Copywriting Training Guide.com

Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.”‘

My number one challenge in business is lack of time. I sometimes find myself working weekends, evenings and trying to clear my inbox while stuck in traffic or while waiting in line at the store.  Many times I need to have others remind me to stop working – so, probably like you I am always looking for ways to improve my business development abilities without working even more hours each week.

Copywriting ROI - This is why I have been studying copywriting for so long – the return on your money is better than almost any other area of business.  Copywriting is involved in email marketing, pay per click advertising, affiliate marketing, website content production, sales letters, checkout processes, speech writing, and auto-responder creation tasks.  If you can leverage copy and write very powerfully than professionals will follow your advice and lead more often, register for your webinars or events more often and ask less questions via email to your support team before committing to become a client.  In short you can make more money to then either provide more value to each client you serve or hire help to improve the client experience.

The Secret of Efficient Marketing –   The real secret to doing a lot with a little whether you are running a small business or corporate team is leverage.  Leverage your time by writing one powerful piece of copy and having that sent out to thousands of professionals instead of calling individuals and selling them one-by-one.  This is a very basic concept on the surface but how seriously do you take it?  How many hours, formulas and best practices went into your last sales letter? Did you test it?  How many powerful words did you use? Did you include a story as to how the service or product came to be?  The more that you improve your copy the more leverage you gain – think of it as extending your lever…with each tactic you extend your lever further and further.

If you are stretched for time, than you can’t afford to not leverage what you do have by writing more effectively and connecting with your clients.   This is at the core to why I got into writing copy and focusing on improving my own skills within this area in the first place.

If you haven’t yet taken a moment to consider what specifically is driving your reader to act now, this may be the most valuable post you’re going to read this week.

Because you’re reading this, you probably have some interest in persuading through written text, advertising, or simply becoming more compelling to your audience.  You’re here and that’s a great start to becoming more tuned in to the essential know-how and skills that can transform your words into the gospel truth for you reader.

That’s what this post is about…  Know what is true for you reader because when you have some idea of where your reader is at,  you’ll know how to tactically insert your persuasion to get the most bang for your buck…

Knowing where to spend your time…and money.

How do you become familiar with someone…if they are not in front of you?  Simple.  Tell a story in your text.  By considering where your reader may be coming from and going to…

• How did they come to find you?
• Who are you serving?
• What is motivating them to buy?
• What don’t they have, yet, that your product or service is offering?
• Where is their pain?
• What might happen if they don’t act?
• What is the beginning, middle, and end of their story once they buy from you?

Maybe you have seen the movie Star Wars (that’s a safe mind-read!)…if so, you know that young Luke began his life as a farmer on some dusty planet in the middle of no where…And his life was about to change in a BIG way.  He was meant for something far grander than he ever could have imagined.

He was just on the brink of making a HUGE choice…to leave what was familiar…

…Did you ever wonder why that is the beginning of the HIGHEST grossing movie of ALL TIME…?

Did you also know that people will opt for familiarity every time, unless someone intervenes (maybe you)?

Exercise: Now… before moving on, answer some or all of the above bullet points.  What story is going to move your reader?  What will get their juices flowing to move away from what they have always done and into their pocket books…to take the first step to buy now!

Remember… keep it short, sweet, yet, powerful.

Here are some simple tips for those looking to amp-up your ability to direct your reader’s attention through the appearance of choice.  When used sparingly and with intention, your use of binds can increase your ability to persuade, yet, they leave your reader with the illusion of choice and feeling good.

Not surprisingly, people love to be persuaded when it’s done well and with “Win/win’s” in mind because your saving people “mental-time”…that is…you’re simplifying a person’s need to think things through.

Remember, as a professional persuader and copywriter, your job is to guide your buyer’s attention first and foremost.

And…

Simply put, your reading this because your interested in learning how to maximize your use of written text or you may simply be curious how to improve your ability to influence readers.

That’s not too hard to swallow, was it?

And if you’ll agree with that, maybe you would also be interested at taking a thorough look at other posts from one of our skilled copywriters on CopyWritingTraningGuide.com, now, or perhaps in the future you’ll keep us in mind to improve your sales through the use of the most powerful written persuasion techniques available.

Anytime  you’re writing and you have some outcome in mind or where you think it may be useful to guide your reader’s attention, try this.

Exercise:

1)  Think of some outcome you have for you reader.

2)   Consider two or more choices that lead to  your desired outcome.

3)   Connect your choices with the world “or”

For example,  you may choose to enjoy doing this exercise now or you may simply bookmark this page for all your future copywriting and print persuasion tips because you know that by investing your time now,  you save time in the long run.  And time is the most valuable asset to any persuader and since we’re all in the persuasion business, that’s good to know!

To your continued success!

If you are looking to improve your copywriting skills this is the most important blog post you read this year. At the same time if you don’t read about these strategies below you may lose sales and business to your competitors every day.

This is because the first few sentences of your sales letter or website may be the only that are ever read unless they GRAB the reader and PULL them into your story.

In the first part of your copy you are trying to get an emotional response, engage your reader where they are at, and guide them into a story of how your service came to be.

Here are some tips on starting a piece of sales copy:

• 1-2 sentences max, never longer than 3 lines of written text at the very most
• Use powerful action oriented words
• State how article may be the most important than they ever read this year
• What are you going to miss by not paying attention to this information, strategy or service?
• Engage them emotionally early on touching on the top benefits of your service and pains that they may be experiencing right now in their lives
• Tell a mini-story within the first few lines of here where I started here is what I did and here is where I ended up.  After a small break in the copy and insertion of other copy within the opening you can jump right into your own story in longer form.
• Try starting with a brief concise pacing statement.  Meet people where they are at and talk using their language instead of your own.

Two Exercises:

1.  Try to tell your own mini-story now by writing just one sentence which describes where you were, the challenge you overcame and where you got to next.

2.  Next identify what your prospective clients would gain by using your service or product or what they could be missing out on by not at least checking it out and then frame it as we did at the start of this blog post.
Tags: How to Write a Sale Letter Introduction, How to Write the First Section of a Sales Letter, Writing the first section of copy

I started my own firm 2 years ago and since then I have sent and received over 800,000 emails.  Our business is so email-based that we have been forced to study best practices within this space to improve our efficiency at connecting with potential clients.

Most CEO’s don’t invest their time or put much importance on managing email communications.  One of my favorite quotes by Brian Tracy is that if you want what others don’t, you have to do what other’s don’t. If you invest your time in increasing your effectiveness at email marketing you will have an edge over others.

Email Marketing Best Practices

1. Understanding Importance of Copy: What is the difference between a $1 and a $100 bill? The message on the paper.  The message on your email, the message on your investor letters, the message on everything you write makes the difference between it being worth $1,000 and $100,000.  I think that sales copy writing is consistently under-valued and overlooked by business and investment professionals of all types.  One of my best tips for email marketing would be to simply not overlook the power of a carefully constructed email marketing campaign or well written piece of communication.
2. Use the professionals first name within the subject of emails to them – Marketing Sherpa 2008 study showed this increased open rates by 30%, using both the first and last name increased open rates by 22%.
3. Focus on the Headline:  The most important part of any piece of copy is the headline.  Often times over email the headline of the email is a slight variation of the subject line, perhaps the subject line minus the person’s first name.  Focus on fitting a benefit and then the chain reaction of that benefit into the headline if possible.  ”Double Your Capital Raising Resources to Cultivate More Investors Each Day”  We have found that putting the benefit after your firm name is most effective.  Just be careful not to promise benefits that are odds with your compliance department.
4. Focus on the Start:  Hook the reader within the first paragraph.  Make sure the first paragraph is no longer than 2 sentences and provides a very concise summary as to what will be discussed within the following message. If possible try to fit in both what the benefits will be of hearing this information and what the dangers are of not paying attention to this information.  Psychology studies consistently show that professionals are almost twice as likely to listen more closely and take action on information related to a fear or some negative result rather than some potential benefit or positive outcome.  This does not mean you should scare clients into working with you, but you should hook readers using framing which mentions the positive as well as negative consequences of not taking action.  The recent use of email browsers which let you preview the first 50-150 words of email messages make the start of your email even more important.
5. Use Professional Email Distribution Services: Use a professional email distribution services such as Aweber, this costs $10/month or less to start using.  By using this service your emails will be delivered more often, your campaigns will be more organized and the service will more than pay for itself through saving you and your time valuable time.  Make sure that whatever service you use, you consider opt-in confirmation and enable an unsubscription link at the bottom of each email you send.
6. Automate Relationship Development: Use automated follow up emails.  Write a series of 20 educational emails covering industry white papers, industry findings, commonly misunderstood terms, and information about your fund.  Once you have qualified an investor, ask for their permission to opt into an email list which will automatically email these professionals once a month for the next 20 months. If you deliver value within each of these 20 emails your further inquiries will be well received.  We currently use Aweber to send out automated emails to over 50,000 professionals each month.
7. Use Stories: Whenever you are writing an email or sales letter try to incorporate a story of some type. How was this product created? How did your career and experience evolve and bring yourself to this point where you have gained this knowledge?  If you scroll up to the beginning of this post you will see that I have a short story about my own experience with email marketing which led me to write this article.
8. Picture & Signature:  End your communication with a picture of the professional on your team which is held out as the communicator or leader.  Make sure that a real scanned signature and professional picture are included to help readers connect with your team.

Tags: email marketing best practices, business email campaign management, email campaigns for small business professionals, investment marketing via email, email marketing tips and strategies

Why do some copywriters get paid $100,000 retainers and 40% of gross sales for spending just a few days writing copy for a product?  Why do those who write headlines for major magazines get paid 10x more than those who write the actual articles inside of the publication?

Here’s another question:  What is the difference between a $1 bill and a $100 bill?  The answer:  The message on the paper is the only difference, this is proof that a small change in the message can make a piece of paper be worth over 100x as much as it may otherwise be.

and now the most important question…What are your messages worth?  $1,000 or $100,000 each?

If you are ignoring the copy within your sales letters, emails, opt-in pages, or website you are probably only realizing 3-5% of the response that is possible with the use of the right words.  Studying and investing in your copywriting skills could be the most important decision you make while either improving profits of a company or launching your own small business.  We have personally seen products which were producing $15k month start producing $30k+/month after implementing some proven copywriting techniques.

Top 4 Reasons Copywriting IS Important:

1. Most of your competitors ignore or underestimate the importance of writing great copy
2. The majority of copy, once formed may be used hundreds if not thousands of times – you get a great bang for your buck vs. other short-run expenses such as a TV promotion or banner ad placement agreement
3. Every company needs great copy, no $1M companies operate without sale letters, email blasts, newsletters, or written communications of some type
4. If done right you can lower your refund rate and increase potential cross and upsells by connecting directly with the fears, needs, and goals of your clients