Does Your Website “Show-up and Throw-up”?

By Jeff Sexton
Wizard of Ads Partner & Persuasion Architect with Future Now Inc

From the Editor: Make sure you watch the below video as I'm sure you experience this type of sales person on a regular basis. I know I do. And it is something that really gets me irritated.

We laugh when we see parodies of bad behavior in marketing and sales, but have you really thought about how NOT to do this with your web copy?

If a sales person avoids the dreaded "show-up and throw-up" technique by engaging in honest conversation and asking intelligent questions while answering yours in a respectful manner, then how is your Web copy supposed to be a substitute for that?

It's as simple as ABC — and, no, I don't mean "Always Be Closing"…

A) Hire a great copywriter or become one yourself.

B) Blueprint/plan persona-based copy.

C) Write persuasive hyperlinks that fit into your plan/blueprint.

Personas let you see your customers real. And that allows you to write to them instead of writing at them, which is huge. But more importantly, personas let you hear the other side of the conversation by giving you insights into your customers' motivations — and that enables you to anticipate your visitors questions, which is where embedded links come in.

Every click a visitor takes represents a question they are asking you (or possibly a response to a prodding question your copy has raised). By anticipating the questions visitors are most likely to have, a smart copywriter can use embedded hyperlinks to model the interactive flow of a conversation. Your copy talks, then your visitors talk by clicking on the links most relevant to them. The more often a visitor clicks on a link and feels she's been heard, the more she has her expectations met and questions answered, the more her website visit resembles honest dialog. And that's effective selling.

Conversely, the more your website fails to answer — or even to acknowledge — visitor questions, the more your Web copy resembles the “show-up and throw-up” doofus in the video:

Does your copy speak to your visitors or are you just vomiting up a canned sales pitch? Are you anticipating visitor questions and concerns with your hyperlinks or are you expecting them to respond to ridiculous questions (“What will it take to put you in a new car today?”)?

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