What does the Wall Street Journal have to do with Google AdWords?
Plenty.
The Wall Street Journal advertises for new subscriptions with Google AdWords.
But that's not what I'm going to talk about today.
No, what I'm going to talk about is the WSJ's famous direct mail letter, the one that's been selling millions of subscriptions. They mail 30 million copies of that letter per year.
This two page letter says:
Dear Reader,
On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college.
They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable, and - as young college graduates are - both were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.
Recently, these men returned to their college for their twenty-fifth reunion...
Of course it goes on to explain that one was super-successful because he read the Wall Street Journal.
That letter has been selling WSJ subscriptions for 29 years - unchanged. That's right, they have not changed that letter in 29 years!
Not that people haven't tried. Top writers have been trying to beat it ever since it was first written.
And nobody's succeeded - until just recently.
That's right, a copywriter named Mal Decker just beat it, apparently increasing the response by Twenty Percent!.
Mr. Decker should be mighty proud of himself.
The reason this is so significant is that because of the improved performance of this letter, the WSJ now gets 20% more sales without spending a penny more on postage or printing. I can only guess, but when you subtract out expenses, this might actually double the profit they make selling their paper.
The lesson is clear: In advertising, copy - your choice of words - is king.
So what does this have to do with Google AdWords?
Plenty. AdWords is set up to work the same way as direct mail. If you can beat your existing ad, the same way Mal Decker beat the WSJ letter, the exact same thing happens. You pay the same amount of money but you simply get more visitors.
The same thing, in turn, happens once visitors get to your website: The better your copy on the website, and the more traffic it converts to dollars, the more money you get, and you don't have to spend a penny more on traffic!
You can change the CTR of your ads by 50% just by changing ONE WORD. And this is NOT unusual, not a fluke. It's actually QUITE NORMAL. That's right - ONE word can make that much difference. My AdWords Toolkit even shows you an example of how simply reversing the order of two lines increased the response by 2000%!
When you're writing those little ads, little hinges swing big doors!
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