How To Elevate Your Visitors

They say that the head­line is the most impor­tant part of your online copy. But your deck and lead copy are just as impor­tant. These often make up the the sec­tion called “above the fold,” which is the top­most sec­tion of your website’s page, with­out any scrolling.

(Think of the front-​​page head­lines and pic­tures of a news­pa­per, folded on a news­stand. This sec­tion is vital, for it’s the sec­tion that sells papers.)

Online, it’s the first screen your vis­i­tors see when they hit your site. The deck copy is usu­ally the por­tion imme­di­ately fol­low­ing your head­line (also known as the “sub­head­line”), and the lead is the open­ing of your let­ter. (Usu­ally the first few para­graphs if not sen­tences of your body copy.)

There are many things you need to take into account when devel­op­ing your “above the fold” sec­tion. Adding a pic­ture, grab­bing atten­tion, per­haps even incor­po­rat­ing audio and video.

But for the pur­poses of this arti­cle, I want to explore the con­cept of com­mu­ni­cat­ing your core idea, ben­e­fit, claim or promise, and doing it in the most pow­er­ful, per­sua­sive, and pro­duc­tive way pos­si­ble, in that vital above-​​the-​​fold sec­tion. It’s called…

The “ele­va­tor speech.”

The impor­tance of cre­at­ing a per­sua­sive open­ing state­ment on your web­site is increas­ingly higher these days. Once a vis­i­tor hits your front page, the head­line as well as the very first para­graph should be truly com­pelling in order to direct vis­i­tors into your site — and buy your offering.

But most impor­tantly, your open­ing state­ment should be brief since peo­ple are click-​​happy and have very short atten­tion spans, par­tic­u­larly on the web. If your open­ing state­ment does not cap­ture their atten­tion in an instant, you will lose your visitors.

Aside from graph­ics, pic­tures, and mul­ti­me­dia, your open­ing state­ment must grab people’s atten­tion and it must do so very quickly. To that end, cre­ate a brief intro­duc­tion — almost a mini-​​sales pitch — about your offer. Typ­i­cally, it’s about 30 words or less. Focus on what John Audette said:

“Be short, pithy and punchy.”

In 1999, there was a local event called “Ideas on Tap,” which was being held each month in my home­town of Ottawa, Canada, at local bars. (Ottawa Val­ley is the home of many high-​​tech head offices, includ­ing Corel, Cog­nos, Cisco, etc. It’s affec­tion­ately known as “Sil­i­con Val­ley North” as a result.)

Aspir­ing ecom­merce entre­pre­neurs were given a soap­box (they stood on empty milk crates, actu­ally), a micro­phone and only 60 sec­onds to pitch their ideas to a crowd filled with ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists, dot­com exec­u­tives, high-​​tech reporters, and so on.

The show was inter­est­ing. There were five con­tes­tants in total each night. Through an applause rat­ing sys­tem, the crowd chose the most suc­cess­ful pitch — and the win­ner received a $100 gift. But that 60-​​second limit was strictly enforced. If a speech hap­pened to pass that limit, the micro­phone was mer­ci­lessly turned off.

But as the crowd began to min­gle after the show, one could instantly tell, by notic­ing where most investors and exec­u­tives were grav­i­tat­ing, who were suc­cess­ful with their pitches.

While I could cer­tainly appre­ci­ate the major­ity of ideas that were pro­posed dur­ing that event (in fact, I thought that four out of five were really good ideas), only two entre­pre­neurs were able to suc­cess­fully attract investors.

But the ques­tion is, “Why?”

Suc­cess­ful ele­va­tor speeches were not suc­cess­ful because of their mes­sages but by the way they were con­veyed. In com­edy, they say “it’s all in the deliv­ery.” And in the case of ele­va­tor speeches, the same hold true.

Like with a per­son you’ve just met in an ele­va­tor, such as a poten­tial client (or investor), you only have a few sec­onds to make an impact until she leaves the ele­va­tor. There­fore, your speech must be good enough and con­cise enough to cap­ture, in just a few short moments, the atten­tion of the other person.

In terms of your web­site how­ever, your ele­va­tor speech sig­nals to your vis­i­tors the main advan­tage they receive from it or at least in brows­ing fur­ther. How many web­sites have you vis­ited in the last day or so? How many out of those did you read their pages in their entirety? Not many, I’m sure.

So develop an ele­va­tor speech about your site or offer. Write down a solid para­graph that tells peo­ple, imme­di­ately, suc­cinctly, and in terms your vis­i­tors can under­stand, what you’re all about. But more impor­tantly, what it is you are all about can do for them.

Try to say it in 30 words or less. If you need to write down more, do so. But edit it down, and try to be as pithy and as con­cise as possible.

Don’t be vague or gen­eral. Don’t say, “We solve prob­lems” or “we offer solu­tions.” They don’t say any­thing! And don’t say, “We’re supe­rior,” “the best,” “of high qual­ity,” “unique,” “num­ber one,” etc.” These are claims, not ben­e­fits. And they are focused on you, cer­tainly not on your audience.

(Claims mean absolutely noth­ing. Or more specif­i­cally, claims, with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or a rea­son why they are impor­tant to the reader, mean nothing.)

Think about it: If every­one said they were the best, then who do you believe? So instead, think about what makes you the best. How are you unique? What do you specif­i­cally bring to the table that no one else does? Why should peo­ple enter?

Also, if you are mak­ing any claims, think about how your claim specif­i­cally con­nects with your reader. If you are the best, why should a reader believe you? And what would “being the best” specif­i­cally mean to the reader?

Remem­ber, when your vis­i­tors hit your site, they are eas­ily dis­tracted and annoyed. Why? It’s because they’re lis­ten­ing to their favorite radio sta­tion: WIIFM (“What’s in it for me”).

If your site does not tune in to that same radio sta­tion, you will have eas­ily lost them. Vis­i­tors will either leave almost instantly or not fully grasp the true value of your offer (forc­ing them to scan or skip your copy altogether).

Once you’ve devel­oped your ele­va­tor speech, cut it down to a sin­gle sen­tence of 16 words or less. This may not be an easy task. It might even take awhile — but it’s the best invest­ment of your time you can make in writ­ing your copy.

Try to dis­till your speech to the very core essence of what you offer. Cut out the gen­er­al­i­ties and the excess fat. Remove super­flu­ous adjec­tives, superla­tives, and adverbs. Sub­sti­tute them with action verbs and pic­ture words to com­mu­ni­cate the same mes­sage — with the same impact.

Think care­fully: There should be only one impor­tant ben­e­fit that encom­passes all oth­ers — some­thing that imme­di­ately cap­tures the essence of all that you are. Ask, “What’s the sin­gle, most impor­tant qual­ity or ben­e­fit of my web­site or offer?”

Once you’re done, those few words with which you end up can give you some direc­tion as to what you should focus in your above-​​the-​​fold section.

It may become your head­line (remem­ber, the headline’s job is to get peo­ple to read your copy, and noth­ing more). Or it will give you an idea of what the deck and lead copy should entail. You can use your speech ver­ba­tim in this sec­tion, or let it guide you in the process of writ­ing it.

(If I came to you, right now, and asked you what you can do for me in 16 words or less, would you be pre­pared? Would you stum­ble and fum­ble? Or would you be at a com­plete loss for words?)

Like a head­line, an ele­va­tor speech is not a sum­mary, either.

(Do restau­rant menus that list all the ingre­di­ents of a par­tic­u­lar item entice you? No, unless you’re hun­gry. But they should make you sali­vate by just read­ing what’s on them, per­haps even con­fused or frus­trated because there are so many deli­cious items on the menu from which to order!)

For exam­ple, if you were to ask me what I do, I could eas­ily say “copy­writer.” That’s a sum­mary, not an ele­va­tor speech. Instead, you might hear me say, “I help busi­nesses and indi­vid­u­als cre­ate end­less streams of new, repeat and refer­rals busi­ness with words.”

(That’s 16 words if you’re count­ing, by the way.)

The prob­lem with many head­lines these days is the fact that the author is try­ing to give away too much. They give away the store too early, or they try to cover all the bases by mak­ing sure all the main ben­e­fits are listed so peo­ple don’t miss any­thing. But this often back­fires.

I don’t nec­es­sar­ily mean to be short. But head­lines that are too long are either too long to read (defeat­ing its pur­pose in the first place), or giv­ing too much infor­ma­tion that may even cause peo­ple to know too much, too early — thus cre­at­ing doubt, or negat­ing any atten­tion, urgency, or curios­ity it may have created.

The ele­va­tor speech is there­fore a great exer­cise in pithi­ness. You can essen­tially say the same thing but with dif­fer­ent words that will drive people’s atten­tion and curios­ity. And more impor­tant, they can imme­di­ately get a sense of what they get from read­ing further.

You can use your ele­va­tor speech in your deck and lead copy as well. Or you can expand on it, or use it as a foun­da­tion that will give you some direc­tion as to the kind of copy you need to effec­tively com­mu­ni­cate to your reader.

But remem­ber to focus on the core essence of your site offer and what it means to the reader, and try to be as brief as possible.

Remem­ber that we click in and out of sites as often as peo­ple enter and leave ele­va­tors. So, you need an attention-​​capturing, curiosity-​​generating and interest-​​enhancing state­ment — one that is brief, terse and to the point.

As Jim Rohn once said, “Brevity has a lot of power in it.”

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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