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.

Four Steps to Writing Marketable On-line Articles

In today’s world, we market products through medias undreamed of a few decades ago. Articles only appeared in print publication and then, suddenly the Internet happens and articles have become a way to market or “sell” products. They can be subtle and segue a reader towards a site or a search about a product, or the articles can be up-front, filled with SEO (search engine optimization) words and keywords that will be picked up by popular search engines like Google®, Yahoo®, Ask®, Bing® and more. Whichever sort you are contract to write, a few simple steps can ensure that your article is more than just a well written piece regarding it a particular subject. It can also ensure its “marketability”.

The first step is simple. Use the key word or phrase somewhere in the title when writing articles for web. If you can use the entire phrase, pick out the most important world. If a search engine picks up the title and nothing else in the web article, a good title is enough to hook a reader. A hooked reader will then follow those subtle nudges toward the desired web sites for more information or to purchase a product.

Secondly, it is imperative that you don’t overload your writing with awkward insertions of the keyword or phrase. That means keep the usage to a minimum and insert it in a sentence or phrase where it sounds natural and not contrived. The readers are not stupid and will be able to tell an article written just for the SEO content and one that is well written and focused on the subject.

Step three involves the use of back links. Never hyperlink or back link a word or phrase to a client’s site unless directly authorized to do so. Many times the client will elect to handle that sort of thing without your assistance and your presumption might cost you the next assignment.

Finally, you must ensure that your writing flows. Instead of random facts or thought about the subject, it must follow a logical sequence or course, taking the reader from introduction to conclusion by following an interesting and informative pathway of words.

Following these simple steps can assist you in furthering your article writing career for on-line marketing purposes. By improving the quality of your writing, at least as far as its marketing value, you can enhance your prospects of landing more work and establishing yourself as a “go-to” source for this type of work.

Technical Writing: Is It That Technical?

The term “technical writing” can be a bit intimidating to some of us. After all, it conjures up ideas about equations, formulas and long, multi-syllable words that only scientists can pronounce. That’s why, when we are offered an opportunity to take on an assignment that falls under the heading, many of us are perfectly willing to pass. The truth, however, is that some sorts of technical writing are more about technique that technology.

While some of the jobs filed under the technical writing heading are legitimately difficult, most are not. Some are simply cries for help from a person who has the science smarts, without the word smarts, looking for a little help. After all, some of the most brilliant scientific minds in history only managed to scrape by with a minimal passing grade in English Composition. In many instances, they’ve written the piece. They just need a writer to make their material “readable”. You can do that.

Some technical writing involves a little bit of research and a little bit of technique. If you are well and truly terrified of technical jargon, then you might be better off opting out on these. If, however, you keep an open mind and don’t mind doing some research and then a bit more research, you can probably handle the assignment. After all, you aren’t performing the experiments or making the observations, you are just putting the data that other people have accumulated into a comprehensible form.

There are, of course, truly difficult forms of technical writing that require a person who has familiarity with the processes, procedures and the language involved in that specific area of research or analysis. This is the stuff best left to those who have both halves of the brain working in perfect synchronicity. A very few writers can handle these assignments and that is why they usually command a higher rate of pay.

Still, by and large, much of what is referred to as “technical writing” is not all that technical. A competent writer who has been provided with adequate time and information can handle the assignment. So, don’t be afraid to at least investigate the opportunity the next time a chance to do some “technical writing” arises. It could be that, instead of a difficult, time-eating writing nightmare, it turns out to be just another genre of work to add to your skill list and bolster your marketability.