So, you have a brand new client wanting a brilliant sales letter – how do you know where to start?

Don’t’ Panic! 
You and I, and the prospect are thinking, feeling beings dominated by positive and negative emotions. 

Imagine…
…Your client’s product is an (admittedly) unglamorous special bandage for bunions. Never had a bunion? No, me neither. But for a moment close your eyes and imagine how painful each untreated step would be, how the pain would permeate your whole body as it travelled along your foot and then there’s the referred pain because you aren’t walking normally. Oh yes, and the DREAD of putting on your shoes each morning, being constantly ground down by the pain. Imagine the pain etched on the face of the sufferer as they gingerly put one foot in front of the other…in those extra-wide unfashionable shoes  and this lady’s only young!  But men get bunions, too!

See how easy it is to recreate the emotions of your prospect?  I feel like rushing out and buying the soothing treatment I’m writing about and I don’t have bad feet!

Imagine walking in your prospects shoes (literally in this case!) really helps identify your product’s strongest benefits with your prospect’s most compelling emotions.

Don’t Forget Your Nearest and Dearest!
Whatever your product, think of the people you know who may be in your target market.  Everyone loves being asked their opinion so there’s a captive audience only too willing to tell you what their greatest needs are and the benefits they desperately desire from your product.  Free market research!

And What About Strangers?
Ever had a conversation with someone in a queue or in a shop when you casually asked them a question and the unedited version of everything they have experienced is released in a seemingly unending torrent.  Me, too!
But what a great resource for finding out how your prospects think and feel.  Just don’t ask when you’re in a hurry!

Why Re-Invent The Wheel!
Publishing is big business and browsing around the local book store and magazine racks will help you see the current angle on a given subject . . . I’m thinking generally now, I’ve left the painful feet behind, the feelings were a bit too vivid! If you’re looking for an angle to write about, look for themes that appear more than once in current magazines. Look at all publications for your type of product/industry – what stories are they focusing on?

Front covers are a gold mine. 
Publishers spend big money researching what to put on their cover to trail the story. Let them pay and it’s right there for you to build on. Easy, right? How do the articles ‘feel’?  What is the mood behind them – resigned, excited, angry?  Build on that and then your benefits provide the solution! Great way to have millions of pounds of research for free, don’t you think?  Don’t forget, magazines know the words that sell the most because they have years of experience – let them help you to terrific sales!

And What Are Your Competitors Doing?
Having a browse around your competitor’s sites and reading their material will give an insight into how they see their market and the strategies they’re employing. They will have done their research too, so more free info for you! Google is a treasure trove of information on products, prospects and what’s troubling them – look on forums and message boards for your target market to really drill down into the emotions of individuals in your niche market. They’ll tell you all you need to know.

Having so much information at your fingertips, your only difficulty will be how to cut it down and that’s a positive problem!

HAPPY WRITING!

Janet Swift
Writing to Win

URL : www.swiftcopywriting.com
Email : enquiries@swiftcopywriting.com
Tel : +44 (0)208 133 4088

Please feel free to use this article but I ask that you kindly include the above URL and signature.

What style of headline is most successful?

There isn’t really one answer to that as there are several different styles that can be used with equal success. Before you even start to choose which style you are going to use write down as many benefits as you can think of. The headline should never be put in at the last minute without a great deal of time and thought. Ninety percent of your time should be spent getting the right headline because without it your sales copy will never be read anyway.

1. Announcement.
To make this style of headline work you have to be careful not to make it merely factual and boring. It has to be specific aimed at your prospective buyer, for example it would be no good if BMW launched a new car like this:-

“BMW Launch their New Car” – There’s no benefit at all, just a fact.
“Top Gear Presenter Praises BMW’s Amazing New M3…0-60 in 3.8 Seconds” – Although unlikely (we all know Jeremy Clarkson hates BMW’s) makes a much more compelling headline.

2. Guarantee.
It’s great if your product comes with an iron clad guarantee…provided it lives up to your claims. This can make for a really powerful headline, for example:-

“Lose 10lbs of Ugly Fat in 14 days or Your Money Back” – This benefit is guaranteed.

3. How to.
This style is best used when offering a solution to a problem. Although there are already thousands of books with ‘How To’ in the title it is still very successful, for example:-

“How to Improve Your Golf Swing…”

4. Specific.
This is aimed specifically at your target reader and therefore will not be of any interest at all to the general public. For example:-

“At Last an End to Your Back Pain”

5. The Testimonial.
What better than a testimonial. After all something your customers have said is a lot more believable and powerful than anything you could say yourself. For example:-

“He Couldn’t Believe It Was Me…It Wasn’t! To Be Honest I Just Called In For A Trim…I Left Feeling like a Superstar.

6. Reasons Why.
You are giving the reader a specific number of reasons why they should do something. You are also arousing their curiosity as they want to know what the reasons are, so you are drawing them into your copy. For example:-

“12 Reasons Why You Must Be At Salon & Spa Super Conference”

7. Emotional.
Use this style to really hook into people’s feelings. For example:-

“I Wept When The Battery In My Camcorder Ran Out At My Daughter’s Wedding”

I would recommend trying out a few different styles when you’re writing out your headlines. Write as many different headlines as you can.

 

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.

How can you make your copywriting so persuasive that your target market simply can’t resist?
Well a lot of this is down to the research you have done first, so how do you do this research? One way is to hang out in the same places as they do, for example there are forums and groups online for just about anything you can think of. Read what they are talking about and just as important how they are saying it. It’s no good using highfalutin language if the people you’re trying to sell to can’t understand it. Use the same language they do. Your copy has to be conversational, imagine you are talking to a close friend.

Tick the right boxes.
You have to know how your reader thinks and how to tick the right boxes to keep him or her reading your copy. Copywriting has to be very self driven, people are only interested in themselves. That might sound a bit controversial but it’s true. You have to be able to appeal to their self interest. All the time they are reading they will be thinking WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Nobody really cares about your problems, dreams or goals. Only their own.

Make them want it.
So how do you appeal to their self interest?
Think what it is they want, not the actual physical object you are selling but what they will get from it. Don’t forget it’s the benefits that sell, not the features. A feature is simply a component of your product or service, a benefit is what the user of your product or service will get from that feature.

Think about the pleasure they will get when they finally have it. Don’t think about selling an object think about selling an image…a dream. Imagine the scene then paint pictures with your words.  People don’t buy something because they need it, they buy it because they want it…must have it. People buy with their emotions. You have to appeal to those emotions whether they are greed, fear, flattery or guilt.

All you have to do is decide which emotion you need to appeal to, for example a weight loss programme aimed at women might be flattery. Because every woman wants to look and feel good. By describing the compliments she will receive on her figure, and helping her to picture how she will look, you can trigger an emotional response for something she will receive rather than something she currently has.

Anne Pearson
Compelling Copywriter

http://www.mapcopywriting.com
anne@mapcopywriting.com
Skype – mapcopywriting
Tel / Fax – 01772 468979 

Please feel free to use this article. All I ask in return is that you include the above signature and URL.