By Joe Karbo
While it is important to finely craft each and every segment of the direct response or online marketing business if the desired success is to be obtained, perhaps the heart of the operation is in advertising copywriting.
It is in this activity that you have an opportunity to talk directly with the potential customers and tell them how their problem can be solved with your product or service.
If you are going to develop effective copy, you have to sit down, look your customer right in the eye and tell as honestly and plainly as you can, the story you have to tell. Plain conversational English . . . nothing cute or stilted; just conversation between friends and neighbors is what we are talking about. It's a question of communicating, being believable and, above all, being honest.
It is not likely that one can write dishonest ad copy and get the same response one can get with honest copy. In fact, if anything, understate a claim to make it believable.
Address people on an individual basis, not as a mass audience. You are talking to one person . . . one individual's hopes, fears, and dreams.
Beyond that, the best approach is to find a concept, not a product, for which to write an ad. Come up with an ad and then find a product or service to match. Find a need and figure a way to fill that need. Find something that bugs you and then find a way to eliminate the problem.
Take the time to research the problem. Gather information, read, and write down the ideas as they come to mind. Don't be critical of the ideas . . . just jot them down for now in the style of friend to friend.
Relegate the matter of the particular ad copy to the back of your mind for a while and just let your subconscious work on it.
The best copy will flow freely from the cooker of your mind. If it does not come with a free flow . . . let it simmer longer. If you strain to write the copy, it will be obvious and everyone reading it will get the message that you are up-tight about your product and they will stay away from it.
Study and practice to develop your copywriting skills. Read the mail
order ads that you see repeated over and over because they work.
Read Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, and The Art of Plain Writing by Rudolf Franz Flesch, as well as How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively also by Rudolf Flesch & Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples for a technical foundation; however, no book can substitute for your own work.
You have to put your own personality into your copy. Tell your story; personalize it . . . perhaps give something about yourself and how you found this product or service to solve this problem.
Mindlessly copying someone else's ad will not bring the results you want, besides the fact that it is illegal and ethically wrong. There are no magic words or phrases...There is only you . . . telling as best you can, in your own words, about how your product or service can solve the reader's problem. There are only you and your reader, and if you communicate, you are on the road to success; but if you do not, you have failed.
In direct response marketing, the three most important words are…
test, test, test.
Make several tests with your ad copy. Hand it to somebody and watch his or her eye-flow. If their eyes stop, notice where they stop. Don't interrupt their reading, but be aware that something stopped them, that they had to reread something, or pause. You don't want them stopping or analyzing or rereading, if they do, you have lost them.
Then ask them if there is anything they didn't believe or maybe didn't understand. If they tell you what they didn't believe, try to find a way of strengthening their belief by a guarantee, by a testimonial, by proof or substantiation of some kind. That's the main part of the battle in preparing copy that will sell.
As to how to get the potential customer to read the story you have to tell . . . well, you are going to have to do that in as few or as many words as it takes. But the approach is still the same . . . solve that person's problem. Reach out forcefully and directly with headlines that promise to solve a problem. Here are a couple of examples:
* Joe Karbo Ad for The Power of Money Management
Both are examples of aggressively drawing the reader into your story of how your product can solve the reader's problem.
Tell your story...Write your ad...Tell about your product/service; but, if you want your reader to be convinced, you had better be convinced as well, because the reader will know from your copy just how sure you are that the product/service will do the job.
If you have a good product/service that will solve the reader's problem, make sure the reader understands that you are going to fully back that product or service with your guarantee. You are likely going to be committed to a money-back guarantee anyway, so make it clear that you are so convinced that this product/service will do the job that you will promptly take care of any problems which occur with it, including refunding money to unhappy customers.
Best Riches,
Joe Karbo
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