Copywriting Tips, Tricks & Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, and Freelance Copywriters
From the category archives:
Good sales copy is a well-manicured lawn.
There are probably dozens of metaphors that I could have used to describe good sales copy, but this is the one that’s stuck with me.
While it may seem like a strange metaphor, it will make perfect sense in just a few minutes. And it will help you write better copy, too.
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Ever wondered exactly how to swipe a sales letter? If so, you’ll want to pay close attention. Because in just a moment I’m going to demonstrate HOW to swipe a sales letter.
But first, you should know: While I don’t generally swipe whole ads, you can actually write fairly strong copy by swiping.
When I say swiping, I don’t mean plagiarizing. Plagiarizing is stealing copy word-for-word; swiping is taking similar ideas, concepts, or copy structure from one ad and using them in another.
Some people take the idea of swiping too far. For instance, you would never want to take somebody’s copy and then just replace a few words here and there. This is basically plagiarizing.
Of course, it’s easy to create a list of “dos” and “don’ts” without ever fully communicating the right way to swipe a sales letter. With that in mind, I figured I’d actually show you three sales letters for three different products.
Each of these letters uses the same structure and some of the same selling arguments to make their case. Take a look…
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Learning how to write bullets may be one of the most important copywriting skills you ever learn. This is because bullets often do all the “heavy lifting” in a sales letter. They’re the words that penetrate your buyer’s natural buying defenses. They’re the words that sell.
I’ve heard many direct marketing experts explain the importance of bullets this way: “You want to write as many hard-hitting bullets as you can because sometimes just one bullet will persuade somebody to buy.”
I know this is true… because I’ve experienced it myself. I remember reading a sales letter for a Nightingale-Conant product. The letter was probably 80% bullets. As I read through those bullets, one or two of them really hit me. The bullets addressed something I really wanted to learn.
Then, as I kept reading, I began to think, “How could I not buy this product??” This is the best possible response you could ever hope for: When your prospect can’t imagine life without your product. He has to have it.
With that in mind, here are my methods for bullet writing. What I share here is not necessarily “the right way.” It’s one way. It’s the way I do it. So here it goes…
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Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins is one of my favorite copywriting books of all time. I’ve read it straight through three times, and I’ve quoted it many times besides.
I’m not sure what it is about the book that appeals to me so much. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the lessons. Or maybe it’s the slightly old-fashioned language. Or maybe it’s just the timelessness of the principles Hopkins outlines. Whatever it is, I love this book!
Here’s what I did: I actually recorded the entire book, chapter by chapter, using the mic that plugs into my computer. I then uploaded each chapter to Audio Acrobat. You can download all 21 MP3 files… or you can stream them over your computer.
Since each of the 21 chapters is 10 minutes or less, you can literally listen to the whole book in 21 days by listening for less than 10 minutes a day. Enjoy!
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When you ask a business owner who his product is for, it’s not uncommon for him to say, “Everybody!”
For the moment, we’ll forgive his enthusiasm. After all, consumer products with mass appeal do make a lot of money. And many products generally could benefit everybody, although they shouldn’t be marketed to everybody.
That’s why even products with mass appeal are positioned to attract a certain type of person. The marketing team knows who they’re advertising to. And they know (and communicate) the intangible ideas the product represents or delivers.
Let me give you a relatively easy example: patio homes.
Here in the U.S., a patio home is generally a single-level house with a small yard — and ALL the landscaping and snow removal is done for you. This service is built into the HOA fees, which means you’ll pay much larger monthly fees than you will in a standard neighborhood.
Now who is the ideal person for this type of product? Think about it for a minute before you keep reading.
Have you got your ideal person in mind? Have you thought about what motivates him or her? Good. Let’s move on.
The ideal type of person for a patio home is:
Now, based on this information, we can probably also assume that the person we’ve just described is between the ages of 55 and 65, and is either approaching retirement or already retired.
Furthermore, we may also assume that our newly retired prospect will soon be traveling the world with his or her spouse, and that one of their motivations for getting a patio home is to have the freedom to travel without worrying about taking care of their landscaping.
Now imagine: If you knew all this about your ideal prospects, don’t you think it would influence WHO you advertise to — and HOW you advertise to them?
Of course!
You see, the problem with “everybody” is it’s just too many people. There are 6 billion people in the world — 300 million in the United States alone. Trust me: You don’t have the budget, the time, or the manpower to market to “everybody.”
So let’s talk about how you discover your ideal prospect and position your product or service to appeal to him…
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