… when it’s a product… not funny? it shouldn’t be, let me explain:

A man walks into DIY Emporium, he looks at spades, he chooses one, buys it and leaves. A perfect sale, no problems …except that he didn’t want a spade…

What this man really wanted was a hole in the ground to plant some potatoes. He wanted to cultivate some easy vegetables to cook at next year’s BBQs. He wants to be able to tell his friends ‘I grew them myself’ and hear about how much better they tasted compared to store bought. He will feel proud and inspired to try tomatoes next year.

He is a little worried of course, what if he plants them in the wrong place? what if the ground is too wet/soggy/dry/cold/dark/light? What if it all goes wrong?

He has such a beautiful idea, but the spade doesn’t come into that dream anywhere. He didn’t really want it. He doesn’t care if it has a brown handle or a green one. He doesn’t care if it’s stainless steel or carbon fibre.

Are you selling spades or holes?
Do you show a picture of a spade or of big earthy potatoes?
Do you talk about the spade’s dimensions, colour, weight, portability, ergonomics or do you explain how much easier/quicker/better/deeper the resulting holes will be?
Do you package it with a trowel or rake? Or with planting instructions and yearly calendar? Shed building tips or even recipes?

No matter what we sell, we’re selling to people… REAL people and REAL people have REAL hopes, fears, dreams and desires. REAL emotions.

[spade photo courtesy of Lee Jordan]

A mass trend has hit the Internet, it sneaked in so subtly it almost went unnoticed.

The problem: The Internet is truly free, there is little or nothing you can’t get for free. Do you write standard fill-in-the-blanks legal documents? I can download them from docstoc. Do you write your own music? I can download via piratebay. Do you create websites? I can get a free one with Microsoft…

This has been damaging for so many industries, but now they’re actually playing the system and making a mint… how?

Solution: Microcharging.

iTunes are fully aware that MP3’s can be downloaded for free, albeit illegally. They came in with low low costs for singles and even less if you buy the whole album. MP3s can be downloaded for 79p! 10 years ago, I could buy a single for around £4 so that’s a big improvement. Who wouldn’t pay 79p to stay on the right side of the law for a track they liked?

Facebook charge for little graphic images, and little adverts. The majority of these cost around $1… it’s pocket money… of course who are the target market?

Digital photo printing generally costs 10-50p per print. 10-50p and the wait for delivery is well worth not having to fiddle with the printer, top up the ink and sort out paper jams, what a bargain.

Nintendo Wii. You can purchase wii points in blocks of 1000 for £7.50. For that you can download games which are now available for free online. Of course you can’t put them on your wii without a small cover charge.

In the US, mobile users pay to receive an SMS message. Twitter are cashing on to this with their mobile alerts (and a cushy deal with the networks. Which is why they stopped in the UK, here the billing is the other way round losing twitter money)

The list goes on.

Do you have something that doesn’t decrease when sold? eBooks, help-sheets, anonymous questionnaire data? These are great places to start as they require little or no action from you per sale.

Naturally this system works on volume, but with the right product(s), 1000 downloads at £1 each… I won’t insult intelligence by showing you the answer… you get the picture. If run through Paypal, your users won’t even have to hunt for their wallets (assuming they have an account)

Is microcharging the missing link in social networking sites? Is it the missing link to Twitter’s fortunes? How else could we use microcharging as individuals or a collective?

Did you know that everything you do on your computer is recorded, even when not online. Documents are saved, credit card information is recorded, passwords are encrypted but still noted. Normally this isn’t a problem and is a vital peice of the computer’s functioning.

When you come to sell the computer however, issues can arise. Deleting files isn’t enough, even some harddrive wipe software doesn’t quite do the job, and a good expert can gain access to your information despite the wipe. As you surf social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, banking sites, registration forms, online tax returns etc. the hard disk records all aspects of you and your life giving a hacker enough information to open bank accounts and get loans in your name. They can obtain credit leaving you to pick up the peices. You really don’t expect them to pay the money back do you?

Scary stuff? Well you don’t have to be worried because there is an easy, ultra-secure way to solve the problem. All the information whether on a PC or laptop is stored in a removable box. For someone who knows what they’re doing, 10 minutes is enough time to open the PC or laptop, remove the drive and replace it with a brand new, blank disk. These can cost as little as £40 so is well worth the investment, cheaper than a lot of disk wipe software and ultimately gives complete peice of mind.

Destroying data on the removed drive should be done with care. Safety goggles should be used as smashing it with a hammer is the best way to ensure the hard disk data is gone forever. In the casing is a vacuum sealed cavity containing metal disks, these store data magnetically so make sure these are in as many pieces as possible. They shatter easily so once you’re through the protective layer, they go without much of a problem. Just make sure you’ve pulled out the right part from the PC.

Rather than destroy it, if it’s not a laptop, you can sometimes install the hard drive into your new computer giving you access to all the files you had before on a second drive. This isn’t always recommended as relying on older hard drives isn’t usually a good idea.

If you’re based in Watford, Hertfordshire and surrounding areas and are not happy with doing this yourself. Give Simon a call at Zako Media on 0208 123 6609 and we’ll be happy to pop round with a new drive and kill your old one on site for a small fee. We can also reinstall Windows providing you have the original disks for a little extra but the choices are yours.

Don’t get caught out, information is far too easy to get hold of, and impossible to get back, so make sure you’re secure. Destroy your hard disk before sale.

Another fantastic website related blog from one of our favourite Copywriting sites; Copyblogger.com. This one talks about the psychology of passive selling, a sales method which all business websites work with no matter how well the website design is done where visitors are anonymous and make the most of that fact. Copyblogger I found fairly recently but after reading from article to article I found much of the content was well worth noting. They state facts and give advice to website owners and marketing alike and make the most of those facts… Anyway waffle over as per article, the blog starts here:

Have you ever stood in a store with something in your hand and then looked up to see if there was a clerk nearby you could ask for help?

Sure you have. We all have. Good help is hard to find.

Companies have been cutting costs by moving towards self-serve more than ever. Depending on where you live, you may have to bag your own groceries, pump your own gas, or bottle your own water.

Put yourself in the mind of the consumer. Consider what happens at that very moment you realize you need help. You were focused on buying two seconds ago, but then something happened—something very important.

Your brain skipped a beat.

“Find someone,” it said.

“Don’t buy. You have questions. Get answers.”

Your focus shifts. You aren’t thinking about buying anymore at all. You were almost ready to shell out your money, but now you’re in search mode. Now you’re seeking answers.

“Hello… Can anyone help me? Anyone at all?”

Now, think about your website. There are no clerks. No sales associate lingers nearby. The store aisles are empty and the cashiers are gone. There is no one who can help – not immediately, anyways.

The copy on your website is the single solution. Useful content mixed with meaningful messages is the only salesperson on staff. If your site content isn’t meeting, greeting, and convincing people, then it isn’t doing its job.

You need more than a website… you need a website that sells.

And to help you sell more, here are seven copywriting tips for a website that operates like a well-staffed store:

1. Get a professional salesperson – Overexcited content full of exclamation marks and sunshine-bright enthusiasm very often has the opposite effect of calm, confident copy. It just doesn’t work well. Tone down the cheerleading and collect your wits.
2. Eliminate the dress code – Calm and collected doesn’t mean bland and boring. It’s fine to show some personality, so get naked with your content. In fact, most consumers enjoy a good peep show (minus the pom-poms, that is).
3. Tell staff to talk less– Readers quickly lose interest in long, verbose paragraphs and end up walking away. No one likes the guy who can’t shut up, after all. Trim your content. Use concise sentences that create impact – not unnecessary fluff.
4. Inform consumers better – Tell consumers about your company. They want to know your story – the way they want to hear it. What makes you special? Why should they choose you? What can you offer more than the competition?
5. Bring in the specialist – The quality of your content reflects on your business image. If it isn’t well written, it isn’t going to help you sell. Do-it-yourself copywriting is fine for people with the skills. But if that isn’t you, then hire a writer to help.
6. Hire a clerk – Make sure people can contact you quickly and easily with a visible contact form. Ditch the coded (emails) supposed (to) cut spam, as well. That just forces consumers to take extra steps to contact you – steps they may not be interested in taking. There are other ways of verifying that a user is human without having to type out badly displayed letters!
7. Don’t goof off on the job – There’s a time and place for playing the class clown. Snagging a customer lead isn’t that time. Give straightforward information, offer a clear message and cut the clowning around.

Ending here, I would also like to mention a related article from the same blog entitled: ‘I don’t care about you’ which in principal states that your website viewers want to find out how you can solve their problem and don’t want to sit reading about how wonderful you say you are!