The 12 letter word that is absolutely critical to your copywriting success: RELATIONSHIP!

- Do not write copy to discuss anything about you. Until you have fully understood your prospective client.

- Write copy to discuss why you are a “friend-writer”. Think of a fireside chat with an old friend.

- The friendlier the copy the better. Stay away from professional facts, statistics, or your personal accomplishments until you have established rapport with your target market.

- Have a vision of what your client wants and needs from the relationship with your service. Put him/her IN your service. Let them experience it.

- Build a strong bond with your client and you will have a customer for life.

The Basics About Writing Great Copy

- Keep the focus on your client. Do NOT put the spotlight on you, your accomplishments, or your credentials. Prospects care about what YOU CAN DO FOR THEM not who you are or what you do.

- Write in a friendly conversational tone. NEVER write in the “we” when you are an “I”.

o NO NO NO! —WE are an established 12 year professional organizing business that will work with your clutter issues in all types of office or home settings.
o Yes, Yes, Yes!— If you’re looking for an experienced 12 year professional organizing veteran who will pride herself on working with you and your specific clutter issues in the privacy of your home or office, I would be delighted to discuss your specific organizing challenges.

- Become a “copy bully” and CLOBBER wimpy words! Weak words slow down your copy. Kill ‘em dead! For example, why “say” when you can “exclaim”, “announce”, “declare”, “shout” or even “bubble over”?

- Use words that infuse action and appeal to a need. Examples: Supercharge, skyrocket, dynamic, easily, powerful, hassle-free, risk-free, guaranteed. Use a thesaurus for words with like meaning. Repeat strong words.

- Write your copy so a 6th grader will understand it. If a reader has to “figure it out” or you confuse them, you will lose them! Great copy is often criticized for having a child-like quality. This is deliberate. Simple copy SELLS!

- Do not be handicapped by thinking that everything has to be “grammatically correct”. When you are writing sales copy all the English rules you learned do not apply. You are not writing the great American novel. Say it in the simplest way possible.

- Use short sentences and only contain one idea. Do not write long, drawn out complicated sentences or concepts. Be specific whenever possible. Don’t say up to 10% or over 1, ooo. Have you effectively used reputable facts and statistics to either prove a point, grab attention or both? Shocking works!

- State only the benefits your prospect will receive when they use your services. Do not waffle. EVERY word in your copy needs to earn its place. Never worry about length of copy. Testing shows long copy sells more than short, and long headlines sell more than short. Your copy should be as long or as short as it needs to be to get your point across.

- Visualize your prospect and write to them as if you understand their problem and have the solution they are looking for. Great copy is like a river. You should be able to jump in at any point and be carried along by the flow.

- Your headlines and sub-heads must be strong or the rest of your copy will falter. More on headlines later.

- Is there “meat” to your copy or is it filled with fluff? Write with depth vs. breadth.
Educate and grab your prospect’s attention by going deep on one specific topic rather than discussing different topics and going wide. Do not be general. Readers love stories that solve problems and make them feel great!

- Transitions are CRITICAL to your copy. Transitions are the glue that holds your sentences, paragraphs, and the sections of your sales piece together. A lack of transitions is the #1 reason copy doesn’t flow and usually fails. Think of sliding down a pole. Don’t stop—keep going.

- Is there a call to action? What EXACTLY do you want your reader to do?

- Does your copy meet the 3-U’s? and the PPPO factor? (see Chinese Secret copy)
Urgency-Uniqueness (USP) Usefulness (value) also used in subject lines.
Promise-Picture-Proof-Offer

Does Your Copy Have Lots OF BFD?
Without It You’re In Trouble!

Always start with the prospect. Never the product or service.
Reach people on a personal level for radically better copy results.

Beliefs. What does your target audience believe? What is their attitude toward your product or service and the problems or issues it addresses?

Feelings. How does your prospect feel? Are they confident or insecure? How are they feeling about their lives as it pertains to your service?

Desires. What does your market want? What are their goals? What change do they want in their lives that your product or service will help them achieve?

Effective copy will always appeal to your readers need for something. So appeal to:
- vanity-looks, weight loss, etc.
- greed-need for something
- health or self improvement
- fundraising-pity or poverty
- fear (very strong motivator)
- love

Examples:

Did you lose a small fortune in the April 2000 tech stock meltdown? So much that it put your dreams of retirement or financial independence on hold? Now you can gain back everything you lost, rebuild your net worth, and make your dream of early retirement or financial independence come true a lot sooner than you think.”

How would your life change if you could feel more organized and have a greater sense of balance once and for all? You don’t need to live in clutter and chaos any longer.
You don’t have to believe that you’ll never learn to be organized. You can gain back control while learning simple, proven, and effective techniques that will help you stay permanently organized and immediately improve the quality of your life.

The Magic Of False Logic

False Logic. A term used to describe copy that manipulates (but does not lie about or misrepresent), through skillful writing and existing facts.

The Objective. To help your readers come to conclusions that those facts, presented without the “twists” of the copywriter’s pen, might not otherwise support.

Examples:

McDonalds says Billions and Billions sold. Yes, this is true but it does not mean the product is good. The perceived notion is that it’s a popular product.

A metals broker advertised he ships “95% of orders from stock” to indicate ready availability but he ran his business from an office and had no warehouse.

How can he make this claim?
He DID ship 95% of all orders from stock—but not from his stock-from the metal suppliers stock!

How can we apply this copywriting principal to professional organizing?

Thousand of Tons of Resources Recycled! (This is true of the PO, but not all at one time)

Lose weight by getting organized!

Other examples?

8 Savvy Techniques That Will Immediately Boost Your Web Copy and Other Marketing Materials

1. Headline. Write at least 10-20 headlines before you begin the body of the page. Is your headline ultra compelling with a promise or solution? How’s the formatting? See samples.
2. Your Opening Line. Is it provocative? Does it “speak” to your target audience and cut through the noise and enter the conversation your prospect has been having with him/her about the area of concern you’ll help with?
3. Is Your Copy Balanced? Does it paint a picture of your prospect’s future life as a result of using your service… and the emotional pay off it represents? Does the copy pledge the realization of the POSITIVE feelings while giving RELIEF to the negative ones?
4. Are You Triggering The Buying Emotion? Are you demonstrating your personal belief in what you are selling? Will your message get them excited to call you immediately? It’s OK to put your reader in pain momentarily, but the
rest of your copy should be upbeat and positive. Discuss Exceptions.
5. Do You Have High “YOU” Density? Remember to use the words YOU, YOUR, and YOURS like crazy. Your reader is translating this to mean ME and MINE-giving them ownership.
6. Do You Offer Proof? Specific testimonials, success stories, case studies and other examples of verifiable proof are critical to your copy credibility. Seeing is believing—use LOTS of before and after pictures.
7. Is Your Offer Irresistible? Does your copy compel your reader to call you right away?
8. The Close. Big Tip: When you close use future tense language that assumes
they will use your services. “When you call me, we’ll be discussing…”

4 Simple and Consistently Proven Strategies That Will Take Your Web Copy From Boring To Roaring!

1. Create a landing page ( see samples)
2. Offer a free report
3. Offer a free phone consultation
4. Create different ways for your prospects to say “yes” to your services. Put this in your copy.

Examples:
- Paid phone or in-person consultations vs. hands-on organizing
- Package Rates for multiple appointments
- No charge for hauling away donations
- Flexible hours
- Create an affiliate program on your site to thank clients for referring you.

How To Write Subject Lines That Get Your Emails Opened and Read Every Time!

The 3 U’s of copywriting formula can also be used to make sure all of your emails get opened each and every time. Make the reader want to know more.

Urgency. Give the reader a reason to act now! “I’m offering a Christmas bonus to all of my clients.” “1 free hour of organizing until 5/31”

Uniqueness. These can be very powerful subject lines that say something new or say something the reader has heard before in a different and fresh way.

“Why this is the month all of your organizing dreams will come true”
vs.
“It’s get organized month”

Usefulness. The strong subject line appeals to the reader’s self-interest by offering a benefit in the subject line.

“How getting organized can reduce massive stress and prevent heart attacks.”

Write a subject line with each of the 3U’s

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Need help with your dying copy? Want conversion rates in the double digits? Email or call me for a FREE POWER consultation and get “bulldozed” with some killer copy writing secrets I’ll give you!

Michelle@BulldogCreativeCopywriting.com
When You Need Words That Make You Money…Put the Bulldog to Work!