Copywriting

Being “on-message” is the worst thing you can do.

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rob ford on messageIf you want to engage your readers, earn their trust and turn them into customers, the worst thing you can do is write content and sales copy that is “on-message”.

Online content and copy that is on-message has about as much power as a politician who has been overly trained by his or her media trainers and speech writers.

The outcome lacks all authenticity. It’s BS, and we know it.

I recently returned from a trip to the UK where the country had just voted to choose their representatives for the European parliament.

What usually happens is a win by the Conservatives or the Labour Party, with the Lib Dems taking third place.

This time, the winner was a new, upstart party called Ukip.

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Before you say a word, be sure you’re saying the right thing.

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I have been writing a lot of copy recently. I have also been reviewing a fair amount of copy written by others.

Whether it’s my own copy or someone else’s, I keep finding weakness in the same area.

And this area of weakness is..?

It’s when the copywriter starts writing copy before he or she is absolutely clear about WHAT to say.

If the message is wrong, it doesn’t matter how talented you are as a copywriter. You’ll simply end up writing the wrong thing really well. And your ad or web pages or sales letter won’t achieve the result you were hoping for.

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To write a successful sales page, share one simple message aligned with one simple belief.

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Attractive couple on beachMost online sales letters are just too complicated. They make the reader think too much.

If you want your readers to buy, you need to give them a very simple message that is aligned with a very simple belief they already hold.

Above all, as strange as it may seem, you don’t want them to think too much.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s take a peek at what politicians do, because they have to work within exactly the same constraints.

Consider a politician who wants to promote a bill that will increase the minimum wage.

He will do two things…

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Tips on writing really, really long online sales letters.

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Hard working copywriterYou know the kind of sales letter I mean. When you look at the scroll bar on the right side of your screen, you can tell it’s going to take you a good half hour to read the page.

Of course, your friends and family will tell you that nobody reads these long sales letters.

And this week’s fresh crop of online gurus will tell you that nobody reads any kind of long copy these days. Period.

But people do read them. Lots of people.

There are companies making tens of millions of dollars a year from letters like these.

In fact, I just finished writing one of these long-form sales letters myself.

As a word document, single-spaced, the letter came out at 37 pages long…or a touch over 10,000 words.

Having just submitted the first draft, I thought I would share some tips with you.

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Copywriters: Learn your craft like a cabinetmaker.

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Learn copywriting like a cabinetmakerI know plenty of beginner copywriters who are constantly taking courses, reading books, following blogs, watching videos and finding as many ways as possible to learn more about the craft of copywriting.

That’s a lot of time and money being invested.

And why not? As a copywriter you can make as much money as a lawyer or a doctor. And even if you buy every course and program out there, you’ll still be paying less for your training than those other professionals.

But…here’s a funny thing.

Back in the late 1970s, when I got started as a copywriter in London, I don’t think there were any copywriting courses. I certainly never took any. And during my first ten years as a copywriter I think I read just one book on the subject – The craft of copywriting by Alastair Crompton. It’s a good book.

So how did I learn my craft?

That’s easy. I learned by DOING.

I just wrote and wrote and wrote.

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The 3rd element that’s missing from your online sales page.

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Online copy structureAn increase of just one or two percent in the conversation rate on a product sales page can translate into a lot of extra cash in a company’s bank account.

So how can you set about adding those extra percentage points?

First, you have to catch your client’s attention – or your boss’s attention if you work in-house – and persuade him or her that it’s worth investing the time in a rewrite or edit.

Next, you have to pay attention to the 3 elements that will contribute the most to a page that converts better. The third of these is, I think, the hardest and the least understood. But the first two are essential too. So let’s go through them one by one.

The 1st Element: Get the structure right

Any successful sales process has a structure. This is true whether you are selling face-to-face or writing a sales letter or an online sales page. Some people might argue about this, and say that you should just hang loose and sell as if you weren’t selling at all. But they are wrong. They are mistaking lack of apparent structure for the lack of an underlying structure.

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