When it comes to online marketing, the person who gets the most clicks wins. The more people you can tempt to click on your ad, sign up for your program, subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on Twitter — the more money you’ll make.

Why they click

A person is only going to click on your ad, sign up for your program, or subscribe to your newsletter if there’s a reason to do so. That reason is some positive outcome the clicker hopes to gain.

Your job as advertiser is to make it blatantly obvious what that reason is.

A failure to make it blatantly obvious will render every tip, trick and technique that follows completely useless. As with everything else in life, you have to get the basics right first.

This article assumes you already have the basics right. It assumes your ad is already generating clicks, sign ups, subscriptions or followers. And that you want to know how to increase the percentage of people who respond.

The five-pronged approach

There are five things you can do to improve the number of clicks, sign ups or subscriptions you’re getting. They are…

1. Get to the point
2. Eliminate oblique references
3. Ask for the action you want
4. Invoke scarcity
5. Reinforce the benefit

Get to the point

Your prospect will only act when he or she believes it’s in his or her best interests to do so.

Your ad has to make it blatantly obvious why it’s in your prospects best interests. And it must do so as soon as humanly possible.

There’s a very good chance your ad doesn’t do this as soon as humanly possible. There’s a very good chance your ad waffles along for several paragraphs before, finally, mercifully, wonderfully — it gets to the point.

And by then, it’s too late. Your prospect has fallen asleep on his or her keyboard, accidentally hit the enter key, and surfed off to some other site.

Get rid of all the waffle, and get to the point immediately. And by immediately, I mean in the headline at the top of the page.

Eliminate oblique references

Eliminate oblique references? Huh?

What I’m really saying here, is be direct. Don’t say “eliminate oblique references”. Say “be direct”. Say what you mean in the most economic way possible.

Some of you may well rebel at this command. You’ve been taught to be polite, and using blunt language goes against the grain. Force yourself to do it. Become an expert at using short words and sentences. Forget about fancy elements of style. Be direct!

This will help you get to the point fast, reinforcing the first of our five prongs.

Ask for the action you want

Sounds simple, right? You want somebody to click on your ad, sign up, subscribe or follow you. Naturally you’re going to ask them to do so! Some of you will specifically ask the prospect to act. Some of you will waffle around the point, desperately trying to be as polite as possible.

If you’re already asking for the action you want, what exactly are you saying? Are you telling the prospect exactly what you want him or her to do? Are you spelling it out in simple steps, and being as direct as possible?

You’re not? Then you have a job to do my friend!

If you’re being super-polite, then you’ve been brought up well. Call your parents, and thank them for a job well done. Then realize that being polite in advertising almost never works (there are a few exceptions). What works is getting to the point, and bluntly telling the prospect what he or she has to do.

You are literally giving your prospect an order. Do tell the prospect to “Fill out the form and click the Submit button now”.

Invoke scarcity

Human beings have a curious tendency to find something more desirable if it’s rare. You can take advantage of this in your advertising by artificially limiting the supply of the thing you’re offering.

When you limit the supply of something, anyone who wants that thing is under increased pressure to act. This helps overcome another human tendency to put things off.

Here are some examples of how to invoke scarcity…

• A person offering a special discount places a time-limit on the offer.
• A person seeking subscribers to a newsletter gives away a free gift to the first 50 subscribers only, and displays a countdown right there next to the subscribe form.

Reinforce the benefit

This fifth and final prong is about giving away a free gift to increase response. Yet it’s more than merely finding any old thing to give away. Your free gift should reinforce the benefit of the thing you’re selling.

By choosing a free gift that reinforces the major benefit of your offer, you can be sure you’re increasing the value of the overall package.

If you choose a free gift unrelated to your main offer, you can’t be sure the prospect will find it valuable. For example, a buyer of tofu is less likely to find a free donut as motivating as would a person who regularly buys donuts.

If you choose a free gift unrelated to your main offer, you lose a valuable chance to restate your main benefit. That’s because the section where you hype your free gift is going to have to focus on the unrelated benefits of the giveaway.

Your prospect gets excited about the benefit he or she hopes to get as a result of taking your offer. By selecting a free gift that reinforces this benefit, you get another bite at the cherry. This improves your chance of getting the prospect excited enough to overcome his or her natural lethergy.

And of course, if your prospect has read far enough into the ad to actually read about the free gift, you can be sure he or she is interested in your main benefit. So don’t ruin it by offering some unrelated random freebie that merely distracts the prospect.