Copywriting Secrets To Help You Get More Leads & Clients

Copywriting Secrets To Help You Get More Leads & Clients

Tim Fitzpatrick
Great copywriting can be the difference between a sea of leads or a puddle. That is why we are talking to our special guest today, and she is going to share some of her best copywriting secrets to help you get more leads and clients. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I am super excited to have with me, Alyson Lex. Allison is a direct response copywriter and the co-host of the System to Thrive podcast. Alyson, welcome and thanks for being here with me.

Alyson Lex
Thanks so much for having me. I am so excited. I know we connected on my podcast. Your episode comes out later this year and now I'm on yours. It's a win-win situation.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. Thank you for returning the favor and coming on and chatting with them. And I'm excited to talk about this because copywriting is often overlooked and it should not be. So you are the expert and I'm going to pick your brain today.

Alyson Lex
Let's do it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Before I do that, let's jump into some rapid-fire questions just to kind of get to know you a little bit better. You ready to jump into this?

Alyson Lex
I'm ready.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK, awesome. When you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?

Alyson Lex
If it's spring or summer, I'm in the garden. If it is fall or winter, I'm usually cozied up with a book.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK, love it. What's your hidden talent?

Alyson Lex
I can identify any sound in my house without having seen what made up.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I've never heard that before that. I like that. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Alyson Lex
It wasn't actually advice, it was just something an old friend used to say all the time that stuck, and it was it's not that serious and it really helped me just kind of understand that sometimes things are not that serious and just take everything in stride.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Take it with a grain of salt, sometimes we blow things out of proportion.

Alyson Lex
Exactly. In five, ten minutes, is this going to matter in five months? Is it going to matter in five years? It's definitely not going to matter.

Tim Fitzpatrick
My wife and I are always asking our kids, is this going to matter tomorrow? Yes or no.

Alyson Lex
It's not that serious.

Tim Fitzpatrick
No? OK, then let's drop it. What's one thing about you that surprises people?

Alyson Lex
The one thing about me that surprises people is when I tell them that I have once been bitten by a giraffe.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Oh, my God, where did that happen?

Alyson Lex
The story is not as exciting as the punch line. I'll share it. I was at the zoo. They have those little things where you can feed them lettuce. And I was trying to get a picture of me feeding the giraffe lettuce and the giraffe got impatient.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Our kids are still young. But when they were younger, we used to go to the Colorado Springs Zoo quite often. And they have an exhibit like that where it's and the giraffe just poked their head over. It was a cool thing. Our kids loved it. Fortunately, we never nobody ever got bit. So did you have to get, like, a shot or anything or no?

Alyson Lex
It didn't break the skin. It didn't. I mean, like, I don't know if you fed horses, carrots and they have those big teeth, drafty for very, very similar. They have long fangs, usually grab the lettuce with their tongue, but very impatient. And he just kept it wasn't like a big my whole hand didn't go in there. But that's why I say the punch line is better than the story.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. That's another good one. What does success mean to you?

Alyson Lex
A success for me is being able to give myself and my family the life that we want, which includes time, freedom, giving back. And I always like to say, like, my one goal for my kid is that he grows up not to be a jerk. OK, so that would be success.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. Awesome. Where's your happy place?

Alyson Lex
I have a pond in my backyard. I call it my zen spot. If I need to decompress, I just go and I sit and I watch my fish and I count my frogs. I have frogs that have come to live in the pond, tons of tadpoles. I count them, I find them and count them. It's weird.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So frogs and then are they like koi or goldfish. What is?

Alyson Lex
I have both. I have koi and goldfish and we get herrand quite frequently. We have Blue Heron here in Baltimore and they like to come and swoop. So we have fewer koi than we used to.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Oh man. So you see the circle of life happening in your pond?

Alyson Lex
I have been known on occasion to run through my backyard screaming to get away from my fish. And these birds are big. I don't know if you've ever seen a great blue heron up close, but they're taller than me. They're very intimidating, but I will yell at them to and I've watched my poor fish fly through the air.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Oh boy. What qualities do you value in the people whom you spend time with?

Alyson Lex
I value a sense of humor. I value loyalty, honesty, I value positivity and comfort. Just being that comfortable feeling that you have when you're around people, I really value that feeling.

Tim Fitzpatrick
All good qualities.

Alyson Lex
Yes.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So before we jump into talking about copywriting, just tell us more about what you're doing, the types of businesses you work with, all that, all that good stuff.

Alyson Lex
So small question. Got it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes.

Alyson Lex
I write what's called direct response sales copy. And the reason I make the distinction there is there's branding copy, there's advertising copy, and then there's copy that is designed to get your people to take one singular action. Most online marketers use direct response even if they don't know it. So depending on the market, sometimes I'll say I'm a high conversion sales copywriter or what have you. But direct response is the name of the game. I write anything that comes what I call post traffic.

Alyson Lex
You have a community on Facebook you're trying to convert and a landing page? Coll. I'll write the landing page. It's up to you to write the post. I don't do ads. I don't do traffic. I do all of the conversion stuff on the back end. Your sales pages, landing pages, emails, websites, that kind of thing. And I typically work in the expert space, people who sell knowledge and or transformation. So coaches, course creators, you know, that kind of thing. But frankly, I'm a little more industry-agnostic than I probably should be.

Tim Fitzpatrick
If you can write copy, you can write copy.

Alyson Lex
And you learn stuff from everything you do. And so I'm able to take information from, for instance, selling software and potentially sell a membership or vice versa.

Tim Fitzpatrick
One of the things you said before we jumped on on-air here was that if the client brings the traffic, you will convert it.

Alyson Lex
Get traffic and I'll convert them.

The Common Mistakes People Make with Copywriting

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I think that was that's a very easy way for people to understand it. You're not writing ad copy. You're writing all the stuff that once the traffic comes there to convert that lead to a client. So that's awesome. I love it. So let's I mean, we can't have a conversation without talking about mistakes. What are some of the common mistakes that you see people make with their copywriting?

Alyson Lex
How long is this livestream?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, here you go on and on. But yeah, yeah, people are making mistakes all the time. So let's bring those to the surface so people don't make them.

Alyson Lex
Number one is they focus too much on themselves or their product. They do not focus enough on the customer. And the reason that this is a mistake is I don't care about you. I'm so sorry to say it like that. And it sounds really harsh, but people inherently are selfish creatures and it doesn't matter what we hear about our first knee jerk reaction is how does this affect me?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it's so funny. And you say this because we talked about this exact same thing when you interviewed me on your podcast.

Alyson Lex
It's that common.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's yeah. I mean, it sucks to think about it, but our customers don't care. They care about how we can help them solve the roadblock or problem that they have.

Alyson Lex
Right. And, you know, the thing is like. Of course, you care about your friends, of course, you feel connected to people, and of course, you can be on someone's side. But if they don't have your best interests at heart, you're not on their side because they're not on yours. And so when you're marketing to someone, it's really important to make them feel that they're not alone. You understand them and you're on their team.

Alyson Lex
You know, and the way we do that in a couple of different ways. And, you know, this is kind of a related mistake, but the one way to not do this is start your marketing with the word I. Or me or my or us or our or any personal, possessive, personal pronoun, right, the first person pronoun. You want to avoid that. I want to say for the first, third or more of your copy. The only exception I know you're going to say something, I'm going to let you know it's good I'm taking over.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's all good.

Alyson Lex
The only exception to this is if you can immediately take it back to them. Like if you say, for instance, I understand how hard it is you're experiencing XYZ. That's the only exception to that third or half rule I just mentioned.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. So I love that. And that statement you just made, the way I look at that is it's an empathetic statement. You're are using I but you're letting them know that you understand what it's like to be in their shoes. So we shouldn't be using we, I, us. We should be focusing more on you, your that type of terminology. That's going to help us not talk about ourselves.

Alyson Lex
Yes, that's exactly it. And that's why I say that rule because it helps you to shift the focus. I'm not going to sell anybody on my copy services or my trainings or anything. If I'm like, hey, by the way, I'm awesome. I've done all of this. These are the results I've gotten. This is what I like. I haven't given you a reason to care yet. And I'm going to give you that reason to care by connecting the dots for you on how it's going to impact or improve your life.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I actually had this conversation with somebody I think on the last podcast episode I had. You know, where especially in the Internet marketing space, you see people all the time who are using ads and videos where it's like, hey, look at me, here's my private jet or here's my awesome house right on the water. And why do you feel like people do that? I mean, does it work to a certain extent or is that just the type of people they want to attract? Why are they doing that?

Alyson Lex
OK, so I'm not 100 percent privy to the last podcast episode. Yeah. Hashtag transparency. I'm not sure if you were introduced to the term bro marketing.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Bro? No. OK, I like country music and I'm familiar with the term bro country so. I have an idea where you're going with this, but yes.

Alyson Lex
There is a subset of the market, especially online marketing industry, that is referred to as Bro Marketing. A very good friend of mine, Aleesha Bar calls it Lambro Marketing. I really like that. But it is about status and what quote-unquote, bro marketers have identified. And, you know, there's a lot of hate for brand marketers, but I say you've got your audience more power to you. But they have identified that their audience values that status. And so by showcasing that status, they're tapping into a value of their audience. If your audience does not value that status, that style of marketing will not work for you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, so. It works for them because they understand their ideal clients and their target market. That's why that works.

Alyson Lex
100 percent.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome. I love it. What other mistakes? So let's say I understand. I'm not talking about me. I'm focusing on my clients' problems and the results that we can get for them. I've got that nailed down. What mistakes do people still make on top of that?

Alyson Lex
On top of that, a lot of people will focus on what they give or what they deliver, what they do, the features of their thing, rather than this is going to sound familiar, why their customer should care or the benefits. So they'll say in this program, you're going to get eight weeks of sorry, I'm like, OK, eight weeks of one on one calls and blah, blah, blah. And while that works to help the logical side of a brain justify a buying decision, that's not the side of the brain or the part of the brain that actually makes the buying decision.

Alyson Lex
We need to connect emotionally and we do that through expressing benefits. So I love to give features, but I use a transitional statement. And my former boss and mentor, Bill Glazer, called it the one-two punch with bullet points. You tell them what they get. You use a transitional statement like so you can or so that you or so you will, and then you tell them why they care. You get eight weeks of one on one calls so, you know, transition statement, your questions will always be answered specific to you, customized for your needs directly to your situation. Right. Whatever we decide the reason they want those calls is. We're not just telling them they get these calls, we're telling them why it's awesome that they get these calls.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Why it's important and why they should care.

Alyson Lex
Why it's important and why they care. So the transition statement always remember, if you're going to tell them what they get, transition into why they want it or why they care. OK, so that's the features and benefits. I have a third mistake that I see a whole lot.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Please.

Alyson Lex
And when I if I touch on this with, like a prepared presentation, I have a picture of this, like, really skinny little kid with big two big boxing gloves, like boxing gloves that are too big and he's like wimpy. And I say they went out, out when it comes to actually asking for the sale. They don't ask for it, they do all of this work to set up why they're their audience wants a thing, how it's going to transform their lives, and then it's almost like the attitude goes to and if you want to, you can get it here.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Right. So it's not a really clear call to action of what they want them to do.

Alyson Lex
We want to make sure that we are not leaving anything to chance. OK, I like to be very, very crystal clear with my call to action, even so much as saying if you want this awesome product here, at this special rate that I've given you, click the hot pink button right below. Enter your credit card details and hit submit. You will then get an email with your password, like give them exactly what you do and also what to expect once they do it.

Alyson Lex
That's really important, too, because it sets an expectation that you're going to follow through. A lot of people have been burned. A lot of people are a little wary. Right, I remember at the end of last year, I bought and it was actually before Thanksgiving, so it was not quite the end, but it was in November. I bought a Christmas ornament for my podcast co-host, Jennie, who I know you've had on your show.

Alyson Lex
And it was a plastic dumpster with plastic flames and it just had 2020 on it because I always called a dumpster fire and I bought it for and I had it shipped to our house. And then I never heard anything. And it was like fifteen dollars, I wasn't that upset, I couldn't remember who I even bought it from, right. And I had just deemed it lost in my head. She finally got it, I think, in February or March.

Alyson Lex
Right. But that's not the experience you want your people to have where you're like, I don't know what happens now. You want your people to say, once I click this button, I'll be taken to a form and then I'll get an email. And they know exactly step by step what is going to happen, especially if you're asking them to invest a lot of money with you for a recurring amount of money. Fifteen dollars wasn't a big deal, so it was one hundred and fifty dollars. You can bet it would have been a bigger deal. Just because of the amount of the investment, it was kind of an impulse purchase, that's what I do lately.

Tim Fitzpatrick
How do you feel about, you know, we see all kinds of different calls to action. Sometimes people get cute with them, you know, like I see like we have a get a free consultation. I see people, you know, it's like get your AHA session or whatever it may be. How do you feel about getting cute with that or should we be just buy now, order now? What are your thoughts on that?

Alyson Lex
So there is recent research that has shown that the more active call to action does work more. So, for instance, for, let's say, a webinar registration, instead of saying, sign up now, have it say yes, save my seat. You're personalizing it to the person, but you're also making it an action item for them, it's I'm having trouble explaining it, but it's more personalized to naming a discovery session or something. I'm always a fan of naming processes, sessions, whatever I say that and my own discovery session is a discovery session.

Alyson Lex
Because I don't have a better name. So that is the key though. Name it something cool. If you have a cool name don't name it something cool just to not name it what it is. Right. Know, I mean when you're on the phone with me we're discovering whether we're good fit. There's not necessarily any AHA's to be had. So calling it an AHA session would be misleading.

The Must-have Elements in a Sales Page

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Got it. So let's transition and start talking about sales pages. We talked in the beginning that if people bring you traffic, you're going to convert that. What elements need to go into a sales page?

Alyson Lex
Oh boy. Again, I could talk about this for forever. The first thing is you have to grab their attention. You do that with a good headline. And if you're watching this video or listening to this recording and you can pull out some paper because I'm going to give you a formula. Audience plus benefit, plus time minus objection. So who it's for, what they get, how long until they see results and the removal of a pain point is a good formula to start a headline.

Alyson Lex
OK, now caveat, it can be like a stool or a table, right? There are three-legged tables out there, but two-legged tables fall over. You can use three out of the four of those if the fourth doesn't fit. But one of those things must always be a benefit. So you can have it be audience benefit time. Audience benefit minus objection. Audience time minus. Well, benefit time minus objection. Right. All of that. As long as benefit is one of those three.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK, so one more time the whole thing. So it's audience benefit.

Alyson Lex
Audience plus benefit plus time. Minus objection.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it.

Alyson Lex
So it would be for instance, attention online business owners. Discover how to create a simple strategy that drives leads and sales in the next two weeks without convoluted funnel maps that give you a headache. OK, that is a very long. Kind of crazy one, I would then take that and edit it and work with it a little bit, but I literally just spit it out.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK. So we've got our headline. It's the hook, it's bringing people in.

Alyson Lex
It's bringing people in, and I don't want you to give too much pressure. I don't want you to put too much pressure on the headline. Its only job is to get people to start reading it. Once you do that, we have to do what I call poking the bruise, and that is activating dormant pain. When you have a bruise, when you first hurt yourself, it hurts. The next day you have the ugly purple circle and it only hurts when you push it. Because it's not active, it's not the front of your mind anymore.

Alyson Lex
And that's how your people are walking through their lives. So we're going to identify the problem and poke the bruise. Let them know I understand this sucks for you, remember all the stuff we said back at the beginning, I understand you're not alone. I'm on your team. I understand the sucks for you. And I imagine it's going to be can imagine it's going to get worse or if it's not solved, this is going to happen or all of that. And then we want to introduce the solution. This is where you get to talk about yourself.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Just a little bit, right?

Alyson Lex
Well, this is by this point, you should be at least a third of the way through your copy. We're spending a lot of time on that pain and that introduction. So you can say, like, this is introducing my amazing program and this is what's included. And this is why you care what's included and this is how it's going to help you. And this is what it's designed to solve for you and blah, blah, blah. After that, guess what we get to do? Show them how to get it. Call to action, and this is where we don't want to wimp out. This is where we give them those crystal clear instructions. And then at the very end. We are now revisiting. All the stuff we talked about in step two, where we poke the bruise, this is where we don't let them walk away without a solution.

Alyson Lex
This is where we say with this product, with this program, you're not going to have to experience XYZ anymore. You will have this better future. It starts today kind of thing. And the reason we format it that way. The reason this formula is set up this way is that humans and I mentioned this we buy based on emotion, but we justify that purchase with logic. And so with this formula, if you think about it, we're hitting them emotionally all the way through steps one and two, step three and into step four, while step three, step three.

Alyson Lex
But three and four are really logic-focused. We're giving you all the justification there in steps three and four that you need to decide to make this purchase. But then in step five, we're bringing you back into that emotional state, into that part of your brain that's going to actually hit that buy button.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Do you at the end of that section five, do you put in your call to action again?

Alyson Lex
Oh, yes. So I do not just put a buy button. Let's say we're talking about a sales pitch. The buy button is peppered throughout all over. Usually, once I've gotten and this is again, assuming that I've got a multimodal course, for example, if I'm selling a course. Probably after I talk about module four or five out of eight, I'll drop a first by button. And maybe that by button will then knock them down to where I introduce the price. Right, and then but then once I've introduced the price, which is really in the beginning of step four, I'm hitting that buy button so that every scroll of the mouse.

Alyson Lex
OK, if you have a scrolling mouse like I do, yeah. Every scroll, so every screen. Yeah, there's a buy button somewhere on there. We do not want them to have to go to work. Yeah, we do not want them to have to do that. And there's one website that doesn't do this, and it drives me crazy. If you go on amazon.com and you go to a product page and you read the reviews and you have to scroll all the way back up. And I just I mentioned earlier, I'm a very impulsive late-night shopper. Do you know how much money I've saved because Amazon doesn't have a buyback? I'm dead serious on that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, so you probably don't want them to fix that?

Alyson Lex
Well, you know, I doubt they're listening to little me anyway.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Or me. So who cares? OK, so I want to run through these elements again because you've really broken this down into very simple steps. So we've got our headline, which is our hook. It's bringing people in. Step two, we're poking the bruise. We're bringing that the active that dormant pain up to the surface. Three, is we're introducing the solution to that pain. Four, we've got our call to action. And if I'm a good student here, I kind of wrote it down.

Tim Fitzpatrick
We want to let them know what to expect. Here's what's going to happen. Here's what you can expect when you do this. Really paint that picture. And then step five, we're revisiting that dormant pain again to bring that emotion back into it. Our call to action. We should only have one. Right. So our call to action is going to be peppered throughout this page, but it's typically going to be introduced somewhere in step three and then be peppered throughout the rest of the page Did I get that?

Alyson Lex
I have no more to add.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK, I do. I have a question for you. We've all landed on these sales pages where it's a novel. I mean, you're scrolling down the page and it feels like you can never get to the bottom. Is there a general rule? Like, I look at that and I'm like, well, maybe I'm not the ideal target for this if I'm not willing to read the page. Expand upon that a little bit.

Alyson Lex
You're absolutely right. So I do write long-form sales copy. I write not so long-form sales copy too, but I love long-form. The longest sales letter I've ever written. Took thirty one Microsoft Word pages. Very long sales page. And it was important because it required that much work. It was a large investment. We had a lot of objections to overcome and there was a lot of detail that went in the program. So it required that amount because we had to do a lot of work to make the sale.

Alyson Lex
Chances are you're not going to require that much. Chances are you're not going to require 30 one Microsoft Word pages, but you may require eight. And that's OK. A lot of the quote-unquote, ugly sales pages are very old school. I love old school. Not going to lie. You know, the Dan Kennedy style works for me, but I also understand the desire and the need to be graphically appealing, let's say, to have well-designed pages.

Alyson Lex
And I do believe that good design can add to the conversion and does add to the conversion. It's definitely a part of what goes into a high conversion sales or landing page. Even my landing pages are long. I want you to consider what you're asking of the people that are reading it. Let's talk about landing pages for a second and then we'll talk about sales pages. If I'm advertising a landing page via ads or to an organic audience that may or may not know me very well.

Alyson Lex
I'm asking them to give me their personal contact information in exchange for something I'm promising them. That's actually a very big ask. Because how do they know I'm going to make good on that promise, or how do they know that what I'm promising them is actually going to be worth their personal contact information that I can now use in multiple ways? Because, let's face it, I could upload that email address as a custom audience and Facebook and hound them forever.

Alyson Lex
So by giving them a little bit more information about what to expect, I'm showing them that, hey, I'm serious about this. I put my bio on a landing page for a download. I want them to know who they're talking to and who they're giving their personal contact information to. I think it's important. That's a lot of work for something free. Now, imagine I'm asking you to give me money.

Alyson Lex
OK. You do not necessarily need thirty-one Microsoft Word pages, but you do need to have enough space to be clear about what they get, why they care and what difference it's going to make in their lives, as well as overcome all of the objections that they're going to have, not the least of which is do I trust you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. How do you feel about video on landing and sales pages?

Alyson Lex
I like video on landing and sales pages as long as it does not overtake or take place of the text.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's there to help supplement and complement.

Alyson Lex
I don't care if they say the same exact thing. Just don't do just one. There's a reason. So I have attention deficit disorder. I struggle to maintain focus. And one of the ways that manifests in my world is I do not process audio very well. So it's funny. I love to talk on podcasts. I love to have a podcast. I can't listen to them. I just don't process it. I can't learn that way. So if all you have is a sales video, am I getting that information?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's not going to work.

Alyson Lex
But I will let that video play while I scroll down and read. And there are other people who don't want to read it all, but they'll listen to you talk for twenty-five minutes. Having both will meet the needs of your audience.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK, awesome. I love it. You've dropped some serious value here so far, I'm enjoying this conversation.

Alyson Lex
Me too.

What it's Like to Hire and Work with a Copyrighter

Tim Fitzpatrick
Somebody listening to this or watching, they're like, oh, my God, I need this. What is it like to hire and work with the copyrighter?

Alyson Lex
I can tell you what it's like to hire and work with me and tell you that it should be similar no matter who you work with, but everybody's going to have their own differences. I am also not the right copywriter for everyone. If someone tells you that they are the right copywriter for every single person there being less than truthful.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Alyson Lex
So for me, it's it can be very freeing. It can also be very stressful if you've never done it before. The way that I work is we get on the phone, we talk about what you need. I give you lots of ideas, sometimes too many. And then we kind of land on a plan. And I tell you what it would look like to help have me help you implement that plan with the copy. Once you agree, I say, great, you're going to have your copy on [insert date].

Alyson Lex
And then unless I need something from you, I probably won't talk to you until that day. I am not a hand holder, which is one of the main reasons that I'm not the right copywriter for everyone because they want that more interactive relationship, whereas I just kind of want to go in my hole and.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. You want to get the information that you need and then you take that and do what you need to do.

Alyson Lex
And do what I do. That's right. And then we have the conversation afterward. Do you like it? Do you love it? What do we need to change? Let's make you happy. You know, we talk about it, so it's not like I'm going to deliver and run, but we're probably not going to talk as much as some people want. That being said, I will always deliver it on the date that I promise you, and just like with hiring anybody, there are people that may not you know, there are unfortunately that's the thing. Deadlines are not always a huge deal for a lot of people. For me, it is.

Tim Fitzpatrick
The other thing that I think is important for people to understand, too, is as a copywriter, there getting like a Google doc or a word doc with all the content in it is correct. Is that the deliverable? So they need to understand too it's like, hey, you have exactly what you need to put on the page. If you're not the person to create that page, you need somebody else to create that page. But they have all the content they need.

Alyson Lex
Exactly. And so I do work with people who will build pages. Yeah. And usually during the initial call, we have that conversation about implementation. My personal experience does allow me to understand production so I know what needs to happen, which is helpful. But you're right. I'll give instructions. I'll make notes. I'll say new section. You know, this kind of background. I'll make it big and bold or headline or whatever. But no, when I give it to you, it's not a website.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, got it.

Alyson Lex
So just understanding expectations and then financially to work with me is again there are varied levels. I'm not the most expensive, but I'm definitely not the cheapest. All of my prices have a comma in them. Yeah. And so it's, it's an investment to work with me.

Tim Fitzpatrick
As it should be. So I want to talk about one more thing before we wrap, which is we've talked you've given a ton of value here. A lot of really great information. One of the things that is pretty common to happen is people do this work, right? They set up a sales page or landing page. They've got a funnel where they've got email that's helping support it after somebody opts in and things they're not working like they should. So what are your tips? What should people do when their funnel or their sales page isn't converting? I mean, where how do we fix it?

Alyson Lex
I would like to answer this first with a quick story. I was on a call with a potential client who said I'm not making sales from my funnel. I need a new sales page. Cool. So during our initial call, I was like, let me see what you've got. And I always ask diagnostic questions and I said, well, you know, how's your sales pitch converting? She's like, well, I've only had like two sales. I said, OK, out of how many hits? And I don't remember the exact number. And she actually went into her analytics and found that it was like two sales out of five hits.

Alyson Lex
Well, that's not a sales pitch problem. OK, so then we were able to go earlier in her funnel and look at her landing page and realize that her landing page needed to be fixed. She was driving a ton of traffic to the landing page, not seeing the sales and assumed that it was the sales page, but she wasn't getting the leads.

Alyson Lex
That brings me to teaching about conversion checkpoints. There are everything you do is going to have a conversion element to it. If you're running an ad on Facebook. There's click. Right, and then there's the link visit. So are they reading the whole thing or are they watching the video or whatever, interacting with the ad, visiting the link, registering and purchasing each one of those is a conversion checkpoint where a breakdown can happen.

Alyson Lex
With an email campaign opening the email, clicking the email, visiting the sales page, each one of those is a breakdown where a conversion checkpoint, where a breakdown can happen. So the first thing that I need you to do is map out your conversion points and figure out the numbers at each one of those. OK. How many people are interacting with your ad or your post. Cool. How many people are clicking on the link? Cool. How many people are opting in? How many people are buying? Because then we can see where that number drops. It may very well be that your post is very engaging, but it's not driving the click. So you're seeing a ton of engagements, no leads and thinking it's the landing page. It's actually still just the ad or the post.

Alyson Lex
You may be thinking I have 80,000 email opens, but no buyers, it's got to be the page, but if you don't have link clicks, it could still be the email. OK, so diagnosing where the breakdown happens is the first step. And oftentimes that's what leads us to finding a solution.

Tim Fitzpatrick
How do they know what numbers to expect at each checkpoint?

Alyson Lex
There are industry standards, and I'm actually going to drive you to a resource, I see this advertise to me all the time. It's Word Stream. Especially with ads. Word Stream does a lot of research on benchmarks. And so I can't sit here and give numbers because it is oftentimes very industry and or business-specific. The best place to check is look at a campaign that worked. OK, so if you sent a campaign that was just hot to your email list and you know, OK, I got a 20 percent open rate of 10 percent click rate, blah, blah, blah. Compare your apples to your apples. Don't always look at outside oranges unless you have no apple data to use.

Alyson Lex
Then you can start using industry benchmarks. Typically, I like to talk about my own conversion rates that I've been able to pull on landing pages and sales pages. But again, all I can say is this is going up against industry benchmarks, And then there are a few different things that will make up the success of your campaign. The copy, of course, is one of them. The traffic is another.

Alyson Lex
OK, so are you sending qualified traffic? Are they the right people? Are they buyers? Are they leads. Whatever. And then, of course, the design has some part in it, which is why I said I understand the need for to be graphically pleasing as well as the offer. So the copy and the offer are very closely related, but they're not exactly the same. It's like putting lipstick on a pig, right? If the offer stinks, I can write the best copy in the world and it's still going to have trouble.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. I also assume, too, that this is another reason why it's important to keep your funnels fairly simple, especially in the beginning. You know, if you have too many steps, all of a sudden you have all these checkpoints that you have to review and it just makes it that much harder to diagnose where the breakdown is.

Alyson Lex
Yes, you're absolutely correct. And, you know, there are large companies that have these crazy funnels and they're sexy. To look at, right. As a marketer, I look at it and I'm like, oh, man, that is so cool. And then I think it must be a full-time job to manage the analytics on that. And I don't want to like my most successful funnel for myself is like two pages. All right, it's a group funnel, so I have a lead magnet that the thank you page drives them to a group.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's it.

Alyson Lex
That's two pages, it's awesome. I just I was just featured on an event this week and I promoted this lead magnet and my page converted at like 89 percent.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So they opt-in. When they opt-in, they get directed to a thank you page. And the thank you page is offering somebody to go join your group.

Alyson Lex
My Facebook group, to then engage with me more. That's the goal for that particular funnel. It's two pages. And it does very well.

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's awesome. And this has been fantastic, awesome, any last-minute words of wisdom or guidance you want to leave us with?

Alyson Lex
You know, I really like what we just talked about as far as keeping it simple. And I know that's your platform. It's your thing. It's simplicity. And I agree a bazillion percent like you do not need to be crazy complicated to get something out there. I would rather see bad copy than no copy because bad copy can be improved. I would rather see an ugly page than the no page because it can anything you do can be improved. We are, I like to say this is the Internet, not a stone tablet. It's fixable. It's changeable. And it, you know, so just give it a shot and then go from there.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome. Where can people learn more about you because they should go learn more about you?

Alyson Lex
I hope you do. And it's scrolling at the bottom of your screen if you're watching the video. But head to alysonlex.com/headlines. That's A-L-Y-S-O-N, thanks, Mom. L-E-X.com. And that will actually take you to that two-page funnel that I just told you about. It's a 30-second headline generator that will give you six more headline formulas than the one I gave you earlier. And you'll also then be invited into my Facebook group.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome. If you've got an interest, you need copywriting. Please, please, please reach out to Alyson. I think she's shown during this conversation that she knows what the heck she's talking about.

Alyson Lex
Thank you so much.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. Alyson, I appreciate you taking the time. And thank you for those who are listening, watching. Again, I'm Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. If you want to gain clarity on where to focus your marketing efforts right now, head on over to our website at rialtomarketing.com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O marketing.com. Click on the get a free consultation button. I don't have a cool name for it so I keep it. I get a free consultation, but I guarantee you sit down and have that call with us and you'll gain some clarity on where you need to focus right now. So thank you so much. Till next time, take care.