The Differences Between Internet and Offline Copywriting

[Grain]

What Would Internet Copy Look Like
To You If It Was Created Now...?

TO:
Dear Copywriter...

A few days ago, my friend and I was having a
pretty mysterious conversation at a coffee
table.

"CLANG!" Immediately, we drew looks, spilt coffee
and an embarrassing atmosphere. But that's not
the point...

...If you were there, you'd probably give us the
same funny look by this scruffy looking man sitting
at the table just next to us...

My friend asked me a pretty peculiar question...

"If the Internet existed before print... How would
salesmanship-in-code look like?"

What if... you could fill in the gaps of salesmanship
that print couldn't do with interactive code?

"What are the gaps?" I wondered...

BUT I wasn't a pro or experienced copywriter, nor
a good salesman... What could I single-handedly
come up with?

And that's where I need to borrow your experienced
thoughts about this...

But wait - It's not a "creative thought" or a "baseless
questioning"...

Code took us from split-testing to real-time testing
and tweaking through rotating of ads, copy, phrases,
headlines, pictures, formats...

Code took us from text-only letters to sales audios,
videos, and currently even webinars (which convert
just as high as offline presentations or workshops)...

Where else can code take you as a copywriter?

I was wondering if any internet salesletter
copywriters here do anything similar...

Do you do anything to make your copy "interactive"
in the way that it is able to capture your prospect's
most common reactions...

...and lead them to customized pages that eventually
lead to higher rapport and conversions?

Thoughts on this would be great.

I'm not too experienced with this field.

Best Regards,
Grain.

P.S - The reason we drew looks was just because
of the spilt coffee.

[Steve The Copywriter]

I've got to say I know sfa about the internet.

But I've seen it evolve.

When it started - It was slow so you did a sales page with no color or graphics (like an old broadsheet newspaper you bought at the store)

Broadband arrived and graphics and color became much easier and faster (like a tabloid paper or magazine now delivered to your home)

Audio became popular (like radio)

Then video (like TV)

Webinars (like live TV)


All the testing is "changing" an Ad like you do in other media.

All the "get to number 1 in google" technology is just improving the circulation figures.

It's just another advertising medium.

Nothing wrong with that.

My only problem is - you have to be a computer programer to be able to use it properly.

And I'm just a copywriter (sobs).


Steve

[Nickboby]

Every media has its technical requirements, nothing new there.

[Steve Hill]

Originally Posted by Grain

Do you do anything to make your copy "interactive"
in the way that it is able to capture your prospect's
most common reactions...

...and lead them to customized pages that eventually
lead to higher rapport and conversions?

Recording and analyzing patterns of user behavior happens all the time - Google is especially good at this (and now they want to share that data across all of their products).

This is done so that they can show targeted ads and biased content in favor of what they think you want to see.

As for specific copywriter techniques, consider membership sites, for example, or even these forums. When you log in, it knows your name, and can present content specific to you (as in your membership profile, or whatever else the programmers want to use the information for, such as presenting an ad for product B if you already have product A).

Or consider the marketing that can be done using mailing lists and services. We can customize each email with the user's name (among other options, such as "near your house in..."), and we know what targeted lists they signed up for.

Perhaps closer to what you were thinking of, Google Adsense has a feature that can allow you to have dynamic headlines that change according to the search term used.

So to answer your question, there are many ways that user preferences and patterns can be used in creating dynamic marketing content. There is a higher cost of developing and maintaining such content, so it's not for every application, but it's becoming more mainstream every day.

Advertisers are very instrumental in the development of these technologies, because ads bring in the dollars that make these free sites economically feasible. The more targeted the presentations can be, the more they are worth to advertisers.