Copywriting
Launching A Product Begins And Ends With Copywriting
Apr 24th
By Guest Blogger – Professional Copywriter Stephen Dean
Word around the campfire is that sales copy isn’t that important during a mega product launch, because most people who hit the sales page skip the sales letter and just buy.
Wrong! And on two points.
First, as a copywriter that’s worked on many launches I can tell you all involved are hammering away at the copy until the 12th hour tolls.
When Michel Fortin wrote John Reese’s sales copy for the original Traffic Secrets – the first launch to reach $1,000,000 in 24 hours – Michel stayed up all night to rewrite the copy with John at the last minute.
Michel Fortin and John Reese knew the copy mattered.
And second, marketers use copy in more locations than just the sales letter.
A copywriter summons their titan selling skills for pre-launch pages, affiliate pages, blog posts, videos and plenty of emails to get the anticipatory launch drum pounding.
But even if you understood that each phase of a product launch is soaked in copywriting, you may not have known this. Copywriters often come up with the ideas for the best products.
How can this be? Are copywriters just insanely creative?
Well… maybe. But the real reason is, copywriters study the market to such a degree that they know exactly what the market wants to buy.
The copywriter knows what features the customer wants, the benefits, how fast they want it, how simple they want it… heck, they even know the colour they want.
So when a business owner wants to break new records with their product launch – and top it all off with a champagne celebration post launch – it’s a good idea to get the copywriter involved at the very, very beginning. And that means when you’re creating the product.
A few years back I brainstormed the domain name (and wrote the copy) for what became a very popular product. So popular, that just last year I received a check from the corporation named after the domain name!
So I highly recommend getting the copywriter involved early. You may have to pay a bit extra for the consulting… but it could be the best brainstorming partner you’ll ever have.
It’s a small price to pay for a vastly superior product and launch.
When I brainstorm with clients, I use something called the “Sniper Method” to help guarantee a successful launch. You can discover what it’s all about in this video…
Many copywriters skip these steps. And even more marketers do. But if you want a successful product launch, I recommend beginning and ending with great copywriting.
Copywriter Stephen Dean writes sales copy that demands champagne celebrations – specializing in health, wealth and product launch copy. He regularly reveals his secrets at his copywriting blog, http://www.CopywritingDean.com.
Are Your Headlines BORING People To Death?
Jan 20th
Are Your Headlines BORING People To Death
By Keith Everett
Ah Ha… you had to look at that headline and click through, didn’t you? – you see the POWER of a good headline?
Now, whether you think that it is a good headline of not… , you still wanted to PEEK, didn’t you? With great headlines, comes great power… you are simply MAGNETIZING the reader to your content…
I see painfully boring headlines every day which could easily replace Horlick’s before bedtime and send you to sleep PRONTO!, but with a few TWEEKS here and there, even these could be BRILLIANT headlines..
After all, it’s the headline that stops the reader DEAD.. it makes them read (or REJECT) your piece. So why do most people spend so little time on the most important thing – the HEADLINE?
Some obscure rules to writing headline busting HEADLINES! by a Dumb ASS Copywriter… yes, ME
Firstly, I’m NO Expert – but I have read a lot of Copywriting Books by famous copywriters in my time, John Carlton, Gary Halbert, Claude Hopkins, Robert Bly etc and I do practice writing a lot of headlines…
1) Leave them FLABBERGASTED… Your headline must hook the readers into the sub headline or copy by SUCKING their very eyes into the words, like Eyeball MAGNETS!
It’s no good PUSSY FOOTING around: your headline is your BEST chance of getting your stuff seen… mess this up and you are Freakin DEAD!…..
2) Statements & Questions:
Ask KILLER questions or hit them with HOW TO’s, people love How To’s… even though I’m not a PRO copywriter, I still have common sense, and common sense tells me that your “How To Be A Millionaire” headline is NOT going to win friends or influence ME…. NO, I need something BIG…much BIGGER!
I get to see ads all day, every day… You have to stand out from the CROWD… and it’s a big crowd.
“How an Internet Marketing Dumb ASS, Did Everything WRONG and still made – a MILLION BUCKS!” - (How To)
“Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About SEX – But Were Too Afraid To Ask!” – (Outrageous Statement)
“Who Will You Take With You, On Your Free – Yes FREE, Caribbean Holiday?” – (Killer Question)
Benefits…. this is what sells. There are too many average, boring headlines out there that just state the bloody obvious, features – not benefits.
Don’t sell the SAUSAGE, sell the SIZZLE!
OK, sometimes when I’m doing an instructional video on tidying up the desktop or I have a guest blogger that wants to keep his/her low key headline in then that’s ok as it makes sense NOT to have every single headline on your blog or website DYNAMIC, this way the really super, SUPER headlines will stand out in between the boring ones.
3) HUMOUR…
This always goes down a treat, be a bit WACKY!…. I have noticed, people share my posts a lot more if there is some humour in the headline..
here are some of my recent headlines where I inserted a touch of humour:
Slick or SICK… you decide?
“Yesterday, I Poked Myself In The Eye With A PEN”
“How to Be An Internet Marketing Smart ASS In 3 Simple Lessons”
“Affiliate Marketing – How to Screw It All Up In Just 3 Easy Lessons”
“Look For PAIN & You Will GAIN, Then Find A Starving Crowd & FEED It!”
“How A SICK Internet Marketer – Finally Broke Out Of Hospital”
“How to Become A Kindle eBook Publisher On Amazon – And Stick Two Fingers Up At Stephen King”
“How To Always Have Great Content For Your Website Or Blog – Even If Your Head Is A Content Free Zone”
“What’s Green & Slimey & Can Make You Money? – SQUIDOO!”
OK, so let’s sum up here.
1) Headlines in my view are the No1 thing we need to get right to get people to LOOK at what we have… we only have a second or so to get/keep their ATTENTION so make it count, to make your headline stand out you need to think of it as a headline to a text ad, amongst thousands of other ads on a page, What would you say to really STAND OUT….use attention grabbing words such as NEW, FREE, KILLER, WOW…. ATTENTION..
2) Desire – they have to really want to read on… the headline will cure or KILL it in SECONDS… make them curious, make them WANT to click though, show the BENEFITS briefly in the headline or TEASE them, give them a quick teaser… ”If you are the door, then I am the KEY – let’s unlock the PLEASURE!”…..
3) Appeal to a person’s FUNNY side, get Quirky, invoke curiosity with HUMOUR… don’t do this with every headline, you will OVERKILL it! but this definitely works
Lastly, we haven’t talked about Keywords yet… to get good rankings Keywords are VERY important in your headlines (and copy) BUT…. and it’s a big BUT.. don’t OVERDO it! the headline should not lose it PZAZZ! at the expense of Keywords,
Remember: A Keyword rich headline with no SPARK is a waste of time as people won’t read it anyway and therefore won’t read the copy… it’s better to have a good headline that gets attention, even if it hardly contains any keywords.. REMEMBER, the object at this stage is to be SEEN… once they are reading into your copy, then you can use more keywords.. but remember, at the end of the day, it has to make sense and be EASY to read.. don’t STUFF keywords into it Willy Nilly!
I hope you have enjoyed this piece on creating KILLER headlines, if you have, please do share or/and comment, it would be much appreciated
Keith
P.S Do you want to be a KILLER Copywriter?
