sentence as your
opening line.
Your Target Market:
Think about your target market. Research them. When you are
developing your web copy (the text of your web pages), you should
always have your target market in mind. So before you start writing,
answer these questions:
a) How old are these people?
b) Are they male or female?
c) How much money do they make?
d) What are their occupations?
e) What is their level of education?
f) What are their hobbies?
g) Are they married, single, divorced?
h) Do they have kids, grandkids?
i) Are they students?
j) What is their level of experience on the net?
k) Have they purchased on the net before?
l) Are they using a Mac or a PC?
m) Which browser are they using?
n) Are they accessing the net through home or work?
o) etc. etc....
The point to asking yourself these questions is that you want to
get a feel for who you are dealing with. Who are you trying to
get to purchase your products or services? You want to know
these people as well as you know yourself. You want to talk
to them, you want to respond to them, you want to involve
them. In order to do this - you need to know who they are.
Cyber Atlas- http://www.cyberatlas.com/ has statistics on people
who use the web.
Your Target Response:
Ok, you've figured out who you are marketing to, now you
need to figure out what you want them to do - how you
want them to respond.
Your goal (how you want your target to respond) for each
page or each section of your site may be different. Here are some
sample responses that you may want to achieve with your
web pages:
a) Get a person to buy online.
b) Get a sales lead - perhaps by filling out a form on your site.
c) Get them to download a trial version of your product.
d) Get them to send you a check in the mail.
e) Get them to telephone you.
f) Subscribe to your newsletter.
g) Enter your contest.
When you have figured this out - you can write appropriate
web copy and lead your customers through a series of web
pages that will lead them to acting or responding the way
you want them to act.
Our next segment will discuss "The Introduction Page":
the first page in a series of pages that will encourage
people to buy your products!
This series is also just one part of our Online Promotion Tutorial.
To learn more - check out:
http://www.thewritemarket.com/promotion-tutorial.shtml
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MAKE YOUR SITE A WINNER IN THE MONTHLY
GAME OF CONTESTS!
By Ray and Martha Durgin
FREE Give-Aways never cease to draw the large group
of contest enthusiasts that continually surf through the
sea of opportunities on the internet. This is a good
thing for them and it can be a very good thing for
your website!
There are many sites on the internet that are directories
for Sweepstakes and Contests and they are great targets
of the throngs of folks that love to enter a contest to
win a free gift. It is very easy for you to participate in
this tide of activity and direct a large stream of visitors
to your site.
The first thing you need to do is decide what you
have to offer as a giveaway item. It can be a service
such as a free period of hosting, a free advertising
opportunity, a free piece of software, a free product.
anything that you have to offer can be a candidate
for a contest. As an example, we have found a
gift basket to be an extremely popular contest item.
Whatever you choose, it needs to be perceived as
worthy of an individual's time required to enter the contest.
What are the benefits of holding a contest?
1) Increased traffic to your site -
a. This means increased visibility of your
products or services.
b. It also means revenue opportunities for advertising in
the form of banners or other ads. (Advertisers will
pay higher rates on higher traffic website pages.)
2) A great source of contacts for a mailing list -
a. Contest entrants enjoy hearing who won and
where they live.
b. At the same time you announce the winners it is an
excellent opportunity to mention any specials you
are offering.
c. Be sure to follow netiquette and use a hidden mailing
list and thereby not expose your individuals' e-mail
addresses to spammers.
3) Increased Sales - Both of the items above will lead to
more sales from your site.
The increased revenue you will recognize will vary
depending upon what you are selling, the amount of
response you get to your contest offer, how you follow up,
how you set the contest up on your site, how you
advertise the contest and how often you hold the contest.
You can get creative and try different approaches to see
what works best.
To illustrate how effective a contest can be we can relate
our own experience. We offered a gourmet food gift basket
as a free give-away in a monthly contest. This basket has
a retail value of approximately $60, including shipping.
We normally receive 10 to 30 business emails a day.
When our contest offer recently hit the sweepstakes sites
we received over 1200 emails entries in one day! For the
week we exceeded 2000.
The first day your site is featured on a Sweepstakes site
is when you will get the largest wave of entries.
They taper down over the next 3 to 4 days and then
stragglers will come in. This will happen every month.
Granted, a lot of these folks are only looking to enter your
contest and leave but there are a percentage of the people
that will stay awhile and peruse if they find themselves
in an interesting location. Make it an interesting location!
For people to join our contest they must go to the heart
of our Specials Page at
http://www.treasurebooksandgifts.com/specials.htm.
They must scroll down through some of our best offers
to get to the contest location. In doing so it is inevitable
that some folks will develop interest in these offers that
highlight your site's special values and are naturally the
most intriguing offers you have to make. It is one of your
best opportunities to capture a surfer's interest!
To set up a contest follow these steps:
1) Decide what you want to offer - make it worthwhile,
the sales you generate will offset any costs of what you
are giving away.
2) Set the offer up in your site to maximize the visibility
of your product to those coming to the contest. You can
see our set up at
http://www.treasurebooksandgifts.com/specials.htm
3) Find high traffic Sweepstakes sites to place your
advertisement on - they are FREE and EASY to submit.
One that has been particularly successful for us is:
http://www.women.com/promotions
Other ones to consider are:
http://bguide.com/suggest.html
http://members.tripod.com/~clbaker/sweeps-2.html
4) Set up a form which entrants will supply email address ,
name, mailing address, and phone number if you want it.
5) Compile the list of entries.
6) At the end of the month pick your winner, notify that
individual, and mail out the results to the entire list
of those who participated. Encourage them to join again
for next month's contest and if you have a special offer
tell them about it and give them a hyperlink to your
site to go check it out.
It is as easy as that and it is a lot of fun. So go out there and
be the big winner with your own contest!
Martha and Ray Durgin
Treasure Books and Gifts
A great selection of gifts for kids and grown-ups!
Visit us at http://www.treasurebooksandgifts.com
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A LITTLE BEGGING
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Copyright 1999 The Write Market
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