Learn About Direct Marketing Without Ever Reading A Book
If you want to learn about direct marketing and copywriting…you literally don’t even have to read any books to get started.
In fact, there’s a method of learning about direct marketing that’s sometimes even MORE effective than reading books on the subject.
It’s the secret technique that the world’s most famous copywriters and direct marketers use…a technique that the majority of copywriters know about…but almost nobody does.
So how do you learn about direct marketing without reading books?
You find sales copy that’s been proven to work - and you copy it with a pen or pencil onto a sheet of paper!
You may have heard this before…but I urge you to keep reading and ingrain the idea into your mind because it’s incredibly important.
Virtually every A-list copywriter I’ve ever known…Clayton Makepeace, Frank Kern, John Carlton, David Deutsch, etc. etc. has mentioned at one point or another that it’s absolutely essential that you copy some of the best ads ever written.
So why is it so important?
Because the secret to great copywriting isn’t the words you put on paper…it’s both the ideas you put on the paper as well as the sequence in which you display those ideas.
As Joe Sugarman puts it..you need to guide the reader down a “slippery slope” until they finally reach the bottom and buy your product or service.
When you copy from A-list copywriters and write it on paper…long-hand not typing it out…this sequence of events will literally be installed into your mind and you’ll “magically” start producing better content.
To be honest, it’s kind of weird how it works…but it does!
It’s become known as one of the best ways to learn about direct marketing on a subconscious level and will catapult your copywriting skills to a new level.
If you’ve ever wondered how you could learn about direct marketing and what it takes to write copy that hypnotizes your prospects into buying…this is the way to do it.
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.
A Copywriting Tip That, If Not Addressed, Is Making Your Copywriting Go Down The Tubes
If you want to write copywriting that sells, there are many secrets out there that will improve your writing.
Although most of them only slightly increase the response, when you add them up it creates a synergistic effect - leaving you with a great piece of copy.
The copywriting tip I’m going to talk about today is one I found out from Joe Vitale - which you can find at www.mrfire.com
Here is one of his great secrets to writing copy that sells…
Writing To Your 3 Types of Readers
When you write a piece of copy, there are actually 3 ways people are going to read it.
They are…
- The “Read Word For Worders”
- The Skimmers
- The Jumpers
If you write for only 1 of them - you’re leaving a lot of sales on the table. You see, since people read in a certain way - if your sales letter is set up in something different than what they like…they won’t read it.
So let’s go through each one and I’ll explain how to write to each type of reader. And by the way, this applies to both direct marketing copywriting as well as web site copywriting.
The Word For Worders
These are your prospects who will literally take 5-20 minutes to read through every single word on your page. They want to know every single detail about the product, what it offers, how to use it, what the price and guarantee is, and so on and so forth.
If you don’t explain every single piece of your copy, every detail of every story, and answer their objections that they’ll have - you’re going to lose them. They want to be absolutely certain that they’re making the right decision, so you need to make that decision for them by answering every single thing you possibly can.
The Skimmers
Skimmers are the people who will look at the headline, hardly look at any of the text after it, then keep on truckin’ down the page.
The only time they stop to look is when you have attention grabbers such as subheadlines, bulleted lists, bolded words or phrases, italics, underlining, different colored fonts, etc.
They’re also often impulse buyers. They may simply look at the page to get a feel for the product and if it seems like a good thing - they’ll buy on a whim and just return it if it’s not exactly what they thought.
Therefore, you need to make sure you give them enough information to be able to skim down the page in a matter of about 30 seconds and know exactly what the benefits are and what the price is.
The Jumpers
The jumpers are kind of a hybrid between word for worders and skimmers. They’ll skim the page until something grabs their attention. Then, they’ll dive into the copy until they’re bored and do the same process over and over again.
I’m personally a jumper. I will look at a headline and start reading the opening paragraph. If I have even the slightest interest in the product - I’ll skim down until something catches my eye.
If nothing does - good riddance!
Writing to these people requires a lot of interaction with the reader.
Maybe a small quiz on the site which gives you results, maybe asking them some questions, etc.
The key is that you need there to be a lot of attention-grabbers that will reel them in and hopefully land you a catch…
No matter how you write like now, on your next assignment try and write for all 3 people. At the very least, it will get you thinking creatively which may lead to some huge breakthroughs in your copy.
Just this one copywriting tip alone should increase your conversions and make you more money.
To the life you’ve always dreamed,
Jeremy