Free Pants

A Quick Lesson in Salescopy for Online Marketing

So the other day a shopping bag appears in our hallway, and on the side somebody’s scrawled in felt pen, FREE PANTS.

Well they might as well have written DEADLY POISON or LIVE RATTLESNAKES.

People would approach this bag and lean over it and peer inside. They’d talk about the mystery of the free pants with other people in the hallway. Were they men’s or women’s pants? What size were they? Were they new or used? Were they clean? Who left them? Why would anybody give away pants?

Nobody knew.

But what was really interesting was that nobody found out!

Nobody took a pair of pants out of the bag and checked them to see what condition they were in or what size they were. The bag of free pants sat completely untouched in the hallway until the cleaning crew took it away.

This strange little non-event reminded me of some valuable lessons about online marketing.

1. Grab the attention of your target market. These aren’t just pants. They’re men’s pants with a 32 waist and a 36 inseam. Only men with those measurements (or women with men with those measurements) would be even remotely interested.

Effective online marketing depends on identifying a small market that wants something specific… and then telling them you’ve got it.

Our pants benefactor needed to grab the attention of the people in his small target market with something like this:

FREE PANTS: Men’s W32, L36

When people find your website, you need to tell them right off the top that they’ve found exactly what they were looking for so they’ll keep reading.

That’s what your website’s headline does.

2. Explain the benefits. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in online marketing is to list the features of your product without explaining how they will benefit the buyer.

It may seem obvious to our pants philanthropist that free used pants will be great for any W32/L36 guy who wants something he can wear when he’s lying under his car changing the oil…

… But the reader can’t make that logical leap without help.

It’s up to the marketer to make the potential customer see himself using and enjoying the product… like this:

FREE PANTS: Men’s W32, L36. Great for painting or gardening! Get ‘em dirty and don’t worry.

Demonstrating benefits is one of the most overlooked aspects of online selling.

3. Overcome objections. I’m pretty certain the reason nobody would dig around in that bag of pants was the "gross" factor: "Ewww, what if they’re dirty."

It’s natural for people to come up with objections when you’re offering them something. So let them know that you’re already aware that this could be a problem… and you’ve solved it.

The people who wouldn’t touch the pants with a barge pole needed to be told something like this:

FREE PANTS: Men’s W32, L36. Great for painting or gardening! Get ‘em dirty and don’t worry.

Used but very clean. Been through the wash so often they’ll never shrink.

"Oh, OK then! I can touch these without getting a disease. And they’re my size! Hmmm, maybe… "

Answer questions and objections before they come up.

4. Build value. There’s a ton of competition out there for almost everything (well, maybe not free pants). That’s why in every salesletter you’ll see bonuses on top of the product offering. As an online marketer you need to add value to your product to make it stand out from all the similar ones out there.

Often it’s just a matter of offering information that helps the buyer use the product better. Doesn’t cost you anything, but if nobody else is offering it, it’s enough to tip the potential buyer in your direction.

And as I saw this week in our hallway, you even have to add value to something that’s free! So maybe someone would have taken those pants home if the bag had read:

FREE PANTS: Men’s W32, L36. Great for painting or gardening! Get ‘em dirty and don’t worry.

Used but very clean. Been through the wash so often they’ll never shrink

BUT WAIT — THERE’S MORE: Keep this EXPANDABLE shopping bag!

Added value is something you need to build into every offer you make.

Now you might think that’s a lot to get on the side of a shopping bag, but that brings up one last point:

5. Long salescopy works. At the Internet Marketing Center we’ve tested every possible length and format, and long salescopy wins time and time again.

The salescopy on your website should take visitors through the whole selling process: getting their attention, telling them what they’ll get and how it benefits them, overcoming their objections, and then tossing in something extra so they won’t be able to resist.

And you know, what works for online selling would have worked just as well for a bag of free pants. If you want to sell, you have to tell!