What’s copywriting?
People love to spend money on stuff they love. Your goal as a copywriter is to help them buy the right stuff using your sales copy. Use effective copywriting techniques which you’ll learn subsequently to touch peoples’ emotional hot buttons – hopes, fears, dreams and desires – and motivate them into purchase decisions. Anyone can get good at sales copy… you just need to practice well.
One man’s journey with sales copy
No one was born knowing how to write. Learning how to write and how to write a great sales copy can change your life. Commit to developing your copywriting skills like you would to developing your writing skills while you were younger.
Without a strong why, people don’t buy
Identify the ‘why’, the reasons people buy from you instead of your competition. Use as many of them as you can in your copy to tie down the prospect. It’s not always about making money or saving it. You have to make yourself stretch and think beyond these reasons.
Nobody cares about you in your sales copy
Your reader is the hero in your copy, so make it all about them. Once you’ve finished the draft, go back and look for words like ‘I, me, my, we, ours’. And try to replace them with ‘You’. Readers don’t care about you or what you do. They care about relieving their pain, claiming their fears and meeting their needs.
The most valuable skill you’ll ever learn
Master your headlines first because headlines make the first impression as well as the biggest impact on your sales copy. Pay attention to the headlines that grab your attention. And use them as a frame of reference in writing your own version. That’s a good copy!
The most important piece of sales copy ever
Spend a lot of time crafting perfect headlines, especially for sales copies and ads. It’s the number one factor that determines your success or failure. Use curiosity to pull people into your copy. Once you think you have a headline that works well, don’t settle. Test new versions against that one to see if you can improve still. The author has seen as much as 500% improvement in sales just by tweaking the headline.
It’s never ‘one size fits all’
Embrace the beauty of difference in people who use your product of service. Identify those differences and commit to writing a message that touches each of them. Don’t be lazy and think that a one-size-fits-all approach will work all the time for all the people.
Meet F.R.E.D, your ideal customer
FRED is an acronym for Fears, Results, Expectations and Desires. If you know FRED inside out, you know your audience better than they know themselves. Pay as much or more attention to psychographics as you do demographics.
The ultimate bullet formula
When it comes to bullets, less is often more. Five specific bullets will outperform thirty generic ones. Let bullets be the workhorse you use to create curiosity in your copy. And never forget the meaning in them because that’s the secret sauce that makes them better than everyone else’s.
What really sells people
People buy with emotion and justify with logic. The primary motivation factors are fear and desire. Your goal is to make an emotional connection with your readers using these two emotions and tying them with as many different reasons as you can.
Why good enough makes you poor
If you’re not testing, start testing immediately. But never test more than one variable at a time because only then you’ll know what’s causing these results. Clicks, purchases or subscriptions are a critical few that you can’t forget about. You don’t have to test by hand if at all possible. There are many good automated solutions you can find online.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
Never put your words on paper without doing a proper research. Research gives you the words and the ideas you need to craft a better copy. A good copywriter never sits down at the keyboard and starts writing without warming up first.
It’s all about them
If you confuse them, you lose them. A confused mind always screams ‘No’ in a sales situation. Keep your messages short and simple. Avoid big words and jargons that make readers feel stupid. You’re not telling the audience how smart you are. You’re telling them how much you can help them.
What to do if you don’t have any testimonies yet
Testimonies are proof for people to feel comfortable making the decision they need. But you don’t let the lack of them stop you from doing your best job. Proof can come in different forms, including celebrity endorsements, facts, statistics and quotes that support your message. You can even consider giving your product away in exchange for an honest testimonial.
Sales formulas that never fail
Start with before – Your dog is not listening. You’re worried that he’ll get loose….
Introduce the after – Now, imagine what would be like to have your dog listen to you. Not because he’s scared of you but because he loves you. He walks with you down the street….
Bridge – Here’s how you get to that point. It’s called Dog Training Secrets which helps you get (this benefit), (this benefit)… Here’s how…”
These three formulas work in almost any case. They take people through a mental process that ultimately sets them up to buy. But as always, you must test each formula to find one that works best.
The hardest draft you’ll ever write
The hardest draft you’ll ever write is the one you write from scratch. Use your swipe file to get it done instead of reinventing the wheel. Get the first draft as first as you can using your swipe file and then it’s a hundred times easier to edit than it is to write.
Create your own swipe file
A swipe file contains anything you see that grabs your attention and works. Your swipe file doesn’t have to be industry specific. You can use inspiration from anywhere that applies to your business. If you don’t have a swipe file, start creating one immediately. That’s the single most important decision you’ll ever make as a copywriter.
Make them more thirsty
Stories make people thirsty. Sales copy point them where the water is.
Love me, hate me. There’s no money in the middle
Be consistent in your message and what you stand for. Stand for something, anything that you believe in. But don’t be so stiff that you won’t accept any facts and figures when the situation warrants.
‘Oh dam, I’ve got to have that!’
Make an amazing promise only when you can fulfill it. And never ever make your readers feel like it’s their fault when they don’t have what they want.
Put lipstick on the pig
If your copy is falling flat, put a lipstick on it. The first thing to test is your headline. Make sure your copy is crystal clear and your readers know what they’re getting.
Should I join the dark side?
There’s a good way and a bad way to go ‘negative’. Never get negative by attacking an individual, a business or your competitor. It never pays off and very often backfires. Instead get negative to get in sync with people and conversations going on in their leads.
‘Stealth’ closes, the secret to selling without selling
Peoples’ sales radar defenses are up all the time, especially outside the WIIFM – What’s In It For Me – channel. Stealth closes help you fly under their defenses and get them to do what you want them to do. If you’re publishing books, you can use stealth close at the beginning or end of your book that says ‘By the way, if you’d like a free audiobook version, head over to my website and register your copy now!’.
The hired gun
Hiring someone to write for you isn’t a wise decision. But if you must audition someone for you, understand that you will still have to get involved for a solid copy. And understand that what you’ll get from a copywriter is a mere first draft and you’re the one fine tuning it.
The magic desk
Better copies come from higher levels of empathy with your readers. Having this state of mind helps you synthesize lots of ideas and stories through your prospects’ eyes. It might feel weird even hearing this, but if you do it with an open mind, your results could be life changing.
The one and only purpose of an online ad
The single purpose of an online ad is to get the ‘right’ people to click on your ad. For that to happen, you have to test a lot of variations. Testing is a never-ending process. When you think you have the perfect ad, it’s time for running even more tests. That’s how you keep grabbing peoples’ attention, build curiosity and drive them to click.
You can’t catch fish without a hook
A hook is a one-liner that you use to grab peoples’ attention. Hooks are as much art as they are science. You can use a hook anywhere but the most prominent place to use a hook is in a headline. “Ex-pizza delivery guy shows you a weird trick to become a bestselling author on a weekend.” “Meet Bob. Bob used a 1600-year-old secret to save his marriage, and we’ll show you how.” “Lose all the weight you want in the next thirty days without diet or exercise”
Polish your sales copy
People judge your copy by the format, form, grammar, spelling and punctuation as much as they do the content. So first, get a second pair of eyes for checking typo and grammar. Second, make sure your copy sounds conversational with no jarring movements from one thought to another. If not, smooth the language so it flows…
Liked what you read? Please support the author by purchasing a book or a kindle.