Boost Your Sales Copy With One Simple Tweak
by Palyn Peterson
Published on this site: December 19th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
Do you want an amazingly simple trick to move far ahead of
your competition and increase sales? With this free, no-software
little tweak, you will be able to put customized information
into a web page that is different for everyone you invite
to visit. It is incredibly simple; seriously, I promise! All
that you need is a very basic understanding of HTML, like
how to make hyperlinks, and I will teach you everything else. Sound fair?
What can you do with this, you may be wondering? Well, if
you have a newsletter, you can create a link to your web site
and the page displayed could have your subscribers first name
where ever you want it. It doesn't have to be their first name either; it could quite literally be any custom
variable that your newsletter managing service/script/program
has saved for each of your subscribers -- their last name, email address, snail mail
address, gender, age, favorite color, etc.
But we don't have to stop there, not at all. You can go on
and use as many variables as you want, not just one. We'll
thoroughly cover this.
Why is this HTML tweak useful, you may now be asking? Just
imagine this, you email your list of subscribers about a new
product you have recently released. In your email, you write
a few paragraphs about the product to generate interest and
conveniently provide a link for them to click on to go back
to your website and read your full sales copy. Since you have
such a trusting reputation with your subscribers, they give your product the benefit of the doubt
and click on the link to read more. When they get to your
sales copy, lo and behold their name is used throughout the
page!
We all learned in Marketing 101 that your sales copy needs
to be personal; that when you write it, you need to speak
to one person and in everyday language. With this cool HTML
tweak, you will be able to reach new levels of personalization.
Yes, the subscriber will be impressed that their name is used
in the middle of your sales copy, and yes, they will have
more personal interest in what you are saying. It is a whole
new experience at that point, because you are talking to them
individually. Heck, you just used their name! It won't just
be, "You will get big results!" but, "Fred,
you will get big results!"
Now, let's get on to the code! For this example, we are going
to be using an HTML file named "choppers.htm".
Open up "choppers.htm" in your favorite editor.
Now, where ever you want the subscribers first name to appear,
put this code: "<?php echo "$a"; ?>"
(minus the quotes), and wherever you want their last name
to appear, put: "<?php echo "$b"; ?>"
(again, minus the quotes).
Do you see the "$a" in the first bit of code and
the "$b" in the second? For every custom variable
you want to appear on your web page, just put that little
bit of code with a different letter.
To explain it a little more, for every place the subscribers
first name should appear, put "<?php echo "$a";
?>". For every place the subscribers last name should
appear, put "<?php echo "$b"; ?>".
For every place the subscribers email address should appear,
put "<?php echo "$c"; ?>". And so
on and so forth. Yes, you can use each bit of code as often
as you want. No, it doesn't really matter that the first name
is using the code with "$a" -- it could be "$h",
"$p" or even "$z", just as long as each
custom variable uses a different letter.
Now you will need to rename "choppers.htm" to "choppers.php".
Some HTML editors do not open up .php files, so I suggest
only doing a "save as" to a .php file. That way,
you will still have "choppers.htm" to edit whenever
you need to, then just do another "save as". Upload
the .php file to your web host.
Now we need to create the link the subscribers will click
on to get to the newly created "choppers.php" file.
For this part, you need to know what codes your newsletter
managing service/script/program uses to customize your emails.
Just for this example, let's say two of them are {First-Name} and
{Last-Name}.
When you write your email, the address of your sales page
in the link you will create to go to it, will look like this:
"yourdomain.com/choppers.php?a={First-Name}&b={Last-Name}".
But when you send out your email to your subscribers, your
newsletter managing service/script/program will fill in those
codes with the subscribers first and last name. So when the
subscriber clicks on the link, the address to your sales page
will actually look like this: "yourdomain.com/choppers.php?a=Fred&b=Jones".
If you only cared to use the subscribers first name, you
would only need to use "<?php echo "$a";
?>" in "choppers.php", and the address to
that page in the link in your email would look like: "yourdomain.com/choppers.php?a={First-Name}",
and for your subscriber Fred, his link address would end up
looking like: "yourdomain.com/choppers.php?a=Fred".
You have just now taken many steps in front of your competition.
You are now able to market much more personally than most
people think is even possible.
Palyn Peterson publishes the acclaimed Advanced Internet
Marketing News. A professional newsletter with a refreshing
perspective and a strong focus on no-cost techniques. http://www.FutureInternetMarketing.com
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