Copywriting Process: One, Two Three — Sell!
Want to make a great income as a copywriter? There’s never been a better time to launch a copywriting career; there are literally unlimited opportunities. Unfortunately many copywriters don’t make as much money as they could be making because they don’t have a process.
Your process is essential. When you have a clear process to follow, you don’t procrastinate, and you get more done in less time. If you keep waiting for inspiration, inspiration will never come. Rely on your basic process — it will never let you down.
1. Research: What’s the Product?
When you get a new copywriting commission, your first step is to think about the product.
This can be challenging if it’s a product you’ve never used. Perhaps you’ve been commissioned to write a sales page for an industrial product, for example. In cases like this, where there’s little or no marketing material for you to use in your research, so you’re thrown back on doing primary research, essentially interviews.
Remember that the client wants you to sell his product. Therefore he has as much invested in the research process as you do. If you’re working for a corporation, you’ll be working with their publicity people; ask them to set up interviews for you.
2. Research: Who’s the Buyer?
Researching the buyer is is just as important as researching the product, and now you’ve done that, you already have some idea of who the buyers might be.
The web has made it much easier to research buyers. For popular products, you may find forums and discussion groups. Join these. The groups’ archives will provide lots of interesting material.
3. Sell: What’s the Response?
You’ve done a lot of work on your copywriting project, but you haven’t yet done any writing. Now’s the time to go through all your notes and reduce the information to bullet points.
Finally, go back to your client. Ask him what response he requires from your copywriting. The more you know about the response, the more effective your copy will be.
You may need to write additional copy to get the desired response, because buying is usually a multistage process. Firstly the buyer has to hear about the product, then he has to become familiar with the product, then he has to decide on a brand and perhaps a model, and finally he’s ready to buy.
If you think about the buying cycle, and where your copy fits into it, you’ll write copy which will achieve the response your client wants.
Become a Copywriting Master Fast
Copywriting is writing for business: promotional writing. Copywriters write material like advertisements and compared to most writers, they’re VERY highly paid.
The explosion of the influence of the Web means that copywriters are flooded with offers of work. Even new copywriters find it easy to get copywriting gigs and to build their copywriting services business.
If copywriting intrigues you, join me in my Copywriting Master Class. I’ll take you from copywriting novice to pro.
“Copywriting Master Class – Ten Weeks to Copywriting Genius” gives you a comprehensive copywriting course, as it helps you to set up your copywriting services business.
Copywriting: What’s the Most Important Part of Your Sales Letter?
What’s the most important part of a sales letter? Whether you’re a copywriter who’s writing direct mail, or a web promotion, you may be convinced that it’s the headline. Not so.
Copywriting is both a craft, and an art, which you develop with your own experience and creativity. I cringe whenever baby copywriters are told to build “swipe” files — copying others is not the way to write persuasive, selling copy.
Read on to discover what’s the important part of your sales letter.
1. What Results Do You Want from Your Copy?
Start by deciding what results you want. You (or your client) may want people to call a phone number, buy at a special price, or join a mailing list.
Whatever it is, write it down.
Yes — WRITE it down. Stories about display ads which cost many thousands of dollars but contained no contact details are not apocryphal. They happen.
2. Your Headline Is Vital, But…
Copywriters hear that “the headline is the most important part of your sales letter”, and go wild. They write outlandish headlines which succeed in getting attention. (Often sheer disbelief.)
Unfortunately, if there’s a disconnect anywhere in your copy, people stop reading. Your copy must flow smoothly and logically from your headline.
3. The Only Job You Have: Keep Your Prospect Engaged
Most sales letters are long. Print letters may consist of three or more pages; web letters are often 16 to 20 pages long, if they’re printed.
It’s easy to lose your prospects along the way; don’t. Keep them reading.
If you know the product, and you understand the market, that’s not a problem, so make sure you research first.
And now, we come to the most important part of any sales letter.
4. The Call to Action!
Yes, it’s the call to action.
Your headline needs to attract attention — the right attention — and if you know the product and the market, it’s easy to write.
But unless you devote considerable thought-power to the offer, and the call to action, all your hard work and creativity is wasted.
Results are what count, and the call to action gets the results.
Copywriting is a great home business
Developing a copywriting services business makes sense if you want to write from home.
How does $250 an hour sound to you? Copywriters are in high demand.
There’s no limitations on who can write copy. Neither age nor education is a bar: your clients don’t care.
So whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or a retiree, or just want to moonlight at your current job, copywriting is the most lucrative (and the most fun, if you love to write) occupation you can try.
My Seven Days To Easy Money: Copywriting Success, new 2007 edition gets you started.
Create the perfect write from home business – it’s easy.
Copywriting for the Web: Use the Buying Cycle to Make More Sales
Want to write sales-generating Web copy? Web copywriting is very different from copywriting for print media. It’s more immediate, and more narrowly targeted as well.
Here’s a big tip: the sales cycle should be your guide.
What do we mean by the “buying cycle”?
Think about your own actions when you buy something, a new digital camera for example.
Firstly you think about what you can do with the digital camera. Then you decide you need more information. This is the first part of the buying cycle: finding information. The web is wonderful for this, but many copywriters leave this stage of the buying cycle to someone else.
At the next stage, once enough information has been gathered, you think about brands and product features.
(When you’re writing for prospects at this stage, you’ll take price and quality, as well as user experiences, into account.)
Usually, a copywriter is brought in at the final stage of the buying cycle, when the buyer’s ready to buy. He simply writes the sales material.
But if you think about it, you’ll soon realize that your copywriting skills can be more effective if they were used at every stage of the buying cycle.
Here’s how I recommend my clients use the buying cycle.
1. Create an Information-Packed Blog for Info Seekers
This works amazingly well. Blogging can be free advertising. You’re educating potential buyers, and priming them to buy for you — there’s no guarantee that they will buy from you of course, but when you consider that the web works on keywords and information, you’re generating sales organically, and these sales will continue for years.
2. Write As Many Sales Pages As You Need for Each Advertising Campaign
You just need one sales page, right? Wrong.
The web is a collection of tightly focused niche markets, rather than a single market. No matter what the product, if you try to write one single sales page to target each possible niche, you either go mad or give up in disgust.
Firstly work out which niches you’re targeting, and then write a sales page for each one; if you’re using pay per click advertising, you should also create ads for every page.
3. Ensure That Your Ads Match Your Landing Pages
Web surfers are impatient. They want what they want when they want it. This means that you need to create ads which are strictly relevant to one sales page. Relevancy is all-important. Nothing frustrates a buyer more (and loses more sales), than clicking through to irrelevant landing pages.
If you think about the buying cycle, and use it strategically, your Web copywriting will be simple, effective, and successful.
Become a Copywriting Master Fast
Copywriting is writing for business: promotional writing. Copywriters write material like advertisements and compared to most writers, they’re VERY highly paid.
The explosion of the influence of the Web means that copywriters are flooded with offers of work. Even new copywriters find it easy to get copywriting gigs and to build their copywriting services business.
If copywriting intrigues you, join me in my Copywriting Master Class. I’ll take you from copywriting novice to pro.
“Copywriting Master Class – Ten Weeks to Copywriting Genius” gives you a comprehensive copywriting course, as it helps you to set up your copywriting services business.
Find Copywriting Jobs on the Web
Do you want to find copywriting jobs on the web? If you’re a new writer, you may be wondering how you go about doing this. This article will give you a basic outline of how to proceed.
1. Start on the Out-Sourcing Sites to Build Your Credits
Copywriting is all about getting results for your clients. It’s salesmanship; so as you improve your skills, you’re worth more because you get better results.
So start getting jobs on the outsourcing sites: they’re a great training ground for new copywriters. As a beginner, you’ll get jobs on the outsourcing sites simply because you are cheaper. People who have very small businesses can’t afford to pay top copywriters, so they’re willing to work with newcomers.
As you build your copywriting credits, and achieve successes for your clients, you will get more clients because your reputation will grow.
2. Approach Internet Marketers: They Have an On-Going Need for Your Skills
Internet marketers sell on the Web. Without a copywriter, they can’t sell. This means that Internet marketers are prime buyers of your writing skills.
Visit some of the Internet marketing forums, join, and interact. Post useful information, and make friends. After you’ve made at least 20 to 30 posts, you’ll be looked on as someone who contributes to the forum.
Now set up a new webpage directed at Internet marketers, offering them special copywriting rates. Add a link to this page in your forum signature, and go on interacting on the forum as before. People will hire you because they know you.
3. Advertise Your Copywriting Services
You’ve worked your way up from the outsourcing sites to Internet marketing forums. You’ve written lots of copy, and have worked with lots of clients.
Now it’s time to take the next step in your career and advertise your copywriting services. You can advertise your services both online as well as off-line. Online, start using pay per click and other marketing methods.
There’s never been a better time to be a new copywriter. Even as a new writer, you get plenty of copywriting jobs, so get started and prosper.
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Info Product Maestro: Make $500 a Day with Your Information Products
