Hi everyone, my name is Trisha internet marketing expert. And this video is part of my online training course Facebook ads for online market sales. And I'm very excited because today on our show, we have a copywriting expert. The copywriting can make or break an advertising campaign. With the right copy people will read your ad, go to your product page and ultimately make the purchase. So without further delay, it's my pleasure to introduce you to nationally published journalist and copywriting expert, Richard as Todd, President and content lead at the editor's desk.

Hi, Richard. Hey, Patricia, how are you? Good, how you doing? Very well. Thanks. Thanks for joining us here.

Um, I guess what we'll start off with is just funny. out more about you. So if you tell everybody what eat more about what you do and the types of projects he worked on that be great. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a nationally published writer who's made a career out of creating words and telling stories, which is great for me, because I've been doing it ever since I was a kid. And I feel very, very blessed that I've been able to do it his career as well.

What I do is I write stories for magazines, national magazines, and also for local magazines here in Toronto. But I also help businesses connect with clients, the best clients that they could find by writing, engaging SEO copy for their website, or their blog, for their email marketing campaigns, or wherever they need words I provide them. Wonderful. must be very exciting job for sure. No, it's great, because really is an amazing learning experience. I know so much about so many different industries simply by working with these businesses, things I never knew about before.

So it's been a great experience. Awesome. Well, one thing that I do is I spend a great deal of time telling e commerce owners that they really, really need to do a lot of research about their target audience. So I harp on it probably too much. And we I spend probably more time than anybody else, but I want to get that target audience just right. So in your opinion, is getting the target audience as precise as can be, is that important to copy?

Would you say? Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's it's funny if you send out a message to everyone, but they used to call spray and pray. Chances are, your message might fall on deaf ears. If you don't know the customer persona. For example, you're not going to sell me a subscription to a senior's magazine, at least this year anyway.

But you never know the future. So by knowing your customer and doing the research, you're going to find the most effective way to speak to them by knowing what makes them happy, what they want and what their pain points are. And a lot of that takes research. For example, my very first business was called big bike computer training was back in the mid late 90s. And it was at a time when Word and Excel, were starting to really come up and be used in households more than ever. But I knew a lot of people who had no idea how to use them.

Of course, now most people do, but back then it was still new. I was certified already. So I asked a lot of these people, well, what Aren't you understanding? And if you had to learn, what would you be using it for? They would answer they would tell me and I would design the training program according to their needs. It was research and it was very, very important for me to find out what the customer persona was.

Now today, it's easy to do online, you can send out surveys, you can post questions on social media, you can post questions on news groups, you can do so many things, get out network and just talk to people and find out exactly who they are, what they need, and how you can help them and you can tailor your messages that way. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work but in the long run. It will save you so much in marketing dollars. I love that because yeah, that's that's exactly what I thought. And it makes it easier when you write your copy and you can picture that person that you're talking to, because that is your ideal purchaser, and you know that they need your product, it just makes the whole process a lot easier. So that's wonderful.

Thank you for that. Um, okay, so here's one for you. Would you say that it's the copy? Or the visual? That's the most important in a nod? Well, I'd say it's both.

Really, no, that's not just a glib, easy answer, because basically, there are a marriage of the two and you can use both to enhance the other. Now I brought two examples for if we can get them up on the screen, we'll have a look and analyze how great these Facebook ads are. So the first one here is called naturebox. Now have a look. It's fantastic. You know, the image shows you exactly what you're getting, and it calls out the free sample call to action as well.

Is relevant You can target it to people who are known to like to take care of themselves like to eat healthy, organic foods they like to do yoga, they like hike outside. If you target that audience with this ad, you're gonna have great results. It's valuable, meaning it clearly explains the value, the free trial call out the health aspects of the goodies in its product. It means a lot to the audience. And it has clear call to action as well. naturebox is asking you to try it's free sample, and you know exactly what to do next.

So let's have a look at the next one. The Boston sports club. Have a look at this is great. It's visual, you know, the featured photo uses bold colors and clear typography to draw my attention to the details of the offer. And the woman exercise and gives me an idea of what it could gain from purchasing is relevant. So if you move to Boston, because you will be targeting the Boston area when you run this ad, and you're looking for gyms in your area, designed is highly relevant to your Search activity into your Facebook activity as well.

Now it's also valuable to it clearly shows the value paying $5 a month for a monthly gym membership. You know, that's a great deal. And the call to action is clear as well. You know, they're using a trigger word like Hurry, telling you when the offer expires, it creates that sense of urgency, which is very, very valuable when you're advertising. Okay, excellent. Well, I'm glad to talk to you about the call to action, because I know that having a really good call to action is like an essential part of any Facebook advertising campaign.

So can you give us a few more tips on how to create a nice, short, snappy call to action that's effective? Absolutely. When you design a call to action, it's important to make the benefit clear. In other words, the user is going to be looking at that saying, What am I getting if I click this button, or I click on this link, what exactly is in it for me? Okay, so thank you, Richard. Thank you for showing us those examples.

That was really, really helpful and thanks for touching on the call to action as well because how In a call to action ad is super, super important. Um, because I know when ads and anything else you do online, it's really important to make sure that you tell the person what the next step is and what you want them to do. So that's wonderful. So thank you for that. And let's talk about split testing a little bit. So, um, in my course, I go over how to do split testing and why split testing is very, very important.

But can you talk a little bit more about how to do split testing with copy? Absolutely, it's important to do the copy to explore and experiment with as many different elements of the ad as possible. The most important thing to start with first would be the headline. It's what draws what people's eyes are drawn to first. So you can experiment with two different headlines, headline, and headline be when you're split testing. You don't want to experiment with too many elements at the same time because you're not going to get a clear picture of what works and what doesn't.

So start with your headline. Once you have a winner with a headline experiment. With the image, do the same thing and experiment with the call to action. The body text is important as well. But for me, the most important things to experiment with would be the headline, the image, and then the call to action. And once you have your analytics, you'll have a winning ad that's going to do great for your campaign.

You know, ad testing is trial and error. And again, it's a lot of work, but down the road is going to be great for your marketing campaign. Fabulous. Yeah. And I've learned that from other marketers that specialize in Facebook advertising, as well that sometimes it's even just one or two words that can really make difference. So very, very important to test it.

And I like how you put the priority of order what you should test because that's where people's eyes are drawn to when they're looking at ads right there. They look at the headline, they look at the image, and then they're looking at the call to action. So and then they're looking at the body text, usually that's how people's eyes flow for ads. So that's fabulous. So thank you, so So Richard, I've heard about the thing. called sales trigger words, or sales psychology.

But I'm not very familiar with that. Could you kind of educate me and the audience on? Is there such a thing as a sales trigger word? Like, is there words that you can use in your ad copy that's going to make people more likely to take a buying action? Oh, sure, absolutely, there are. The key to that is to create that fear of loss and that sense of urgency because especially these days, since we're so connected, people don't want to miss out on anything.

It's part of the reason why people are so glued to Facebook or Twitter or to Instagram, they want to see what their friends are doing. They want to see what the latest news is. They want to be connected to what's happening at this moment. So you can apply that same psychology to your Facebook ads by using trigger words like Download Now, limited time act. Now last chance, little phrases like that can go a long way to creating that sense of urgency and getting people to click that button and respond to your ad. Wonderful, I love that.

Okay, so creative a sense of urgency. I have seen that before. So very important. And I know the word free on its own is the hottest marketing word you can use in an ad. If you can offer something for free. Everybody loves free.

Yes. Especially on Facebook. Um, okay, awesome. So, uh, let's see. Um, so Facebook hates copy on images. They do the they now allow just a few words on an image, if not at all, but they prefer images that don't have copy.

But I'm wondering, I've seen other marketers successfully use copy and Ivy's copy on images successfully. And I just want to know what your opinion is. If you're going to use copy on images, should you and what, what guidelines do you have for the types of words you should or shouldn't use on copy? Well, or sorry, on the image I mean, sorry, I've heard that wrong. Good. Okay.

Well, I think it's a great idea, especially if the coffee on the image is going to enhance with the images. So if you're going to do it, I would keep it very compact, keep it very economical, the amount of words that you're using, you know, there's a reason why memes are so popular right now, where they have an image and they have some words on it to give context to that image. People have them because they communicate a message very quickly, just within half a second, you know exactly what it's about. The only thing I would caution is, again, putting too many words on the ad, because then it looks like any of those means that are just stuffed with words with words, and it just doesn't look great. You want to keep it professional. Those trigger words are great.

Act now. Free Trial, download now. simple message. 123 words, somewhere within the whitespace of the picture and you're golden. Okay, are we even I guess if you're having a sale, it'd be a good place to put it. percent off limited time, or whatever it is.

Exactly. You can really marry the trigger words with the image and have a great effect. Perfect. Okay, thank you for that. So, in your opinion, since you're the copy expert, what in your opinion is the most important thing that coffee can do? Coffee can evoke emotion.

Words, they speak to people in ways that no other medium can. For example, I wrote a website for a cheese and charcuterie shop here in Toronto and Leslie, though, and the idea was to invoke a hunger response. So they see the image, they can visualize the image, but then they needed the words to say, how does it smell? How does it taste? And how are you going to feel after you eat this delicious cheese melting on this beautiful piece of bread? How is that going to affect you?

You invoke a hunger Once you're appealing to their emotions, you're satisfying a potential need, or in the case of food, you might be creating a need. And you're reaching them on a level that not very many forms of media can. So if you're invoking some sort of emotional response, you can do that with many, many things. The fundraising, that's another one, for telling people how this is gonna make you feel. Again, you can do so much with words to invoke that response. And to make them do what you want them to do, which is usually click that button and respond to your ad.

So that's the most important thing. Have them taste that food, have them smell it, have them experience it, just through your words. It's so effective and it's so so important when you're writing coffee. Wow, it must be really effective because I can just picked your cheese and I'm hungry all of us. And so that's a just doing that. Very, very effective indeed.

So Well, I can tell you the research was absolutely delicious for that project. Awesome, delicious. Yeah, you have to definitely taste test everything that you're going to write about to make sure you know exactly what to say. Awesome. Well, now that I'm hungry, I better wrap this up soon. So for sure, do you have any final tips for our audience?

Yeah, absolutely. The most important thing to remember is to keep your coffee clear, concise, and to the point without getting too lyrical. without showing off your writing chops, which I'm sure you have a when it comes to marketing. You don't want to get too creative. You just want to get the message out. You want to appeal to their emotions to their needs to their pain points, and make sure that you try to convert them as quickly as possible.

Okay, thank you for that. So being direct and just getting it out there and I like that because really with Facebook ad copy, we don't have a ton of room. To play with anyway. So all the words are very, very valuable. So that's perfect. Thank you.

Well, we're good. Fortunately, Facebook does have those guidelines where you can't put too much coffee in so know exactly what works. There's a total complete science behind this and Facebook, make sure that you will conform to those. But it is to your benefit. Yeah, I guess especially on mobile now, right. People are reading it on these little screens.

We can't go overboard. So good stuff. All right, Richard. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on our show. So thank you so so much. Thank you for your valuable tips and your time.

I know that I really appreciated the feedback that you've given. And I know our audience definitely will as well. So thank you. And yeah. Thank you for having me. All right.

Take care. Bye. So thank you so much for watching. I really hope you got something out of this session, and it If you did, if you know other business owners that could really benefit from this information or other people that are just turning off your e commerce store, then please please go ahead and share it.