Joanna Wiebe

You want to measure the success – or failure – of your copy. But how the hell do you know how to measure it? Do you call all the copy on a page “bad” if the page isn’t converting? Or is only one element of your copy to blame? In this post, we’ll introduce you to the You Had One Job rule of conversion copywriting.

Trying to get backed on Kickstarter? You’ll need a pitch page – and a damn good one at that. But where do you even start? And how long does it need to be? And what’s your story? And should you demonstrate your product? And what if your product doesn’t lend itself well to demonstration?!!?! There are tons of questions that Kickstarter’s handbook doesn’t help with. So we analyzed top-performing Kickstarter pitches, which we present to you today. (Beware: it’s a meaty post.)

Reciprocity is the persuasion principle at play in most of our content marketing efforts and when we give out free trials. We’re banking on the idea that, if we do something generous for someone – such as giving them a free whitepaper, letting them try our software without entering their CC or writing super-helpful posts (ahem) – they will give back to us in kind. But if reciprocity is so powerful, why don’t more trial users convert? Why don’t more leads open our emails? And why don’t more readers comment on our posts?

You can make yourself comfortable at home. When you’re trying to grow your business, you’ve gotta make yourself uncomfortable. That’s what we’re challenging ourselves to do in 2015, as effing painful as it sounds. Check out how – and why – we’re going to make ourselves uncomfortable by clicking to read this.

We watch enough Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den to know that a ton of products just aren’t meant to be. The timing isn’t right. Or the audience isn’t there. Or the product is just a product, not a solution – not a painkiller, vitamin or addictive drug. In this challenge, we do the extremely difficult… and ask you to think about what in your life needs to go but hasn’t yet.

As our second challenge of 2015, we’re launching a brand new business called Snap. It’s a spin-off of Copy Hackers – but more of a Laverne and Shirley to Happy Days than a Joanie Loves Chachi to Happy Days. A good spin-off. Check it out and see how to put Snap to work for you as you build your own product that solves a problem for people you know.

In the first of this 4-part series on the challenges we’re posing for ourselves – challenges we hope you accept with us – we discuss our desire to start having fun as bloggers again. If you’ve been frustrated by the pressures you put on yourself to be a certain way as a business owner, share your experiences here.

Workers switch task as often as every 3 minutes, and they can take as long as 30 minutes to settle into a task. What does that mean? We’re unfocused at best – and it’s the marketer and copywriter’s job to engage in a little attention management to focus us, something magicians do exceptionally well.

After hearing Jay Abraham give this useful tip – to find great copy in Amazon reviews – we put it to the test… and we haven’t stopped using it since. Read this post (and watch the demo video!) to see how you can find sticky copy in the words people just like your prospects are using online.

Ogilvy said, “When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” But what about buttons? Unfortunately, Mr. Ogilvy wasn’t around when buttons began to dominate the web, email and mobile. In this post, you’ll see why it’s time to update our marketing books and blogs to focus less on headlines, as Ogilvy said, and more on buttons + headlines.

How long should your pages be? People talk a lot about the power of long copy… but, from time to time, you hear a story about long pages failing vs short pages. So what should you do? What do you need to think of when writing any landing page? And why don’t conversion copywriters always recommend long pages?

The road to naming your product or business is not unlike the road to Hell – paved with good intentions, and sure to ruin everything that’s good inside you. Avoid total heartache and woes – or commiserate with us – by checking out the tragic tale of naming Disco incentivized surveys.

What if someone told you they had 4 sure-fire tricks to optimize a pricing page? And what if that person wasn’t a huckster or scoundrel but a proven expert? And what if, when you tested those 4 tricks on a pricing page, you saw that only 2 of them were really necessary? See how this played out on Mad Mimi’s pricing page.

Consumers are naturally curious – which is why the concept of the “curiosity gap” works so well in marketing. But how can you use that curiosity on your website… and how shouldn’t you? In this case study, we’ll show you how the curiosity gap led to a 927% lift that didn’t grow the biz at all.

There’s a fine line between marketing and creating propaganda. In this short post, see similarities between wartime propaganda posters and negative opt-out messaging. Plus, we dissect oil company marketing messages. Read it now!

A bullet list is the go-to formatting “style” for scannable web copy. But all bullets lists are not created the same, as this A/B test on Precision Nutrition shows. Click to see what happened – and what you should be testing next.

Beating a bad page is pretty easy… but how do you push your copy and design further to outperform a proven winning page… by 13%? Check out this case study to see.

If you’re thinking of hosting a webinar (or five) this year, you’re not alone. Make your webinar invitation emails stand out vs the competition. Read and bookmark this post for informed tips on From names, subject lines, email copy and plotting your webinar email campaign.

Let us show you what conversion copywriting hacks to do each month in the first half of 2014 – starting right now. These are totally easy hacks that you can simply roll out or – if 2014’s the year you get real about CRO – split-test on your site. Includes email drip option (for monthly reminders).

Vote for your fave A/B test of 2013. We’ve hand-selected 13 of our faves. Plus, best comment wins 3 awesome biz books published in 2013.