A neat post by Paul Myers that I couldn’t afford not to forward it to you.

There are tons of benefits to understanding sales copy, and
even more to being able to write your own.

Let’s start with the first. Some of the benefits of
understanding the process of writing sales copy. Not actually
doing it, just understanding what’s involved.

If you sell anything at all online, you use sales copy to do
it. Whether it’s direct response copy, AdWords, article
marketing, signature files, or even audio and video files (they
do have scripts, after all), your copy is the critical element
to getting customers.

Either you’re writing it, or someone else is doing it for you.

If you hire someone else, you need to be able to communicate
with them effectively about your needs, your prospects, and
your products. Understanding the process makes that a lot
easier. That makes your finished copy faster, more effective,
and often cheaper. (Fewer rewrites, less time wasted.)

Understanding the process makes you more aware of what you’re
really offering your customers. That helps you to build better
offers, leading to more sales and happier customers.

Those two paragraphs alone should be enough. They guarantee
that you’ll get more from every dollar you spend on advertising
and product development.

It helps you to spot potential problems with copy you’ve had
others write for you.

It helps you recognize what that salesletter you’re reading is
really promising you if you buy.

It helps you to be more aware of what people are doing in
normal, day-to-day communications. And it makes your day-to-
day communications more effective.

It will help you to present more compelling offers to joint
venture partners, prospects, vendors, programmers, designers
and anyone else you approach about business.

Perhaps most importantly, it will help you to better analyze
offers that are made to you, whether in print or in person.

There are more, but those are the big ones. And they should be
enough.

….

So, what about learning to actually write your own copy?

Well, let’s look at what it takes to be successful online.
Three things, really. A product, sales copy to sell the
product, and people who’re interested in the product enough to
read the sales copy (also known as “traffic.”)

Effective sales copy is the centerpiece of that formula.

Yes, I know there are people who’ll argue that point. Just bear
with me for a minute.

….

Let’s look at traffic.

You can buy it, with money you make with your copy.

You can generate it from a group you’ve attracted as
subscribers, because of the quality of your copy.

You can get it from affiliates, who’ll be attracted by your
copy and the money it will generate for them.

You can write articles to get people interested in what you
have to say. (That’s direct from the copy.)

You can get it from search engines, largely from the way your
copy (content) is written and laid out.

You can get it from endorsed mailings (commonly misnamed
“joint ventures”), which you’ll often close based on the
strength of the copy in your emails.

Ultimately, most traffic is a function of copy.

The better the copy, the bigger the traffic stream.

….

Now, what about the product? That’s the most important thing,
isn’t it?

Make no mistake, the product is what delivers the benefits the
prospect is paying for. If it doesn’t deliver what’s promised,
you won’t get to keep that money. Refunds are your check on the
quality of the product. That said…

A mediocre product with great copy will make you more money and
help more people than a great product will with mediocre copy.

Sell a lot of product and it’s easy to find the resources and
motivation to make a better product. And a better product lets
you make your copy even better.

Nice how that works, innit?

….

Okay. So you get some useful stuff by understanding the basics
of effective sales copy. What do you get by being able to write
your own?

For starters, let’s consider starters. If your business is new,
possibly without even a product, the ability to write your own
copy may mean the difference between turning your idea into a
real business and leaving it as a regret for later.

There are tons of products you can create on your own. In the
area of information products, you have all the investment you
need right in front of you: Your computer. All the tools you
need can be had for the effort of searching. Whether you want
to sell written, recorded audio or video, graphics, software or
even scrapbook templates, you can download everything you need,
free.

But you’ll still have to write your own sales copy.

So, starting from nothing means needing to learn to write copy.
And starting a second, third or further business is made a lot
easier if you know how.

That’s a powerful benefit.

….

And if you’re already established?

The obvious benefits are… well… obvious. You can save money
on your sales copy, and get a more complete and accurate
summary of the benefits of your product into your letter.

Even if you just do a good first draft, it can help you get a
much better finished letter from your paid copywriter. Note the
phrase “GOOD first draft.” Writing crappy copy won’t help your
copywriter, and might just make their job harder. So don’t do
it.

Assuming you’re going to write your own completed copy, doing
it well helps to sell a lot more, and also helps reduce
refunds.

Seriously. Aside from actual problems with the product itself
(and the occasional scammer), most refunds can be traced to
flaws in the sales copy itself. If you’re getting a lot of
refunds, FIX YOUR COPY!

Really understanding the mechanics and psychology of good
copywriting will help you to create more powerful offers. (The
offer is what you actually give the prospect in return for
their money.) Better offers mean more customer satisfaction and
loyalty, which means more referrals, repeat orders, and
upsells.

This creates another benefit that even most copywriters and
product developers don’t consider. If you build the offer with
the right focus from the beginning, you won’t spend a lot of
time and money on things that aren’t really important to your
customers. That means a much higher return on your product
development costs.

Yes, that sounds backwards. Keep reading. You’ll see what I
mean soon enough.

….

Being able to write powerful effective copy means you can roll
out products more quickly, keep advertising costs down, take
advantage of extra channels that aren’t open to people who
depend on “hired gun” copywriters, and maintain consistent
integration of all your marketing processes.

It makes it easier to craft effective offers to joint venture
and endorsed mailing partners, recruit affiliates, develop
sales-generating follow-up sequences, build lists of qualified
leads, and generally do better in every aspect of your
marketing.

A useful way to look at this is to consider every word you
write or have written for you as an asset. That’s especially
true of sales materials.

Build them with care, and they’ll take good care of you.

….

If you mix testing with your copywriting (and why wouldn’t
you?), you’ll find that the process helps to develop your
understanding of human motivation. People will tell you
whatever they think you want to hear, or what they think
they’re supposed to say.

Put an order form in front of them and you’ll find out what
they really think. It’s often very different from what they
tell you.

You’ll be surprised at how much your insight into people
increases as you learn to write more effectively. The only
downside is that you may have to sacrifice some illusions in
the process.

….

Learning to write effective sales copy will also improve your
overall writing and communications skills. You’ll find that you
become more focused on the purpose of your communication, and
that helps in every area. One that surprises a lot of people is
that their direct, face-to-face sales skills start to become
much stronger as they learn what really makes for a solid sales
presentation.

After all, isn’t that what a salesletter or direct response ad
really is?

….

Finally, if you have an existing product, the ability to write
and drive traffic to a new salesletter is like printing money
on demand.

That could be kind of handy, eh?

….

What’s better than all of that?

Writing sales copy can be the backbone of your entire business
model. And I do not mean writing it for other people. (Been
there, done that, had the headaches.)

There is no more valuable skill for developing a killer
product than the ability to write a killer salesletter for the
product before you develop it. In fact, if you have access to
people who can write content or code, you don’t really have to
create the product yourself.

Write the salesletter and give it to someone to use as the
template for the product. While they work on that, you continue
to write affiliate ads, follow-up autoresponder sequences,
articles, and the other items you’d use to generate traffic and
sales.

Yes, this assumes you’ve got the resources to pay for the
development, or the contacts to do products as true joint
ventures. If you don’t have them now, writing that first killer
salesletter for your own creation is the way to get them.

If you make the effort to write sales copy, you can pretty much
write your way to anything else you like.

Still wonder if you should learn to write sales copy?

….

At the beginning of this article I mentioned that you could get
real training from one of the world’s great copywriters for
less than $20. That’s real, and it comes in the form of a book.

If you know nothing about copywriting and want to get started
learning, head to Amazon.com and order a copy of Dan Kennedy’s
“The Ultimate Salesletter.” Read it, practice what’s in it, and
you’ll soon be able to afford the more expensive courses and
manuals.

I’ve seen it for sale there, used, for $6.

If you can’t afford that, check out your local library.

….

Copywriting is like any other form of communication. You can do
okay with just the basics.

Unfortunately, most people never go beyond the absolute basics
in any form of communication. That’s one of the biggest causes
of problems in the world today.

If you want to get really good at it, you’ll need to keep
studying. You don’t need to make it an obsession, of course,
but small doses of progressively more advanced study will make
a huge difference in the long run.

Copywriting is different from most formal learning in a very
important way. It is 100% self-funding. The better you get, the
more you can afford to get better.

Or, to put it a slightly different way, it’s the exact
opposite of most schooling.

The more you study, the more you can afford.

….

That brings up a question I do get asked a fair bit: Are these
$1000 courses and $5000 seminars worth the money?

The answer depends. It’s usually yes, IF:

* The creator of the product is both a good copywriter
AND a good teacher,
* You already know the basics necessary to use the
product effectively,
* You learn well with the type of teaching offered,
(seminars, manuals, audios, etc), and
* You actually use what you learn.

An uncomfortably large percentage of people buy things and
never do anything with them. That’s especially expensive when
it comes to copywriting.

Make the investment, and use what you get.

Make it a goal this year to learn at least the basics of
effective copywriting. If you already know the basics, step it
up just one notch this year.