I need your help

As with anything in marketing, Bruce… focus on the benefits, not the features.

Don’t tell people what you can and will do, show them how they will benefit from having hired you to write for them.

People only care about how they will benefit from what you do, not how good it is, or why it’s the best thing etc.

So, for instance, NOT “look how great this sales letter is” BUT “think of the huge jump in sales you will get from my unique brand of sales letter”

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Galel Fajardo, Kristin VanTilburg, Leslie Leftley, Norma Allen, Bruce Hoag

I agree you should tell them the benefits, but you should also keep them interested. So if you are going to email each day. Here’s my thoughts, not sure if its right but it has worked for me 🙂

So lets look at if them come through you optin “How to Choose a Ghostwriter”
Email 1: you send them a welcome email with the download (even if you have sent them to a download page) and maybe mention something in the ebook that encourages them to actually read it not just open and skim.

Email 2: Tell them about a problem and a solution but done sell them anything

Email 3: Ask them about the ebook … connect with them? Do they have any questions how they can connect with you ie email, facebook, phone etc. Still no sell but link it to what you are going to show them in the next email

Email 4: Solve a problem, give benefit of a product you have. If they are still opening they are now starting to be interested and ready to take action

Email 5: give value, tell them something personal so you are now becoming someone they are interested in listening to.. deal with a pain point

Email 6: once again talk about your product

Email 7: give value again

and this continues. You want to give value a couple of time, the product and when you have something really go to offer do it as a campaign so they may already get your email from your sequence, but they may also get another one from you as you are excited to offer them this product.

Point to remember:
Make sure that you signature has a cta, so if they are ready to take action they take the one you want them to do. ie url to your course or coaching
Email lengths should vary from quick a couple of line ones to long ones this makes them want to engage as if you always send short ones they tell to only open them when they have a minute or two and if you only send long ones they may only open when they have 10-15 min spare. So keep them interested. Sean is an expert at this!

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Kristin VanTilburg, Leslie Leftley, Bruce Hoag

I’m not sure how helpful these will be but I have lots of questions/concerns, which is why I don’t hire someone else to do my writing 🙂

How do you know what to write for me?
Will what you write sound like me?
Can you match the voice and feeling of my site or will it feel like another author on my site?
What topics can you write on/about? Is there any topic that is off limits?
Have you ever written something for someone that has become a bestseller or made a lot of money?
What do you need from me to write a good sales letter for my product?
What is the process to write an email campaign for me?
Is ghostwriting a work together type project? In other words, how much input would I have in the end result?
I’ve tried to hire people to write articles before and they were never useable. what would you need from me in order to write a good article, sales page, email campaign, etc.?

…and I could go on…

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Jan Sandhouse Hurst, Bruce Hoag

You’re welcome Bruce!

I wanted to clarify my thinking process, you asked;

Instead, I want to write these things for people.

If you were looking for a ghostwriter, then what topics would you want to learn about?

I wouldn’t want to learn a particular topic to be trained on because, in this case I don’t want to learn how to do it, I’m looking for a service.

If I’m coming to you for ghostwriting I want to be confident you could write like me or be able to adopt the tone and voice of my site, take good care of my audience with the info you provide and prove that you added enough value to my process that I’d be more than happy to pay you for your services.

How do you do that?

Without giving away your secret sauce, an article about how you get to understand the tone of a site, for instance would be interesting to me as a purchaser of your service.

Or how much money could you actually save a person by writing for them? Do you have any case studies you could share?

All this being said the ‘how to do it’ steps can also be good topics because they can lead people to see #1 you know your craft and #2 its more work than I want to do so let’s pass this work on to the expert.

Hope this helps,
Julia

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Bruce Hoag

Bruce,
I’ve struggled with the same daunting task. I’m faced with building a regular list and a “buyer’s list”.

The buyer’s list is easy – I have lots of tips and tricks that would naturally flow with the rest to provide good value.

I’ve been thinking about what to send the other list, aside from the obvious calls to action to check out my product.

So far, I’ve come up with:
-Links to check out my blog posts/videos (which all, subtly or not so subtly, lead back to an opportunity to buy the product). Ask a question, encourage them to check out the post/answer on the blog.
-Basic stories about how hard life is without your offer, and how it can improve with it. Testimonials and stories are great because they draw the reader in.
-Stories that end with a prompt to check out more information on the site (FAQ, etc.)
-Polls – Have you hired someone before? What was your experience? What did they lack that you need? – Encourage feedback from them to shape your services into what they need.

Now granted, I realize, all of this sounds easier to do than it actually is 😉 But those are some of the things I’m going to aim for initially.

It’s amazing how long someone will stay on a list without buying anything. But then if you happen to offer something at the right time, when they’re looking for it, you might turn that subscriber into a customer. I’ve been on some people’s lists for years, solely because they’re entertaining or informational. One marketer I recently subscribed to tells a joke at the beginning of each email (which is usually a product pitch). How can I say no to that?!

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Bruce Hoag

Hi Bruce,

I’m late to this discussion, but one of the exercises I’ve always found helpful is to create your client avatar and write everything to that avatar.

One of the mistakes I have made is that I tried to be all things to all people. Instead, I’ve found success by focusing on my client avatar. I gave them a name. I’ve been as detailed as possible.

After I wrote out details about that avatar, I focused on my avatar’s pain. What do they need help with? What causes them to lose sleep?

Bring up that problem, agitate it, and you give them the solution.

I hope this helps a bit!
Galel

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Bruce Hoag

Bruce, I’m really late to this party and there are so many excellent points already shared that what I have may have been covered. But keep in mind that ghostwriters are a dime a dozen. So simply saying you offer ghostwriting services or even that you save people time will not necessarily make them stop skimming – they’ve seen that, read that on dozens of websites, blogs, etc. What people skimming through your info really are looking for is, “Has he ever done what I want done?” So listing, showing, pointing out as many different types of work you’ve ghostwritten (white papers, ebooks, blog posts, professional articles, speeches, whatever) and as many subjects you’ve written about (medical, technical, business, autobiography, self-help, and even more specifically, whatever) as you can – somewhere on your site and pointed to in your posts, emails, articles, sigs, etc. – the more likely the prospect will see that you have done what he or she needs done and stop skimming to read more closely.

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Sean Mize, Bruce Hoag

Bruce

I’m thinking that you want to differentiate yourself by telling what you can do is different.

how will you connect with their clients BETTER than some dime a dozen ghostwriter?

Sean

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Bruce Hoag

Samples and Examples

Hi Bruce,

Maybe if you sample your wares so to speak and give samples of what you write and that you could customize the emails to whatever campaigns folks are looking for?
I hope that help a wee bit.
Robert

Bruce, a couple of thoughts:

You can create a short survey in Survey Monkey and post a link in your ebook toward the front of the book, in exchange for a cheat sheet, worksheet or video. I’d make it open-ended, but short – 1-2 questions only. Get the flavor of the words they use, and incorporate them in your marketing materials. Remember this about surveys — the more they write, typically the more frustrated they are, and you can learn a lot from those responses. So don’t limit them to something like “25 words or less” in their responses. Then connect 1:1 with them if they are willing. Even if they don’t hire you, they may recommend you to someone else based on the relationship you can build with them.

I haven’t researched this, but my sense is that there is often a correlation between reading and writing, based on years of teaching international business courses to both domestic and international students. So think about promoting your service through audio and video channels. That is also likely to help you with people for whom English is not a first language, or those who did not excel in reading and writing in school.

And last, do you want to cook and serve the fish, or do you want to teach people how to fish? You may be able to create a coaching program or a course based on what you find out from surveys and conversations.

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Bruce Hoag

Jan,

you are offering such helpful advice to folks!

Might I suggest adding a signature (go to members then your profile, then add signature) with a link to your site so folks can check out what you are doing?

Sean

Bruce- You’ve got a lot of good advice in this thread but something nobody has mentioned is your email subject lines. If people don’t open your emails to read them because your subject line doesn’t get them to want to see what you’re going to say, the whole email is worthless. If you spend as much time figuring out exactly who your audience is, what makes them tick, what they want from you and how you can get it to them and then craft a subject line that makes them curious, makes them realize you have what they need, or makes them in some way really NEED to read your email, THEN and only then will what you write in your email matter at all. Spend as much time on the subject line as you do in the email and it’ll work. Just a thought!
Steve