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How Mandela and a poem can help you gain the trust of your website visitors

How Mandela and a poem can help you gain the trust of your website visitors

By Bhaskar Sarma Leave a Comment

webconversion means trust
Nelson Mandela with Francois Pienaar

It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

You have a website up and running. You see traffic but no one clicks on the buy button or fills up the contact form. They land on a page, have a quick look around and then bounce, never to return.

And it’s doubly frustrating when you know you have a good product that is a proven problem solver.

Do you throw up your hands and become bitter, withdrawn and resentful?

No, you don’t. You get inspired by Nelson Mandela.

How to heal a bitterly divided country

In 1994 Mandela became the first black president of a country bitterly divided along racial lines . He knew that South Africa would be torn apart if reconciliation between the privileged white minority and the oppressed black majority didn’t happen.

As he transformed himself from a rebel to a statesman he decided, in the face of all opposition, to throw his weight behind the Springboks, the national rugby team that most blacks saw as the symbol of apartheid.

He promoted the rugby team as a South African team instead of an Afrikaner or a white team and enlisted the help of the captain Francois Pienaar, a big, blonde son of apartheid.

And against all odds, in the 1995 Rugby World Cup organized in South Africa, the Springboks won. The entire country erupted in celebrations and the slow process of reconciliation began.

White South Africans who had reviled Mandela as a terrorist now accepted him as their president and began to trust that he would give them a fair deal. [Read more…] about How Mandela and a poem can help you gain the trust of your website visitors

Filed Under: Copywriting Tagged With: B2B, blogs, casestudies, conversion, Copywriting, webdesign, whitepapers

Steal the secrets of building high converting websites from codebreakers

Steal the secrets of building high converting websites from codebreakers

By Bhaskar Sarma 1 Comment

Say codes and encryption and you probably think of invisible ink,James Bond and hackers.

But leave governments and militaries aside. Without encryption, even your bank account and inbox won’t be secure.

Throughout history major world events have been shaped by the deviousness of a cryptographer in designing codes or the ingenuity of a  codebreaker in deciphering secret messages.

The neutral US entered the WWI not because of German U boat attacks that drowned hundreds of American citizens  or strenuous British diplomacy but because of a single decrypted German message.

And the WWII could have gone on till 1948 and millions more would have died had Polish and British  codebreakers failed to crack  the Enigma code used by the Nazis.

If the code is the case of the Hound of Baskervilles, think of a codebreaker as Sherlock Holmes. [Read more…] about Steal the secrets of building high converting websites from codebreakers

Filed Under: Conversion Tagged With: 80/20, buyer personas, conversion, Copywriting, landing pages, SEO, webdesign

Why (B2B Landing Page) conversion is like the TARDIS

Why (B2B Landing Page) conversion is like the TARDIS

By Bhaskar Sarma 8 Comments

This is a first in a series of posts about improving conversion rates for different types of content on a typical website. Check out the post about case studies.

tardis landing page conversionThe TARDIS is a ship used by Doctor Who, an alien, to travel through time and space. From the outside the TARDIS looks like a phone box, while on the inside it has the square area of a mansion.

What does it have to do with website conversion?

Conversion rate optimization, on the surface is about increasing the click through on call to actions on a site. But dive deeper and the whole subject starts looking like a tapestry with strands of marketing psychology, design, copywriting and other stuff woven in.

Let’s talk about conversion rate optimization for landing pages today. [Read more…] about Why (B2B Landing Page) conversion is like the TARDIS

Filed Under: Conversion Tagged With: B2B, buyer personas, content marketing, conversion, Copywriting, landing pages

The Secret Words That Keep Your Prospect Reading!

The Secret Words That Keep Your Prospect Reading!

By Bhaskar Sarma 4 Comments

Secret words in copywritingThe secret of great copy is pretty simple.

If you can connect emotionally with your ideal reader and write a sentence that builds upon the preceding one as effortlessly as water rolling off a duck’s back you have done your job,

For B2B copywriters and content marketers  getting this skill right is even more important. Your copy is meant to persuade people to do something that hopefully ends with a substantial amount of money changing hands.

For this reason I have always believed that studying direct marketing sales letters  is one of the best ways to write great B2B copy.

DM copywriters can’t use anything other than words to convert readers. So they pull out all stops and use everything from a catchy headline that grabs readers by the throat, a lead that sucks them in, body copy that makes them nod their head in agreement and a finely crafted close backed by rock solid guarantees that has them whipping out their credit cards.

[Read more…] about The Secret Words That Keep Your Prospect Reading!

Filed Under: Copywriting Tagged With: B2B, content marketing, Copywriting, William Zinsser

From my Notebook:10 Copywriting Tips from William Zinsser

From my Notebook:10 Copywriting Tips from William Zinsser

By Bhaskar Sarma 9 Comments

editing_your_article

William Zinsser needs no introduction to writers. His book “On Writing Well” is one of the must have additions to your reading list if you aim to write well.

If you are a marketing copywriter, not reading this book would be akin to a medical student not having read a copy of Gray’s Anatomy- you would look like a newbie quack.

In no particular order here are 10 lessons that I took away from a first reading. I am sure that I can easily write 25 more points when I come back and revisit this book later.

[Read more…] about From my Notebook:10 Copywriting Tips from William Zinsser

Filed Under: Copywriting Tagged With: Copywriting, On Writing Well, William Zinsser

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