Joe Searle shares his top tips on persuading potential clients to set foot through your door. Joe is a long-standing WriteUpp user, as well as a health and wellness copywriter. He helps medium to large-scale companies in the health and wellness industry generate consistent, new customers every week with website content, Sales Copy, VSLs & Emails.
Being persuasive in the business world is a must, these days in more ways than one. In fact, with the birth of god knows how many different social media platforms and technology, you have to become persuasive in many different ways too.
Whether it’s through promotional videos, sales letters or if it’s predominantly facing to face selling, you must be persuasive enough to make the sale. Now as you have probably already realised, it’s not actually that simple anymore.
Selling has become an art. People are so much savvier when it comes to being sold to and as a reflection of that, people almost always have their guard up, even when they are actively seeking a product or service as a solution to a problem of theirs.
So how do you get around this?
Well as someone who started his business in the fitness industry with nothing but a few ideas and positive attitude, this is something I’ve had to figure out over the last 5 and a bit years.
There are many gurus out there who will take you down the route of playing off people’s psychological triggers and pain points, throwing in some fancy NLP strategies and other flash stuff which contributes only on a very small scale.
In this post, I’m going to cover the core elements of persuasive writing, so when it comes to writing an email sales sequence or perhaps some website copy to show off your products and services, you’ll have your “ideal” customers eating out of the palm of your hand. In fact, you are going to nurture such a relationship, that you will be the ONLY business they will deal with for their specific needs.
Sound good? Let’s get started then!
The 7 Core Elements
I’ve always had the habit of trying to overcomplicate things. Even now it’s something I have to take a step back from and become conscious about before I get too embroiled in how complicated the thing I’m working on really is!
The same can be said for many sales people and business owners. Whatever clinic or centre you are running, I’m sure you’ve got an “ideal client” in mind, you know, that person you wished you could clone over and over again and bring them into your business… Okay well maybe that’s just me, but I’m sure you love working with a particular type of person. Well, that’s the first thing you need to think about, so let me explain.
- Identify your ideal customer
Before you can become truly persuasive in any of your business sales copy, website content, blog post’s etc, you have to understand who it is you’re talking to. For example. I know that the chances are that the people reading this blog post are most likely wellness clinic owners, chiropractors, physios and the like. So I am going to explain everything with references to that industry.
Another example would be if I was positioning my sports massage services to people who suffer from office based soft tissue problems, IE neck pain and back pain from sitting down too often. I would speak to those people specifically in the way that I position my services and products.
You must get very specific about who you want to work with. Are they predominantly young males working in a corporate environment? Or perhaps retiree’s who are having problems with their joint mobility, you see what I’m getting at?
I’m not going into too much detail on this element, but if you really want persuasive copy that reels in the people you want to work with, you have to understand your customer avatar. Here’s a link to a great resource for you to put yourself in your customers’ shoes, allowing you to position your services perfectly – Customer Avatar Worksheet
- Make The Customer The “Hero” In their journey (Their Story Of How They Became Epic Through Your Company)
Now this is where it gets really interesting…
A lot of companies of varying sizes actually either get this very wrong, or they don’t do it anywhere nearly as good as they could, leaving so much potential revenue on the table. Your company, however, is not going to make that mistake.
Storytelling in my humble opinion is hands down the best way to position your services and products perfectly. The human brain uses stories as a formula for understanding and categorizing information quickly and efficiently. The faster your customer understands your brand story, the more likely they are to become a customer, it’s as simple as that.
So if stories are the best way to go about selling your clinic or wellness centre, how can you build this into your business?
As I said, companies often get this concept wrong simply because they make themselves the “hero” in their customer’s journey. What you need to do is make the customer the hero in their own story of how they solved their problem, using your services/products. You’ve already come up with your customer avatar, so you should already know their problems and how long their teeth are by now. Now’s the time to put everything in writing.
By positioning yourself as your customer’s trusted advisor and mentor in their own transformation, you take control of their story and define what it is they need, creating a driving focus solely towards your brand. Guide them along their transformational journey using your services and products and position them as the conquering hero.
Sounds like a stretch huh?
Well, next time you see an advert for Range Rover as a prime example, check out how they position the newest motor they’ve just rolled out. It’s a solution for people’s status and positions the person buying it as a person of great importance and sophistication. Every good brand does this so keep an eye out for the bigger brands out there and see how they do it so successfully.
- Define Your Customers Potential Failure
This one may seem very negative and even counter-intuitive, but you have to be brutal when it comes to showing your potential customer what could happen if they pass on your perfect solution.
Pain and loss avoidance are the key drivers behind customers’ purchasing decisions. By defining what is at stake if they don’t invest in your services/products, you are simply motivating them to get off their ass and buy.
You do, however, walk a fine line with this element of persuasion. If you use this too much then you risk scaring your customers away, too little and you remove the reason for them to engage.
- Include Calls To Action In All Of Your Material
Whether you are writing an email to your list or some website copy or even a blog post, a call to action is crucial if you want anyone to take the next step in the purchasing process.
If you are putting out content in any kind of form, you have to include a call to action, ideally at the end to ensure that people engage and take action towards buying from you.
This one doesn’t just apply to writing, so I feel obliged to mention this. Use it at the end of your promotional videos, in your podcasts, hell even use it in your Facebook live videos!
You have to do everything you possibly can to dislodge your potential customers from the comfort of passivity. Be bold and unapologetic in doing this, it’s up to you to challenge your customers to try your solution.
For example, if you are using WriteUpp to manage your bookings, (trust me, I use it, you really should too) you will have seen how they position the service as a time-saving software solution which takes the hassle out of managing bookings. On their main landing page, it also challenges you to try it out for free.
A very clear and simple call to action allowing you to give it a try risk-free. It ticks all the boxes and is a great example to draw from.
- Help Customers Transform
Every potential customer is on a journey towards transformation. It could be a personal transformation or a business related one, the likelihood is it’s the latter for you.
I know for me it was to build a successful sports massage practice which can operate without me and I have done this (although admittedly I still practice, I’m a sucker for helping people!).
But that transformation involved different services as a pivotal part of it.
I didn’t really know it at the time, but as I came across more problems to solve, I turned to the companies that could help me. I ended up choosing the ones who helped me understand exactly how they could help me.
You see, it isn’t the features of your product or service that people care about, quite frankly I don’t give a shit about what a service includes.
All I care about as a consumer is what the service is going to do for me and how it’s going to benefit my business. The companies that helped me understand this have been the ones who have won my business and I remain loyal to those customers for as long as I need the service.
- Have A Clear Plan Of Action
Confusion, complication and fear can all increase a customer’s perception of risk with your product/service, impacting their decision to buy down the line. So, make it as damn easy to buy as is humanly possible!
How do we get about this? Well, that’s simple, you have a plan in place to guide your customers through the process of buying.
The plan itself shouldn’t really be any more than 3 steps, remember, you don’t want to confuse them straight out the gate. An example of this process may be for a new client coming into your business.
- They see your advert/content and decide to take the next step. They may have to call your clinic to book their initial assessment and treatment.
- They show up for the assessment and are informed of the issues they need to sort out. They are then advised on the number of treatments needed and a treatment plan provided.
- They then need to make the choice as to whether they need the treatment or not.
This is really basic but I guarantee that if you make this process clear on your website and your sales copy, people are going to feel much more at ease when it comes to booking with you to sort their problems out. This one actually leads quite nicely into the next element.
- Keep All Of Your Messages Simple And Clutter Free
No matter where your customers are reading your message, it should be as clean and concise as possible.
Don’t be tempted to waffle on about how great your company is and for gods sake, do not go into technicals either.
When your customer sees your email or lands on your website for the first time, they are getting that all important first impression. The more cluttered your website and message is, the less likely they are to engage with it.
Within the first few moments of arriving on your site or reading your email, your customer should understand what it is you offer, how it can enhance their life and how they can go about taking the next steps.
You have to think of this as a written elevator pitch; only keep what is most relevant to your story.
Simply put, cut out all the B.S that you wouldn’t want to hear if you were in your customer’s shoes.
Final Thoughts
As with everything, there is always more to the bigger picture, however, I truly believe as a business owner and copywriter, these are 7 of the most important aspects of increasing your customer conversion rates and nurturing great relationships with your customers. So take the time to implement these elements into your own sales and marketing processes and let us know how you get on in the comments.
To the art of persuasion!
