There are different kinds of copywriting.
You have copywriting for landing pages, solo ads , autoresponder series, and PPC ads. You need to craft together words to sell your ebooks, reports, software products, DVD courses, marketing opportunities, and anything else you want to sell. You need to put words into action when you want people to sign up for your ezine, download a free report, visit your blog, click on an affiliate link, or any number of actions you want them to take.
It all takes copywriting. And each copywriting task is different. There are different techniques, tips, strategies, and ways to write each particular copywriting job to help reach the desired effect.
For example, the way that I write an email ad for someone is going to be a little different than the way I write a landing page or sales copy. The email ad is less "salesy" while the landing page is more influential and action oriented.
Copywriting Foundations That Are In All Online Advertising Materials
Even though each piece of marketing, or advertising, material has a different copywriting technique there are also some very important foundations that lead to effective online advertising .
Always Have A Focus In Mind Before Writing Anything One of the biggest ways that a copywriter can fail, especially when writing for advertising, is that there is no focus, or objective, before they start writing. Not during the writing process, but before the actual writing process.
Every time I begin writing anything I sit down to think about where do I want this to end up. A lot of the time I will even write the ending first. This gives me my destination . It’s kind of like planning a trip. You know where you want to go, now just plan the trip accordingly.
Each piece of advertising, or marketing, material must have a focus, or direction.
Always keep things current. One of the most powerful ways to get a response from any coypwriting piece is to keep the information updated and current. A sales letter should always be kept up to date with any new research, news, and especially cultural influences.
I love writing email ads. It’s probably one of my favorite things to write. When I write them I have two major focuses that I want to make sure happen in the ad. First, the reader is compelled to click on the link included. The second is that I always include something current. This is either in the form of current news events or some sort of cultural influence. Why?
By keeping things relevant and up to date in your advertising you are showing the person that you are not just a robot sending out random ads, but a real person with interests, feelings, and relevancy.
Always make the copywriting easy to read. Nobody likes to read something that is unorganzied, small, and all blocked together. Copywriting is all about the flow…. how words can be combined together, in an organized, flowing manner to capture attention and create interest. If your ad, landing page, report, or other piece of writing is a jumbled mess your efforts are surely to fail.
Small paragraphs, bullet points, headings and sub headings, bold letters, highlighted text, and different color for emphasis are great ways to keep things flowing and organized. This enables the reader to skim and find the parts that interest them making it much easier to make a decision.
Always keep in mind that the reader is the one you’re trying to impress and the effectiveness of your copywriting depends a great deal on what they want and need.
Build your copywriting on these essential foundations.
When you sit down to work on some of your own copywriting keep these foundational items in mind. Write them down and keep a little cheat sheet with you so you don’t forget to include each one. Remember focus, current, and easy to read will make your copywriting more effective.
Good luck!
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- Responsible New York – Two Ads
Here we are the mid point of this series on questions that you need to ask yourself about your internet advertising campaign.
If you missed any of the previous posts you can check them out by starting at the beginning.
We’re at question number 5 and this one has the ability to stop people dead in their tracks. Often when I ask this question to my clients the first thing I hear is, “Ummm…”
How much am I going to spend this week on my advertising campaign?
That’s right. We’re talking about spending some money.
Once I get past the “Ummmm…” answer I then begin to tell them that they have control over how much or little to spend on their advertising. The key to begin with when first starting out is not to overspend.
A lot of people will shoot right out of the gate with thousands of dollars in their first month of advertising a site. A lot of advertising can be done quite inexpensively and have great results. Use these methods and work them to full advantage.
I have a form that I use to break down my planning and expenses associated with each. (I’ll be uploading this with the last post in this series for you to download.) The form is very simple but very powerful. I just have a list of the advertising strategies I use and put a projected cost next to it.
Figuring out how much you’re going to spend on your advertising for the coming week can be as detailed as you want it to be, but I like to keep it as simple as I can. Yes, this is apretty important, and pretty hard, thought process, but I don’t want to complicate it either. Money is a hard subject to talk to yourself about. You just don’t want to spend it. Especially on your advertising costs. Although, it does get easier as you see that you’re making a profit. The key to the whole ad budget is to keep the profit margin growing while trying to actually decrease your spending. That’s why you really need to be brutally honest with yourself here.
The previous questions should lead you to this point. You know what goals you want, what’s already worked, and how your plan is going. You take all those factors together and then you sit down to crunch the numbers.
Don’t just plug numbers in
There is a very easy temptation to just plug numbers in. Don’t do it.
Take some time and think about what you’re spending and where. Make a list of where you would like to place your ads (this might take a little research), what keywords to use in PPC campaigns, or any outsourcing you’re going to do. Keep track of it and then formulate your plan.
Don’t skip this question or just breeze through it. It’s too important. This is why I keep it simple. There’s already too much at stake here (like a growing income) to complicate it and begin to dread the process.
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Email ads, or solo ads, are quickly being overlooked as a viable advertising tool. With the climbing use of RSS feeds and social marketing websites email marketing is being pushed to the rear of the internet marketing world. I believe that’s a mistake.
Email newsletters are still a major component of a healthy and successful online marketing campaign. But, you have to do it right. Great content, for instance, is what will make your email marketing campaign successful. For ezine publishers that means quality articles and tips. For email marketers (these are the people who are buying ad space in the ezines) that means quality ads that aren’t really ads.
Huh?
That probably sounded a little off. So I’ll try to explain it a little bit. One of the reasons so many people are frustrated with email marketing is because once the spammers and overzealous marketers flooded people’s email boxes with junk they got fed up. Why? Most of the time their email was just deleted along with the trash.
The key to email ad/solo ad success is to not sound, or even look, like an ad. This happens when you make the ad more personal and relevant than full of hype and "you’ll make thousands everyday!" type junk.
How do you do that? How do you write and ad that doesn’t sound like an ad? Here’s some of the steps I use every day in writing ads for internet marketers.
1. Keep in mind what you want to achieve and focus on it. One of the biggest mistakes I see in ads today is that they are all over the place. Listed in the ad is about six different calls to action. Streamlining your ad (I like to call them letters) to focus on one thing gives you more opportunity to turn that reader into a visitor.
2. Be personal in your tone. People love to receive letters. And to get one from someone they know is even better. Even if you don’t know who you’re sending your ad to, which you probably won’t, you should make it sound personal.
3. Use subject lines that are less ad sounding . Instead of "More money in 24 hours guaranteed!" try something like, "Hey (first name of person), are you still looking for extra income?"
Two things about the second subject line. First, there is little reason for the person reading it to automatically put up their defenses. Second, it asks a question. Questions, for some reason, catch people’s eyes more than exclamations. Why? Because it’s not so over the top and, at times, forces the reader to stop and answer it for themselves.
4. Be relevant to the current culture and situations going on at the time of the ad. One of the things I’ve been doing for some time is to use current cultures, terminology, and news in the body of the ad (letter) to make it more personal. This way it’s no longer an ad but something worth reading.
5. Stay friendly. We get into the frame of mind that we must always be pushing someone to buy something. In essence that’s true. What I’m talking about here is to not be overly blatant about it but to keep the ad (remember ‘letter’) on a friendly note. Think of it this way. Do you check something out because a friend recommended it? Or do you just click anything? Most of the time it’s because a friend told you about it.
6. Drop links to your website in body of ad. But, do it within the context of what you’re writing. Don’t just say “Visit this site http://www.iwantyourmoney.com now!” Instead, while you’re writing about a site you just came across blend the link into the sentence. Kind of like, “I can’t believe what my friend told me the other day about http://insertwhateverurlhere.com .
See the difference? One is in your face. The other is natural.
7. Write in small paragraphs. One to two sentences should be the extent of your paragraphs. This helps the reader “skim” through and not have to spend any length of time trying to focus on a long, drawn out paragraph. It also gives the ad (letter) a feel of a conversation between you and the reader instead of a boring monologue.
8. Close it with a very poignant question. In the trick bag of advertising specialists one the things they love to pull out is the rather jarring question. It needs to be one that will make the reader really think. And almost feel like they have to click the link in order to find out the question.
If you’ve built up a relationship with the reader through the ad by being personal and using current events your question will have a deeper impact.
Then list your link as the answer to that question.
When you think about it only good friends will ask the tough questions. Once you enter into the good friend realm you have taken big steps into securing a favorable response to your ad.
Email advertising is still very powerful. Use it as it should be. As email. Not as advertising.
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