One of the biggest challenges you need to overcome in order to create more sales in your business is getting people to trust what you say. Now you may very well have a great deal of integrity and be very trustworthy when it comes to your business (and I’m sure you are). But do your customers know that? And how can you make sure that they do?

‘Lack of trust’ is a big problem in advertising. You probably don’t realise how many customers DON’T believe what you say or claim in your advertising. In fact, the best rule of thumb to go by, is that NO ONE BELIEVES YOU. We often see on TV current affairs shows, people who get ripped off by businesses. And it might only be 1 in 1000 businesses in that particular industry, but of course it’s that one that will always get the headlines.

Then the general public see this and make a broad judgement on that industry to protect themselves, and then they become wary of every business. So it’s not enough to just tell people that you have this fantastic, well-respected
reputation… and so therefore you’re the company to choose. It just doesn’t work that way anymore, you need to go much further these days. Here are two powerful tips that will have more people trusting what you say.

1. People believe more of what other people say about you…
than what YOU say about you.

If you were to tell me that you are the best basketball player in your state, that you score more than everyone else and hand out more assists, I would have a fair bit of scepticism as I haven’t heard anything about you. But if 10 people came up to me and say stuff like, “Have you seen this guy? He scored 40 points last week! He was simply amazing. Plus he handed out 12 assists, he was on fire!” then you can see that makes it more readily believable right away. So go to your customers and ask them for their opinion of you. Get them to write down the wonderful experience they had dealing with you, then you can use it to show others why they should do business with you!

There is however, good and bad ways of writing a testimonial, so I’m going to tell you the best system to use. It goes something like this – ‘once I was lost, now I’m found’. For example, if you’re promoting a weight loss program, tell people how your customer ‘once weighed 180kg, and just by eating this amazing fruit bar, I lost 80kg in 2 months!’ That’s just an exaggeration of course, but just to illustrate the point. Plus, you should always include the full name and suburb, and if possible a phone number. The more information you provide the more realistic it is, and therefore more believable for your customer!

2. Simply guarantee what you do.

You are required by law to guarantee your product or service. If something doesn’t work, or breaks, or goes wrong, 99.9! A guarantee takes the risk off the customer and puts it on you, and if your customer knows you’re prepared to take the risk then they’ll feel more comfortable doing business with you.

The reason most business owners will keep their guarantee hidden is that they are worried about their customers taking advantage of them. Let’s say you’re getting a very low return rate now like 1, and by offering a guarantee it goes up to 6%. So your returns go up by 3 times, but by doing so you also triple your SALES, doesn’t it then make financial sense to offer that guarantee up front?

Obviously, if you’re paying to advertise your business, you want people to read your whole ad, so they know what you’re offering and can make an informed decision about whether to do business with you, don’t you? Here’s a few ideas you can use in your advertising to keep your reader interested:- conversational short sentences, subheadings, break up long text into short paragraphs, using bullets to speed the reader through your copy, problem-solving copy the reader identifies with, talking in “What’s in it for me?” terms, educational copy, and not revealing price til the end.

Firstly, you need to be aware of the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) concept. What that means is you need to constantly tell your customer what’s in your ad for them, because if they’re reading your ad it’s only to find out something that they want to know about. YOUR ADS NEED TO BE THE ONES THAT REWARD THEM (while your competitors’ BORE them). This also means you should understand the difference between benefits and features.

Let’s say you sell a colour TV with a 90″ screen – that’s the feature. But the benefit of this is that the screen is so big that it makes your lounge room feel like a cinema! That’s the benefit, ok? Let me now introduce you to two powerful words which will automatically suck out the benefit of any feature;

“WHICH MEANS”

In the example above, in order to put it into WIIFM terms, you could put it together like this – “This sensational TV has a whopping 90″ screen, which means you can virtually turn your lounge room into a cinema!”.

Another powerful tool you can use in your copy is bullets. Why? Because you can package up your most exciting and riveting benefits into short little bursts. In fact, the effect of bullet after bullet of really amazing benefits can actually cause nervous tension in your reader. They can get so excited that they literally can’t read any more and go straight to the ordering details. That’s how powerful they are!

Here are some examples of how intriguing bullets can be in your advertising (then you can just adapt them to your own business)

* Why the advertising you’re probably running right now is wasting you thousands of dollars, and what you need to do to turn that loss into cash

* How to get movie and TV stars to help you sell your product or service

* How to get hundreds of prospects to seek YOU out

* The one mistake 99% of businesses make which loses them tons of credibility… and thousands of dollars in sales

* The secret about human nature which expert salespeople use to make their fortune

* 11 simple ways to make your business the “king” of your industry

In fact, each bullet point you write in your advertising should be just like mini headlines that promise something of value to the reader. You might have 25 or 50 bullet points in a long sales letter, if each of them are like a mini headline, then you may only need one to stand out to your reader and make them say “Yes, I need to know more about this!”

And this is also where educational copy comes in. You can’t assume that people know as much about your business as you do. You work in it every day, and possibly been doing it for years, and often you can get frustrated because you don’t think your customers respect your value. But the reality is, THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND YOUR VALUE.

So you need to educate them about the value you offer. If you tell them something about your company, then your job is to explain why that’s important for them. Let’s say you sell an expensive mountain bike, for example. In order to get people to buy the bike you’ve got to justify why they should spend $2000 on your bike. You’ve got to tell them the reasons why, which is what educational copy is all about.

Like that the bike has better suspension to handle rough terrain, a comfy seat that you could ride the bike for hours without getting sore, and maybe it has 50 gears for easy riding, and a GPS so you never get lost. These are all just examples of course, but notice how it’s talking mainly in benefits to the reader, how it will help them!

When it comes to making the most of your website or blog, you will need to have top notch content. The bottom line is that content brings visitors to your site, and visitors bring profits.

In order to increase traffic to your site, you will want to use a good mix of keyword articles. These will go a long way in increasing your traffic from search engines. Not to mention the fact that keyword articles can also be very educational.

When looking to choose a keyword article company to help you out, there are three important things that you should keep in mind. These details are as follows.

1. A good keyword article company should be devoted to helping you succeed through quality content. This means that you will want to find a service that offers quality content, not just fluff. After all, people are going to be reading what you put on your site. If your writers do not do a good job you will not be making your visitors happy.

2. Even though price is not everything, you will want to take it into consideration. Think of it this way. If you need 10 articles a week, and one service offers them for $6 an article and another $8, you will be saving $20 total every week. Over the course of a month this is $80; and during the year $960. Surely you could find something to do with an extra $960. Remember, costs can add up; shop for the best price without compromising quality.

3. Search for personal service. When you order any type of copywriting project chances are that you will need to be in touch with the writers you are working with. This means that you should do your best to choose a service that will walk you through the process, not one that simply completes the work and sends it back without communication.

Overall, there are several top quality keyword article companies that are available to work for you. As long as you do your research and follow the tips above you should be able to find the one that best suits your needs.