3 Tips to Make You a Good Copywriter
July 29, 2010 by Megan · Leave a Comment
Probably most people think they’re good enough to do copywriting, and it looks pretty easy at first glance. It’s probably the case that you’ve come across many sales letters in your IM career. It’s just trying to sell some product or service, and anyone can talk about that stuff, right? But any experienced marketer will tell you that good copy is not easy to do, plus good copy will make sales – while bad copy will not.
What so many internet marketers do is just hire a copywriter to take care of it. Also, a lot of people aren’t good writers, plus they don’t like doing it. But if you’re remotely interested, it’s a terrific idea to learn about copywriting, especially if you need it and can’t hire someone. Copywriting can be applied to other kinds of writing too, like if you wanted to write a canon mp560 review.
Copywriting is subtle. It’s not hard to find copy that screams at you. This kind of copy falls on its face. Your sales message needs to be shown in ways that do not allow identification as a sales message. You have to consider that your income and livelihood depend on your sales copy, so it has to be written well enough to do that.
Part of the sales process in copywriting is incorporated into the story contained in the sales letter. Remember: you do not want to be a shouty infomercial. Your conversions will plummet if you do that. Long, unbroken text will bore your readers, so break it up. If you took any writing classes at school, you may remember the rule that a paragraph must focus on one thought. This is a good principle to remember. At the same time, you don’t have to force one idea into one paragraph. Unbroken blocks of text are a turn off for many readers, especially on the internet.
It’s important to break up any long paragraphs into shorter, more readable ones. There is nothing wrong with having paragraphs that are only one or two sentences long in copywriting. It helps the reader stay focused on the message.
Don’t be afraid to break a few rules. You don’t break the rules for spelling, but copywriting inherently breaks the grammar rules. The best course of action is to always get the facts, and it won’t hurt you to educate yourself a little bit on this matter. Just remember: there is a fine line between breaking a few rules and sounding like a total amateur. There are art forms to all excellent copywriting. Copywriting is even used in video sales letters because they contain scripts. Chances are excellent that the script for that video was written by a copywriter. Every single ad you see on TV, or hear on the radio, was written by a copywriter.
Sure you could hire someone to do the writing for you. That’s fine to do, but you may want to understand the process and why things are being done the way they are.