This week we’re going to discuss a silent assassin – a conversion killer that almost nobody ever thinks about until it’s too late.

AND – If you can become more aware of this “silent assassin” and find ways to eliminate it… you will easily double or triple your marketing effectiveness – OVERNIGHT.

Friction.

The concept is much more prevalent in landing page optimization circles, but I hope to demonstrate that it’s at least as important in conversion marketing at the ad level as it is on your pages.

Friction is any potential sticking point that a prospect can experience during their journey through the marketing and sales pipeline.

Generally speaking, there are two distinct kinds of friction.

Length-based friction relates to fatigue, irritation, or aggravation that results from asking for more time or information than feels reasonably necessary to the prospect.

The operative concept there is “reasonably necessary.”

It is always judged from the perspective of the potential customer, not from our perspective as marketers or business owners.

This is why, here at Hemon Media, we say, “The job of a conversion copywriter is economy with impact.”

We don’t say brevity, necessarily.

In the end the ad should be as long as it needs to be in order to do the job.

Rather, economy is the benchmark of expert advertisers.

Just as long as it needs to be, and no more.

And then, there’s Difficulty-related friction.

In landing pages, this often manifests as confusing elements or elements that require too much effort to complete, such as asking for a drivers license on a lead capture form.

In ads, Difficulty-related friction tends to be more about using big paragraphs (formatting), inaccessible language, run-on sentences, and ethereal concepts that are more challenging for the reader to interpret.

There’s a reason why many successful conversion copywriters break their ads into one or two sentence paragraphs, and it’s always an effort to eliminate difficulty-related friction.

Friction has a known effect on conversion.

It will kill a campaign faster than almost anything else.

Here are a few tips to keep the friction to a minimum in your next ad campaign.

Word swapping – Have you edited your ads for friction?

You should aim for about an eighth grade reading level with your ads.

If there are words that are haughty and unnecessarily advanced, replace them with a simpler equivalent.

This will help reduce difficulty-related friction.

Clarity – One of the most egregious violations that result in increased difficulty-related friction is a failure to fully explain the product, service, or offering being promoted by the ad.

If you make people work too hard to figure out what you’re talking about, your ad won’t convert.

Radical clarity is the antidote to this particular poison.

Get to the point, and be clear about what it is and what you’d like your prospects to do.

Ninety-word challenge – One way to combat length-based friction is to challenge yourself to write with increased economy.

I like to use a ninety-word challenge.

Once I’ve written an ad, I’ll often challenge myself to rewrite it in ninety words or less.

I’ve often found that if I can’t do this, I usually don’t properly understand the product or service I’m attempting to promote.

If I don’t understand it, my prospect is likely to not understand it as well.

This facilitates both clarity and brevity, and thus works on both types of friction simultaneously.

These are just a few tactics to remedy friction in ad copy.

If you’ll implement them, you’re very likely to get an immediate lift in conversion rate on your ads.

Now, let’s get out there and go friction hunting!

58 Responses

  1. It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to
    this brilliant blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for
    book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.

    I look forward to new updates and will share this website with
    my Facebook group. Talk soon!

  2. Hello there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and
    found that it’s truly informative. I’m going to watch
    out for brussels. I’ll be grateful if you continue this in future.
    Many people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

  3. Agenția imobiliară District Real Estate se distinge prin solutii inovatoare și servicii.
    Cu o echipă dedicată de specialiști imobiliari, District Real Estate oferă servicii complete și personalizate conform cerințelor
    clienților.

    Principalele servicii oferite de District Real Estate includ:

    Vânzări și închirieri de proprietăți imobiliare: Agenții imobiliari experimentați de la District Real
    Estate ofere asistență clienții în procesul de vânzare și închiriere
    a proprietăților, oferindu-le sfaturi și ghidare în alegerea opțiunilor.

    Aceștia își folosesc expertiza pentru a identifica cele mai potrivite opțiuni, ținând cont
    de cerințele și bugetul fiecărui client.
    spatii comerciale timisoara

  4. I’m curious to find out what blog system you
    are utilizing? I’m having some minor security problems with
    my latest site and I’d like to find something more safeguarded.
    Do you have any suggestions?

  5. An outstandіng share! I have just forwarded this onto a friend who has
    been conducting a ⅼittle homework on this. And he actually ordeгed me dinner simply because I stᥙmbled upon it
    for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the mеaⅼ!!
    But yeah, tһankѕ f᧐r spending time to discuss this subjeϲt here on your web page.

  6. Does your site have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating it but,
    I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some ideas for your blog you might be interested in hearing.
    Either way, great site and I look forward to seeing it
    expand over time.

  7. I really wantfed to send a simple comment to
    appreciate you for these precious solutions you are showing at
    this site. My particularly long internet lookup has finally been compensated with good details to go over with my family.
    I would tedll you that most of us readers are undeniably endoed to dwell in a remarkable site with very many brilliant
    individuals with helpful basics. I feel really lucky to have used
    the web page and look forward to really more thrilling minutes reading here.
    Thank you once again for a lot of things.

    My web page – table sports (Claudio)

  8. I?m amazed, I have to admit. Seldom do I encounter a blog that?s
    equally educative and entertaining, and
    let me tell you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The issue is something that not enough people
    are speaking intelligently about. I’m very happy I came across this during my hunt for something relating to this.

  9. Hi there! Someone in my Myspace group shared this
    site with us so I came to look it over. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to
    my followers! Fantastic blog and terrific design and style.

  10. My relatives always say that I am wasting my time here at net, except I know I am getting familiarity all the time by reading such nice content.

  11. Useful info. Fortunate me I discovered your web site by accident, and I am surprised why this coincidence didn’t took place in advance!
    I bookmarked it.

  12. I am very happy to read this. This is the type of manual that needs to be given and not the accidental misinformation that is at the other blogs.
    Appreciate your sharing this best doc.

  13. Hey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my facebook group?
    There’s a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content.

    Please let me know. Many thanks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

58 Responses

  1. It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d definitely donate to
    this brilliant blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for
    book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.

    I look forward to new updates and will share this website with
    my Facebook group. Talk soon!

  2. Hello there, just became alert to your blog through Google, and
    found that it’s truly informative. I’m going to watch
    out for brussels. I’ll be grateful if you continue this in future.
    Many people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

  3. Agenția imobiliară District Real Estate se distinge prin solutii inovatoare și servicii.
    Cu o echipă dedicată de specialiști imobiliari, District Real Estate oferă servicii complete și personalizate conform cerințelor
    clienților.

    Principalele servicii oferite de District Real Estate includ:

    Vânzări și închirieri de proprietăți imobiliare: Agenții imobiliari experimentați de la District Real
    Estate ofere asistență clienții în procesul de vânzare și închiriere
    a proprietăților, oferindu-le sfaturi și ghidare în alegerea opțiunilor.

    Aceștia își folosesc expertiza pentru a identifica cele mai potrivite opțiuni, ținând cont
    de cerințele și bugetul fiecărui client.
    spatii comerciale timisoara

  4. I’m curious to find out what blog system you
    are utilizing? I’m having some minor security problems with
    my latest site and I’d like to find something more safeguarded.
    Do you have any suggestions?

  5. An outstandіng share! I have just forwarded this onto a friend who has
    been conducting a ⅼittle homework on this. And he actually ordeгed me dinner simply because I stᥙmbled upon it
    for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the mеaⅼ!!
    But yeah, tһankѕ f᧐r spending time to discuss this subjeϲt here on your web page.

  6. Does your site have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating it but,
    I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some ideas for your blog you might be interested in hearing.
    Either way, great site and I look forward to seeing it
    expand over time.

  7. I really wantfed to send a simple comment to
    appreciate you for these precious solutions you are showing at
    this site. My particularly long internet lookup has finally been compensated with good details to go over with my family.
    I would tedll you that most of us readers are undeniably endoed to dwell in a remarkable site with very many brilliant
    individuals with helpful basics. I feel really lucky to have used
    the web page and look forward to really more thrilling minutes reading here.
    Thank you once again for a lot of things.

    My web page – table sports (Claudio)

  8. I?m amazed, I have to admit. Seldom do I encounter a blog that?s
    equally educative and entertaining, and
    let me tell you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The issue is something that not enough people
    are speaking intelligently about. I’m very happy I came across this during my hunt for something relating to this.

  9. Hi there! Someone in my Myspace group shared this
    site with us so I came to look it over. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to
    my followers! Fantastic blog and terrific design and style.

  10. My relatives always say that I am wasting my time here at net, except I know I am getting familiarity all the time by reading such nice content.

  11. Useful info. Fortunate me I discovered your web site by accident, and I am surprised why this coincidence didn’t took place in advance!
    I bookmarked it.

  12. I am very happy to read this. This is the type of manual that needs to be given and not the accidental misinformation that is at the other blogs.
    Appreciate your sharing this best doc.

  13. Hey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my facebook group?
    There’s a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content.

    Please let me know. Many thanks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

get maad weekly!