Copywriting
COPYWRITING
First, let me tell you a funny story: When I attended my first internet marketing seminar, I knew almost nothing about this business. When a person introduced herself as being a copywriter, I thought she was registering copyrights for texts. I was relieved to see that the man next to me also did not have a clue what copywriters did.
Now that you started making money on the web, you might be looking at ways to improve your sales, conversion rates and that’s perfectly normal.
Many people have spent countless hours changing and testing such little things as a color or a word on their web sites or sales letter and saw that their conversion rates changed drastically. There are numerous software out there that test which headlines, text or pictures convert most. You can decide if you will do such tracking and split-testing.
Allow me now to warn you about what will follow. You wanted controversy, you wanted fighting, you wanted blood… Well, you are going to get all them on this page. Hence, although I do not mean in any way to insult any copywriter out there, I truly believe that the best copywriter for your product is YOU!
I have hired copywriters in the past and I know they were good by the industry’s standards but I ended-up regretting it and going with my own texts.
Here is the deal:
+ Copywriters will write in their own language and often you might feel after reading their proposed texts: this is not me talking. I don’t even relate to that. Your conversion will not be great because your customers know, like and trust you.
+ One of the copywriters I hired basically copied my sales letter and put exclamation marks everywhere and charged me hundreds of dollars to do so.
+ Since you need to describe your product or service, you already need to start the writing yourself. Nobody knows your product better than you do.
If you are not comfortable writing, record it and ask someone to transcribe your text. You are on a budget? Upload your video on YouTube, make it private and then click on the close caption icon. On the window that opens right click on it and make the timeline disappear. Scroll to copy that text and copy it in a Word document or Open Office Write. Read it and correct the ahs and hums and make it pretty. Separate blocks into headline, paragraphs and bullet points and you have a good skeleton for your salesletter.
+ Copywriters sometimes have their own agendas and will drive your campaign in a direction totally different from the one you want. I had one of my sales letters re-written and all that was focused on was the money but my target market was people seeking a happier and healthier life. Not good.
Trust yourself and start writing as if you were writing to a friend (which you are)
For example, my best salesletter took me 30 minutes to write and brought over 21 000$ and guess what I was selling? NOTHING!
I was collecting money to build a school in Mexico with my father and we did. Then we had enough money left over to build a church steeple and 14 roofs!
The letter is only two pages long, is in below average English but it speaks from the heart.
Click here to read the letter now.
To start writing your sales letter, grab a notepad and imagine you are at a dinner and the person sitting next to you is asking you about what you are offering on your web site. What would you tell her?
When writing your web pages, sales letter or newsletter, there are a few rules that need to be followed:
The Top 16 Rules For Copywriting
1) Be clear and to the point. If you are selling a turn-key software, tell people what it will do for them (stay away from the technical stuff unless you are selling to a very technical crowd).
2) Write in short bite-size sentences. the attention span of most people is getting shorter and shorter, so should be your writing!
3) There should be a very clear call to action: click here for… As internet marketing beginners, we tend to all fall in the trap of wanting to sell everything on one page. What happens is that if your customer is confused, he leaves. If you want your customer to do one thing, say it clearly and then repeat it a couple of times.
4) The general rule is one action per page. I admit I have been guilty of offering my products, subscribing to my newsletter, affiliate products and adsense ads all on one page. The conversion rate was not very good for those pages. They say a confused mind never buys.
5) There has been so many debates on internet marketing forums about how long a sales letter should be (yawn). The tendency is leaning towards shorter and shorter sales letters To the point. Say what you have to say and then offer your simple call to action and then shut up!
6) Your sales letter should identify a problem your customer has and then offer the solution to the problem. If the customer really feels like you have answered their needs, they will buy your product.
7) We all know that most people buy from emotions and then justify their purchase with logical reasons. You have to appeal to your customer’s needs and answer their number one question: ”What’s in it for me?”
8) Inserting bullets in your sales letter is a good selling point. Separate your paragraphs, let your customer breath and enjoy your marvelous sales letter.
9) Many people, skim through sales letters by just reading the headlines. Make your headlines stand out.
“Your paragraphs should be short (five lines or less) and insert frequent headlines to draw attention to your most important messages.”
10) Resist the temptation to underline and highlight everything. The last thing you want is to draw your customer blind!
11) Many people have created what they call “swap files” which is just a document with all the sales letters they liked. Their intention is in no way to copy the sales letter but rather to be “inspired” by them and be able to create their own magic sales letters. There are also books and ebooks like the one called “words that sells” that can give you good clues on positive words to use in order to convert your sales better.
12) You might decide in the end that you do want to hire a copywriter and that’s just fine. Before you hire them, I suggest you ask to see their previous works and make sure that they will work on your sales letter until you are satisfied.
13) Always write your sales letter by addressing your customer directly. You wan to use the “you” not the “I” in your writing. It is about them not you.
14) Dam Lok an extremely successful copywriter shares some copywriting pearls here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3P8_Yqe9nk
15) There is an abundance of copywriting courses on the market. Choose one that fits you and stick to it.
16) Even the best copy will not be able to sell much of a bad product.
HERE IS YOUR CALL TO ACTION
Browse the internet and look at sales letter but with a writer’s point of view. Better yet, go back to a sales letter of a product you bought and see what made you click. The lesson will be even more valuable if you bought the product and either never used it or find it not very useful. You will then know what good copywriting is about!
Create a swipe folder (either virtual or physical) of the sales letters that resonate the most with you or some famous for bringing in millions of dollars.
Start writing about your products and offers. It does not have to be perfect. Once done, read your text out loud. How does it flow? Resist the temptation to be too critical.
Once your copy is written, have it read by your friends and family (the dumber the friends, the better) and ask if they understand everything and their feelings about the copy. Change what needs to be changed and then you can change it as needed afterwards.
Watch Dan Lok’s video about 7 copywriting exercises here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU4gHGdYDI0 Dan Lok has been in some controversy (like most successful marketers for that matter) but his free videos on copywriting provide good value.
Read this very good article on the essentials of a sales letter https://www.splashcopywriters.com/blog/copywriting-tips
Bring home the 60 minutes copy 
See you on the next square!
Nathalie
