Your prospects are incredibly skeptical, especially online. They don’t want to be sold anything. What they want is information and entertainment. So the right way to communicate with them is by giving them what they want; great music and great value for the few commercials they are forced to listen to.
And that’s why, by far, the most powerful copy structure online is the advertoria for on and off-air bits.
What’s an advertorial you ask? It is essentially a sales promotion that in and of itself contains valuable information, such as a great information product. (check this service for creating great info products for off-air products.)
Your prospects are compelled to read it, not because it offers information about a product that can solve a problem. They are compelled to read it because it contains information that can help them solve a problem.
You may have to read that last paragraph again because the difference is subtle.
Subtle, but critically important …
A blatant product promotion, raises all kinds of alarm bells in the prospects head, and sets up resistance to every word that’s being said. A skillfully executed advertorial on the other hand, because it reads like editorial in the front half, gains attention and interest much more easily. And that attention and interest is of a higher quality, and more likely to lead to a sale.
At some point, usually around the half way mark, the advertorial turns (seamlessly if done well) into a promotion, introducing the product, building desire for it, and asking for the order.
If you’d like to see some advertorials in action, I have included 3 samples that I wrote recently in this package. Powerful advertorial copy like that is not commonplace on the web, and with very few people using it, becoming proficient at creating it gives you an incredible advantage.
The Reef Radio Biz Tips for New Stations
Posted on 10.18.12
