Copy Writing Guide: Four steps to sales copy writing that sells!

Copy that sells a product or service, or maybe even a person, is not that difficult to write. Your basic writing skills and the ability to follow a few simple steps can take you from work order to finished product with ease. Whatever you need to sell, these are the steps that can close the deal with your readers.

The first step is to clearly identify your product in your opening statements. In this instance, a product can refer to consumer goods, a politician or a service that is being performed for money. If you are selling an item, name it. If it is a shoehorn, call it by the name it is marketed under (i.e. Bob’s Best Shoehorn). If it is a politician or public figure, name them and give their title or profession. If they are running for office, include that. If, however, you are promoting a service that is being provided by a person or business, you need to include both the provider and the service when you name the “product”.

The next step is to romance the product. You want your readers (consumers, voters, etc.) to fall in love with what you are selling. To sell, you use positive words and phrases, and you also spend lots of your time writing in active voice. Passion sells. Passionate sales writing is not a passive verb type of writing.

The third step to copy that sells is to involve the reader. If you invite them or offer them a chance to join the dialogue, they often are interested enough to read on. Ask them questions. Give them illustrations to compare. Which would you choose? Why would anyone? These are the sorts of questions that lead, provoking interaction between written words and those reading them.

Finally, close the deal. If you have spent four paragraphs convincing someone to vote for Mr. Smith, then sum it up with a rousing statement of encouragement to do just that. If you have told them why Bob’s Best Shoehorn is the best, then tell them where they can buy it and send them there. Make this statement imperative and active.

It’s not hard to sell with words. It is probably much more difficult to do it if you are delivering them verbally, off the cuff and face-to-face with a customer. Writers can take advantage of being the faceless entity behind the print. That does not mean, however, that we don’t know how to push that inventory as well as the best salesman on the floor. Follow these steps and your copy will sell, and you will sell more copy.

The Subtle Art of Persuasion- myth and reality

Many Volumes have been written on the skill of persuasion as a marketing tool. In a Marketing or Sales Letter, the persuasion element is expected to play a big part. Beginners in the Copy writing profession are chided, if their copy does not prominently indicate the persuasion technique.

We can notice that even a child will resist being pressurized psychologically. But a skillful mother draws out deep desires of the child through suggestions and hints and then acts quickly on the ones that show positive responses. The same thing holds good for the adult buyer also. If he has a desire for a product or service that he had entertained at some time in the past, suggestions about that desire will quickly bring forth positive responses. Thereafter it becomes easy to apply the persuasion technique

It is well nigh impossible to create a desire within the short time span that a prospect takes toread through a Sales Letter. One of the reasons why most of the celebrated Control Copies in the Ad world are very long is this factor. The long sales copy almost always forces the reader to read through- once in a cursory manner and then return to it later. During the interval, the impression gathered during the first reading awakens resident emotions and a desire is created. When the second reading happens, the desire, already awakened, is further strengthened, and the order follows as a natural outcome.

Persuasion works, but only if it addresses a resident desire.

What is a Sales Letter?

A Sales letter, also known as Copy, is one of the most versatile forms of letter writing. Its main purpose is to persuade a prospect (the receiver of the messages) to buy the goods or services marketed by the writer or his client. Therefore, the architecture of the Sales Letter is designed to catch attention, sustain interest, build up desire and demand action to buy. The Sales letter begins with a catchy headline, followed by the Lead (opening sentence) which will sustain the reader’s interest. The writer now proceeds to build credibility for the message, by citing facts which the reader finds difficult to ignore or dispute.

The writer now has to find ways to get into the prospect’s mind and awaken the resident, dominant emotions and motivate him/her into wanting urgently to buy. The headline does a good part of this awakening of desire through subtle hint and the lead and the body of the Letter creates a strong undercurrent of desire. Desire is soon converted into demand and the prospect, almost unwittingly is now ready to buy. The writer of the Sales Letter has to bear in mind that his primary aim is to promote the sale of the product. There has to be a call for action (like: ‘ORDER NOW’).

Three Percentage or more of sales resulting from the letter makes the letter a Classic and is thereafter repeatedly mailed to produce the maximum returns. Such a letter is called a Control. It should be the goal of a Sales Copy writer to create as many Controls as he can, because that would ensure the butter and Jam on his daily bread, through Royalty for the repeated use of the Control.