Freelancer Tips

Fiverrcast Episode 32: Content That Helps You Sell

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Fiverr Team
|
April 21, 2016

Transcript

Adam: Hi there and welcome to Fiverrcast, the podcast for sellers by sellers. I’m Adam AKA Twistedweb123.Ryan: And I am Ryan AKA Customdrumloops and I’m a new recurring host on the show along with Adam and Redd. So it’s great to be here.Adam: Yeah, it’s great to have you onboard and just a heads up to all of our listeners out there. Ryan is joining us as a new co-host as he said and we’re going to rotate between the three of us, me, Redd and Ryan, to bring this show to you weekly as always.Ryan: Yes, and I sort of feel like I’m already a recurring guest because of the jingle.Adam: I was going to say we’ve got the jingle. You’ve been on a couple of times already before, if not maybe three or four times. So there’s no real change. People aren’t going to notice.Ryan: Except it’s official now. I’m officially a recurring host.Adam: Officially. So Ryan, tell us a little bit about our guest today.Ryan: So today we have Simon who is Fastcopywriter on Fiverr and he’s going to discuss the topic of writing effective content. I know he has some great Gigs where he writes copy, headlines and does things like that. So he’s going to go in-depth at his strategy and what he does and what makes successful copy.Adam: Great. Welcome to the show Simon. How are you today?Simon: I’m good. I’ve been doing Fiverr since January 2003 and I decided to call myself “Fastcopywriter” because everybody has always accused me of being fast and they’ve always told me, every job I had, that I work too fast, that I need to slow down. So since I started working on Fiverr, that’s why I picked that name. I deliver everything in three days.Ryan: You know, Simon, one thing that I noticed about your profile is that your headline is “creativity in three days or less”. Does this speak to the types of things you provide for other people? I mean that’s very concise and clear and to the point. Is that generally what you provide to your buyers or are they looking for a wide range of copy and headlines, things like that?Simon: Yes. I think like for example for Teespring, a lot of people were doing Teespring for a while. They were selling T-shirts but they need words for the T-shirts because just having a picture is not enough. So I will come up with headlines for T-shirts or I would do headlines for billboards or web banners, for everything, because advertising is not just a picture. You say a picture has a thousand words but people then are going to need to see some words to know what you’re about.Adam: So it’s great to have you on the show then for this episode because we’re effectively looking at how you can write effective content and kind of looking at things like hard Gig descriptions which are quite relatively short and you’re not exactly going to write a massive essay because you’re limited by your characters.So we’re hoping today that your previous experience with these shorter kind of I should say headlines and advertisements such as LinkedIn summaries, regular commercials, Teespring with the T-shirts, et cetera, is going to give us a lot of information today about how we can write compelling information in our Gigs to secure those sales and hopefully increase our orders.Simon: Right. I think if you’re going to write a Gig description, you have two options. One option is you can try to sound like an ad and I don’t like doing it that way. Another option is that you can try being yourself but my approach is I like to get to the point quickly. I like to answer all questions and I also like to separate the paragraphs because it makes it easier to read than having one Gigantic paragraph with no breaks.Adam: Yeah. When it comes to Gig descriptions, the thing I like to do if it’s possible on that Gig is within each description, I like to kind of put something I like to call a qualifying question in, where for example I have the Gig at the moment that helps with programming and helps with website issues and things along these lines. I actually start off the Gig with my qualifying question which is basically, “Are you struggling? Have you been looking at the same issue for hours and need some help?”Now my whole idea behind that is it’s quick, it’s sharp and all of my buyers or people who should be buying my Gig should be answering that question yes. Then I want them to kind of like subconsciously take that yes and be drawn into my Gig and either be drawn into the point of order there or to be drawn in enough that I’ve got their focus. I’ve got their attention and then I can go on to the rest of the information inside of that.Ryan: I think that’s great. I think when you have strategy like that, you’re filtering out a lot of the questions that are unnecessary. I know for me personally, I like to separate the Gig basic from the extras and make those two separate sections that are very clear that those are separate things and just like Simon touched on, when you lay everything out the right way, it’s going to answer a lot of the questions before they even think to ask them, which only saves yourself time that you can be focusing on other things that are going to bring in more revenue.Simon: A good example is from a friend of mine called “Freelancemomma”. What I like about the way she wrote is that she only wrote one paragraph with two sentences. She got to the point quickly and she’s directing people to the Gig extras which is where the real money is.Adam: I think the split there and the ability of being concise is really important because sometimes I come across Gigs and they will kind of start off – let’s say logo design. They will say for $5, I will create a logo. Oh, and I can do this and I can do this and I can do this and this and this and this.You kind of think to yourself, well, wait a second. Before you try and upsell me and make me buy more, really sell your actual base service to me and then go on to the upsell because if you’re trying to do it all in one, you haven’t hooked the buyer enough yet to actually be interested whereas if you’re spending that first paragraph of saying, “I can create a logo for you for $5. It’s going to be more than unique and involve X amount of revisions,” et cetera, et cetera, and the buyer kind of says, “OK, this is what I need,” and then they come back and say, “And there are also these additional options available.”You’ve been hooked in on the bottom and then it’s your choice of upgrading as opposed to everything kind of being given at you at once where you don’t really know where the direction is or you haven’t been sold enough that you’re ready to commit to upselling or even actually just buying the basic Gig.Ryan: Yeah, I think that’s very true. I almost think it’s like a reverse pyramid where you have the small point where that’s your main Gig and once that becomes clear, that’s when you sort of filter them into the more options where you can upsell. But the further down they read, the more sold they are in that initial offering and that’s where – you sort of build that trust up with what you offer at the beginning. I think the more clear you are with that, the more the buyer is going to be likely to trust you.Simon: One of the things I like to do is put certain instructions in bold or highlight them, but be careful with the bold because if you overdo it, then nobody is going to read anything.For example one of the things I put in bold for my company main Gig is, “Please don’t message me asking if you can order. If the Gig is active, you can order,” and I do that because I get way too many messages.Adam: I think the point about having everything in bold is a very valid point. I kind of – I like to liken it to if there was a crowd of people standing in front of you and one person shouted, “Hey, look at me!” You look at them.If there’s a crowd of 50 people standing in front of you and 30 of them shouted, “Hey, look at me!” it would make no difference. You can’t kind of focus your attention or view on anything. So I agree. Using the bold tool and things like the highlight is a really great option to have to make those things stand out. But as you say, you’ve really got to pick and choose what you want to make stand out because if you overdo it, then nothing really stands out. It’s all – and the only thing you’re going to kind of do is lose that focus.Ryan: Simon, I have a question for you. In all of your Gigs even though they’re writing Gigs, you use a video. Do you have a strategy for using this video? Because I think it’s great because I think a lot of copywriters on Fiverr, they just have a standard image and don’t have a video and everybody knows videos increase conversions. Do you have a strategy with putting your videos together? What was your strategy in putting those up with your Gigs?Simon: Well, I hire people on Fiverr to make videos for me, for two reasons. One, I don’t like to appear on camera. I think I’m more of a behind the scenes kind of person and two, there are people that do amazing whiteboard videos and blackboards and it just makes my Gigs look better. So I try to make my videos kind of like an ad, like 40 seconds or 60 seconds, but not too long. Otherwise people get bored and that has helped me.Ryan: Yeah. It looks like too a lot of the headlines are actually in the Gig videos. So you’re almost giving a portfolio within your portfolio.Simon: Every once in a while, I might do something like that.Adam: I think the great thing with things – actually the video relating to your content is for me, the best thing that you can do is the content is there to read the information and get the nitty-gritty and understand what’s going on. Then the video is kind of there to summarize that and provide almost like a takeaway if you like.So if you’re looking at the Gig and there’s a certain buzz line that you’re using. For example Simon on your profile where you say, “Creativity in three days or less,” repeating that inside your video and then it’s basically expanding upon that in your Gig description, explaining that I work quickly. All deliveries are inside this time period, et cetera. You’re giving a consistent message to your buyer and something that should resonate with them and they should take away.So when they’re thinking – you know, the next time they need anything written, they may think, “Right. Who can write this radio commercial for me? Oh, I remember. There was ‘Fastcopywriter’ who could do anything in three days or less,” and you’ve effectively kind of linked your video to the further explanation inside your description and you’ve offered that takeaway and something that resonates.Ryan: Yes. A consistent branding across everything, the channel, the videos, the descriptions, yeah, I think that’s great.Simon: The irony is that one time, I tried doing everything in 24 hours or less for free. I didn’t get a lot of orders from that. So it really wasn’t worth it. I think most people, they have enough patience to wait three days and if they don’t, they can purchase extra fast.Ryan: Yeah, I think from my experience, if someone really needs it that next day, they will be willing to pay whatever you ask.Adam: Yeah. For me, there’s a tipping point where there are those people who need it quickly and they go ahead and order your service but on some services, if everything was inside 24 hours – or even like say two days is the whole tipping point, depending on what service you’re offering.But people may look at that and go, “Well, how good is this going to be if he can do 80 orders in 24 hours for everyone?” So I think when it comes to kind of setting that, there’s that kind of tipping point of understanding that yes, there are those buyers who are in a rush and will pay extra but if everything was really, really clicking with a lot of orders, some buyers may actually not order from you potentially because they think, “Well, is it really that feasible and if so, what’s the quality going to be like?”So again, I think that’s actually where the content really comes into play because by having that information inside your content or speaking to your buyer in that way that they’re looking at you and deciding on you as opposed to all the other variable factors in your queue such as what standard delivery time, what’s expedited delivery time, how many orders are in queue, if you’re selling them enough inside your content, those things kind of become minute small factors because you’ve already got them hooked.Simon: Yes, that is true. One of the things I like about Fiverr is how much flexibility you have. I saw a proofreader and she was doing 200 words for $5 but then if you want her to proofread a book of 15,000 words for example, she charges $500 and then if you want to do like 100,000 words, I think it’s like $900. I saw her queue and she didn’t have a lot of orders but the thing is really when she gets orders, she might be making $500 or $900.Adam: Well, my technique for kind of – for taking out all those kinds of variable factors is to really concentrate on the buyer and to kind of reference the buyer in their situation. So let’s say I’ve got a logo design Gig. Let’s say I’ve got a hundred orders in queue and I’m writing, “I will create a logo,” blah, blah, blah, so on, so on, so on. That could sound quite mechanical. It could sound very kind of machiney where yeah, if you come in, I take you on. You leave again. Whereas I like to personally reference that situation.So I will say things like, “I will create your logo,” “I will help with your website,” and kind of attract or gauge their attention. So in the time that they’re reading my information or reading my Gig, they kind of get the impression that my whole focus is on them as opposed to a kind of mechanical service that I’m performing.Ryan: Yeah, you’re almost building a relationship with the reader and telling a story with your description rather than just stating fact after fact after fact. I think that gives it a lot less of a mechanical element and it makes them feel like you’re speaking directly to them.Adam: Yeah. I think that really helps them with things because there’s always kind of a tipping point as well where you get so many in queue no matter what service you offer and some people may be a little bit put off by that.But doing things such as reference them to their face almost if you like, kind of takes that away where you can kind of liken it to being – that when you go into a restaurant and it’s really busy and it looks really busy, but if a server comes up to you and says, “Hey, can I show you to your table?” or anything along these lines where they’re referencing you, you kind of feel well taken care of and it’s regardless of how busy it is around there. You come away having a good service whereas if everything is very kind of mechanical and, “This is the table, this is the menu. What would you like?” et cetera as opposed to directly reference them all the time, you kind of lose that and it does get a bit mechanical.Ryan: And that’s definitely true. I mean it adds that personalized element.Simon: Another thing I would like to mention is that sometimes you can – you should only overpromise if you feel you can deliver. Like with my headline Gig, I would say that I will write five amazing headlines in three days because I feel that I can deliver the item. I’ve always been really great with writing headlines. But with brand names, it’s more subjective. That’s why I don’t make promises there that I make in some of my other Gigs.Ryan: So as a copywriter, if I were to come to you as a buyer, and have the most positive experience, what information would I provide to make your life easier to ensure that I get back what I want? Just because like you said, it is so subjective with what you’re delivering because people do – they tend to let their personal emotions and their personal feelings cloud actual good headlines because it wasn’t what they were expecting. I’m sure Adam the same thing happens with logos.What advice do you have to potential buyers that are coming to you? What information can they provide you, references, samples? Is there something that makes your life easier when writing headlines or copy for somebody?Simon: Well, first, don’t give me too many instructions because that is very confusing. I just need to know the who, the what, the where, the why, the when and the how.Ryan: Do you have a questionnaire you give to buyers when they open an order, asking for specific things or do you leave it up to them? Do you have a strategy with that?Simon: Yes. When they order, there’s an automatic message that they get and in the case of our company names, I will ask them to provide me three examples of their competition. So I can sort of know what they like. That way, if somebody likes brand names like Nike, I know in what direction to go.Adam: See I think this is actually quite an interesting perspective to kind of ask what are you kind of expecting from your buyer when they come to you and what’s helpful.I think the actual – the answer there rings true for the exact – you know, the opposite situation whereas when a buyer comes on to a seller’s profile, what should the seller be offering to kind of getting their attention and when you say, “Don’t give me too much information,” I think that’s extremely key on that side as well. Whereas if you go to a Gig and – you know, you could write a Gig description with 1200 characters the maximum.But if it waffles and it’s not concise and you’re pretty much telling them everything like in your – your cat’s name, it’s going to be difficult. You’re going to lose interest. It’s going to be difficult for them to order from you whereas if you’re keeping things short, sharp and to the point with just that kind of promise or the call to action that you mentioned and gaining their interest, there’s no need to go overboard with it or take away from that by giving too much information.I like to say you need to keep kind of a little bit of mystery so they want to order as opposed to showing them everything and anything and it’s just being put off.Simon: Another trick is that in the instructions section, once they place that order, you can write a PS like, “I’m getting a lot of orders. That’s why you won’t hear from me unless I have questions or the order is done. Thanks for understanding.” I had to put it there because some buyers after they order, they get offended if you don’t thank them for their order right away or if you don’t ask them questions or if you don’t communicate. I really don’t have the time especially with the amount of orders I’m getting.Adam: I think a lot of sellers come across the same kind of situation where there’s a lot of sellers in queue or a lot of buyers in queue I should say and you can’t always answer every single message related to that and you’ve obviously got this deadline. What I like to put in my instructions is basically a line that says, “Delivery is going to be within X amount of days. In the meantime, why don’t you go ahead and check some other services or offerings I have available on my Gig.”So I kind of try to use that attention where if they’re coming back to my page and checking out what’s going on or think about messaging me, they’re always going to see this message that says, “Well, check out what else I offer.” So if they’ve got that free time, I try and circle them back into using that to order from me again and check out what else I do and it kind of works. A lot of people kind of do come across and end up buying multiple products from me whilst they’re waiting for another product to be delivered.Ryan: I do the same thing you do Adam and I think a big part of it is when you don’t have this open stream of communication, some buyers assume there’s something wrong with the order. So I always like to add in on top of that and say, “Hey, if I run into any roadblocks or problems, I will let you know. Otherwise, we’re on track to have delivery before the quoted deadline.”So that way, they know there’s no problems. But if there are, I will contact them and I think that just adds another element of, OK, you’re not just ignoring me until the order is due. You gave me that communication, almost like similar to being in a restaurant and saying, “Hey, just so you know, your table will be ready in 45 minutes,” versus you’re standing there waiting, not knowing.Adam: Yeah, I think actually that’s a great tip. It makes a lot of sense because it’s pretty much the whole case of, “If something is wrong, I will let you know. If not, we’re good,” as opposed to them having to check back every day or a couple of hours. It depends on the delivery time and kind of say, “Hey, how are we doing? Any problems?” et cetera, and I think you’ve hit it exactly with the nail on the head there in that scenario because I’ve received a similar kind of circumstance where if I’ve got a 14-day delivery on one of my Gigs, about five or six days in, I might kind of get asked, “Is everything cool? Is everything OK?” and it’s kind of like, yeah, it is. But I am definitely going to utilize what you’ve just mentioned.Ryan: Yeah. I mean people appreciate it too. It’s like, “Wow, thanks so much!” you know. It basically – you’re telling them that everything is on track and going well.Simon: Another tip I can give you is that sometimes if you are – you can have a little bit of fun with your Gig description. Like for my radio Gig, I wrote it like a radio commercial.Ryan: I mean I think that’s great too because then you’re actually demonstrating what they’re getting.Adam: You touched upon earlier that you shouldn’t really make a call to action or a promise if you can’t deliver on it. So let’s say any call to action that we make – you know, just as – granted we can deliver on it. In your personal opinion, what sort of call-to-actions work? What gains traction and is likely to see you get more orders?Simon: “Satisfaction guaranteed” is a standard of advertising and people trust it. When you see “satisfaction guaranteed,” or you can return and get all your money back, then people are more likely to make a purchase.Ryan: I think you can make a call to action too in your case with just the speed in which you deliver. I mean I think when people go on Fiverr, they’re looking for different elements. Some people just want to find something that’s cheap. Some people want to find something that’s delivered fast. Some people are prioritizing quality and are willing to wait and pay more money. I think just the fact that you’re saying it’s basically guaranteed in three days, that in itself is a call to action because there’s not a lot of people who can do that.Adam: For me, one of the biggest call-to-actions I like to use is – we’ve discussed having the first paragraph as let’s sell the service and then go into the extras. One of the biggest call-to-actions I like to use is something along the lines of, “Upgrade your order,” or “See the additional extras below to maximize the value of your purchase.”So I like to use that kind of sentence to kind of put the onus on the buyer that yes, it’s certainly more expensive but you’re going to receive a much higher value from upgrading. So I kind of take away the increased cost like implication there and kind of put the focus on the value and it’s up to them how much value they want to receive, which will see me gain higher and larger orders because they’re making the conscious decision to get more from me and get a higher value as opposed to just thinking they have to spend more money.Ryan: I think value is the biggest thing. No matter how much you’re spending, you want to get the value for what you’re spending and so I think placing the emphasis on that is placing it on something very positive that everybody wants regardless of what they’re buying and that’s what it comes back to. When your quality is there, they’re going to be willing to spend more and they will see that increase in value the higher and higher they spend.Adam: So coming away from the Gig description slightly and looking at something like the Gig title, what would your biggest suggestions be for having a good Gig title? What’s the key to that?Simon: Well, I think you have to have a verb because active sentences are more powerful than passive sentences. Your Gig title should tell buyers pretty much everything they need to know, how many days it’s going to take you and what you’re going to do. You may or may not use an adjective. I mean I have a Gig title called, “I will write an email in three days or less,” and that gets to the point. I could have said, “I will write an amazing email in three days or less.” But in this situation, I decided not to overpromise.Ryan: I think being as clear as you possibly can with your Gig title is the best way to get clicks I found from testing out different titles and then where your description is, that’s where you actually make the sale more. But I do think that that – it’s almost like – I’m sure you know Simon writing for an AdWords campaign, you want to get that lowest cost per click but you’re actually doing the selling on the page after they click. So I think they’re both important. You just need to address them differently in terms of your strategy for approaching them.Simon: Yes. The other thing you can do with Gig titles is offer quantity.Adam: I really agree with the active verb sentiment because I set up a Gig and it was originally called, “I will improve your website with 10 tips,” and the Gig did very well. It got a lot of orders and because of that, a lot of other people started offering similar kind of services and everyone else was improving your website, et cetera.I went back in and I looked at my competition and I kind of thought, well, I don’t want to change my Gig title too much because this is what people know me by. But what can I do to improve it? I then changed it to, “I will review and improve your website with 10 tips.” I kind of looked at my competitors and realized that not everything was customized. Some of it was just premade reports and even the ones that were reviewing weren’t necessarily mentioning that.So by just adding that active verb in, which I was – you know, I was doing the work anyway. I was looking at people’s websites and then improving them. But by telling them inside with the active verb that I will review and then improve instantly gained my orders or increase my orders again and got me back on track at a period where it went a little bit stale because there was so much competition around.Ryan: Hey, I think it’s interesting when you start looking at how much one word can change drastically like a conversion rate or extra clicks to your Gig. It’s interesting to play around with those things and see what works.Simon: I agree although I wouldn’t be changing your Gig title every day. I would leave it for like a week or two weeks and see what’s going on and then if your sales are really down, then maybe make a change. But if you change it every day, you’re not going to know what’s going on.Ryan: So Simon, to close it out, what advice would you give – if you had to give three things to somebody who is looking to write effective content, what would be the three most important things to focus on?Simon: Well, be clear, be concise, get to the point quickly. Use an active verb and check your spelling because people will discriminate against you if they catch a spelling mistake.Ryan: That’s great Simon. I appreciate that. I mean I think that’s great advice and everybody is writing copy of some sort, whether it be on their website and taking those things into mind, I think that will help a lot of people.Adam: Well, that’s all we have time for this week. Again thanks to Simon for joining us. You can find him on Fiverr as Fastcopywriter. Our jingle was made by “Customdrumloops,” Ryan who is on the show today and as always, we were edited by Dansha. Thanks a lot and see you next week.Transcript by Trans-Expert

Fiverr Team
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