Michael Wilding

Tag: copywriting

  • The sexy sound of silence

    The sexy sound of silence

    Yes… it’s been quiet from me for the last few days. But I’ve been busy writing something that you’re gonna freakin love!

    It’s a guide on how to setup the MailWizz email software, just twenty seven bucks, with Amazon SES for…

    …super fast, super cheap, super inbox email delivery!

    I was going to record a video, but here’s what happened…

    [MICHAEL] Presses record button and begins talking.

    [CUE HEAVY MACHINERY GOING OUTSIDE]

    [MICHAEL] Stops recording and waits.

    [MICHAEL] Presses record button and begins talking.

    [CUE MAX SCREAMING TWO ROOMS AWAY SO LOUDLY THE MICROPHONE PICKS IT UP]

    [MICHAEL] Stops recording and waits.

    [MICHAEL] Presses record button and begins talking.

    [CUE BEEBEE WALKS INTO ROOM AND STARTS WHINING TO JUMP ON THE CHAIR]

    [MICHAEL] Stops recording and lets BeeBee jump on the chair.

    [MICHAEL] Presses record button and begins talking.

    [CUE BEEBEE STARTS WHINING AND JUMPS DOWN FROM THE CHAIR TO BARK AT SOMETHING THROUGH THE WINDOW]

    [MICHAEL] Stops recording and waits.

    [MICHAEL] Presses record button and begins talking.

    [CUE HEAVY MACHINERY GOING OUTSIDE]

    [MICHAEL] Swears very loudly and decides to do a written guide instead of a video!

    For the last few days I’ve been writing the guide, complemented by lots of beautiful screenshots.

    And it’s going to save you a fortune on your autoresponder hosting.

    So it’s well worth waiting for.

    I’m hoping to have it finished by Wednesday, so you should see it in all it’s glory then.

    In the meantime, you may want to grab the email software and get your hosting to install it for you.

    https://www.mailwizz.com/

    There’s no affiliate link, it’s so cheap, and so damn good, I wouldn’t want to take any money away from the developer!

    Ciao,

    Michael

  • Frustrated Baby Is Pioneering Internet God

    Frustrated Baby Is Pioneering Internet God

    I opened my email this morning and at the top of my inbox was an email from Philip Lord, who I’m proud to say reads this newsletter. He’s got a pretty awesome book if you’re an affiliate marketer, can you can get a copy on this page.

    At the bottom of his email was a link to Co-Schedule’s Headline Analyzer.

    You can see it here.

    It’s a website I haven’t been to in a long time, but I thought it would be interested to talk about it today.

    The reason being, is that I believe you can over-think things.

    This site will analyze your headlines (or subject lines) and score them to tell you how well you’re doing.

    The subject line that I used in today’s email (and yes I used it just for the purposes of analysing it here!) got these results:


    According to Co-Schedule’s headline analyzer, this subject line has no sentiment and gets a score of 75/100.

    The first problem I find with this tool is that nowhere, I can find, does it tell you what a good score is.

    Yup… we know 100 is the best, but we assume it’s very difficult to get that score. So what level indicates a good “enough” score?

    Doing some Google searching it seems to be that people recommend a score of 75 or higher, although I doubt this is based on any true data or testing, more of a… “75 out of 100 must be pretty good” feeling!

    The next problem, and this is a biggie, is how the scores and “Headline Type” are created.

    The score is made by combining the amounts scored in the four categories Common, Uncommon, Emotional and Power.

    This means that the tool must have a database of words, with scores next to them, in each of these categories and that’s how it creates the score.

    It uses this information to tell you what type of headline you have. In my example:

    Generic

    Problem here is… it forgets that humans are reading it!

    There’s absolutely no way that the headline I used is generic.

    I can also be pretty confident, based on experience, that this headline will get a lot of opens of emails and decent amount of views and shares on the blog.

    So why use the headline analyser?

    Personally, I wouldn’t.

    But if you’re at the beginning of your writing career and want some help it could certainly be very handy in pointing you in the right direction to improve your headline.

    However, make sure that you don’t swear by it.

    Use it as a tool, because the single best way to learn how to write headlines is to send at least one email every day.

    That means you’ve got to write a subject line every day, and at the end of every day you will see a percentage of people who opened that email.

    Do this for a month and you’ll start to get an idea of which subject lines your audience are interested in.

    Do it for a year and you’ll be able to knock them out of the park every single time in a matter of moments (no software tool required!).

    Michael

  • He’s Out (in both ways!)

    He’s Out (in both ways!)

    It’s just been announced that Kevin Spacey is having his scenes cut from Ridley Scott’s latest movie due to the continuing sexual allegations that are coming out.

    Is this right or wrong?

    There’s definitelty a divide in opinion.

    Something that I certainly feel is that we’re not far away from it not mattering what the courts say, because people will be condemned via social media whether they’re guilty or not.

    What’s becoming more and more evident is that the power of the internet and social media is expanding rapidly.

    It’s made people vulnerable who thought, probably rightly, they were untouchable.

    And that’s no bad thing.

    The question is… how do YOU harness it to work for you.

    You start by focusing.

    That’s what most folks don’t do!

    Don’t try to blog, post on eight social media accounts, create videos, products, send emails, record a podcast, build a membership site and run paid advertising all at the beginning.

    At best it won’t work.

    At worst you’ll end up having a break-down. And nobody wants that!

    You need to focus on one particular channel of communication. That could be email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.

    Then you need to spend all your energy getting the number of people you’re speaking to on that channel as high as possible.

    If you choose email, you should email at least once a day, possibly more if you have time.

    If you choose social media, you should be posting at least four or five times a day. Your account needs to be very active.

    Then… and this is the tough bit… don’t get distracted for the next year.

    Yup, you heard that right.

    I don’t care what anybody else says. You’re not going to be rich overnight. But if you focus and work hard, you could be well on the way there this time next year.

    Just to confirm, your focus should be to make sure that:

    You build the amount of followers in one communication channel, communicate with them regularly and make fans.

    Once you’ve begun that, there are two things which will help you.

    1) Don’t expect anything to happen quickly, just enjoy what you’re writing or posting.

    2) Don’t try and make money.

    Number one is self-explanatory, but I’m often told that number two doesn’t make any sense.

    But it’s the best way to make money.

    Why?

    Because as you build your fanbase over the next twelve months, it will be obvious to everyone involved that you aren’t out to simply make money from them.

    You actually want to start a conversation.

    It’s suprisingly difficult to have a conversation, provide entertainment and sell.

    So don’t bother. To begin with.

    Instead, spend your first year enjoying what you’re doing. During that year you’ll learn what your readers like, don’t like and what makes them stand up and shout.

    This is crucial information to be able to start selling to them in a way they’ll be happy with.

    My first website didn’t sell anything for the first two years.

    My first product launch did $196,839.

    Why?

    Because I knew exactly what my readers wanted.

    They knew I wouldn’t sell them something which wasn’t excellent.

    I had the trust of everyone in the industry, so they were all willing to support me.

    So while I didn’t sell anything for two years, the third year (and every year since) more than made up for it.

    Ciao,

    Michael

  • Happy Birthday (and how to make a killing)

    Happy Birthday (and how to make a killing)

    It’s Max’s 1st birthday today. I can’t believe it’s already been a year, I must be getting old!

    I’m a bit late writing today’s email, and that’s because I got bombarded this morning. The joys of running multiple companies.

    Anyhoo…

    I’ve got a great nugget of information for you today on how you can make an absolute killing on your next birthday.

    It’s pretty damn simple…

    Send a series of emails to your list offering them a massive discount on your products.

    Simple, and absolutely killer if you do it right.

    To do it right you need to:

    1) Make sure that you only offer this up until 11:59pm on the evening of your birthday. No if’s or but’s, if they’ve not bought it by then bad luck.

    2) Make the offer super-incredible, this works particularly for subscriptions where you will get the full recurring payment in a months time.

    3) Put a countdown timer at the very top of the page with a headline just for the special offer. This drives urgency.

    4) Put a buy button immediately under the countdown timer.

    5) Put a countdown timer above every single button on the sales page.

    6) Remember to change the pricing on the sales page so it reads the right price and you don’t confuse your customers.

    Follow those six steps and your next birthday will be one to really enjoy 😉

    Right, off out to the soft play, asta la vista!

    Michael

    P.S. Don’t forget to click on our sponsored advertising, you don’t need to buy anything, just clicking the links helps support the cost of running this newsletter.

  • The Death Toll of Buying Articles

    The Death Toll of Buying Articles

    Time and again I see people asking where they can buy articles for their blog.

    This is the WRONG approach.

    If you’re thinking of buying articles, stop, turn around and never think of it again.

    You know when you’re looking for information on something and you go to a website only to find a boring, dried up article filled with vague information that’s super-unhelpful?

    That’s a bought article.

    So you go to another website, and find almost exactly the same article. It’s not word for word, but it’s so damn close in dull content and useless information that it may as well be!

    Yup, another bought article.

    Here’s why buying articles doesn’t work…

    If you find a company that will sell articles in a variety of niches and are charging anywhere from a few dollars an article up to about twenty dollars, they’ll be no good.

    They’re trading on the fact that everybody needs blog content, and most people don’t understand what type of content they need if they really want to have a successful blog.

    A long time ago you just needed content on your site, with the right keywords for SEO.

    That doesn’t work anymore.

    Now the most important metrics include how long someone stays on your blog.

    And, to stay a long time on your blog, there’s got to be something there that they actually want to read!

    I can assure you, generic blog content is not what they want. They want something entertaining, fresh, that appeals to their sense of excitement, story and adventure, something that challenges and helps them to achieve what they came to your site to achieve to begin with.

    You won’t get this from a company that employs a load of people churning out random content on topics they don’t really know or understand.

    You also won’t get this from anybody who isn’t a native English speaker, or who is fluent and has lived in an English speaking country.

    It’s the conversational style you only get from speaking English with native English speakers that you need in your writing.

    Then you need someone who actually understands, in depth, the topics they’re talking about.

    These kind of people don’t work for those kind of companies.

    These people are called writers.

    They will charge you more, a lot more, than $0.01 per word.

    You will find them in places like Upwork or Freelancer.

    And if you want someone to write your content for you that’s actually going to benefit your website, it’s one of these guys you’re going to need.

    So stay away from the folk who’ll write you 1000 words for $10, all you’re going to do is waste $10, and you can get a couple of cups of coffee for that!

    All the best,

    Michael