Required Copywriting Content

We have produced several recent articles on copywriting. After having a salable product or service, good copywriting is the most needed asset you can acquire for your business. As a home based entrepreneur you are likely running your business by yourself. You need to study, practice, and learn all you possibly can about the art of copywriting. If you can't master it, your alternative is to hire someone to do it for you. Because your small business always needs money, this may be the incentive you need to learn copywriting for yourself. The purpose of this article is to help you do that.
In other articles we have discussed the importance of headlines to attract and hold the attention of prospects. Then, we learned that every element of your writing has the duty of leading readers to the next element, and so on, until they finally reach the selling point and are motivated to buy. This article shows you what kind of content needs to be included in the elements of your writing.
CONTENT OF PERSUASION
This report talks about how to use content to encourage a reader to flow through everything you say. Content must be structured in such a way that a reader can be persuaded to take the action you desire.
There are no set rules about how to get people to do what you want. However, the most persuasive writing contains similar items repeatedly in successful content. Here are ideas about writing the most persuasive copy:
Focus entirely on the reader by early on offering the benefits you are providing. Never allow anyone to question why they are reading your copy.
Every part of your writing should have a compelling main theme and purpose. These must be constructed in a way that reinforces your primary point and promise. Always remain focused like a laser on what you are trying to have your readers do.
Give many "reasons why" your statements are correct. General comments with no supporting facts immediately alert the reader to the possibility of untruth in your advertising. Use whatever you have to create credibility with statistics, expert statements, and testimonials. Always be authoritative with what you say.
Quickly get back to the most important person in this house, your reader. After building credibility and authority, restate the benefits and promises you made at the start that attracted your prospect.
Make an offer to your reader to persuade him to do what you want. Stand behind your offer to relieve any risk from acceptance.
BENEFITS VS. FEATURES
The difference between benefits and features, which defines one of the most repeated rules of compelling copy, is the subject of this article (http://www.copyblogger.com/now-featuring-benefits/). The focus of the article is on how to separate benefits from features, and determining the underlying benefit of what you are selling so you can develop marketing copy that will compel use of your item.
This article introduces the concept of fake benefits, which are often hard to separate. Here is an example:
Consider this headline: Balance Blood Sugar Levels Naturally!
The headline sounds great, but there is no real benefit in it. Why? To see what is wrong, give yourself the "forehead slap test." Imagine waking up from deep sleep, slapping yourself on the forehead, and saying, "I really need to balance my blood sugar levels naturally." Who would wake up with this idea? Such an idea would be a difficult sell, even for the best copywriter.
While no one wakes up wanting to Balance Blood Sugar Levels Naturally, they do wake up wanting to avoid blindness, numb limbs, amputation, and premature death that go along with diabetes. These are the real benefits of controlling blood sugar.
Here's a way to determine true benefits and segregate them from mere features:
Make a list of every feature of your product or service.
Ask yourself why each feature is included in the first place.
Take the "why" and ask "how" does this connect with the prospect's desires?
Get to the absolute root of what's in it for the prospect at an emotional level.
Selling to business prospects is different:
Often features alone can do your selling. When a feature is well known and expected by your audience, you don't need to sell it. A business buyer still needs to know how things work and what it does for a business buyer.
Bottom line benefits result from innovative features. If your product will save bottom line money for his company, you will likely make a sale.
Even if the business buyer reacts favorably, you still need to support the promised benefit with a detailed explanation of how the product actually works. Change scares a buyer, so they need to know all about a new product in case something fails.
OFFERS YOUR READER CAN'T REFUSE
This section (http://www.copyblogger.com/kids-eat-free/) is about irresistible offers to sell your products and services. Some examples of effective offers:
"Kids Eat Free Every Monday and Tuesday." This sign is posted outside one of the least interesting Mexican food restaurant in a small town. There are very few patrons on most nights, but, on every Monday and Tuesday the place overflows because of the kids offer. People liked the offer and it caused them to take action.
FedEx, now a $27 billion company, started with an idea Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, wrote about in a term paper when he was attending Yale. It is said that he got a "C" on the paper. The idea involved an offer of guaranteed overnight mail delivery, something the US Postal service was unable to do. At the time, this offer was directed at dissatisfied people on Wall Street. The offer was irresistible to Wall Street–they accepted it without knowing the price. Because FedEx delivered with what they said they would in the original offer, the company succeeded and became much larger.
Now look at Domino's Pizza. It began as a single store in 1960. The pizza business is a very tough thing to break into. The owner was on the verge of bankruptcy when he decided to make an offer no pizza lover could refuse: the offer guaranteed to deliver a pizza within 30 minutes or it was free. Buyers accepted the offer, Domino's delivered their end, and now you can get a Domino's Pizza in over 50 countries.
"Offer" is a legal contract; if the offer is accepted, some kind of relationship is established. Acceptance of an offer results in mutual promises; if the offer is not accepted, there is no relationship of any kind. If you want to jump start your business, you may want to consider some kind of irresistible offer of your own.
GUARANTEES
Using guarantees to remove risk from buyers is discussed here (http://www.copyblogger.com/this-post-rocks%E2%80%A6-i-guarantee-it/).
Just saying you guarantee satisfaction of your product is usually not enough to relieve a buyer from the risk of dissatisfaction or buyer's remorse.
The way past a buyer's doubts and risk is to simply offer a good old-fashioned cash refund, no questions asked. A stronger guarantee is to offer double your money back, or allowing the buyer to keep whatever they bought after you refund their money. There are many ways you can structure this by giving 30, 60, or 90 day guarantee periods. Every guarantee attempts to show that you, the seller, has great confidence in the value you are selling. Guarantees shift the risk of buying to you, the seller.
You should expect a few returns because your product will not be right for every buyer. However, your sales are likely to be way up because of your guarantee; the returns will be lower than you imagined.
LENGTH OF CONTENT
Here (http://www.copyblogger.com/the-long-and-short-of-copywriting/) is a discussion of the age-old question about how long a headline should be and how long the actual article content needs to be.
The answer is always "Whatever works."
Traditional wisdom has always said headlines should be eight words or less. This idea is backed up by several studies. One, from the earliest days of magazine advertising, showed that 95% of the most effective headlines were less than eight words.
The direct mail industry has made studies that show 50% to 60% of the most effective headlines are eight words or less. This study leaves open the fact that many longer headlines were effective, as well.
Another study has turned up some different information about online headlines. Many of these are effective even though some are as long as short paragraphs. Why is this? Webpage visitors read in an "F" pattern where they intensely scroll across the top of the page, then back to the left, and, finally, down the left side.
These studies verify the main rules of headlines, but they also encourage the use of much longer headlines in an effort to get you to read the rest of the page. However, all copywriting coaches agree you should use the shortest headline possible that conveys the unique benefits so the reader will read the rest of your advertising page.
Now we come to the rest of the length problem. Should the length of the main content be short or long?
Again, the answer is the same as for headlines: as long as necessary, but no longer.
Bob Bly says that the length of your copy will depend on three things:
The Product: the more features and benefits a product has, the longer the copy.
The Audience: Certain people want as much information as they can get before making a purchase. This is especially true of people on the Internet, and especially true with information products.
The Purpose: What's the goal? Generating a lead for a service business requires less detail, but an ad that aims to make a sale must overcome every objection the potential buyer may have.
Joe Sugarman says two factors increase the need for more copy:
Price point: The higher the price, the more copy required to justify or create the need.
Unusual Item: The more unusual the product, the more you need to relate that product to the user by clearly demonstrating the benefits.
Michel Fortin sets forth four categories of products, with each successive category requiring longer copy:
Convenience products: Fills an immediate need, low price, low thought, short copy.
Shopping products: A little higher priced, more thought and opportunity to "shop around," a little longer copy.
Specialty products: With exotic goods, luxury cars, expensive jewelry, art, etcetera, longer copy is definitely needed.
Unsought products: When people have never realized that their lives were incomplete without your product, get ready to write some lengthy copy.
The length of your headline and your copy will depend on whatever works for whatever you are selling. And the only way to know what works is to test different approaches. Test various headlines to see which works best at capturing attention and communicating a benefit. Test the amount of information you provide. Does more or less work better at producing the desired action? That's the only answer that matters to you.
CONCLUSION
This is another article about copywriting in general. Copywriting is so important to home based entrepreneurs because this is how we advertise whatever it is we are in business to sell.
For some reason, until I began writing about copywriting, I never associated it with advertising. Advertising has always been a bit difficult for me, ranking right up there with the most difficult thing I have had to learn, how to sponsor affiliates for my team. I realize, now, that the two problems are almost the same. If I don't know how to advertise, how can I sponsor affiliates?
I'm beginning to see how advertising and sponsoring are so closely related. By studying the main parts of these copywriting articles, I expect to find better ideas about adverting headlines and content. You, as well, should be able to find help for the same things.
It is my hope that you have gotten some helpful ideas from this article. Your advertising quality should improve if you use what we have talked about here.