Conversational copywriting is about removing the layer of mistrust between a company and its customers.

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adversarial car sales man in coversation

When you walk into a car dealership and a sales person walks towards you, you can feel a change take place in your body.

There’s some kind of chemical adjustment happening in your brain. You feel a sudden tension in your muscles. Not relaxed at all.

You feel ready to fight. Or at least, to negotiate.

This is a little weird. It’s not like you’re walking down a dark alley at night, twitching at every sound, preparing to fight or run for your life.

But the symptoms are the same, even if not quite as elevated.

How come?

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The rise of ad blockers is a warning about the future of selling online.

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Ad blockers and bricked up windows

According to a recent report from PageFair, the use of ad blockers grew by 30% in 2016 alone.

By the end of 2016, there were over 615 million devices with ad blockers installed worldwide. 62% of those devices were mobile.

A couple of years ago it was only the nerds who were blocking ads. Now it’s gone mainstream. And it’s not just younger people who are doing this. The spread across age groups is surprisingly even.

This spells big trouble for both advertisers and the media sites that carry their ads.

The advertisers sense, quite rightly, that their ads are being viewed by fewer and fewer people.

And the websites that carry advertising as a core part of their revenue stream are facing an uncertain future.

So what’s happening here? Why the sudden surge in the use of ad blockers?

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My 19-year romance with conversational copywriting explained.

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sunset message in bottle

I’m going to be writing quite a bit about conversational copywriting over the next few weeks.

So I thought it might be a good idea to first define what I mean, and give the term a little history and context.

I first began writing and talking about conversational copywriting way back in the late 1990s. In 1998 to be exact. Hence the 19-year romance.

I made the simple point that as the web is a two-way communications medium, shouldn’t we adjust our marketing and promotional language accordingly?

Traditional media, like TV, are one way. The advertiser gets to speak at you, but you can’t talk back to the advertiser through your TV.

The language of advertising developed accordingly. Advertising spoke at you, through TV, radio, magazine ads, bill boards and so on.

Then along came the web… a two-way communications medium. Huge change.

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For a me-too business, stories can be the great differentiator.

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Undifferentiated suits

I have this dream.

My new client has a product or service with an amazing point of difference.

There is something unique about it. It has something none of its competitors possess. It’s amazing. It’s incredible.

Oh joy!

And then I wake up.

It’s incredibly rare that we have the opportunity to work on promoting a product or service that is significantly different from its competitors.

Mostly we have to work with very minor points of difference. Sometimes there is no point of difference at all.

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It’s not always easy being upbeat on demand. It may even feel a little fake. But…

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Upbeat group showing forced positivity

Whether I’m speaking on a stage, giving a live webinar or producing video-based training materials, I often encounter the same criticism…

“Nick, you don’t sound upbeat enough!”

And here’s a quote from a review for one of my courses:

“Lots of good stuff worth thinking about. I did find Nicks voice a bit ‘sleep inducing’ but otherwise clear. Thanks.”

Ouch. That’s not good. Feedback like that I take seriously.

In fact, before recording a lesson or lecture, I usually go through a series of physical, voice and mental exercises… all designed to give me a little more of an upbeat feel when I speak.

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3 Ways to attract quality inbound links to your website or blog.

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backlinks and inbound links for websites

When it comes to attracting more traffic to your blog or website, everyone is all over search engine optimization, content marketing and social media.

These are the hot tickets.

Optimize for the search engines!

Spend more on content marketing!

Go viral through social media channels!

There’s nothing wrong with focusing on these three areas. They are all important.

But that doesn’t mean you should forget one other area of activity that is just as valuable to online marketers.

Link building.

Link building means attracting inbound links to your site from other relevant and high-value sites.

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