Part 5 – How to ask your buyers to take action:

Today, Part 5, the last in this series:

I was very fortunate, early in my career, to read a book that’s often overlooked with respect to selling in print, or writing copy.

It’s called “How To Write A Good Advertisement,” by Victor O. Schwab.

Schwab was mentored by the great Maxwell Sackheim, and ultimately… he wound up taking over Sackheim’s agency when Max was ready to retire. It became the Schwab and Beatty ad agency, during the 1950s.

The agency was responsible for creating comic book styled ads for Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends & Influence People,” and also for Charles Atlas’ “Dynamic Tension System.”

Schwab opens up his book with the following:

There are five fundamentals in the writing of a good advertisement:

1. Get Attention (which we covered in the last tip)

2. Show People an Advantage

3. Prove It

4. Persuade People to Grasp This Advantage

5. Ask for Action

Today we’ll talk about #5, how to ask your buyers to take action.

I was recently writing a sales letter for a client. The client is going to make the sales letter into a Video Sales Letter, and underneath the bottom of the Video, they’re going to put a link where people can order.

When I asked them what kind of link or what they’d be putting on the link, they didn’t understand why I wanted to know.

The reason I wanted to know, was because I was going to base my “call to action” in the sales letter — in other words, “What I want the buyers to do” — on their response to my question.

So for example:

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If the link said, “Add To Cart,” I’d have said in the sales letter, “Simply click on the ‘Add To Cart’ button below this video, and order now”

Now you may be thinking, “Hey, wouldn’t people know to do this on their own, once they see this button?”

And the answer is, “Yes, most of them would.”

But what about if your button doesn’t say Add To Cart?

Or what if you have three or four different options on what you can order? Or 3-4 different pay plans?

What if you didn’t want people to order, but instead, you wanted them to complete an application?

Now matter what you want your buyers to do, you have to ask them to do it, and you have to let them know what’s going to happen.

So for example:

“To Apply for this program, simply click the link below. You’ll be taken to a secure application, and someone from my office will contact you within 3 business days, to schedule your appointment.”

You’re going to get a lot more responses when you’re asking for action like this, then merely saying “Click Here To Order” and not addressing anything else.

And this applies even more so, if your trying to generate leads, or asking people to complete a survey, and so on.

People need to be asked, or told what to do. It’s not because they are stupid, although… some people are clearly, extremely stupid.

It’s because things are much clearer to you, then they are to your customers. They don’t have the same knowledge base, and they’re not operating from the same perspective you are.

It’s the same reason why, when you walk into a department store… you have signs that say “Up” and “Down” for the escalators.

Everyone’s into their own thing.

So when it comes to selling, it’s important you take this into consideration.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

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listening to: Politician – Gov’t Mule (@ The Beacon Theatre, NYC) (2006)