The Trash Can Copywriting Technique
I planned on strictly learning new information today, but I just got an inspiration and felt I should tell you about it.
Here’s the story:
I’ve been working some ridiculous hours lately and decided to give myself the day to kind of relax, sit back and watch some DVD’s (on copywriting, marketing, persuasion etc.) and audio’s.
Deciding it was time to take a break, I went down to go outside and grab the mail while I made myself some pizza.
Reading my mail while the pizza was in the toaster oven, I slowly moved my way over to the trash basket. When I got about 1/2 through my mail for the day, I realized something.
I’m doing exactly what I’ve always heard other copywriters talk about!
Have you ever heard anybody talk about how you need to visualize your prospect standing over the paper basket with the mail in their hand?
And how you need to somehow captivate them enough to actually read your mail and not throw it in the trash?
Well that’s exactly what I was doing, and the only piece of mail that got more than 5 seconds of my time was a check and a business magazine (both of which I’m obviously interested in).
Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know that if you’ve ever heard that phrase…they’re not lying! People really do stand over their paper basket with the mail in their hand.
Which brings me to a very important point…
How do you captivate someone enough to read your mail and not through it away?
And the answer is…tell a story.
You’ll notice at the beginning of this blog I told a story of a few minutes of my life. If you’re reading this still, you were interested by it - probably because you wanted to find out the end of the story.
That’s exactly what you need to do for your prospects. Tell them a story they’d be interested in hearing. Start the story off with something that will make them NEED to get to the end of the story to find out.
Make the story as captivating as you can, and make sure you give a “hint” to your product.
For example:
In the story you could explain a specific problem some person was having, then how they came over that problem and how your product helped them do it.
That’s a very general copywriting technique, but I wanted this to be short and it got longer than I expected.
I’m going back to watching my DVD’s - I’ll try to put up another post this week and go into further detail on storytelling.
Maybe I’ll even give you a nice “template” you can use…
Have a great weekend,
Jeremy
P.S. By the way, even online people have a “virtual paper basket” next to them. The rule applies to both online AND offline.
5 Copywriting Tips For Beginners
These copywriting tips for beginners are not only for beginners, but also to help re-establish the basics even in the minds of more advanced copywriters.
It will be a quick one, since I’ve been extremely busy writing copy for various clients.
So to make it short and sweet, here we go:
5 Copywriting Tips For Beginners To Help You INSTANTLY Write More Persuasive Copy
1) Features vs. Benefits - This is one of the most important aspects you need to know as a copywriter. If you’re writing about features instead of benefits, your copy is going to be pathetic - no matter what else you write about. Take something ordinary, such as a pencil, and try to write out 10 benefits of it on the right hand side of a paper - and 10 features on the left hand side. Here are 2 just to get you started.
Feature - Made of wood and lead.
Benefit - The wood helps you create a sharp tip for easier writing and the lead prevents breaking of the point.
Feature - 12 inches long
Benefit - You can use it multiple times without needing to replace it so you save money.
2) Write A Benefit Driven Headline - Most headlines suck. They really do. As a beginner, you should focus on trying to state a benefit in your headline. Don’t worry about coming up with a grand-slam until you understand the thought process of your customer and can afford to break the rules a bit.
3) Write In Short, Concise Sentences - Another copywriting tip for beginners is to write sentences that are short, punchy, and to the point. If you see a lot of commas in your sentences, see if you can break them up into shorter ones.
4) Include a P.S. in EVERYTHING - P.S.’s are probably the third most important part of a piece of copywriting (behind both the offer and the headline). Everybody reads them, so it’s essential that you drive home the main benefit of the product you’re selling again. In offline print, NEVER include the price. You can sometimes get away with it online, but I still wouldn’t recommend it. People love to scan right to the bottom and if they don’t like the price - they’re gone.
5) Write In A Conversational Tone - This one is very important. Don’t pretend you’re writing to a group, pretend you’re writing to an individual person. After all, you are! Only 1 person reads you copy at a time…they don’t gather a bunch of people in a group and have 1 person read it outloud to everybody, right? Picture a specific person you’re writing to…and start writing.
These copywriting tips for beginners should at least get you started on writing better copy. If you want more tips, just look around the blog for other posts and I’m sure you’ll find some gems in there that will make you a better copywriter.
Mastering the basics is essential if you want to become a better copywriter. If you truly want to be a great copywriter, I would highly suggest studying copywriting tips for beginners until you get so sick of them you can’t stand to read them anymore. Then it’s time to move into more advanced copywriting tips and propel your writing to the next level.
How To Make A “Too Good To Be True” Offer Sound Believable
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say that the more you can offer customers, the more they’re going to buy from you.
But is there a point where too much is a bad thing?
Let’s take 2 offers and break them down from the point of view of your customer. The product will be a traffic package you can buy online to give you massive amounts of traffic.
Offer #1 - For $97 you can buy 5 rotations on PPC ads for 2 weeks of traffic (using a company that delivers traffic via PPC), a free ebook on traffic building from a well-known author, and a 2 month subscription to a traffic-building newsletter.
Offer #2 - For just $47 you can get 100,000 visitors to your website within 1 week as well as 15 free reports on traffic building and a lifetime supply of customers from an FFA network.
Do you see the difference in these 2 offers?
Offer #1 actually sounds believable. For anyone who has used rotations before from a credible company, that’s a pretty good deal by itself. Plus the free ebook from a well-known author and 2 months free subscription to a newsletter makes it that much better. But it’s still believable.
On the other hand, offer #2 doesn’t even sound remotely believable. It sends up red flags ALL over the place.
Can You Put These 2 Offers Together To Make It Believable?
Now, if you have an incredible offer that you can give to your customers, I’m not saying to purposely give less in order for it to sound believable.
There’s just one psychological trick you have to use in order to persuade them. It’s one I learned from John Carlton and it works like gangbusters.
And here it is…
Give them a “reason why”.
For example, say you own a furniture store and your average sofa sells for $900 by itself.
If you then offer a sale selling it for $300, people will probably think it’s broken and won’t even show up to buy it.
But what if you have a “water damaged” sale and sell it for $300? That gives you a great “reason why” you’re selling it so for so cheap.
But then people are still going to think it’s damaged too much aren’t they?
That’s why you’d also mention in your ad that some have more damage than others - some might not even at all.That way the skepticism shield comes down and they might go check it out to see if they could get in there early and maybe get lucky.
One smart business owner with a furniture store found this so profitable he actually climbed on his roof, poked a few holes in it, and waited for it to rain.
Right after it rained, he ran an ad and within a few days made a heap of money!
Now obviously you don’t have to have a furniture business to do this.
You can do it for any kind of business really. All it takes is a little creativity.
Set aside a good 20-30 minutes tonight and see if you could apply this to your business and make a heap of money for yourself. Don’t let the other business owners reap all the rewards!
Jeremy