Dynamic Copywriting

Just today I wrote an email to a potential client who wants to improve her organization's web site. I wrote her that some of the best "patterns" for great home pages are the covers of popular magazines. (Actually web site owners would do well to pattern their entire sites after really popular magazines, but I am only talking about the home page here).

You may laugh, but pick up a copy of Cosmo the next time you are going through your grocery store checkout line. The teaser headlines for the articles inside do two things:

1. They arouse intense curiosity, and
   
2. The curiosity the headlines arouse hits readers' "What's-In-It-For-Me" buttons.

Most web sites have a variety of different types of visitors with different needs, questions and wants. Your home page, therefore, should provide links that appeal to each of these needs, questions and wants that lead visitors down pathways which ultimately lead them to take action.

The actions are up to you. They can be to subscribe to a newsletter, opt in to an autoresponder list, request free information, contact your company, or buy right now.

Between the home page link and the desired action is a pathway that I refer to as a "trail of breadcrumbs." Each crumb is a reward to the visitor for staying with you this far. Generally these rewards are problem-solving information, case studies or other interesting and informative content.

Pull out all the stops when developing content for your visitors. David Meerman Scott refers to this as "thinking like a publisher." To go back to the magazine article analogy, if you really know who your visitors are, and what their needs, questions and wants are, you can then produce all kinds of content that appeals to these people.

One of the biggest mistakes though is to limit your content to only things related to what you sell.

Begin at the other end of the transaction. Begin with the people who come to your site, instead of what you want to sell to them.

A great example of this is a public speaker named J.P. Maroney, who was interviewed by Ben Settle at How To Super-Charge Your Marketing With Public Speaking.

When Maroney first started public speaking, he owned a publication that targeted retirees. How he went about selling advertising for this publication is very instructive for any of us developing good web content.

He went to local organizations speaking on the topic of doing business with the senior market. He did not talk about advertising to seniors, but gave business people insights and information about seniors and how to sell to them. What their needs were, how they made their buying decisions, how to build up trust, etc.

At the end of almost every presentation, he had people come up to him to advertise in his publication.

This is the kind of content marketers need to produce more of. We've all seen articles by insurance salespeople about how to select the right car insurance. Such content comes off as self-serving and really only appeals to the person who is actively looking to buy car insurance right now.

But what if the same agent wrote about:

• auto safety,
  
• how to select car seats for small children,
  
• safety tips for driving in bad weather,
  
• what to put into an auto emergency kit,
  
• how women can protect themselves from predators if their car breaks down at night,
• how to check tires for dangerous wear,
  
• how to safely change a tire,
  
• a comparison of the best auto clubs,
  
• frequently asked questions about auto insurance,
  
• how to make sure your teenage driver is safe,
  
• AND how to select the right auto insurance

This agent has written about concerns that affect her potential customers, not just thinly disguised sales information.

In addition, this agent's web site will be a RESOURCE that her target audience will come back to because she produced content that was (cliché alert) outside the box.

So go back to your home page and look at it as the beginning of a trail of breadcrumbs. Lead your visitors down these pathways toward actions by providing them with content that appeals to their needs, questions and wants.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just read (and Dugg) Vin Montello's post announcing his new ebook called Seven Story Secrets That Skyrocket Sales and wanted to let you folks know about it right away.

As you know, I've been on my own kick lately about the power of storytelling as a marketing tool. To put it simply, STORIES SELL.

What got my attention right away was his very first secret which had to do with telling a story in the copy's headline. I can't imagine a reader being able to resist the kind of headline he talks about.

The other thing that struck me is that Vin is also just giving his ebook away, free and without even asking readers to opt onto a list. I wonder if Vin has been reading my email here, but I originally planned to use the ebook I finished last week, The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers as an opt in device. But I got some really good advice from David Meerman Scott who suggested that it would have a better chance of going viral if there were no strings attached.

I really recommend that you read Vin's ebook and also Digg it or Stumble it. It really should be bookmarked.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

A Review of Chirstine O'Kelly's ebook, "How to Write Optimized Press Releases"

I've been an SEO writer for three years now and I am still learning new search engine optimization tips. My latest learning experience came from reading Christine O'Kelly's ebook, How to Write Search Engine Optimized Press Releases, which she offers at her website, www.selfmadechick.com (the ebook is free, all she asks is that you subscribe to her RSS feed in exchange for the download).

The first point O'Kelly makes is that with so many online press release submission sites, it makes sense to send out releases not only to get favorable mention in the media, but also for the inbound links from the submission sites themselves.

In this regard, an SEO writer would not only be writing for a human audience, but for search engine robots as well – similar to submitting online articles to sites like www.ezinearticles.com.

Each submission site enables other online and offline media to pull the press releases for publication on their own sites, providing the opportunity for an SEO writer to create viral distribution of each release.

But even if a press release is not picked up by any other source, the submission site itself will often have a high page ranking and will point back to your site.

The second point O'Kelly makes is something of a surprise, but I think she is on to something here.

SEO writers are often faced with a conflict between writing keyword-dense headlines and writing headlines that humans find irresistible to click.

She says that given a choice between writing headlines that will persuade human readers to click your link, or to fill the headline with keywords to attract a search engine, the SEO writer should choose the keywords first. In her own words, "if you have to choose, pick keyword over clickable."

She supports her keyword-first approach by pointing out that the human reader will not see the link if it does not get a good ranking.

Fortunately, she then solves the need to get humans to click on the links by suggesting that a subtitle be added to the press release that is designed to get clicks. A neat solution to a consistent problem.

Her third point is to write an SEO, keyword-rich summary for each press release. This summary is often reprinted in the search results for the human reader to see, with the keywords in bold text. And of course it is also another opportunity for the search engines to pick up the theme of your release and rank it accordingly.

The final point (note: O'Kelly doesn't say this explicitly, but this is a point I took away from her book) regards an old habit I may now have to break.

I've always held to the notion that press releases should really hit the "newsworthiness" button hard. In other words, in the offline world, you don't want to get the reputation of wasting an editor's time with trivial press releases.

But with online press releases submitted to submission sites, this is not quite as demanding a standard.

This is not to say it is okay to submit a lot of junk, self-serving press releases that have no hope of ever being picked up by other media sources. But it does broaden the scope of what is, and what is not, newsworthy.

A new product or service, a new published report or ebook, a newly hired executive or partnership, might all become good topics for press releases.

As I read Christine O'Kelly's ebook, I was more than a little surprised that she is giving it away free of charge. I highly recommend it to any SEO writer or webmaster who is looking for more ways to get targeted traffic to their websites. Check it out at How I Ranked in 5 of the Top 10 Search Results in Google.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Yesterday I sent you to a link on YouTube by Trevor Crooks, an Australian copywriter who had a great illustration on the power of headlines. The link, if you didn't get it, is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1adJvZneA.

Now to recap, the example used were the actual results from a chiropractor's ads. This chiropractor ran three seperate ads that were the same except that each had a different headline.

Here were the headlines he used:

Free Report: Are you making these mistakes when treating your migraine headaches?

Free Report: "They all laughed when I called a chiropractor...until my migraine headaches went away.

Free Report: "Who else wants Migraine headache relief?"

Notice that all three are formulas for headlines you've probably seen over and over again. There is a reason for this: all of these formulas are decades old and keep getting re-used because they continue to work better than the new headlines we creative geniuses try to come up with.

Now hopefully you have already watched the video so I am not spoiling the surprise for you, but the winning headline, the headline that generated the highest response and got more requests for the free report, was "They all laughed when I called a chiropractor...until my migraine headaches went away.".

I don't know about you, but that wasn't my first choice... or my second either.

The point is, we are not in the business of predicting what buyers will do, we are in the business of testing what they will do and letting them decide what campaigns we run in the future.

We "professionals" think we know what the public wants, but they fool us again and again. You've read me preach on this site against getting to infatuated with our own creativity, but I did it to. I simply thought, "They all laughed when ..." had been done to death and sounded primative.

Testing isn't for the proud, or the fragile ego (I know mine took a hit on this little exercise). But it does show what will make money, and that, in my book, is the name of the game.

freelance copywriter, ghost writer, web content writer, lawyer marketing, lawyer advertising, white papers

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Let's go over this again, "Headlines are the most important part of your advertisement/web content/sales letter or any other marketing communication."

The headline pulls readers into the rest of your piece. It tells them there is something here that may help them and is worth reading.

You knew all that, right? But don't be ashamed if you have wandered off the path and into the dark woods. We've all done it and gotten too caught up in our own creativity. Just don't get lost in those woods. Get back on the path as soon as you can.

There are two other things I want to say about headlines. First, the old tried and true formulas continue to work because they still appeal to buyers' basic needs.

And second, only the market place can determine which headline is most effective. Think of your buyers as voters. You can't tell them how to vote (they are, after all, voting with their money), all you can do is wait to see HOW they vote.

And all this leads me to a colorful copywriter from Australia named Trevor Crook. Take a look at this video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1adJvZneA) in which he compares three actual headlines used by a chiropractor to generate leads for his practice.

Trevor gives you a chance to choose which of the three headlines you think outsold the others before he reveals the winner. I won't reveal the winning headline for you, but I will say that I didn't guess right either, and I am in this business.

This again goes to show that ONLY THE BUYERS can vote on which headline motivates them most.

As you watch this video, another thing you should notice is how OLD all these headlines sound. They are tired old formulas that have been used over and over and over and over again. Many are nearly a century old, and yet they are still used BECAUSE THEY STILL WORK.

The link again is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1adJvZneA. Trevor may seem like a character (I'm sure he is one) but he knows his stuff.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out Brian Clark’s site Copyblogger.com, you are missing out on an excellent resource for anyone who uses a blog to bring in business. Like myself, Brian Clark is a recovering attorney turned blogger/copywriter, but I’m sure none of you will hold that against him (or me).

Just a few samples of the excellent and useful stuff Brian has on his site are:

• 5 Simple Ways To Open Your Blog Post With A Bang. Sometimes just starting a blog post, or any article for that matter, is difficult. Your thoughts have either already raced ahead into the meat of what you want to say or you can’t get them started until you have the beginning worked out. Regardless, this article by Brian can be a great help with this often frustrating part of writing.
  
  
• 10 Sure Fire Headline Formulas That Work. We are all probably guilty of working the list and how to formats to death on our blogs. In this very helpful article, Brian shows us ten other ways to provide valuable information to our readers without using the same tired old formulas. This article alone is what prompted me to devote today’s blog post to Brian’s work.
  
  
• 21 Traffic Triggers For Social Media Marketing. This is a superb article by Brian about how addressing the emotional needs people have can result in high traffic volume to your site. This is a great article with a lot of insights.
  
  
• If you want a really thought provoking article to sing your teeth into, check out Telling People A Story They Want To Hear. I won’t spoil this one for you by giving too much away, but it is definitely worth your time.
  
  
• Another of Brian’s series on “Magnetic Headlines” is 7 More Sure-Fire Headlines Templates That Work. It is a follow up on the 10 Sure Fire Headline article mentioned above and it contains more ideas for writing great headlines.
  
  
• Anyone with a website or blog wants attention, traffic and readers. Brian’s article How To Write A Killer How To Post That Gets Attention provides a lot of material to get you moving in that direction. More great stuff from a guy who keeps coming up with more.

To say I am a fan of Brian Clark and his Copyblogger.com blog is an understatement. I thought it was high time to give him the credit he is due by letting you know about him as well.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

Every several weeks or so, I find myself mentioning the name, “Marcia Yudkin.” The reason is because Marcia has had a big impact on my writing and even my decision to pursue writing professionally. Everything she writes is the real deal for those of us who are in a marketing or copywriting field.

One way to get a regular dose of her insights is to subscribe to her email newsletter, "Marketing Minute." Marketing Minute comes out every Wednesday and, as promised, takes no more than a minute to read. You can subscribe to Marketing Minute by going to http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm.

Here is a recent Marketing Minute that Marcia has kindly given me permission to reprint:

Eat your lima beans."

As kids, we hated to comply with commands like this. As
adults, we don't respond any better to pitches of products,
services or information that claim to be good for us.

If you notice "should" or "must" in your marketing copy, it
may indicate an evangelistic attitude that is sure to close
rather than open the minds of listeners.

You'll gain more converts if you set aside preaching and
instead, describe ways to reach a goal that you know your
target market wants. For instance:

"The Surprising Secret of Ageless Skin: Lima Beans"
"Add These to Your Soup for an All-Day Vitality Boost"
"Tantalize Your Taste Buds With the World's Most Unfairly
Scorned Vegetable"

Likewise...

BEFORE: Newly Promoted? The Top Three Mental Shifts You
Must Make in Your New Job
AFTER: Newly Promoted? Three Ways to Earn the Loyalty of
Direct Reports, Fast

BEFORE: Five Reasons Why You Shouldn't Use a Discount Broker
AFTER: Discount Broker or Full-Service Broker: How to
Decide

Eliminate commands, and let your customer decide that lima
beans might be the thing to try.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

For many businesses, an annual ad in the Yellow Pages or one of its competitors, can be a huge investment. If the ad works well, it can bring a in steady stream of new customers all year long.

But what if your ad just doesn’t pull in as much business as you need? Worse, what if it doesn’t even break even for you? Many businesses depend on the Yellow Pages for most of their sales for the year, so the risk of an underperforming ad is something to be reckoned with.

Here are a few ideas that should help you maximize this investment and generate the highest possible return throughout the year.

1. Test your ad. How do you do this? In the months leading up to the deadline to place your Yellow Page ad, run several small or even classified ads in your local media. Test several headlines, run them against each other to see which one pulls the most. The winner gets to be your standard bearer all year long.
   
   
2. Use your ad to generate leads by offering a free booklet or some other form of free information. Not only will this pull in a better response than your competitors, it will also build a list of interested prospects for you to send out future mailings.
   
   
3. If you go the lead generation route, give your booklet an interesting title, like “31 Ways to Save Money on Car Repairs,” (for the auto repair shop). Or “19 Health Care Tips For Your Child” (for a pediatrician). Be sure this title is prominently displayed on your ad and make it the focus of your ad.
   
   
4. Instead of one large ad that reads like a laundry list of all the services you offer, experiment with several smaller ads offering a single service. Law firms especially put up really boring Yellow Page ads that do little more than list all the specialties they practice. Unless your ad is the biggest, with the brightest colors, and is in the first page of your category, you will have a hard time getting a decent return on your investment for such an ad. But narrowly-targeted smaller ads give you a much better way of catching the eye of a specific group of clients who need a specific service.
   
   
5. Piggy back on the narrowly-targeted smaller ads by offering more free information related to each specialty. Offering free booklets or newsletters positions you as an expert within your specialty.
   
   
6. Now here’s my soapbox.. I have called on too many expensive Yellow Page ads only to be met with incompetent or rude people on the other end of the phone. Train your employees how to answer the phone, to return calls promptly and to have intelligent answers once a caller actually responds to your ad.
   
   
7. Don’t just automatically run the same ad year after year. Your competitors aren’t going to just roll over and play dead. If you run a successful ad this year, you may just find a dozen imitators running very similar ads next year. Find ways to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack. Don’t claim to be the biggest, the best or the most experienced. None of that matters to your potential clients. Don’t try to fight it out among the other big fist in the pond, find your own pond and be the only fish in it.
   
   
8. Write your ad to solve a really vexing problem your reader may be having. To use the law firm ads as an example again, if you specialize in juvenile criminal law, target your ad to the worried parent who has a child in trouble. Make your information piece about “what to do if your teenager is in trouble with the law.” People pick up the Yellow Pages because they have a problem. And they will call the ad that best demonstrates the ability to solve that problem.
   
   
9. Be a specialist. Specialists make more money than generalists. So, if you can, let your ad show your specialty. But a category is not a specialist. (Using lawyers again) if you specialize in white-collar criminal law, don’t just say you practice criminal law. If you specialize in personal injury involving a reckless commercial vehicle, don’t just say personal injury. If you specialize in contract negotiations, don’t just say you practice business law.
   
   
10. Your headline is the most important part of your ad. So don’t just run with the first thing that comes to mind. At the risk of repeating myself, test your headlines. Put your strongest benefit front and center in your headline. Address a problem in your headline. Make a promise in your headline. Headlines are too important to leave to chance. After all, do you want to live a whole year with a mistake?

Don't put up your ad blindly. Too many businesses put no thought into their ad, and then have to live with the results for an entire year.
freelance copywriter, writing web content, copywriting tips

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

Inch for inch, a small ad just might be the best advertising deal around. If done right, a small space or classified ad can bring you profits far exceeding what a larger often produces. Here are some ideas to get more bang for your buck with small ads:

1. Use small ads to test headlines and other key elements before you pay for a larger ad. Headlines are funny things, you really never know which one will take off and be your best money maker. Instead, you have to let the people who read your ad “vote” for the headline that appeals to them the most with how they respond. So it makes a lot more sense to test headlines on small ads before you spend money on a larger ad.
   
   
2. Use small ads to generate leads. Offer a free booklet or some other free information product in your small ad. When the reader gets your information, make sure it contains far more useful information than sales message. But even then you will have much more space to sell than in a full space ad in a publication.
   
   
3. Of course you should also make use of the leads generated by your small ad. Send these people follow up information. This way, your single small ad enables you to recontact the same interested people over and over again.
   
   
4. Instead of using a single, large ad to tell about your wide list of services or products, use several small ads to target each niche you cover. For example, the Yellow Page ads of many law firms are little more than laundry lists of the services they provide. A more effective campaign might be to target each specialty with a single small ad. Take this one step further, and the law firms might offer different free information products or white papers on each small ad targeting each specialty.
   
   
5. Speaking of Yellow Page ads, many businesses make the expensive mistake of putting up a year-long ad without testing. Since the Yellow Pages only come out once a year, it is not feasible to test the ad there. But you can run several small ads in local publications to see which one is most effective and choose the winner as your year-long Yellow Page ad. Running an untested Yellow Page ad is one mistake that can cost you not only in a poor return on investment, it also causes you to go a whole year with a lower sales than you might otherwise have been able to realize.
   
   
6. If your product has multiple uses or benefits, highlight each use or benefit in separate ads. Don’t count on readers wading through a long list text to get to the single benefit that appeals to them.
   
   
7. Test, test and then test again. Small ads give you a cost-effective way to compare many different ideas to see which ones pull in the highest response from readers.
   
   
8. Effective headlines for small ads can be shorter and punchier than larger ads. Try to compress as much meaning as possible in five words or less. Here are some headlines that have worked very well on small ads:
   $500 a Week
   
   15 Minutes a Day
   
   Free 48 Page Booklet
   
   Anyone Can Learn
   
   Fun-Packed
   
   No Obligation
   
   Money Back If Not Delighted
   
   Send No Money
   
   Mrs. E.C. Made $65
   
   Learn In 6 Weeks
   
   (reprinted from Tested Advertising Methods, 5th Edition, by John Caples)
   
   
9. If you are using the small ad to generate leads offering free information, give your booklet or information product a good title and experiment with using that title as your headline (but test, test, test). For example, “101 Ways To Help Your Child Get Better Grades,” or “33 Ways To Unlock The Hidden Job Market.”
   

It is hard to imagine any marketing plan that cannot be made better with the smart use of small ads. They are cost effective, allow you to more precisely target your intended audience and …..can be tested.

freelance copywriter, writing web content, copywriting tips

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

As a freelance copywriter, I’m pretty observant when it comes to other people’s ads. For one thing, I’m looking for ideas I can borrow (OK, steal). But I also can’t help myself from comparing my writing to the other guy’s.

One thing I keep noticing is the “don’t want you to know” headlines. I see variations on this headline everywhere. I’ve seen:

”What the big pharmacy corporations don’t want you to know.”

“What your banker doesn’t want you to know.”

“What the IRS doesn’t want you to know.”

“What your insurance company doesn’t want you to know.”


Personally, I hate these headlines. In my opinion, they sound fake and appeal to the 4th grade mentality. They also invoke a feeling of a dark-conspiracy-intent-on-keeping-you-in-the-dark-but-thank-God-this-friendly-marketer-is-willing-to-risk-his-life-to-tell-all. For a price.

So why is this headline formula used over and over again? Because it works.

Despite my opinion, people still persist in buying for their own reasons. And as long as this headline formula appeals to enough buyers out there, we will continue to see its variations.

Which (finally) brings me to my point. Here are some other very effective headline formulas that should be in your copywriter’s toolbox:

• HOW ____ MADE ME___. This headline introduces a first person story about something that brought about a wonderful change in the narrator’s life or business. For example, “How a simple idea made me my company’s top salesperson.”
  
  
• ARE YOU _____? I love question headlines, and this question formula is stronger than most because it comes right out of the ad and involves the reader. Here’s one way this formula could be used. “Are you financially prepared for a catastrophic illness in your family?”
  
  
• WHO ELSE ____? Another old, but still working, headline format that involves the power of social proof. If all these other people are seeing results, why can't I? It can be used to write something like this. “Who else needs more money to pay for a child’s college education?”
  
  
• HOW I _____. This is another signal of a first person self-help story. An example: “How I made my wife feel like a princess.”
  
  
• HOW TO ____. Who doesn’t want to learn new and interesting methods or ideas? This may be the most powerful headline of all. “How to write web copy that keeps your customers buying again and again.”
  
  
• IF YOU ARE ____, YOU CAN _____. This is a wonderful technique for targeting people who fit a certain category. They recognize themselves and their interest is aroused. “If you are a nonsmoker, you will save 40% or more on your life insurance.”
  
  
• SECRETS OF ____. “Secrets” is another word that attracts interest and works very effectively in headlines. The word makes the reader feel like someone about to learn a closely-held bit of valuable information. Secrets of a self-made real estate millionaire.”
  
  
• ___ WAYS TO _____. This is a list with a number filled in the first blank. Who doesn’t want to read a list of interesting how-to information? “101 Ways To Write Irresistible Web Content.”
  

Try these headline formulas out. They have been around for decades because they keep working. Of course I’m only telling you about them because a vast government conspiracy doesn’t want you to know about them.

It’s every freelance copywriter’s nightmare: A reader is scanning through a magazine, comes upon the page containing your advertisement, and keeps right on going without noticing your carefully-crafted words.

The average American is bombarded with approximately 10,000 ads, sales letters and other marketing messages every day. So, if for no other reason than to be able to function in life, our minds “filter out” over 99% of those messages that appear to offer no personal benefit.

The freelance copywriter’s main tool to cut through this filtering is the simple headline. A powerful headline must appeal to a person’s self interest just long enough to cause that scanning reader to say, “maybe there is something here that could benefit me.”

Here are some of the things a headline must do to be effective:

1. Grab the reader’s interest and attention. Readers have their “what’s in it for me?” radar turned on at all times. Don’t fly below this radar with cute, clever wordplays or headlines that are intended to make the reader “think.” Get right to the point and announce that you are here to solve a problem or help them bring about a needed change.
   
   
2. Target a Specific Audience. Despite that legendary salesman who makes his living selling freezers to Eskimos, you are far better off targeting a specific, identifiable group of people who want, need and can afford what you are offering. When you design your message for a specific target audience, they know they belong to that group and will identify with your offering. As for others not inside that group, well unless you ARE that legendary salesman, you weren’t going to get their business anyway.
   
   
3. Pull Readers Into Your Copy there are three ways to get readers to continue reading your ad: Appeal to their needs, appeal to their needs and appeal to their needs. Find out why people buy your product or service. Do they need a financially secure retirement? Do they want to improve their love life? Do they want career advancement? The appeal you use is the REASON you give them to buy. To find out more about how to appeal to readers’ interests, check out my article How to Tap Into Your Readers' Deepest Needs. Just click this link to check it out.
   
   
4. Make A Promise. your headline MUST promise something. The promise must be to either solve a problem or bring about a change. People want to improve their lives, their careers, their marriages or even their status among the neighbors (those pesky Joneses are soooo hard to keep up with). You might want to check out another article I’ve written called, 10 Steps to Writing a Powerful USP, to help you craft this message.
   

One of the greatest copywriters of all time was John Caples. On the subject of headlines he said, “If you can come up with a good headline, you are almost sure to have a good ad. But even the greatest writer can’t save an ad with a poor headline.”

That’s good advice from the man who wrote the book on the subject.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

As a freelance copywriter, my sole business is to grab the interest of readers and turn them into your customers.

How do I do I accomplish this? Well there are obviously a lot of copywriter tools in my toolbox, but before I can even start tapping at my keyboard, I have to determine what need will influence those readers to buy and what appeal I will use to target that need.

People don’t buy just because a clever freelance copywriter wrote hypnotically, mouthwatering copy; they buy for their own reasons, which are based on their deepest needs. A few of these reasons (needs) might be:

• to make more money,
  
• to save money or get a bargain,
  
• financial security,
  
• better health,
  
• professional advancement,
  
• prestige and recognition,
  
• to be in the “in” group,
  
• fun and leisure,
  
• protect/provide for loved ones,
  
• popularity,
  
• one upsmanship (ie to keep up with the Joneses or even get ahead of them),
  
• make a job or chore easier,
  
• improve appearance,
  
• freedom from worry,
  
• self esteem
  
• love, sexual fulfillment and relationships,
  

The customer’s need (and the appeal you craft to fulfill that need) is the DNA that will run throughout your ad, from the headline through the final word. The fulfillment of this need is the reason you are going to give your readers for buying.

As you can see, some of these needs overlap. “Freedom from worry” may also be part of the need to “protect or provide for loved ones,” or also “financial security.” Any of these needs might be the DNA you incorporate throughout an ad for life insurance as, an example.

Usually, but not always, you should appeal to only one need per ad. Then you should test that ad against other ads that appeal to other needs to find out which need motivates buyers most when choosing to purchase what you are offering. For example, only through testing their ads have some freelance copywriters were surprised to learn that personal “financial security” is often a stronger motivator to buy life insurance than to “protect/provide for loved ones.”

But don’t regard this as a commandment written in stone. If you have the luxury of writing a long ad, you probably should appeal to more than one need.

Once you have identified the need you intend to appeal to, make sure your headline addresses that need with specific benefits that meet that need head on.

For example, suppose you are writing for a financial services firm that has a product designed to protect someone’s retirement income from market ups and downs, and you have determined that “financial security” is the dominant need for your potential clients. Your headline might read:

Retire On a Secure Income
or
Protect Your Retirement Nest Egg
or
Announcing: The Inflation-Proof Retirement Income
or
How I Guaranteed My Retirement Income Will Never Go Down
or
Why Settle for an Unstable Retirement Income?

As you can see, by first identifying your readers’ dominant need, you can then write headlines that appeal to that need like a laser beam.

Next, you use the same need to pinpoint the benefits your copy must address. In the ad that might follow the above headlines on a retirement income product, your readers will probably be interested in the following benefits:

• A retirement income that does not fluctuate with the ups and downs of the financial markets,
  
• An income that is inflation proof,
  
• An income that is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury, or at least a giant company’s reserves,
  
• An income that will allow retirees to live comfortably,
  
• An income that will make sure a retiree will not have to depend on others,
  
• An income that will not for a reduced standard of living.
  

As you can see, not only does determining the buyer’s need make a freelance copywriter’s job easier, it also helps create more compelling copy that appeals to what your buyer really wants. The right appeal is the reason your readers will buy your product.

freelance copywriter, copywriting tips, freelance commercial writer

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Every freelance copywriter should own a copy of “Tested Advertising Methods,” written by the legendary copywriter, John Caples.

In the mid roaring twenties, 25 year old Caples made advertising history when he wrote the most famous ad of all time. It began with the words:

They laughed when I sat down at the piano.
But when I started to play---

That extraordinary ad for, of all things, mail order piano lessons, became the most successful, and most imitated ad of all time.

But apart from his remarkable writing talent, Caples changed advertising history in an even more profound way. Throughout his career, he pioneered the idea of rigorous, scientific testing for every element of ads and direct mail.

Every ad, every mailer was designated as either a test sample or a control sample. The control sample was usually the best performer from the previous test and not a single aspect of it was changed.

But the test sample was changed in one single way. It might have had a different headline, a different coupon, a different first paragraph, etc.

Then by comparing the results of the control and test samples, the ad or mailer could constantly be improved. In the next test run, the best performer of the two samples became the control for the next comparison.

Caples was such a strong advocate of testing because he saw how a campaign’s results could be dramatically improved. One time he tested to ads for the same product. Both ads were well written, both seemed to appeal to the target audience and both could have been chosen by many ad agencies as the final version.

But when the two ads were run side by side, one version pulled in 19 ½ more sales than the other.

Had this test never been run, the agency might have been pleased with the lesser ad’s results and run it for years.

So what things can be improved by testing? Here are a few:

1. The headline. This is the most important element of any ad, mail piece or web page. Without testing, you are leaving it to chance.
   
   
2. What picture or graphic produces the best results? Or would no image at all be best?
   
   
3. Which publication(s) produce the most sales when the same ad is run side by side in competing magazines or newspapers?
   
   
4. What appeal pulls in the most sales? The appeal is what hot button are you trying to push in the customer. Are you appealing to his need for security or his need for financial gain? Are you appealing to her need for sexual satisfaction or desire for adventure?

But how can the results of all this testing be compared? First, retail sales can provide the information needed. Laser-scanned bar codes at the checkout counter reports sales information instantly and in real time.

Another way that many consumer goods and fast food restaurants are tested is through test cities. I remember when McDonalds first introduced the breakfast burrito, I was in Indianapolis visiting my wife’s relatives. I tried the breakfast burrito and liked it. But when I got back home, I tried to order one from one of the local McDonalds and they looked at me as though I had green skin. The breakfast burritos were being tested in Indianapolis and no where else.

Finally there are key codes. If you look at a coupon for a typical direct mail ad, you will probably see something like, “Dept. XYZ.” I guarantee there is no department named XYZ at that company, but XYZ represents the key code for a particular version of the ad.

Despite the many decades of research demonstrating how testing improves the profitability of advertising, there are still many companies that spend mountains of money without testing. I hope they are winning industry awards for their creativity and the entertainment value of their ads, because their competitors will be making all the sales.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown