Writing copy

Write with authenticity, not corporate speak.

Understand the difference between features, benefits and outcomes. Customers are usually chasing outcomes, not features. Said differently, people don't buy because of features. Features are how they compare things and act as proxies for outcomes.

People want to buy because they want to make money, save money, save time, avoid effort, escape mental or physical pain, get more comfort, achieve greater cleanliness or hygiene to attain better health, gain praise, feel more love, or increase their popularity or social status. These are the pegs people use to justify their buying.

Look for these words in your copy: “I, me, my, we, ours.” Why do you want to look for those words? Those words show where you’re talking about yourself. People don't want to hear about you. They want to hear about themselves. They want to be the hero of your sales message. They want to picture themselves getting the results. They want the whole transaction to be about them, not about you. The way you do this is to convert your copy from talking about yourself to talking about them. How will they be enriched? How will they benefit? How will they receive what they want? Search through your copy. Look for “I, me, my, we, ours.” Then rephrase, rewrite, and reposition to use the words “you, your, and yours” instead.

The number one copywriting skill everybody needs is to write great headlines. Eight out of ten people who see an advertisement or a webpage read the headline, but only two out of ten read the rest of the copy. A great headline and mediocre copy will outperform excellent copy with a weak headline.

The purpose of a headline is simple: to get people to stop what they’re doing and to start reading (or watching) whatever it is you put in front of them.

If your traffic is cold, your message needs to focus on people’s problems.

Emotion drives sales, not logic. Your words need to evoke emotion. People buy on emotion and they justify on intellect. How do you find the meaning? Every time you see a claim, feature, or benefit, ask yourself some questions: “Why is that important?” “Why does that matter?” “Why is that a big deal?” Putting this into action is super easy. Here’s the trick. As soon as you make a statement about what something is or what it does, you use those two magic words “which means _______________.” The more emotionally charged you can make that meaning, the more sales you'll make. Tie your product to love for _____________ (family, self, country, community, etc), hate, fear of _____________ (failure, making mistakes, death, loss, etc), pride, longing for ________________ (fulfillment, peace, completion, etc), greed, or freedom.

Love it or hate it, there's no money in the middle. People buy from a character or a persona more easily than they buy from some unknown company. That’s why nameless companies or companies with big names often have spokespeople. Why? Because you can’t really have a relationship with a company, or with a logo, but you can have a perceived relationship, or at least feel a certain way about a person. The fastest way to establish that persona is to take a stand, to have a position or an opinion, and you need to be secure about it. That’s really where the saying “Love me; hate me. There’s no money in the middle.” came from. People in the middle don't make money because they're so busy trying to appease everybody that they never do anything noteworthy for any particular group.

One sales formula that never fails is the problem/agitate/solve formula. You can use this for anything. It involves constructing your sales message in three parts: first, define the problem they face; second, you agitate it, making it worse and making it hurt; third, you solve it by presenting your product or service as the solution. The key is to make it worse. A LOT worse. Agitate is the magic in this formula.

A second sales formula is the before/after/bridge. Start with the before. Talk about the way things are now. Typically, there’s a problem, a question, a roadblock, or something in the way that makes them unhappy. Introduce the after. Tell them to imagine what their life will be like. Once you’ve painted that picture where they’ve solved the problem, answered the question, or removed the roadblock, they’ve gone from unhappy to happy. Now it’s time to bridge your product to this happy feeling.