Monday, June 1, 2009

Powerful Copywriting Makes People Read What You Write

By Calvin McCarthy

Copywriting is "getting across the perfect message, with the perfect words."Copywriting, in particular, holds the key to our buying decisions. Copywriting encompasses marketing messages that appear in a wide variety of media, including print ads, television commercials, radio ads, billboards, online ads, Web sites, catalogs, and more. The medium where the copywriting will be used often dictates the type of message that will effectively speak to consumers and move them to action.

People are highly visual and, so, many Internet marketers would prefer to use videos to get their message across. But people are also language-oriented, and the powerful thing about effective copywriting is that it makes the reader use her own imagination to see things with some features of her own--thus drawing her in and peaking her interest.

All effective copywriting is intended to get the reader to read the first sentence. If you can get him to read that sentence, and it's a compelling statement, then he'll read the second sentence...and the third...and before he knows it he's being asked to contact you or buy from you and he is ready to do just that. But first things first: you have to write "magnetic" headlines.

Powerful cover copy is like an irresistible invitation to look inside. Powerful copywriting can be a powerful element of design, and learning how to match the right copy to the right media is crucial to the success of your brand. To write great headline, remember---

*Direct approach. Talk about how the product or service can help them, solve their problem, or meet their need. Play on emotions here . Talk in terms of how what your product is / does will benefit your customer. When you get down to it, copywriting is really just common sense, put yourself in your customers shoes.

*The indirect approach. This is where you get clever and might try to use double-entendre to hook people. For instance, if you're selling an automated forex trading software program, you could say, "Robots Do It All Night Long--And So Can You!" (A "robot" is an automated trading program which never has to sleep.)

*The journalist approach. Journalists creates, edits and presents information - not simply writes. Journalists know how to deliver and tell a story. This is largely what separates good writing from bad.

*"How To...". The website "eHow" is really taking off, because it's a site where people write articles that are all written to give step-by-step instructions on exactly how to do something. When you are writing copy, you must always keep in mind the "six Ws": Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. "How to" seems to work best of all for headlines. People love the promise of getting some new, free knowledge.

*Ask the reader a question. Question type of headline copy writing must be crafted well. It must not simply ask a question. Questions in headlines do the same. Questions remain as to how tame can a tiger be.

When you get to the copywriting body, remember these thigs:

*The six Ws.

*The first sentence must be urgent, emotionally appealing, and full of a promise of solutions to come later on in the text.

*Your language throughout must be emotional and simple. Forget long words, jargon, or sounding technical.

*Back up assertions with facts. Always give justifications.

*Ask the reader what to buy.

These copywriting techniques are proven profitable. Use it.

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