Ekaterina Howard 6/8/23 Ekaterina Howard 6/8/23

Questions you should be asking to write better conversion copy

In this post: 3 sets of questions that would help you solve these 3 common startup challenges:

Coming up with a value prop that would work across ICPs

Uncovering hidden objections that are stopping your prospects from converting
Pre-launch sanity check (obvious, but frequently overlooked)

Ekaterina Howard 2/26/21 Ekaterina Howard 2/26/21

Taking case studies from "sales spin" to "spellbinding"

Make your case studies more persuasive by learning about the surprising factors that affect our perception of content credibility.

Ekaterina Howard 11/23/20 Ekaterina Howard 11/23/20

How to instantly boost your startup's credibility with external proof

When you think of authority-building content or webpage elements, most likely you find yourself thinking about proof bars with client logos, or about testimonials and case studies. But what if you're building a product that's disrupting an existing category or creating a new one?

You might be struggling with a different problem: how to help your prospective users understand what you do — and why. To do that, you may find yourself relying on external proof points, such as studies, quotes from authority figures, or data.

If you're doing this, here are some ideas on how to leverage external proof points.

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[S2E6] How to build a content ecosystem to convert and support users

Content and copy are frequently treated as separate skillsets, and sometimes content gets broken down even further by channel, fragmenting messaging and making it hard to align on how to talk about the brand, the product, and its benefits.

But what if instead we treated all of the content, from ads to knowledge base articles, as one ecosystem?

This is how Erika Kramarik and Daniel Prindii approach this task in their work. In our conversation, they’ll take us behind the scenes of helping Omnivore (now acquired and shut down) go from speaking predominantly to early adopters start attracting, converting, and retaining early majority users.

[S2E5] Practical Guide to Wynter Messaging Tests

If you want to use Wynter for optimizing your website messaging, this episode is for you. I break down how I set up tests to validate copy before launch, explore messaging for new audiences, and make sure my clients’ homepage copy speaks to their target customers. I share tips on prepping your pages, what questions to focus on, and how to actually analyze the results to find blind spots and boost conversions.

[S2E4] How to: message testing on a budget

Alex Atkins, VP of Marketing at Sturdy, walks us through the process of continuously optimizing the homepage variations by combining message testing, reaching out to target ICPs for feedback, and (sometimes) asking for help.

In this episode:

How Sturdy messaging changed with the rise of "AI-powered" messaging everywhere
How Alex combined outreach and running messaging test
His approach to increasing messaging stickiness without sacrificing clarity

[S2E3] How to: positioning

Before you start building a category of one (please don’t), listen to this conversation about positioning against incumbents. It’ll save you a lot of sweat and tears.

In this episode:

How B2B buyers think about shopping (hint: they don’t think it’s fun)
What startups can do to go against “big guys” and win
Examples of great positioning in the wild

[S2E2] How to find winning angles for your competitor pages

Competitor comparison pages are a must-have for every startup that’s ready to grow. Or are they?

In this episode:

When startups should consider building competitor comparison pages
How to think about framing the conversation
How competitor research can help with future differentiation and product development
Pros and cons of 2 popular frameworks: “Us vs everybody else” and “Why we’re better than {X}”

[S2E1] How to make research (like JTBD) a part of your company’s business processes with Eric White, ponder*

Questions you should be asking to write better conversion copy

Taking case studies from "sales spin" to "spellbinding"

How to instantly boost your startup's credibility with external proof

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A newsletter for B2B SaaS marketers and founders who want to fuel their growth with customer research data, not best-practice templates (and are tired of doing things the hard way)