Have you ever seen a movie or TV show and been completely blown away by how good it was and then 2 months later see it again and were just as enamored as the first time?
3 weeks ago the wife and I started watching Newsroom on HBO. It’s so freaking good! Literally after every episode we both said “That is an amazing show!”
Click. <watch next episode>
For some reason I’m constantly blown away by the effect rearranging a few words can have on my business.
I’ve experienced it over and over but just last week it happened again and it reminded me of this simple truth.
Truth = HOW you describe your offer is just as important as the offer itself.
For example, I made a new opt-in bonus last week. It’s a swipe file that contains 6 of my favorite pop-ups and a 3-part free course on how to use pop-ups in your business. [You can download it for FREE here]
Instead of creating a big landing page or writing a blog post about it, I started off by throwing up a one line call to action in a HelloBar (the red/green bar at the top of this page). I’ve found this to be an easy and effective way to test a new bonus and the words I use to describe it.
This is how it typically goes:
When I initially set it up, that percentage sucked. Less than 1% of the people that saw it downloaded the bonus.
Then I rearranged the words that I used to describe it and that percentage went up to 2.3%.
But I thought I could do even better than that so I re-arranged the words one last time and it jumped up to 3.9%.
The bonus didn’t change.
The content they were getting didn’t change.
The only change was the words I used to describe the offer.
Let that sink in.
.
.
Literally the only thing standing between 0.7% of people saying “Yes!” and 3.9% of people saying “Yes!” was a few words.
That’s a pretty big deal.
So, I’ve officially dedicated this Summer to getting better at arranging my words.
I’ve been scouring the interwebs for the best courses, books and training so that I can get better at this.
…and you should too!
Here is the best of what I have found and studied so far.
1. The Dark Art of Writing Long-Form Sales Pages by Joanna Wiebe
2. This book will teach you how to write better by Neville Medhora
3. How to Tell a Story by Donald Miller
4. The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert
5. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
***
Takeaway: Start paying attention to how you organize the words that you use to describe your offerings. Experiment with them. AND buy one of the 5 items listed above to learn how to get better.
PS: Do you have a book that’s helped you with your writing? Tell me what it is in the comments.