Copywriting For The Rest Of Us

Mike Shreeve

PUBLISHED BY: TOLD YOU SO PUBLISHING

Copyright ©2013 http://www.mikeshreeve.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior written consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book. The writer of this book is not responsible for any losses that you incur in your own efforts related to the information herein. By reading this book you agree to above.

Table Of Contents:

What Is Copywriting?

The Biggest Mistakes In Copywriting Today

Being Too Clever

Me, Me, Me

No Action

Terrible Headlines

Features Not Benefits

Dull

Copywriting Basics

Finding Focus In Your Copywriting

Creating Your Avatar

You Vs. I

Emotional Excitement

Logical Power

Good Writing Is Rewriting

Getting All My Ideas On Paper

Creating The First Draft

Show It To The Meanest People That You Can Find

Rewriting

Story Is Powerful

How To Drastically Improve Your Copywriting Overnight

The Template

Pre-Headline

Headline

Intro To The Body

Product Intro

Feature The Product

Calling The Reader To Action

Closing Your Letter

Get Out There And Write

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." Peter Drucker Words sell. They sell online, they sell offline. They sell in letters, they sell in emails. They can make you rich and famous and once they are written they can become powerful tools that you can wield on demand. I know of no other way to change your financial future than to teach yourself to write copy. The purpose of this book is to teach you how to create the EXACT words that will sell. We won’t be talking about structure, grammar or literary devices – we are going to be talking about how to write high impact copy: Words that sell. And we are going to do it all in less than 10 minutes a day. I promise, that if you dedicate at least 10 minutes a day to reading this book and filling out the exercises within it, you will become a highly trained, highly dangerous, highly lucrative writer of words that sell. If you dedicate 10 minutes a day to this process, I can promise you success. Are you ready to get started? Let’s Go!

What Is Copywriting? Don’t skip this chapter. There is a reason that I included this chapter in this book. When you truly understand what copywriting IS you will be able to find out what it can DO and then you can make it work for you. Copywriting is not about sales. Copywriting is not about advertising. Copywriting isn’t even about branding. Copywriting is about getting people to DO something.

Why Does This Matter? Once you realize the difference between writing copy to SELL something and writing copy to get people to DO something, you will be able to craft words that ACTUALLY sell. Most copywriters spend too much time worrying about “making the sale” in their writing. They list benefits beyond benefits of the product - but they never touch on the things that make people actually DO stuff. They end up with low conversions and blame the traffic source, the product, the business, the customers and whatever else they can put between them and their poor copywriting skills.

I am going to show you throughout this book how to avoid this. We will be crafting words that entice the reader to DO something - whether that is to reply to the email you just sent, or opt-in to your email list or to whip out their credit card and start buying from you.

By the end of this book you will be able to craft high performance copy that converts - and it will only take you 10 minutes a day to master it. The internet has created a massive demand for copywriting. Taking your business online means reaching more customers with less effort - but it also means a reliance on words being your sales person. People surfing the web read words. Blog posts, tweets and emails are all created using words. If your words aren’t selling - you aren’t going to be making any money. With this increase in demand for copywriting, the overall quality of copy has dropped. No longer are copywriting tasks doled out to highly paid copywriting geniuses at large ad agencies. Typical copywriting projects these days are done inhouse - usually by the owner of the business and almost always without any guidance or training in tried and true copywriting techniques. That is why this book was created.

The Biggest Mistakes In Copywriting Today The first place for us to start is by looking out for common mistakes. Hopefully I can burn these mistakes into your mind so that you never make these mistakes in your own writing. They can be brutal for your campaigns and can be a disaster for your company.

Being Too Clever There are some really creative copywriters out there. People who can craft prose like you wouldn’t believe! But I wouldn’t hire any of them. Why? Because poets don’t sell well. Some of the best advice I have ever heard on copywriting came from Dan Kennedy (marketing genius and uber successful direct response copywriter). He pointed out that if people are going to be giving you their precious time and reading your sales copy - don't waste their time. Get to the point, say what you have to say and let them decide for themselves. I couldn’t agree more. Let’s take a look at an example just to illustrate this point a bit more. Here are two examples of the exact same sales copy. Tell me which one of these you would prefer: ********************************************************************************************************

How A 15 Year Old Discovered The Trick To Making $1200 A Day With Media Buying

Hello,

My name is Lars Morgan and I am a 15 year old making over $300,000 a year from my laptop. I do this by purchasing Media ads online and I want to show you how to do it yourself. By following my simple, straightforward process you will be able to get your first profitable campaign up and running in less than 24 hours! Click the button below to be taken to my high intensity training course now! ********************************************************************************************************

-Versus- ********************************************************************************************************

Then there was one... The world is a shadowy place of criminals and good guys. Sometimes the good guys win and sometimes the bad guys do. I am a good guy. So I always win. I run media buys to squelch the bad guys and make the cash. etc. (no call to action) ********************************************************************************************************

Seems pretty obvious as to which of these two showed the more effective copywriting skill (the first one).

The second example that I showed you there was an actual example from the sales page of someone who was trying to sell a media buying digital product. The scary part was that there was no call to action, no real defined product to be found within the copy and worst of all - it made his product lose credibility as a large part of media buying success has to do with copywriting.

The first example is my rewrite. Short. Simple. To the point with a call to action. This is what copy SHOULD be. Don’t waste people’s time trying to be

clever. Just tell them what they need to hear to make the decisions that they need to make.

Me, Me, Me A while back I wrote an article for a large online business blog. The title? “Copywriting Tips For Increasing Sales” (http://www.expand2web.com/blog/copywriting-tips-for-increasing-sales/) In it I outlined the single most effective (and easy) way to immediately increase conversions within your copy - talking less about you. This can be a hard transition for a lot of people whose task it is to write the copy for whatever product or service you might be selling - especially if you are the business owner - but it is imperative that you learn how to talk less about you and more about the customer. Let’s take a look at an example of what I typically see online. I get emails like this in my inbox on an almost daily basis: ******************************************************************************************************** Hello,

We are the #1 SEO agency in the greater northwest area. We have been featured in SEOmoz and Wired magazine.

We are now offering the highest quality linkbuilding and content curation services that the internet has to offer.

Give us a call today. Thanks, Joe ******************************************************************************************************** These types of emails make my blood boil. Not because I hate being spammed (which I do) but because I see good companies like this one losing

customers and potentially not helping someone that could really benefit from their services - all because they decided to talk about themselves instead of about their customers. Let’s rewrite their email and see if we can’t come up with something better - focusing on the prospect this time instead of the company itself: ******************************************************************************************************** Hello, My name is Joe and I want to help you. You deserve the very best for your business. You deserve to work with a company that has been featured on SEOmoz and Wired magazine for offering business changing advice to people just like you for free!

You deserve to know that the money that you spend on your linkbuilding and content curation is going to come back to you as a positive ROI. You deserve the best and I can give it to you. Please give me a call at xxx-xxxx or let me know when I could call you. Let me help you today! Thanks, Joe ******************************************************************************************************** Our rewrite isn’t perfect yet, but it certainly is better. Even simple changes like this one - simply focusing on the prospect and not on the company - will yield higher conversions immediately. If you just read this section and realized that you are sending out emails similar to the first one, or sales letters or press releases etc. - then put this book down and go make this change right now. You can always come back to the book but every second that you let pass you by where customers are looking at marketing messages with you as the main focus means bad news for your business.

No Action Remember at the beginning of this book when I said that most people in business have copywriting all wrong? This is what I was talking about. I have read so many sales letters that are missing this crucial bit of copywriting success that it isn’t even funny. The worst part is that so many of these sales letters would be PERFECT except for this one massive issue. They need a call to action. Copywriting is about DOING not about talking. You need the reader to DO something. So many who write copy lose the connection between actual selling and writing. If you want to drastically improve your copywriting skills nearly overnight - go get a door to door sales job where you only get paid on commissions. You will learn really quick what works and what doesn’t. Some of the most powerful and successful copywriters in the business will try and sell a client's products to people on the street before they sit down and write the copy.

Why?

Because the #1 thing that you learn when selling face to face is how to ask for the sale.

Asking for the sale is critical in copywriting and often overlooked because of fear and discomfort about asking people for things.

There is something about our society that says you should be a bit embarrassed when asking for money - or asking for favors. But the fact of the matter is that you NEED to ask for the sale otherwise they won’t give it to you. People won’t just whip out their wallets and start giving you their money because they really liked the way you crafted your sales letter. They only pay when you ask - and it is important to learn how to do that.

We will be covering exactly how to do that later on in this book but for now

just remember:

Your copy isn’t finished until you have asked your reader to do

SOMETHING.

Terrible Headlines The purpose of the headline is to grab your readers attention - it is often called the “hook”. But let’s get real. Who has time to learn new vocab? Let me tell you the real purpose of the headline. The purpose of the headline is to get people to read the first sentence of the body. The purpose of the first sentence of the body is to get people to read the next sentence of the body (And so on and so forth). Let me share with you my absolutely favorite worst headline ever (and I see this one ALL the time): Welcome To My Site! I will try and be nice about this because you might have it glaring loud and proud on your website right now. And I can’t blame you because you are just now reading this book, but let’s not ignore the fact that this headline belongs in the early 90’s next to fiery “Welcome” signs and green textured html backgrounds. The web has come a long way since “Welcome To My Site” was an acceptable way to grab readers’ attention. You need to be quicker these days. You need to be able to pack a bigger punch. You need to be able to stand out. We will talk more about how exactly to craft those amazing headlines later in this book, but for now realize that we live in an age where you have to snatch your readers up before they click elsewhere and the best way to do that is by offering them a headline worth reading.

Features Not Benefits

This is quite easily the most common mistake that copywriters make at all levels. It is common for someone before they sit down to write a piece of copy to want to make sales so bad that they completely forget about the customer who is buying. They focus entirely on the product or service itself forgetting to include the customer in the words that they write. We will cover this more throughout the course of this book but it is incredibly important to remember that people buy benefits NOT features. If your sales letter or e-mail sounds more like a product description than a call to action you might be doing copy wrong. Let’s take a quick look at what the difference between selling benefits and features might be. Our first example will be that of a features heavy bit of copy: ******************************************************************************************************** Hello Mr. Smith,

Thank you for your e-mail yesterday. I just wanted to follow up and let you know about our product.

The Ziffor 2000 comes complete with four dial knobs, 16 hyper processors, an 18 wheel track system and toaster circuitry in the back.

We also have an upgrade model that comes in green, black, or silver. I look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thanks, Astronaut Joe

********************************************************************************************************

Now let’s take this piece of feature heavy copy and turn it into something that appeals more to Mr. Smith the customer by focusing on benefits instead of features: ******************************************************************************************************** Hello Mr. Smith,

Thank you so much for your email yesterday.

I just wanted to follow up with you and let you know about something really special. We are currently releasing our Ziffor 2000 that has all the advanced features that you could possibly want in a space machine.

Four dial knobs allow for incredibly easy access for customizing the space machine any way that you prefer. No more having to wrestle with those other machines that barely do what you want them to. A little twist here and a little twist there and viola!

If you have been feeling like your current space machine isn’t living up to the hype then you’ll be happy to hear that we have 16 hyper processors built in at no extra charge to ensure that you are able to make all the calculations that you could possibly want to make and at speeds never before seen.

I would love to talk more with you about how we can get you a custom-built space machine delivered right to your door. Thanks, Astronaut Joe

******************************************************************************************************** In case you were wondering there is no such thing as a Ziffor 2000 and as far as I know Mr. Smith and Astronaut Joe are not currently in negotiations. This did, I hope, serve as a good example of what many people do in their copywriting and how easily it can be fixed. You will notice that even though I focused mostly on the benefits in the second example, I still did utilize the features of the product to segway into the benefits. It is important to realize that you are not trying to ignore the features entirely, you are just trying to sell the benefits.

We will talk more about this in future chapters as we delve more into copywriting. Dull I started this section of the book by saying that most copywriters fail because they are trying to be too clever. Now I am saying that you can’t be too dull. Well, which is it?

It so happens that being dull is a lot easier to define and illustrate than being too clever. If NOT being too clever is an art form, then NOT being dull is a craft. Not being dull starts with not being too technical. If you are selling accounting software to accountants - they don’t need to know the inner workings of the software. They just need to know if the job is going to get done. If the word hyperprocessor ends up on your sales page - you are being dull. Not being dull also includes editing - but editing the right way. Most people will sit down and write their copy on the computer. Once they finish typing, they do a quick read through and hit “publish”. Great copywriters will write their copy on their computer (or use Dragon Naturally Speaking to speak the copy - a highly effective way to write copy that sells) and print it off before hitting publish. They will read it aloud, share it with friends and basically obsess over it until everyone they know and love reminds them that there is a life beyond copy and they should probably get outside every once in a while. Why do they do this? Because great copywriters know that the words that they write need to jump off the page - they need to engage the reader and the best way to do that is to HEAR the words aloud before the finalized version is published. We will cover this more in depth in the copywriting basics chapter, but for now just remember that the purpose of the words that you write as copy is for people to take action. If you yourself aren’t willing to take action to make your copy better then how can you expect others to take action on the words that you have written?

Copywriting Basics

In this chapter I want to cover some of the fundamentals of copywriting. These fundamentals are less about structure and form and more about content and big ideas. It is important that before we move forward you know what you should be writing ABOUT. Once you know what you are writing ABOUT we can then move forward in learning exactly HOW to write that.

Finding Focus In Your Copywriting Being able to craft good copy is 10% good writing and 90% knowing who you are writing to. Focused copywriters are the ones who are able to craft messages that are aimed directly at the right type of people who are going to take action on the messages that they have crafted. Many of us look at the highly skilled copywriters in almost wonder and awe at how they are able to have such high conversions on the words that they craft. The reality is that they simply take the time before they sit down to write to get to know their reader. You need to be doing the same thing before you write your copy and I’m going to teach you exactly how to make this a quick and easy process so that you can write focused, powerful and perfect copy each and every time. I am going to assume that you are not a professional copywriter at this point. If you are, then you will be able to read this portion of the book and make the necessary jumps from what I’m about to teach to your own personal application. For everyone else, as you read the next little bit of this book go ahead and take a piece of paper out. You will be using this piece of paper to craft your own avatar. What do I mean by avatar? I am not referring to the multimillion dollar animated movie (though it was a great film) - in copywriting we use the term avatar to embody the customer that we are writing to.

If you can imagine a professional copywriter sitting at his desk with his mind wandering off into space as he tries to picture exactly who he is writing to. The really good copywriters will go so far as to try and imagine exactly what the person is wearing, what they are doing and who they are doing it with. When you create an avatar on this level, one where your customer comes to life in front of you, you can literally sit down and craft a sales letter written directly to that single person and you will have produced the most effective piece of copy that you possibly could. If you picked up this book because you are a business owner, you might be so attached to the idea of simply making sales that you currently don’t have a customer avatar. It might be difficult for you to try and envision exactly who your customer is. You may be tempted to answer “everyone” when asked who your target market is. While this book is not meant to be a complete guide to marketing, in order to craft good copy we have to know EXACTLY who you are trying to sell to. In order to do that follow these simple activities and be sure to write this down on your piece of paper so that you can have this with you every time you go to write.

Creating Your Avatar The easiest way to create an avatar is if you already have an existing business and you know the names of a few of your clients or customers. If you do, then simply select that person whom you would consider to be your “best” or “ideal” client or customer. Keep this person in mind. Perhaps you might want to write their name down on your piece of paper. If you can’t come up with the name, or perhaps you don’t have a customer base yet, then now is the time to invest some mental energy into determining who your “ideal” client or customer might be. Follow along with the rest of this exercise and by the end you should have a good idea of who you are going to be selling to.

Let’s assume that you have written somebody's name down on your piece of paper. Let’s even go so far as to say that you currently own an auto shop (for sake of example). The clients name that you wrote down was John. Let’s work together through this exercise so that we can craft our perfect avatar. The first question to ask is who is John? The better that you can answer this question the more powerful your avatar will be and the more effective your copy will become. Let’s say that John happens to be a dentist. He is our ideal client because he always pays on time, he is very respectful and he likes to get things done. Perhaps, from our conversations in the auto shop we know that John has a family of a few kids and he is always busy running around town taking them places. Perhaps, on one occasion he brought his car in with his children because it broke down while he was running them around. Let’s take a break here and examine the information that we have gathered so far. It isn’t really that much is it? We know what he does for a living and we know a little bit about his family. We know a little bit about some of his likes and a very small bit of his personality. But think about how powerful this information is. We know that John is very busy. If we were to create a piece of copy for him it wouldn’t need to be very long. As a matter of fact, a long sales letter might be a turnoff for John because he is so busy. We know that John has a family with children. He probably worries about their safety and happiness. It would be unwise of us to craft a piece of copy that talks about how to make your cars faster and more dangerous, right? If you keep following this train of thought, you can come up with all sorts of different angles as to how you might communicate the same message to John in a way that would be very effective for him. This is the power of having an avatar before you write.

But what happens if you don’t have this information? What can you do? If you currently run a business then finding this information is as simple as asking. You may be surprised by your customers reactions. They will more than likely not only provide the information that you need to get started but they will also feel special in that you took the time to ask them questions and to get to know them. If you don’t yet have a business and you are trying to create an avatar of your ideal customer or client you can still use real people. I am sure that your circle of friends is wide and that you at least have some acquaintances that reflect the same type of person you would like to sell to. Talk to them. Ask them questions. Get to know what it is that they want and who they are and you will be able to craft a high-quality avatar that will allow you to focus all your future copy.

Now that you have at least one person in mind, start to delve deeper into the psyche of that person. Again, the more you know your prospect the easier it is to sell. Here are some really great questions for you to ask yourself about your ideal customer that will help you to create a fully formed avatar: 1. Where do you like to shop? Why? 2. Who is most important in your life? Why? 3. What do you do for a living? Why? 4. Who influences your decisions? Why? 5. What do you do for fun? Why? 6. What keeps you awake at night? Why? Be sure to write these answers down on your piece of paper so that you can have them somewhere tangible. Just by asking these six simple questions you will be able to unlock powerful psychological answers that will tremendously help you in your copywriting efforts. Don't stop at just these six though. Continue to explore and create your avatar. One of the best copywriting habits that you can pick up is to simply pull out your avatar and place it on your desk as you craft your selling words. Being

able to refer to and add to your avatar means that your copy will continue to progress and become more effective. We have talked a little bit about finding focus in copywriting. By focusing our efforts we can craft more effective words that will sell better with less work. Now I want to teach you one of the most effective communication tools that I know of: Saying the word "you" instead of "I"

You Vs. I By now, you should realize that copywriting is less about you and more about your prospects. That being said, I just want to reiterate the importance of crafting your words so that you end up saying "you" a lot more than you say "I" or "me". Later on in this book I will give you a template to use in crafting sales pages, and in that template you will notice that I in fact DO encourage the first paragraph or two to be an introduction of yourself. In those first few moments you WILL be focusing on introducing yourself to your reader. But that will be the exception.

Just as in any type of communication it is important for the receiver of the communication from you to be aware of who you are and where you stand so that your reader can know whether or not to listen to you.

For example, if you have experience in the cooking world and you are trying to sell people chef knifes, it makes a tremendous difference if you are able to pull your experience into your copy. People trust those that can say - "I spent X amount of years doing what I am about to tell you..."

That, however, is the extent to which I want you to be talking about yourself in any given piece of copy.

I see too many examples of individuals who write sales pages, squeeze pages etc. who are essentially talking solely about themselves for the duration of the entire copy piece. Copywriting is just one form of communication. One of the best things that you can do in your copywriting career is to try what you have written, or what you are going to write, in terms of other types of communication.

For example, something that you can do to drastically improve your copy is to imagine somebody reading your copy out loud in front of a group of people as if they were giving a seminar. Try to put yourself in an imagined seat at that seminar. Are you enjoying what the person is saying? Do you want to keep listening? Is it convincing you?

Even though this is an imagination experiment, you can get a really good idea rather quickly as to whether or not your copy is powerful. Again, copywriting is just another form of communication, just like speaking is ONE form of communication. If your message doesn't work when you change the form of communication - ie. from reading a sales letter to imagining the same words being spoken in a presentation at a seminar - then your message is off.

Whenever I do copywriting critiques, one of the first things that I do is go through the entire piece of copy and look for all the "I" sentences. I like to mark those with red and try and figure out how to present the same idea but using the word "you" instead.

For example, what if we had the following sentence :

"I know you will like this product." This is actually a very common sentence that I find in a lot of sales pages, particularly towards the end of the sales page when the copywriter is running out of ideas and wants to emphasize the value of the product. The problem with this sentence, is that it is incredibly weak and actually becomes a giant red flag for many readers. The typical reader will read that sentence and feel as though they are being sold to.

I like to remind many new copywriters that the public is generally afraid of sales people. The best way to make sales then is to not come across as a salesperson but come across as somebody trying to help their reader. In order to do this, you need to focus on your reader. Let's try and reconstruct the sentence above into a way that will turn our readers on - not scare them away. What are you trying to convey when you say something like, "I know you will like this product"? Typically, the idea behind this sentence is that you want the reader to feel assured about their decision-making. You know the product is great, and if you wrote that line in your sales copy it is because you want to make sure they understand your product is great as well. You want them to feel that when they are giving you money, they will not feel regret. There are three different ways that we can use "you" statements to communicate this same idea but in a more powerful way and all without sounding like a used car salesman.

Emotional Excitement The first is by relying on emotional excitement to affirm what the person already feels so that they are quicker to hit that buy button, pick up the phone or make the donation etc. As we will talk about in a few chapters, a good sales page/squeeze page/direct mail piece/etc. spends most of the time getting prospects excited about possibilities. By the time they reach this point in the piece of copy, they should have already been primed for the pump (but we will talk more about that later in this book). For now, just watch how we turn an "I" sentence into a "you" statement and add power to our approach.

The way that we do that is to simply say the following: "You already know that this is a great product. So why not hit that buy button today?" There are of course, many variations to this "you" statement but this is a pretty common and highly effective example. The reason that this works is because you are simply confirming and reaffirming the feelings that they have had as they have read your sales copy. The power behind this particular approach is that you make it about their feelings and their excitement not about your affirmation.

Hopefully this is making sense, but the point is that you put the emphasis on their experience and not on your hope for them to purchase from you.

If you are struggling with shaping emotionally charged "you" statements, then just ask yourself:

"What would I need to hear at the peak of my excitement about a product to want to take my wallet out and run the credit card?"

Let's move on to the second way that we can use "you" statements to communicate the same idea.

Logical Power

Many buyers like to feel that they use logic to make their purchasing decisions. As a matter of fact, the entire field of economics relies on rational buyer behavior.

Now, you and I know from experience that very few people actually use logic when making their purchasing decisions (and there is now an emerging field called Behavioral Economics which agrees), but we can help our readers feel that they are making logical decisions by doing the following:

When using logic to assure buyers, you have to create a situation of discomfort and list how your product will help to avoid such discomfort.

For example, let's say that we are selling software to accountants that will allow them to have to work less during the tax season by more quickly organizing client information.

Here is how we might use the "you" statement to communicate and reassure our potential buyer:

"Not only will you be able to have all of your client information stored in one centralized and easy to access location, but you will be able to save loads of time during the busy tax season by quickly accessing that information, doing your tax magic and getting home in time for dinner."

The reason this method is so powerful is because it relies on one of the very basic fundamentals of powerful writing while at the same time relying on a basic and powerful fundamental of communication.

For the writing aspect, it shows the reader instead of tells the reader. Instead of telling them that - "Yes, this product is amazing." - you show them what that means. You paint the picture. You assume nothing, and provide as many guides for your reader to have an experience as you can whilst they read your copy.

For the communication aspect, you are still reassuring them, you are still communicating what you wanted to communicate when you wrote - "I know you will like this product." You are still relying on making them feel comfortable and trusting of you and what you are selling.

I will stop here in talking about "I" vs. "you" only because this theme will continue throughout the rest of this book.

As soon as you start writing for your reader, you will see drastic increases in your conversions and sales. Never forget that "you" is so much more powerful than "I".

Good Writing Is Rewriting Copywriting is NOT the same thing as selling live. When you are in a face to face meeting with a client you are able to strike up small talk, react to questions, read body language, etc.

With copywriting you have yourself and a word processor.

But your clients, yourself and your business require your copy to be able to do the same work that your sales people can do - make sales.

How can that possibly be done?

When I first started writing copy professionally I never wrote more than the first draft. I would do some minor research, throw on my Dragon Naturally Speaking and talk until the project was finished. I would do some grammar and spelling edits and then I would be on my way.

Did I make sales writing copy like that?

Yes.

Do I still write copy like that?

Hell no.

Copywriting is writing. If you have ever read a book about "How To Write" you know that good writing is rewriting - and this INCLUDES writing copy for business.

Now, whenever I sit down to write out a high converting piece of copy I do the following:

1. Set up my avatar.

2. Get all my ideas on paper.

3. Create a first draft.

4. Show it to the meanest people I can find.

5. Rewrite it.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until the mean people stop making me cry.

We have already talked about step #1 - creating your avatar. Now I want to talk about all the rest of the steps that I use to craft copy - I think that you will find this method to be helpful for a lot of reasons, but the #1 reason that I write my copy this way these days is because it means less work for me and LOADS less stress than it used to be.

Getting All My Ideas On Paper Don't try and craft the perfect sales page as you type. It isn't going to happen. When you sit down at your typewriter (I love old typewriters), or computer or notepad, your only concern should be to get as many ideas on the paper as you possibly can. Think about your avatar and just try to sell the dickens out of him/her. No pitch, no angle, no idea is too crazy. Just get it all down on paper. Try the emotional angle, try the logical angle, try them all.

I have found that it is WAY easier to come back and edit things DOWN as opposed to having to add things coming back during the rewrite process.

You don't even necessarily have to run your ideas through the word processor at this point. I don't. I use a legal pad and idea bubbles. I draw pictures, I scratch lines connecting ideas and I make a giant mess. For some projects I might spend hours doing this exercise and others might have me ending up with 10 sheets of legal pad nearly blackened with ink from a massive idea flood in less than 30 minutes. It just depends on my mood I suppose.

The point is that this part of the process needs to be fun, full of energy and MUST be focused on your avatar. Things will only get worse, more boring, further from your avatar and less exciting from this point on. Not because that is the process that copywriters use - that is just the nature of working on a single project for so long - the luster loses its shine over time.

That is why it is so critical that you approach this ideation stage with excitement and vigor.

Creating The First Draft All first drafts suck. Don't stress about it. The point of a first draft is simply to organize your ideas and make complete sentences. It isn't to craft an award winning sales page, it isn't to finish the project, and it certainly isn't the time to get frustrated that it doesn't look and read like pro level copy yet. The first draft is about getting ideas organized in a manner that flows. That is it.

The first draft is about getting something together that you can have others criticize into perfection. Nothing more.

The first draft is about realizing your limited ability to actually craft something that sells when it is just you and a keyboard. That is the key.

Too many copywriters today try to be stoic hermits, hiding in their bedrooms disconnected from the rest of the world trying to sell them things with words. The first draft is about getting that out of your system and getting yourself ready to have the outside influence your work.

First drafts are NOT outlines, they must read like a sales page. I like to try and at least fix spelling and grammar mistakes at this point - but I don't worry too much if I haven't written the perfect line yet. That comes after the abuse from my critiques.

Show It To The Meanest People That You Can Find Let me make you the greatest copywriter in the world in just one easy step. Join a critique group.

Even if you never submit your own first drafts to be critiqued, reading critique group threads is a huge eye opener. I am part of several and even started

my own copywriting facebook group which I would love to have you come and join for critiques and copywriting advice:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/168182900000525/

Allow me to offer some helpful advice on critiques, because I believe that there are some ways to get critiques that end up hurting your copy a lot more than they should.

Industry Specific Critiques Are Light Years Ahead Of Generic Ones

My facebook group is a generic critique group/info sharing collective. You will get decent critiques, but you will get even better critiques if you can find a group of copywriters in your own niche. The best place to find those types of groups are forums and Linkedin groups.

How would someone who has spent the past 10 years writing for chiropractors know whether your piece on geological data mining software is appealing or not? They can't - even if they say they can.

Industry specific critiques are powerful because you are able to tap into a collective body of knowledge from people who actually know what they are talking about - relative to your prospective buyers and remember:

Copywriting isn't about you - it is about your prospective buyer.

Customer Critiques Are Even Further Ahead Then Copywriter Critiques

Copywriters are a funny breed. We like to sit in our ivory towers and consider our words to be like magic. In our efforts to attract clients we try and come up with "new" ways of writing copy, clever tricks and quick tips. We try and distance ourselves from the world of DIY copywriting because, after all, we do want a job.

While this could be said of nearly of every industry, the danger with this behavior amongst copywriters is that we turn this behavior on our own kind. If you enter a copywriters critique and submit a piece of copy, be prepared to

received feedback that I would call "purely intellectual". In other words, ivory tower type stuff.

It is important to remember when getting your copy critiqued, that you aren't selling to other copywriters (unless of course you actually are) - you are selling to YOUR prospective customers.

It is your prospective customer that will be able to provide you the greatest insights into making your copy better. They will be able to say whether or not they were inspired or excited to buy from you. If you really want to be able to tell if your copy is working, send a sample to a small group of prospective buyers and ask them what they think.

If they say, "Wow. When can I buy it?" Then you are on to something.

If they say, "It was nice." or "It was interesting." You have lots of work to do.

Rewriting You can't be emotional about your copy. I have seen big time copywriters ruin their conversions simply because they thought one of their lines was clever and refused to remove it during the rewrite. Don't get emotionally attached to your work in that way. If your critiques came back negative for something, cut it.

If your second look at something makes you squirm, cut it.

This isn't a hobby (if it is, I would like to recommend some better hobbies for you...) this is business. Only put on the paper what will lead to action from the prospect.

Story Is Powerful Since we are still in the section on copywriting basics, I can take the opportunity to address one of the most powerful aspects of copywriting that I could possibly share with you. It may require a small understanding of historical

culture and evolutionary biology but I think I might be able to get away with explaining it in simple, actionable detail. You and I are human beings. I know you are a human being because you are reading this text. As far as we can tell, no other species on earth has the ability to read like you and I do. Knowing that you are a human being strikes a sense of curiosity within me. As it may have been struck in you once you realized I too was a human being.

I want to know more about you. I want to learn your name, where you are from, what you do for a living, why you are a reading this book etc. I want to know these things NOT because I am in business. NOT because I want to find out how to sell more books, but because I am also a human being. I want to know your story so I can contrast it to my own.

We have survived as human beings because of our social nature. Throughout the ages we have formed groups, clans, religions and cults based on stories(Read my post on how to start a cult). Stories of shared pasts, stories of religious dogma and stories of combined jealousy, hatred and a sense of revenge.

Story is as much a part of the human condition as eating and breathing is. We crave story. We cling to story and we each have stories. Let me give you a few examples of how powerful story is to us human beings:

Example 1 - The Crook - AKA The Publishing Industry

Perhaps you have already heard this story. There once was a man who was incredibly poor. He was at the end of his rope financially and his wife and children weighed heavily on his mind. He decided that he was going to rob a bank.

He somehow managed to steal $500,000 from a bank and get away with it. He moved his family to the other side of the country and continued to live out his life in relative peace.

Then, one day he walked into the bedroom and told his wife he had something he had to get off his chest. He made her promise not to tell a single soul. She promised.

He told her about the bank robbery, how he had gotten away with it for years and how hard it was to keep his secret. She was stunned.

She kept quiet as long as she could until one day, some years later, she let it slip to her best girlfriend. Once it came out she felt a massive sense of relief. Her best friend wanted more details, and she gave them to her.

Less than 1 week later the woman's husband was in jail after having escaped police for years.

This is how powerful story can be. Why couldn't the man keep the story to himself? Why did it slip out when the wife was speaking with her friend? Why was the best friend so curious?

Because story is powerful.

Stories like the one I just shared with you happen all the time. In a very interesting study it was found that the majority of criminals brought to justice are done so from tips provided them from citizens who "heard on the street".

And while all of this is happening in real life on the streets, the entertainment industry is making the largest share of their money from fictional retelling of these same stories.

Think about the most popular book sales of our time. What are they? Mysteries and thrillers. Romance. Not science books, not religious books. Fictional novels.

Stories.

People love stories. It is literally the very fabric of being a human to need and crave stories.

Let me give you another example, one that has to do with copywriting.

Example 2 - A Real Time Example

I would like to provide you with a real time example of the power of story, but you will have to play along in order for this to work. Forget for a moment that you are reading a book on copywriting. Forget for a moment that you are reading at all and just try and experience the words that I am about to write. I hope that you find this a powerful exercise as it will provide a glimpse into the power of story as a tool in copywriting and help you to craft the most powerful kind of copy that you can. Ready? Lets go:

"I have a product that I would like you to purchase. It has a dark blue handle, and a dark grey serrated edge that you could call a knife blade but the product creator calls it an edge for effect. It cuts through almost anything, especially thick binding cord. It works well if it is wet, easy enough to use in the dark and comfortable enough to handle even if you have shaky hands. Sound interesting?"

The above paragraph is what 85% of copywriters write today. Has interesting elements, and even has benefits thrown in for effect. Not bad. Now read the following:

"Sometimes in life you need to be able to cut yourself free from the bonds that tie you down. This is exactly what happened to me three years ago in the Philippines. I had been taken captive and held as a hostage for 2 weeks. I can't tell you what they did to me while I was in their 'care' but I can tell you how I got out. One day, while my captives were out having lunch I reached deep into my pocket and pulled out that beautiful 6-inch serrated blade. The dark blade handle felt like freedom in my hand as I easily cut away the thick, tight binding cord they had used to tie me up. I was able to make my way out in the dark and damp rain to one of their motorboats and cutting through the anchor line I shanghaied their craft and made my way back to shore and safety. Without the X-Blade 4000, I wouldn't be here today."

Ok, I realize this story is extreme (and not true) but you get the idea. We all have stories and people want to read them. The second paragraph has just as

much information about the product, it even NAMES the product outright, but it doesn't come across as a sales pitch. The reader walks away with an emotional imprint of the product in story form (as a side note - people are MUCH more likely to remember full stories than they are to remember benefit lists, even for products they already want to buy) and you had a chance to pitch your product without scaring the prospect into running away.

I do want to make sure before we move on that you realize that your entire sales copy doesn't need to sound like this - as a matter of fact it probably shouldn't. I would also like to mention that some of you reading that paragraph won't have enjoyed it. This is because some stories resonate with some people while others resonate with other people - BUT EVENTUALLY EVERYONE RESONATES WITH A STORY.

It is your job as the copywriter to find out what stories your prospective clients/customers want to hear and then spin your story (or the story of another customer of your product) to match their interests.

Story is powerful and I would highly recommend that you spend some time learning about fictive theory (the theory of why people like reading fiction stories). As you begin to implement aspects of storytelling into your copywriting you will see tremendous success.

How To Drastically Improve Your Copywriting Overnight I wanted to make sure that you would walk away from reading this book with a few actionable items that you could implement immediately, without having to spend any money whatsoever that would offer the biggest bang for your buck in terms of time invested. I believe that this next tip is just such a suggestion. You may already be familiar with the idea of 10,000 hours to mastery as made popular by the book Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell. I wholeheartedly believe that they only way that you get great at something is if you put time into it. I personally don't think that I have put 10,000 into any one thing by conscious choice, so I can't attest to that specific number, but I do know from learning

several second languages (Tagalog, Ilokano and Itawis) that the key is saturation learning and tapping into your subconscious to absorb, process and then store that information.

Here are a few exercises that I do on a daily basis in order to actively increase my copywriting skill without really having to think too much about it. I am of the school of thought that exposure to topics, repetitive training and time are the best ways to get better at something.

Exercise #1 - Read Copywriting/psychology/influence & persuasion/marketing Books and Blogs

I usually spend about 15 minutes a day reading about copywriting, usually right before I sit down to work on projects. This does a few things, first it helps me to stay up to date with what the latest copywriting champs are doing but it also helps to get my mind right. It requires a different mindset to write your copy, so do yourself a favor by reading a little bit to get yourself pumped up, in the zone and inspired.

Exercise #2 - Beating Writers Block By Writing Someone Else's Copy

This is the most powerful way to beat writers block ever. Period.

When you are sitting at your desk frustrated beyond belief, trying to find the right sentence or word to write and it just isn't coming, do this:

1. Find a piece of copy that you like. Maybe from a magazine or on the web or wherever.

2. Pull out your legal pad and literally rewrite, word for word the copy that you like until your brain gets back in the game.

This works for more reasons than I will list here, but let me give you a few of the main reasons why this is so powerful.

Copying down someone else's copy re-engages your mind. It gets you back in the mood. If it is really good copy, then your mind will start going wild with ideas for your own piece inspired by simply doing this exercise.

I like this exercise because I am lazy. I like that I simply sit down and start writing without really thinking and my brain starts going wild with ideas. I usually have to get a new sheet out just to write down everything that is coming to mind in the form of brainstorming.

The super secret added benefit of doing this, is that you are actually training your mind by using powerful learning techniques of intense engagement and muscle memory to improve your own writing by following the masters. Imagine it like being a cook wanting to become a great chef going to work for Gordon Ramsey - it is the same idea. It is like looking over the shoulder of a great master.

Many great fiction novelists employ this technique to help improve their own sense of voice and style - it absolutely works in the copywriting world as well.

Exercise #3 - Just Read Copy As Much As Possible

We live in a world surrounded by copy. Junk mail, internet ads, billboards, bus ads, menus, flyers, etc. Everywhere you look you will find copywriting examples. One of the best things that you can do is to literally saturate yourself with copy.

Read as many magazines as you can - not for the articles but for the ads.

Go to clickbank.com and read the sales pages of those products across multiple niches.

Watch commercials with the sound on.

And all the while that you are doing this, simply ask the question:

Why?

Why did the copywriters put this as their work? Why did the editors allow this to be released on the public? Why do people respond to this ad? etc.

If you do this every day, even for 20 - 30 minutes a day, you will become a master copywriter before you know it because you will be critiquing the work and

deconstructing the work of some of the greatest copywriters in the world. That kind of exposure to talent and craft is rare in many industries - but for copywriters it is a regular thing.

The exercises that were listed in this section of the book may not seem that important to you. If you purchased this book so that you could sit down and write a single sales page and then never write another piece of copy again (unlikely) then these exercises probably won't benefit you that much.

However, if you are a business owner, a budding copywriter or just someone put in charge of your company's copywriting projects, these exercises will be invaluable to your success. They will help to reformat your brain to think like a professional copywriter. They will allow the act of copywriting to become one of recollection as opposed to having to recreate the wheel every time you sit down - and as someone who does this professionally - I can attest that it is much easier to work from a position of recollection than it is to have to sit down and reinvent the wheel every time.

If you did purchase this book with the hopes of receiving a template that you could fill out and get going quick and easy like, then the rest of this book is going to be perfect for you. For those who are looking at copywriting more as a long term task, the following template provided in this book will become a powerful tool for you in your daily work.

Sales Letter Template

Early on in my copywriting career I was fortunate enough to have access to LOADS of really great books on the art and craft of writing to sell. The problem was that most of them were created much like the first half of this book. Lots of really useful tips, but no hard templates that I could just "fill-in-the-blanks" with. The closest that I ever read was Dan Kennedy's Ultimate Sales Letter.

I don't want you to walk away from this book feeling the same. For that reason the remainder of this book will be a step-by-step walk through of the exact template that I use to craft powerful, high converting sales pages each and every time.

You will be able to use this template not only for crafting sales pages, but you could modify this template to craft squeeze pages as well as direct mail pieces. Simply mix and match the different aspects of the sales letter and you will be well on your way!

In order for you to be successful with this template, I highly recommend that you continue to follow the steps that I outlined earlier in this book talking about my process: 1. Set up my avatar.

2. Get all my ideas on paper.

3. Create a first draft.

4. Show it to the meanest people I can find.

5. Rewrite it.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until the mean people stop making me cry. That is still the most effective way to write your copy. Now that you will have this sales letter template however, you can give yourself even more of a

break by having a complete outline to finish your first draft and subsequent revisions and rewrites.

Truthfully, over time you will start to think in terms of the sales letter template and you will find that more and more of your brainstorming sessions will be in sales letter template formatting - this is when you will be able to start really turning out fast and effective copy.

In order to fully understand how this template works I will be providing explanations throughout for each and every section of the sales letter as well as recommendations for phrases/words that work.

You may find that I call certain areas of the sales letter different names than you have heard before. That is ok - and frankly hardly relevant to the success of your particular sales letter. Your prospects don't care if you know the difference between the pre-headline and the headline, they just want results - and so should you.

If you have any questions about this or any of my books please don't hesitate to contact me @ support@mikeshreeve.com.

Here we go!

The Template You will find as we work through this template together that I use a very simple system in my copywriting work. It is called the problem-solution method of copywriting and it essentially says that you point out a problem in your copy that the prospect might be experiencing and then you present the solution in your copy (which is typically the product itself). Knowing this beforehand is essential as I will be using the vocabulary of problem-solution throughout.

Pre-Headline The purpose of the pre-headline is to point out a problem that the prospect is experiencing. For chirporactors you might say:

"Losing sleep at night because you aren't getting enough patients?"

For a piece of software you might say something like:

"STOP wasting time building links by hand"

The purpose of the pre-headline is to immediately identify the problem and paint it in such a plain and simple way that the prospect will want to read the headline.

Headline Knowing that we are using the problem-solution method of writing you may already know what the headline should include.

That is right, the solution.

Many people worry about creating headlines that contain "hooks" or catchy phrases etc. The best way to "hook" someone is to quickly identify a problem that they are experiencing (using the pre-headline) and then showing them the solution. There is no more powerful "hook" than that. You could use all the fancy tricks and pretty language in the world, but solutions hook people every time.

Let me give you an example:

"Have you ever noticed that you only remember to buy new batteries when the lights go out and you need that flashlight to find your way around?

Happens to me all the time. I finally found a way to always remember to buy new batteries when I need them, BEFORE the power goes out and I am fumbling for a flashlight."

Interesting right? You want to at least hear what my solution is. The thing is that the solution could literally be ANYTHING.

It could be a software that prints out grocery shopping lists with regular reminders of what you need when stuff runs low (I would love a program like that). It could be an egg timer that you take to the store that reminds you of stuff, it could even be a simple memory trick that is useful for all sorts of things.

It doesn't really matter WHAT it is, you want to find out. And the reason that you want to find out is because of the problem-solution method. I stated the problem in the first sentence - never remembering your batteries when you need them. The second sentence holds the promise of a solution - that I have found a way to remember the batteries every time.

Now, I wouldn't consider what I wrote above to be anything more than the first step of brainstorming, not even a first draft. But you get the idea.

Using the problem-solution method between the pre-headline and headline creates a beautiful marriage of tension and release that hooks your readers into wanting to find out more.

And what is the purpose of your headline? To get your readers to read the next line in the copy.

Intro To The Body Earlier in this book I talked about the right time to use the "I" statements a lot. This is that time.

The Intro To The Body is simply where you connect with the reader through telling YOUR story. We want to accomplish a few things in this section of the sales letter.

1. We want to establish connection.

2. We want to open a loop.

3. We want to establish and convey empathy.

Establishing A Connection

People are afraid of salespeople. It is a proven fact. Just walk downtown and watch people flee in terror when the clipboard wielding canvassers come out. We don't like to be arrogantly sold to, we don't like products being "pushed" on us and we don't like being manipulated.

Good sales people are personable, kind and helpful. They have common interests and common stories with their prospects.

As copywriters, we have to somehow pull off that same power in just a few sentences and without any non-verbal communication whatsoever. We do this by telling OUR story.

The Intro To The Body is all about humanizing the sales letter. Turning it into a LETTER and not simply and AD. I like to start all Intro To The Body sections like this:

"Hello,

My name is Mike Shreeve and I..."

It reads like a friendly letter. If I am able, I like to include the prospects name right after "Hello" but since a large majority of my work is cold traffic from the web, I don't get to do that as often as I would like. The more you make your entire work of copy FEEL like you are simply telling a story through letter form, the less intimidated your prospect will feel.

Opening A Loop

If you are unfamiliar with open loops, allow me the privilege of opening to you a powerful toolset that makes many companies millions of dollars a year and will yield you powerful results as well.

The best example of an open loop can be found on television.

Typically you turn on your TV to watch your favorite show. They introduce a story line, usually some sort of tension and then right in the middle of it all they break for commercial. You sit patiently through the ads, waiting. Why? Why on earth would you willingly sit through advertisements, being blatantly sold to even though you hate sales people?

Because you want resolution.

You want to know why TV shows get cancelled? Because they can't sell commercials. Why can't they sell commercials? Because they haven't crafted open loops to get people to willingly sit through garbage just to see the end of the story.

Don't believe me? Just look at some of the most popular TV shows on today. You will see firsthand how powerful open loops are in getting you do to something that you would never do otherwise - sit and be sold to.

I highly recommend that you sit through a few TV episodes to see what I mean. You might find something even more interesting happening, something called nested open loops. We don't have the time or space in this book to talk about nested open loops in detail, but just realize that the best shows on TV - meaning the ones that are making the most money and have been running the longest - open and close loops within each other multiple times in single episodes.

Now, we don't have to get that crazy in our copywriting. We can use basic, simple open loops to keep the fire of the reader alive, but just realize that we need to do this.

One way of pulling this off is just as I showed you above.

We opened the loop by using the problem-solution method whilst holding back a bit on releasing details of the solution. We hooked the ready to want to find out more. We opened that loop. And while the loop was open we introduced ourselves and established connection. Now we are going to establish empathy, the most powerful emotion in business.

Establish And Convey Empathy

Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy is about pity, it is about looking at a person from a position ABOVE that individual. We don't want any of that in our copy. We want everyone (the reader and the writer) to be on the same page - TOGETHER.

To do this we need to create empathy. And to create empathy, we once again need to call on story.

The best kinds of stories to include in your Intro To The Body are the stories that your reader will most identify with but stories that also include triumph. For example, let's continue with the battery finder "thing" and see what we can come up with brainstorm wise:

"Hello Sam,

My name is Mike Shreeve and I spent years forgetting everything in sight. You may know how it feels to always be late to work or events because you can't remember where you put your keys. I once even almost lost my job because I completely forgot we had a client meeting, it just completely slipped my mind.

Luckily, I decided to do something about it. I decided to learn how to train my brain to remember things better. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on overpriced and over hyped training products.... "

Hopefully you are beginning to see how it would be possible to get your reader to feel empathetic about you and your plight.

One of the best ways to establish empathy from your reader is to convey empathy in your writing. This process begins with the avatar. This is just another reason that doing the avatar exercise is so important. Being able to empathize with your reader will allow you to put yourself in their shoes and write from that perspective.

You may see above that I wrote the sentence:

"You may know how it feels..."

This is a two way empathy power bomb. It is effective in that the language itself being used taps into your readers subconscious and tells them "Hey, he is talking about feeling, let's start doing that." You can actually force your readers to "feel" when they may not have otherwise been doing so.

It is also powerful because it fixes one of the most powerfully anti-empathy lines I see in copywriting all the time:

"Some of you..."

Or it's horrific cousin:

"You all..."

Remember, we are trying to establish a connection, a one-on-one connection with our reader. When we remind our reader that we wrote this for a BUNCH of people to read, it automatically reminds them that we are sales people trying to get them to buy something. If however, we continue to address them in a one-on-one manner such as:

"You may have felt..."

Our reader will slip into a slight forgetfulness that this is a letter trying to sell something to them. Some people call this reader's hypnosis or the fictive dream, I call this the best darn way I know how to make money. Empathy.

Once we have established a connection, opened a loop (or several) and garnered empathy from our prospect and shown them that we have empathy for them and their situation, we can move on to the next section of our sales page.

Product Intro

Even with all this empathy building, storytelling and loop opening, at some point we need to get to the heart of the piece of copy - the product.

Before I delve into how to present the product in a way that won't have your prospect running for the hills, I just want to make sure and dispel some common copywriting myths. There seems to be an ever increasing idea that only low end products can be sold via copywriting (text based) works.

I was at a seminar just recently and heard a presentation about how only products under $99 could reasonably been sold via traditional text based sales pages. If anyone ever tells you something similar to this - punch them in the face. There is nothing further from the truth.

I personally have sold several four figure products and services using just a web page and traffic. No video, no face-to-face meetings none of that. Just traffic

and a sales page. Granted I had warmed the traffic up substantially by offering high quality PDF guides, but even then it was all text based.

In his book The Ultimate Sales Letter, Dan Kennedy gives an example of a person who was selling entire HOMES (as investment ops) using just direct mail. It has been a while since I priced a new home, but last time I checked they were a lot more expensive than $99.

Don't think you can't sell something via copywriting. You can. I have seen some really crazy stuff being sold and I have sold some crazy stuff myself.

Ok, let's get back to the Product Intro.

A good product intro in copywriting begins with your mindset. If you are ashamed of your product or service, it is going to come through in your writing. You aren't as good a liar as you might think that you are.

If you are confident, if you believe that your product or service really will help people, then the task of product intro writing becomes ridiculously easy.

Beyond the confidence and mindset to creating a good product intro there are more technical aspects into creating the transition from the empathy driven story to the actual introduction of the product. It is important for you to understand that these technical aspects are used to create a sort of run-up to the actual product itself.

You see in more detail what I am talking about once you get to the next section, but for now were just talking about the introduction of the product itself.

In the previous section we talked about creating a story that talks about yourself, paints you in a specific light so that you can garner empathy and make connections etc. In this transition phase we want to begin to move away from you as a person and focus more on the problem that your story represented.

For example, we were talking about having difficulty with memory and recollection. Let's continue along this vein. As we transition from the story to the product we would want to focus on the problem of memory difficulties. We

would continue to hammer home more and more instances in which having a bad memory was causing problems in your life.

One of the best ways to do this is to actually create a bullet point list of different disadvantages or detriments that were caused because of this problem. In our case it might be that you are always late work, it might be that you feel disconnected from life because you can never remember things, it may be that people make fun of you and call you forgetful etc. because of the things that you don't remember. If you present these in a bullet point specific problem set, problem by problem, these act as triggers to your reader so that they then begin to fill in the blanks with problems of their own that they themselves have experienced.

You establish instant connection and empathy from your reader.

Again, we are following the problem-solution method of copywriting.

As you continue to point out the disadvantages and detriments caused by the major problem of having memory loss, you then do the same thing that we did with the pre-headline and the main headline by doing a micro problem-solution resolution.

You will do this by simply saying the following:

"And then it all changed"

Just like we did with the headline, we promise that there is a solution by providing the hope of the solution. This of course opens a new loop, but it also continues to entice the reader to continue reading on to figure out what exactly that solution is. In a lot of ways this is the beginning of the intro to the product itself.

Once you have stated that things have changed, that your problem has found a solution, you do want to offer a little bit of explanation as to how this solution impacted you. Again, we aren't saying what the specific solution is, we are simply now talking about how your life became better because of the solution

that you are about to tell us about. Some of the best copywriters in the world like to make this the point in the copy where they say something like the following:

"I know how much my life has changed since finding this solution, and now I want to share it with others."

One of the best things that you can do as a copywriter, as I have mentioned many times throughout this book, is to not come across as a sales person. You want people to connect with you and one of the best ways that you can remove yourself from the field of sales in the eyes of the reader is to capitalize on actual proof and or social proof. Let me give you some examples:

If I were to continue writing about the memory loss product in our earlier example, once I had transitioned from the story about myself to talking about how everything changed and how my life has become better, I would then provide examples of proof.

I might show testimonials from others who had also tried the product, I might show statistical proof that by participating in this memory loss product you could increase your memory by 25% etc.

The point of proof at this stage of our sales page is not to get people to click the buy button, but it is to simply excite the reader about the prospect of this solution. In other words, this proof doesn't necessarily have to be super specific to the product itself. In some pages you may find that this is where industry average statistics are listed in the sales page.

For example, in a lot of Internet marketing sales pages you might find that this is the point at which you see statistics like this:

"YouTube has over 4 million views per day"

"Mobile marketing has been quoted by Forbes magazine to be the next new crazy marketing trick"

etc.

These are more generalized, excitement inducing proofs that simply get people to feel excited about the change that you made in your life so that they can themselves begin to imagine living those results.

The idea behind this proof is to simply run home the idea that the reader doesn't have to take your word for it but that they can rely on others, they can rely on the social proofing factor and ultimately it separates you from being a salesperson.

At this point in your sales letter, you have gotten your reader into an emotional frenzy to figure out what exactly it is that you were trying to share with them. In a lot of ways at this point if you have done everything right, you can take a breather because the reader desperately wants to know what it is that is going to solve this problem for them. It takes a lot of the pressure off from you in trying to close the sale because you have done a pre-closing getting them so excited.

The next step is to feature the product.

Feature The Product

This is not my favorite part of copywriting. I enjoy the persuasion aspect and getting people excited, but this is a very important and often overlooked aspect of copywriting. I see too many pages of copy in which the copywriter does an amazing job of getting people excited about the product and willing and ready to buy, and then they do a horrible job of explaining what the product is or does and that ends up turning people off who would have bought nearly anything from the writer before they botched it.

I want to make sure that you walk away from this book with the ability to emphasize and describe your product in a way that appeals to the reader.

The next natural step in our sales page creation is to expose the solution to the problem that we have been describing throughout the sales page. Your reader is expecting it and they will be happy for you to give it to them.

You don't have to over complicate this process, and you don't have to be intimidated. This is how I do it nearly every single time:

Introducing The Memory Masters Course

That's it.

No need to be tricky, no need to be clever, simply say:

"Introducing..."

and your job is done.

I typically like to make sure that when I do write this line, it is bold, it appears as a headline, and if I am doing a very graphic heavy page I make sure that the majority of the graphics are pointed towards this particular line of the sales page.

It is important that your product has a name and if you are working online you need to have some sort of visual representation for the product. The difficulty with selling things online even if it is a service, is that the product or service itself is so ambiguous that it is difficult for people to want to pull out their credit cards to buy something that they cannot visualize in their head.

Once you have introduced the product name and shown a visual representation, one of the things that I like to do is then create a bullet list below that visual representation. These bullets are exactly what we talked about at the beginning of this book in that these are the benefits of the product itself. Let me give you some examples:

If we are continuing to use the memory loss program as our example, I might list some of the benefits this way:

"You get easy online access so that you can participate in the training at your leisure which will allow you to spend more time with loved ones, instead of burying your nose in a book like a hermit.

You get a step-by-step process for a quick and easy jaunt through the memory fortification process which means you can rest easy knowing you will make it through the entire course.

You get a scientifically tested formula to increase memory using the latest technologies to ensure that your memory fortification process is the latest and greatest.

I am not of the school of thought that features have no place in copywriting. I simply believe that the best way to list features is also the best way to list benefits.

For example, the formula that I use is as follows:

feature + "and this gives you (blank) so you can (blank)" = clear benefit

This is without a doubt the most powerful way to flesh out what your benefits are to your prospect. This isn't is a system that only I use, this is a system that many of the top copywriters in the world use. It allows you to not have to worry about whether or not you are listing features or benefits etc. you just simply fill in the blanks of this simple equation and what you will be left with is a clear feeling of benefit for the reader.

Remember that as you are creating these benefits that you think about the avatar that you have created. Things that might seem like benefits to you, may not at all be benefits to the person reading your sales page. This is why getting critiques is so critical to your success as a copywriter. The most powerful critiques are the ones that will allow you to pinpoint the exact benefits that are triggers to your prospects. This simply cannot be done without feedback.

Once you finish creating your bullet points of benefits, we now need to start talking about money. We are not trying to get to sale right now, we are simply trying to put in the mind of the reader an actual cash value for this product. There are a lot of different ways to do this, I'm simply going to give you a basic way of citing cash value that you can use in any niche and across any product type.

Since we aren't at the stage yet of asking our reader to pull out their credit card, we need to cite the cash value that gets the reader excited. We need to keep the excitement level up, because there are going to be some readers who will inevitably lose a bit of their excitement once they realize that they need to spend money in order to solve their problem.

The best way to cite cash value is to simply talk about potential re-wards that the reader will get if they purchase the product. For example, with the memory loss solution product that we are imagining, there might be an actual cash value to being able to show up to work on time and remembering all of the things that you were supposed to do, or there may be a cash value for being able to remember when your anniversary is etc.

(As a side note on the cash value of anniversaries, there is a reason that MasterCard ran their priceless commercials for so long. It would not be a bad move to make the claim that memory loss reduction leads to being able to remember your anniversary which leads to a priceless cash value citation. Something to think about.)

If we were writing this page about something like marketing services, we might also want to cite things like the cost of learning that the reader might take on if they tried to do this on their own. We might also want to cite the cash value of all the money that the reader could have lost trying to do this on their own.

This is a very common tactic for a lot of business, financial and marketing type services. They will usually make the claim that they lost X amount of dollars trying to learn how to do this particular process etc. It is a very powerful technique and I highly recommend that you do it if it makes sense for your niche.

Once you have cited the cash value we need to move on to the action oriented parts of the sales letter. Remember, we need our readers to actually do something with all of this that they have just read otherwise we have wasted our time writing it and their time by asking them to read it.

Calling The Reader To Action

Getting your reader to actually do something about what they just read is the powerful beauty of copywriting. This is why I love to write copy, and this is why I am so excited for you to start getting involved in copywriting because once you learn how to get people to take action based off of the words that you have written, you will literally be able to establish these little sales machines called sales letters in which you will be able to close deals, sell product and do it all while you sleep. (World's longest run-on sentence? I think so.)

The problem is that this is the hardest part about copywriting.

This is the part of copywriting that requires a little bit more technical skill and courage on the part of the writer... you. You simply cannot be timid in asking people to act. People can't read your mind in face-to-face communication, and in written communication they have even less of an ability to do so.

Once you have introduced your product, created bullet points of benefits and cited a high cash value for your product, it is time now to talk about price. It is important to understand that your readers are going to start to get uncomfortable at this point. They are going to feel apprehensive, they are going to feel confusion as they are incredibly excited about what you have been telling them but now they realize that they are going to have to spend money to partake in the solution.

What we can do as copywriters is actually to help people feel confindent about this process. If you yourself are not feeling at ease when you sit down to write this section of your sales page, it is going to show. You need to do whatever it is that you need to do to get into the right frame of mind to be able to comfortably ask people for money in exchange for the product that you are selling.

Now, again this is not a full-blow marketing book, but if you are trying to sell a product that you do not believe in, you need to drop that product and move onto something that you can feel confident about. Asking people for their hard earned money in exchange for what you are trying to sell isn't easy, but if you believe in what you are selling it can be.

The main point of citing cash value in our last section was so that we could at this point reveal an "amazing low price" and have something by which we could contrast the actual price for the product against.

Price contrasting is incredibly powerful and incredibly effective. The average reader has no frame of reference by which to judge the value of a certain price point for any given product. It is our job in the cash value citation process to establish that frame of reference so that when we reveal the actual price of our product it appears to be an extremely good deal.

For example, in our memory loss product we may cite a cash value of $1000 that they could potentially spend on trying to learn this all themselves. Now, when we reveal our incredibly low price of only $19 a month for our product, you see how powerful that price contrasting can be. Even you as the reader of this book "feel" like that $19 is such a better deal than that thousand dollars even though you don't even know what the product is and really I just plucked numbers out of thin air.

That is how powerful price contrasting truly is.

That being said, there are wrong ways to do price contrasting and I want to make sure that you know exactly how to do it the right way.

There are really two keys to a good price contrasting move in copywriting. The first is to make sure that the reader understands all of the different costs associated with trying to solve their problem doing it some other way. If you need to reiterate the cost of what it would take to try to learn this on their own, you can add in the price of what it might be to do a one-on-one consultation with an expert in the memory loss field etc. The point is to hammer home what it is going to cost them getting this product elsewhere - DIY or not.

The second key to a good price contrasting move in copywriting is to promise a price increase at a future date. The reason that this is so powerful is it allows the reader to assume that you truly are offering a deal even in relation to the normal price that you offer it at. For example, we might say that normally our memory loss product is $49 a month but for a limited time we are offering it for

$19 a month. This offers another layer of price contrasting beyond the difference between the $1000 a month that we cited for a more ambiguous idea and the $19 a month price.

From a business perspective of course, you should follow through on actually raising the price if you say that is what you are going to do. If you are going to use this move it is important you be specific about why, when and how much you are going to raise the price. You want to make the possibility of a price increase as tangible as possible to the reader. They need to be able to imagine and feel the pain of having to pay the higher price because they didn't buy it today.

At this point, the reader is going to be feeling some doubt. That is simply the name of the buying game. You can have the most perfect product in the world, you could have written the most perfect piece of copy in the world and still a majority of your readers are going to look at the price and ask themselves if they really want what you are trying sell them.

In order to combat this doubt, we need to rely on social proofing. You are the copywriter, and because of that if they doubt the product they are doubting you. So you need to take a complete step back and allow room for testimonials to close off that doubt that has entered their brain when facing the price.

An interesting thing about copyrighting though is that the testimonials don't necessarily have to be about the product itself. As long as you have third-party verifiable testimonials about either you as a owner of the business or service or product, or you have verifiable third-party testimonials about the niche that you are trying to sell in, they are just as powerful.

For example, for our memory loss reduction product we may consider getting testimonials about the scientific evidence for memory loss reduction. We might be able to cite some scientists that say that certain aspects of what our product is also offering do really work for memory loss reduction and what memory loss reduction means to those who have increased their memory etc.

You don't need to go out and get 30 or 40 testimonials, solid and truthful testimonials are good in the 3 to 10 range depending on what it is that you are selling.

These testimonials will reignite the excitement from your reader. They will feel impassioned again about the solution and ultimately about your product and it is at this point that you pull your call to action and get them to click the buy button or pick up the phone to call you or whatever it is that you want them to do.

In your calls to action it is important to presume that they already want to purchase it. Too many writers create long-winded calls to action because they aren't convinced that the reader is going to buy. They may try to re-explain, or take a whole new approach in trying to convince the reader all while trying to get the reader to do something.

Don't do that.

Just tell the reader what to do.

Assume that they need your direction - badly.

It really is as simple as:

"click the buy button now"

You don't need any special gimmicks, you don't need any clever lines. Simply informing the reader what you want them to do is enough.

If however, the action that you want the reader to take is a little bit more complex than simply hitting a buy button and receiving the product, I might do something like this:

"call now to receive your monthly memory loss reduction newsletter"

Again, the phrasing itself is a bit longer, but it is still only a set of instructions.

Closing Your Letter

Now we have come to the end of the sales letter. What do we do? The first thing that we want do is make sure that we sign off the sales page just like a real letter. Remember, we want to make the reader feel, even at the very end, that we are not a hard-core salesperson but that we are simply trying to help.

Doing something as simple as the following is effective:

"Thanks for reading. I hope that you have found this letter helpful.

Thanks, Mike Shreeve"

That is all it takes to close a good sales letter.

Get Out There And Write

Copywriting is like any other craft and skill you need to practice. I highly recommend that you get out there and select some products and just start writing sales pages until you feel confident.

I truly hope that this book is been beneficial, that you have learned something new and that you feel confident that you could at least create a basic sales letter for yourself or for others. Most of all, I hope that this book raised more questions about copyrighting for you. The more questions that you ask about copyrighting the better writer you will become.

I truly believe that if you spend a little bit of time every day (just ten minutes) learning how to write powerful words that sell you will be able to make a decent living anywhere in the world doing exactly what you wanted do.

Copywriting is a powerful tool to have in your tool belt.

If you have any questions or would like to connect with me please do not hesitate to email me @ support@mikeshreeve.com.

I also encourage you to check out some of my other books that I'm currently selling on Kindle:

Video Marketing For The Rest Of Us

Please don't hesitate to leave a review of this book on Amazon so that I may continue to craft and create better training for you and others to help you reach your goals and dreams in business.

Thanks,

Mike