The salad days of the generic website is over. few visitors will hit websites any more just because they’re exciting and new in and of themselves. If you really want prospects to look at a website in a modern business environment you must offer them a persuasive REASON.
The best way to do this is by using a marketing gimmick called a tag line.
The most important rule of website marketing is very easy: From From now on when you endorse your website include a “tagline” that promises a material value to prospects and clients willing to look at your site.
Treat your tagline like a newspaper headline. A newspaper headline is designed to get somebody to check out an article. A “tag line” performs almost the exact same function and therefore is crafted using the exact same rules:
1. Provoke the interest of your prospect on an emotional level, not an intellectual one. Most people make important choices emotionally, so solicit to the things they are sincerely interested in or afraid of. Your marketing will be much more effectual if you put forward benefits that appeal to a visitor’s , fundamental motivators (pride, greed and fear) than it’ll be appealing to their good sense.
2. Certain words just have a lot of marketing appeal. Use them. Of course, the word “free” is now and always will be the king of the hill, but words like YOU, YOUR, HOW, NEW, WHO, MONEY, NOW, PEOPLE, WANT, and WHY catch peoples eye and appeal to them on a very personal level. Use these words.
3. Know what benefit to offer. Mom’s are wrong. We’re not really special or different. We all want basically the same things from life, and that list is very short. Once you know what these things are it becomes easy to write to them.
Different people value these things to different degrees. Some people are naturally more fearful than prideful and vice versa, but more often than not the prospects attitude is more influenced by their situation than their personality. For example, if your reader is a home builder in the current environment he’s likely to be fearful, but if the reader is a home buyer pride is a much more likely motivater.
Here’s a no-nonsense listing of the five key motivators that marketers advertise to:
- Safety: People want to feel secure.
- Acceptance: People like to feel like they belong.
- Empowerment: People like to feel like they have control over their own destiny.
- Status: People like to be perceived as powerful and important.
- Fun: This one’s pretty self-explanatory. People just plain like to have fun.
You’ll notice that money isn’t on this list. Money is actually a secondary motivator. Money is just a means to these five ends.
4. Target your tagline to your audience. For example, if you are selling your services to new residents you might want to use a tagline like, “Special offer to New Homeowners! Free initial consultation and 15% off your first tax preparation”. If you’re targeting a larger more generic group use something more universal like “Free to New Tax Preparation Customers”.
5. Mention your offer right away in your tagline. Remember the tagline is the ad for your web site. In loads of ways the tag line is more pertinent than the web address itself. After all… a a sound tagline is much more able to get a visitor to take an action than a cool web address is!
Let me offer a few example of tag lines that could be used to lure prospects to your site.
- Learn 7 tax Secrets You Need to Know…
- The IRS is targeting Your Business…
- 10 things the IRS doesn’t want you to know about your taxes…
TIP
Add taglines to your email by using a signature. I love email. It’s much better than using traditional stationary. One of the most fantastic things about it is you can efficiently and with no trouble amend your taglines. Let’s see you try that with printed stationary! Don’t be lazy about it. From time to time change your message. It’s powerful, it’s easy, and it’s free!
About the Author
Brian O’Connell is the owner and founder of CPA Site Solutions, one of the country’s biggest website design firms dedicated solely to CPA website design. His firm presently provides websites for more than 4000 CPA, accounting, and tax preparation firms.
Tags: Accounting, CPA, Marketing, Tag Line, Tag Lines, Website