How to Write Copy That Get's Results

Copyright © Charlie Page


The goal today is simple. That goal is to pull back the curtain and show you how a professional copywriter creates the copy that causes people to reach for their wallet or purse. Copy you would normally have to pay for, only now you can do it yourself.

Let me begin by saying how very much I hate hype. Hate it. Loathe it. Don't want to read it and will not write it. The pure fact of the matter is that it does not take hype to sell products. It does take capturing a person's attention, then their imagination, long enough to help them see the desire they have for your product.

Here's the first foundational truth about copywriting. The people who visit your site WANT to buy what you sell. They have the desire now, or they wouldn't go to your site. They didn't just wander by. They chose your site because something interested them.

Your job now is to enhance that sense of DESIRE and persuade them to take action now. Enhancing their desire to benefit from what you offer. That's the name of the game. Don't confuse desire with being convinced. Desire creates sales, being convinced doesn't. I'm convinced the Golden Gate Bridge is a fine bridge, but I don't want to own it.

On the other hand, there's this very cool laptop I want so bad I can taste it. I need a laptop like a hole in the head, but I want it. You see, a person doesn't have to need your product to buy it. They just have to want it. Very few people really need a Palm Pilot, or a laptop, or heated leather seats or an expensive ink pen when the one the dry cleaner gives away still writes, but they buy these things (and more) every day.

Why shouldn't they buy them from you?

With that in mind, consider the following five key points to writing copy that gets results ... no matter what product, service or opportunity you offer.

The five points are:

1. Sell with emotion, support with logic.
2. Be honest.
3. Be brief, but not too brief.
4. Ask for the order early ... and often.
5. Emulate, don't imitate.

The first point is so important, so foundational, that I'm devoting this entire article to understanding how this will work in your real world. If you get this first step right you will see results even if you bobble the other four. Without this one, the other four will have to work overtime to get people to reach for the Visa.

Pay careful attention because this is where 99% of ineffective copy fails to do it's job.

1. Left Brain -- Right Brain

People generally buy things in a very predictable way. They make a decision to buy based on emotion and defend or justify that decision with logic. Rarely do people (even engineers!) buy in the reverse order. Memorize this: People buy based on emotion, and defend or justify that purchase with logic. That idea is the reason that people buy. Period.

Let's take a closer look. Here is a quick example from what is perhaps the best example of buying on emotion and defending it with logic known to mankind ... the world of new car sales.

Example #1
You go to the dealership one fine weekend just to 'see what your trade-in is worth'. These sharks are not going to sell you anything. You are there for facts, just the facts. Not even shopping. Just getting information. You were in the neighborhood anyway.

Then it happens. The smell of a new interior. The purr of the engine. (You didn't really realize how loud your old car is inside.) Then there's the shine of the new paint job. Red. You always wanted red. You deserve red. You want red! You can almost feel the pride swell inside you as you imagine driving down your street for the first time, your neighbors drooling with envy. 'Bonnie must be doing well.' they say. 'She's always seemed smart.' You can see the look on your friends faces as you drive home for Christmas in your new RED car.

By golly, you ARE going to have red. You wanted red in high school and got the old family junker. Remember the embarrassment? You wanted red in college but your idiot boyfriend talked you into black. Black! After you dumped him you couldn't stand to even drive the thing. It's red you want. It's red you've always wanted. And you've waited long enough.

You drive home in your new red car. It smells good. It sounds good. It looks good. You feel great! When tightwad Fred asks how much you paid, you tell him that the old junker you traded in needed an engine overhaul and it just wasn't a good investment to repair the poor thing. You were smart to buy now. In fact, you got the much better end of the deal.

My friend, you just bought on emotion and defended the purchase with logic.

What else does this happen with? As you read this list, ask yourself how many times you've bought more than you needed in one of these areas just because it 'felt right'.

- Suits
- Dresses
- Homes
- Jewelry
- Stereo Equipment
- Computers
- Software ;)

Let's face it, we are a community of people who love to compare. We compare how fast our cars go from zero to sixty, how big the diamond is we gave our girl (or she gave us!) how many square feet we have (never mind there are two empty bedrooms). The list goes on and on. Advertisers know this about us. When you are the advertiser, you must know it too.

How can you apply this to your real world? Three simple steps.

Step 1 - Get a legal pad now and write down the five top things that make people want your product. Focus on how they will feel, how others will perceive them, how they will feel about themselves. Remember, a feature is what something does. A benefit is what it does for me. People want benefits. People buy benefits. People will interrupt what they are doing now to buy benefits.

Step 2 - Look at your selling copy now, whether it's a web page, autoresponders, radio ad copy, classifieds ... doesn't matter. Look at that copy and see if the five emotional pressure points you wrote down are in that copy. Does the copy move you? Does it compel you to action? Does it tell you, in very clear terms, what's in it for you? If you can't be objective, solicit a friend to take a look.

Step 3 - Change portions of your copy to add some punch. I'm not talking about a major rewrite, just change some key areas to appeal to a person's emotions. Help them imagine life with your product. The time they will save. The money they will save. How good they will look to
their peers. How great it will feel to finally (insert benefit here).

Better yet, give them hints about what they can do with that time and money. Here's a very short sample.

---------Begin sample------------

Our clients often save over $100 a month when they switch to our widget. Imagine how good it will feel when YOU begin to save $100 or more a month, just by choosing our super-widget! That's over $1200 a year! What will you do with your $1200?

- Pay off bills?
- Take a vacation?
- Pay for your child's college tuition?
- Finally have some 'mad' money just for you?

The choice is yours. Do what thousands of others have done. Click here now to start saving today.

--------End sample----------------

Notice in the example above how the 'need to' and 'want to' motivations alternate? We 'should' pay off bills and pay for college. We 'want' to take a vacation and spend money like a madman on a weekend pass just because it feels so very good. By including both 'want to' and 'need to', this copy appeals to the broadest possible audience. No matter what else your copy does, make sure it appeals to a person's emotions. Remember, people do what they want to do, not what they have to do.

If you have a hard time finding the emotional points of your product, service or opportunity, remember that people are moved by the promise of gain or the fear of loss. Using those two super-motivators, it won't be long before your copy will be charged with the emotional electricity that creates orders and causes people to take action now.

Feature Article: Make the Leap to Home Based Business Success
Copyright &copy Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy
http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-22643

Before you can have a successful home based business, you must first possess 3 "intangibles." These are things that must come from WITHIN you.

===> Intangible 1 <===

First, you must have a strong WHY.

Why MUST you have a successful home business? What is driving you? What is it that you CAN'T have in your life anymore and/or what is it that you absolutely MUST HAVE now?

For me, I couldn't stand working 12+ hours a day anymore and missing the experience of my children growing up. I also absolutely HAD TO HAVE the freedom of being able to control my life and finances through a little box (laptop computer) that I could carry with me anywhere in the world and not be tied to anyone's time pressures or demands but my own. That was my carrot and my stick. I felt a great pain deep in my gut of missing out on my children's lives and the incredible freedom that succeeding in a home based business would provide for me. I found my why. You MUST find yours.

===> Intangible 2 <===

You must BELIEVE that it is possible.

If you don't believe that it's POSSIBLE for you to have a successful home based business or make your living from home, you won't. It's that simple.

For me, figuring out that it was possible was just a matter of realizing that many other people were ALREADY making great money working from home. If they could do it, I could too. It would just be a matter of figuring out what those people were doing and then adapting it to my situation.

There is no shortage of undeniable PROOF that people (millions of them) are making money working from home. Just get online and do some research and you'll find countless testimonials and stories of REAL PEOPLE making real money on the Internet. Or head to your local bookstore and you'll find the same documented evidence of this fact. Truth is, it's getting easier and easier to make money with your own home based business.

I've always said that "affiliate marketing" (a simple way to make money from home) is the job of the future. In the "old" days, you had to go to a potential employer, apply for the position and hope for the best. Now you can simply go to any company you want, fill out their affiliate application and start work immediately. Affiliates are the new working class. In fact, making money with affiliate programs or making your living on the Internet is WAY MORE than possible. It is pretty much (or will be soon enough) unavoidable now. Affiliate marketing is the "job" of the future that's already here TODAY.

===> Intangible 3 <===

You must be willing to MAKE THE LEAP.

Ready, FIRE, then aim... This is the operating philosophy you MUST adopt to succeed with a home based business.

That's backwards for most people who like to aim before they fire. The fact is that home based business success is a moving target... The only thing constant about it is change. You need to stop analyzing the game and simply jump into it. You can't learn from the outside... You have to be IN THE RING to truly understand it.

The lesson here is that you will never really be READY to start a home based business. You simply have to start one. It's like having children... You're never really ready, but when it happens you adapt and grow. This is what I call "Making the Leap."

The good news is that the cost of failure with having your own home based business is very small. In the "brick and mortar" world you need to evaluate things very carefully before you decide to open up a business. It's almost always necessary to invest thousands of dollars to get an offline business off the ground. However, on the Internet you can often start a successful business for less than $100. The Plug-In Profit Site is a great example of this: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-22643

You simply need to get IN THE GAME... Each moment that you stay "out there," you're wasting valuable time that you could be learning and skills necessary to build a successful home based business. In fact, if you're not in the game yet, you're ALREADY behind the times. Make the leap to creating a successful home based business today!

About the Author:

Stone Evans, The Home Biz Guy has helped thousands of people in over 200 countries around the world start and run a successful home business. Discover 3 easy steps to start your own home business and subscribe to The Home Biz Guy's FREE Home Business Secrets Mini-Course at: http://www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-22643

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