Secrets to professional copy writing part 1
Posted 26th October 2009 at 08:44 AM by katiepanton
Secrets to professional copy writing part 1
As a marketer, understanding effective copywriting is essential. You must understand the mind of your reader. You see, people, by nature, are completely self-centred. That’s not a derogatory comment, that’s just fact; if you think about what you spend the majority of your time thinking about, it’s about your own things, successes, failures, happiness, disappointments, problems, ideas, solutions, relationships, careers, money, etc. All around your own life, which is perfectly natural! But most of your time is spent focused on your own experiences, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc, and all this creates your own little individual ‘you’ universe.
So as a copywriter you need to understand this, and make sure that your ideas and thoughts are not centred on your writing, but focused on speaking to them and their situation, meet them where their mind is already. Your main challenge is to decide on the point of contact with their problem/ situation/ interests/ passions/ desires/ anything that will grab their attention and stand out above all the other things in front of that person.
Joe Vitale in ‘Hypnotic writing’ says, “You have to meet the reader where their thoughts already are. You can do this with a headline that speaks to their problems, or their dreams. What you need to do is to begin your letter where the prospect already is in their own head. This is a way to create agreement with your reader. It’s a great way to build rapport. The more you can meet your reader on the mental level where they are already preoccupied, the more you can create hypnotic writing that moves them to where you want them to be; into a buying trance”.
The way to speak to them can be done in two ways, because there are two things that cause people to take action, and they are pain, and pleasure. Pain and pleasure are the two primal human activators. This is something which has been practiced for 2500 years, as Aristotle gave a formula back in Ancient Greece, and it is as follows:
- Exordium. An attention grabbing headline/story/picture/video
- Narratio. Tell them the problem/ situation they are facing
- Confirmation. Tell them the solution to their problem/ situation
- Peroratio. Explain the benefits they will get from taking action on your offer.
This, simplified is essentially this order:
- Problem. Get the attention of your prospects by focusing on their problem/ situation.
- Promise. Tell them what your product/ service will do for their problem/ situation
- Proof. Speak to their scepticism by giving proof in the form of testimonials and/or guarantees. Keep the FTC happy.
- Price. Tell them the obvious, don’t leave anything as implied, tell them what you want them to do. Give them the price and tell them to sign up for your newsletter, tell them to buy the product, tell them to take the next step; people need to be led, so be a leader and be thorough in your communication.
One final thought for you in part 1 is this:
“If we believe in the necessity of trying to win over others, we will also believe in the need for wearisome scheming”
Vernon Howard- philosopher
Focus on the good in their lives is my tip. Although appealing to their pain may be effective, it is much more pleasurable for both you and your customer to focus on their benefits and pleasures that they will draw from your service/ product. Spread good into the World. The other benefit to you for focusing on their benefits are that if you’re focusing on increasing their pleasure then they will love you, they will become a raving fan and they will want more from you. This means that you get far more loyal back-end sales, which means you need to do much less convincing over future sales because they already love and trust you. We all know that the fortune comes in the back-end sales; It costs much less to get repeat sales from current clients than to buy new clients.
For more free internet marketing and mindset training articles and videos go to my blog:
http://www.katiepantonpro.com
Or, if you’d like to know more about what Katie does and you want a piece of the action too, go to:
http://www.katiepanton.com
As a marketer, understanding effective copywriting is essential. You must understand the mind of your reader. You see, people, by nature, are completely self-centred. That’s not a derogatory comment, that’s just fact; if you think about what you spend the majority of your time thinking about, it’s about your own things, successes, failures, happiness, disappointments, problems, ideas, solutions, relationships, careers, money, etc. All around your own life, which is perfectly natural! But most of your time is spent focused on your own experiences, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc, and all this creates your own little individual ‘you’ universe.
So as a copywriter you need to understand this, and make sure that your ideas and thoughts are not centred on your writing, but focused on speaking to them and their situation, meet them where their mind is already. Your main challenge is to decide on the point of contact with their problem/ situation/ interests/ passions/ desires/ anything that will grab their attention and stand out above all the other things in front of that person.
Joe Vitale in ‘Hypnotic writing’ says, “You have to meet the reader where their thoughts already are. You can do this with a headline that speaks to their problems, or their dreams. What you need to do is to begin your letter where the prospect already is in their own head. This is a way to create agreement with your reader. It’s a great way to build rapport. The more you can meet your reader on the mental level where they are already preoccupied, the more you can create hypnotic writing that moves them to where you want them to be; into a buying trance”.
The way to speak to them can be done in two ways, because there are two things that cause people to take action, and they are pain, and pleasure. Pain and pleasure are the two primal human activators. This is something which has been practiced for 2500 years, as Aristotle gave a formula back in Ancient Greece, and it is as follows:
- Exordium. An attention grabbing headline/story/picture/video
- Narratio. Tell them the problem/ situation they are facing
- Confirmation. Tell them the solution to their problem/ situation
- Peroratio. Explain the benefits they will get from taking action on your offer.
This, simplified is essentially this order:
- Problem. Get the attention of your prospects by focusing on their problem/ situation.
- Promise. Tell them what your product/ service will do for their problem/ situation
- Proof. Speak to their scepticism by giving proof in the form of testimonials and/or guarantees. Keep the FTC happy.
- Price. Tell them the obvious, don’t leave anything as implied, tell them what you want them to do. Give them the price and tell them to sign up for your newsletter, tell them to buy the product, tell them to take the next step; people need to be led, so be a leader and be thorough in your communication.
One final thought for you in part 1 is this:
“If we believe in the necessity of trying to win over others, we will also believe in the need for wearisome scheming”
Vernon Howard- philosopher
Focus on the good in their lives is my tip. Although appealing to their pain may be effective, it is much more pleasurable for both you and your customer to focus on their benefits and pleasures that they will draw from your service/ product. Spread good into the World. The other benefit to you for focusing on their benefits are that if you’re focusing on increasing their pleasure then they will love you, they will become a raving fan and they will want more from you. This means that you get far more loyal back-end sales, which means you need to do much less convincing over future sales because they already love and trust you. We all know that the fortune comes in the back-end sales; It costs much less to get repeat sales from current clients than to buy new clients.
For more free internet marketing and mindset training articles and videos go to my blog:
http://www.katiepantonpro.com
Or, if you’d like to know more about what Katie does and you want a piece of the action too, go to:
http://www.katiepanton.com
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