New Copywriter

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This is going to be a short post today... but... something that really helped me and will be sure to help me well into my copywriting future is getting a critque.

I'm still preparing for my John Carlton crit, but I just finished watching Frank Kern do a crit on a letter.

I wrote in the past about the important question that needs to be asked (Who give's a #@%?)... it's from the same critique.

But I watched it again and really realized that you need to go back through your copy... or your advertisements... or your website copy and make sure you are talking to your prospect.

It's so easy to get sidetracked and start brain dumping about you and what you can do... but the prospect just cares about them.

Yeah, I know this is some real basic advice and something you will probably just pass over, but if you take 10 minutes and go through some of your own copy I'm willing to bet you can make it much stronger by just thinking...

"Am I talking to my prospect and telling them what's in it for them."

And finally, try not to make this process so complicated. Just sell and then tweak from there. With so many tools and the such on the market today, it gets hard to remember that things are not as complicated as they are presented to us to be.

Tags: copywriting | sales copy | conversions

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It's possible you don't know who Beyonce is...

She's only (probably) the most popular female singer in the world tody. And yes, she's actually good.

Ok... here's a tougher question that you most likely do not know.

Who is Sasha Pierce?

Don't know do you? Sasha Pierce is the very same Beyonce Knowles!

How can this be?

Sasha Pierce is Beyonce's alter ego when she is on the stage. She uses this to get her mindset into a confident stage so she can go out there and kick some singing butt. Because normally she is actually pretty shy (according to E! News).

How is that going to help you become a better marketer?

You need to form an alter ego for your business. It's possible like me you may get a little timid sometimes in business, but not if you form an alter ego... you're perfect business person.

Here's how to do this...

1. Give them a real name
2. Describe their personality and how they conduct business
3. Describe how other people respond to them
4. Even create a drawing or find a good picture to represent them

You might be laughing. You might be thinking... "Wow what a great idea!"

Either way, just do it. 

You will find your mindset making decisions better, with more confidence... and... you will find other people responding a lot better to you.

Tags: copywriting | marketing | confidence

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I'm not afraid to admit this. I am a huge self development person.

I always seem to take some pretty big risks and self development stuff always helps me stay focused so I can get the job done.

So naturally I would be a Tony Robbins fan, but I have just started to read and listen to his information. Why did it take me so long?

That's not important.

What is important is something he talks about that can be directly related to how to sell to your prospects. The two masters of your life...

Pain and Pleasure

As humans we do everything, make every decision, and not make decisions to either avoid pain or attain pleasure. Think about it...

If you decide to not drive to your buddies Super Bowl party because it far away and you're afraid of cops. Then you associate more pain to risking the long drive with cops than you do with the pleasure of hanging out and being social.

Simple right?

Now put that in perspective to your customers and clients. When they are making a decision to buy what you offer it will come down to avoiding pain that's stronger or attaining pleasure.

Plus think about this... 

They could associate more pain with spending the money than the pleasure your product brings. This is usually why people will not by.

So think about that for awhile and figure out how you can manipulate pain and pleasure to get more sales.

Tony Robbins is a pretty cool guy huh?

Tags: copywriting | sales | selling | marketing

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Converting your visitors is number 1 right?

Sure it is. Let's get real for a second... you can send all the traffic you want to a webpage, you can send your customer database a direct mail piece, or you can even joint venture and flood an offer with viewers...

But if you can't convert them then who gives a flying #$@%!

Let's take a look at your copy and a great tip you can use to make sure it's tight and ready to convert. I got this tip first from a marketer names Mike Dillard and the more colorful version from Frank Kern.

After each sentence or section of your copy, ask... Who Gives A Flying (bad word)?

Why This Helps...

It helps put you into your customers shoes. For example... if you are saying...

"We've been in business for 20 years." I then ask who gives a flying (bad word)? The answer is NOBODY!

You can immediately follow that question up with the logical...

What's In It For Me?

Only benefit statements and proof states would anybody really care about right?

I'm sure you agree that's the case. So go take a look at your copy on whatever marketing material you have and start asking that question. It will immediately strengthen your copy.

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Think about it...

Why should your website visitor stay and read your website?

Seriously. Put yourself in their shoes. They don't know you and half the stuff they read on the Internet is pure crap anyway. They'd be correct 80% of the time thinking that most pages they visit are just crap too.

Frustrating isn't it. Especially when you have such good intentions. 

Yes, I'm a copywriter... but just recently I've gotten heavily into the Pay Per Click game. And this has taught me quickly that copy is far and away the most important piece of any online business. (I always knew it was... this just helped me validate it big time.) 

Your landing page and website better grab your prospect and not let them go unless they don't meet your criteria. Otherwise you're just going to waste money.

So besides this little rant...

I want to share my Pay Per Click lessons with you to help you make more money. And here's the first lesson...

1. Use a proven copy template initally then get professional copy.

Use some copy template that has worked before. This way you can crank out campaigns and find your winners. But when you do find your winners (even if they break even) you need to have professional copy written.

Professional copy takes time, research, and more time... but it will also make your campaigns wildly successful.

Name
Product/Service
And what you need done.

My copy will make your conversion rates go through the roof.

Tags: copywriting | landing pages | pay per click | conversion rate | increase conversions

admin

I was going to have my first live Ustream video blog today, but it's so dark and rainy that I have no light for my camera.

Sorry.

But I will make a short comment on one thing. Internet "bad news blogs." And forums for that fact.

I was surfing the blogosphere this morning reading and commenting and found tons of people complaining and warning people of things that they haven't even bought or tried.

Does that make any sense to you?

For example:

Don't buy a Toyota Prius (I actually want one really bad... but I'm going to wait until my current car completely dies. It's a personal challenge) because they are strange looking and I heard they don't really get 50 mpg... it's more like 44 mpg.

That was spoken in a sarcastic tone.

I don't even own one so how could I give you advice about what they are like. It's BS.

That leads me to not paying attention to people who complain, moan, and critique everybody else's stuff. Especially when they can't back it up.

It'll make you feel terrible. It'll make you second guess everything your doing. It'll make you scared. It's not worth it.

If whatever you're doing in business or in life makes you happy when you're doing it... then put 100% of your desire into doing it and ignore everybody else. Except those you can learn from.

Then you'll be excited, confident, and begin to see things happen in your life.

That was short but I had to get that off my chest because those darn people began to make me feel bad. And I can't afford to feel bad when there's nothing but bad news everywhere.

Tags: mindset | belief | business | success

admin

Last week I mentioned the "thud factor."

Making the perceived value of products greater because they come in big packages. This is not a dirty technique and actually helps.

It increases the chance that your customer will feel good about their purchase and then use the material. But what do you do when you're selling electronic products?

You make an electronic "thud factor" on their desktop. 

If you have an ebook, don't let your customer download it in one giant file. Break it apart into three or four sections. Give each section it's own ebook graphic. And stress the progression needed from section to section. 

If you have an audio... again... break it up into smaller chucks. Make it so there are tons of audios to download. And this applies to video as well.

You do this for two reasons...

1. It validates the purchase. Having more interactivity with your product makes the customer feel good about the purchase. Don't feel bad about this if it seems deceiving. If your content is great then feel good because you are doing that customer a favor.

2. It helps with the downloading. It has a nice second hand benefit... separating everything makes the file size smaller and easier to download. That also makes your product more likely to get used.

So increase your electronic thud factor and watch as you have happier clients. Here's a quick bonus tip... follow up with some unadvertised bonuses and that will make the thud factor HUGE!

Sure you do... who doesn't love more money?

Take advantage of my free copy consultation. This can also be used for a marketing consultation and we can talk about your business and making you more money. 

Click the link above.

Tags: copywriting | selling products | business marketing | internet marketing

admin

American Express is the king of continuity. They wrap you up without you even knowing you got wrapped up.

For example...

Take this promotion for Food & Wine magazine I got last week. The pictures are below. It as some good elements that ensure it gets opened, it has some good "grabbers" that make you feel important, and it has a great booklet that is actually written pretty well.

Here are some pictures from the promotion...

LESSON ABOUT THIS PIECE:

Here's what you can apply to your business about this piece. Perceived value... if it looks big, looks pretty, and seems like it's really important - than in your mind it will be. 

This direct mail piece was large (to get attention) but it also had a pretty good thud factor. Tomorrow I'll talk about the thud factor and teach you how to make one electronically. 

But no matter if you have all online products or all offline products, you need to work on perceived value. That doesn't mean you are going to be lying about your product or service. Make sure the product or service kicks butt and make sure you make it look as good as a Hollywood starlet.

People will pay you more for it and they will do it happily.

Email or call me anytime and we can get to work... you do want to make more money right?

Tags: copywriting | american experss | direct mail | perceived value | online marketing | internet marketing

admin

January... and all across Facebook and pretty much the Internet the words of goal setting come up.

I prefer revenue setting or even better profit setting. And when I profit set I go down to the day. It makes it much easier to comprehend and therefore accomplish.

For example...

My copywriting business. I only take on 2 (3 max) jobs a month. And my goal for profit is $8,000 from just writing fees... that's a month.

So let's do this... $8,000 and divide it by 30 days to get $266.67 a day. It's a little difficult to gauge this because one job will take up a great chunk of that... but... $266 a day sounds a lot better than $8,000 a month.

Let's look at another example.

Hypothetically let's say you initially want (because you can always raise your goals) $5,000 a month from a $49 product. That is $60,000 a year. Pretty good profit goal.

I am going to leave out a merchant, Clickbank, or PayPal processing fee just so you know. But you can account for that too.

Well when you break that goal down, you only need to sell $166.67 a day of your product. That's 3.4 or 4 product sales a day. Not to bad.

If you know, for example, that out of every 100 visitors you get 1 sale... then you need to drive 400 visitors per day. Of course you also need to take into account your advertising costs. So the number of visitors may be more, but that is pretty darn doable right?

So make part of your goal setting (which I'll comment on in another post)... profit setting. It will motivate you everyday because your financial goals will see much more obtainable.

Fill out the the consultation form and I'll get in touch with you to talk over the phone. 

Check out some of my copywriting samples so you know the style I write in.

Tags: goal setting | copywriting | conversion rates | finances

admin

Breaking new ground for me and my copywriting website.

Trying the Joomla blog... brought to you by IDoBlog.

If you use Joomla, which Google loves, then you have to check this out. I will let you know how rankings go.

Tags: copywriting