Copywriting Essentials.
Copywriting is sometimes seen as a “black art”, to be practised only by those special and privileged few who are ordained into some secret society or other.
I’m sure you’ve seen these sales pages littering the Internet from expensive and over-hyped copywriters offering their copywriting services, promising to write copy that "sells" and “compels” your readers to buy.
Or, just as likely, if you can’t afford their copywriting service, they’ll try and sell you some high-priced copy writing programme or other to teach you how to write that way yourself. Always for a price, of course.
But in truth it’s a myth.
Writing persuasive and compelling copy is actually fairly simple, because it's a formulaic process. A skill, in other words. It’s based on sound principles of psychology, using strategies and techniques developed through experience over many years - and recently a lot of this empirical science has been backed up by real science using fMRI scans.
The upshot is, it’s not a black art, or magic or any kind of voodoo.
No. Copywriting is a skill.
And because it's a skill, you can learn copywriting.
True, you might not become the next Dan Kennedy, Gary Halbert or Robert Collier, because there is no doubt there are the quirks and subtle differences between each individual that makes one naturally more talented than another at online copy writing.
But you can very easily learn to write much better copy than any of your competitors are writing, and so reap the rewards in terms of more sales and sales at higher prices. Make no mistake: effective web site copywriting, and copy writing in general are some of the most productive skills you can learn to increase the effectiveness of your marketing.
And, it’s possible, if you become skilled at it and find you’re one of the rare individuals who does have that extra talent, you might just carve out for yourself a lucrative sideline doing freelance copywriting for other people. More than one multi-millionaire entrepreneur has kicked off his information marketing business by taking on freelance copywriting jobs for his competitors, and making a small (or large) fortune from his copywriting services.
So, what are the fundamentals of copywriting?
Remember I said copy writing was a formulaic process?
Well, it is. It’s like a “cookie cutter”, or a machine: turn the handle and out comes the copy (in a manner of speaking).
The simplest formula, and one used even by the “greats”, is the AIDA formula. It’s the mainstay of many a freelance copywriting business.
And if you follow this formula in every piece of copy you write or produce, you will greatly increase your chances of success.
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- Attention – the first thing your copy needs, wether brochure copywriting or even ad copy writing, is grab the reader’s attention. You achieve this with your headline. To make your copywriting sell you’ve first got to stop your reader in their tracks. If you don’t get their attention, you can’t sell them anything (think of it as getting that first salesman’s “foot in the door”). This is especially important in web copywriting because you have on average 8 seconds before they surf on out to the next site unless you give them a good reason to stay.
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- Interest – once you’ve got their attention, you need to create interest in your product or service never more so than with direct mail copywriting. If you don’t then you can’t make your copywriting sell anything -because even if you’ve got their attention, there is no interest in your product or service.
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- Desire – There is a big difference between being interested in a product or service and desiring it. You need to convert the reader’s interest into a strong desire for what you are offering. Paradoxically, with web copywriting this can sometimes be easier because the promise of immediate satisfaction is often there, with a downloadable product for example. It takes a lot more effort to get someone to clip out a coupon and post it than it does to get them to act on a web page.
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- Action - Even if someone desires what you have, it is not enough until they take action. At the end of the copy you need a call to action. Tell people exactly what they need to do to follow through and make it easy for them to do so. This is where many people go wrong. Even if you have good copy, you still need to tell people precisely what to do - how to take action. That’s the only way to make your copywriting sell.
Every bit of copy you write for your business, whether it's a postcard, web copywriting, song copywriting, a Yellow Pages ad or a full-blown sales letter should follow this formula.
Have a look around the rest of this site and see some of the copywriting agency strategies you can use to increase your profits starting TODAY!
Happy Copywriting!
Chris Cardell
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