Newsflash! See below...

What IS copywriting anyway?

My wife would tell you "my husband writes junk mail".

As hard as that is to swallow, I've got to admit her description is pretty accurate. At least it's almost universally understandable.

Copywriting is writing written to persuade - it's often described as "salesmanship in print".

If you read a movie review and decide whether or not to see the movie due to the review: that's copywriting.

If your kid talks you into buying him an ice cream cone - that's salesmanship.

If you see an article that moves you to donate to a cause - that's copywriting.

Copywriting can take many forms. It can be a letter (junk mail), a radio ad, TV commercial, or a billboard. What they all have in common is they attempt to persuade folks to take action.

Now that you know that, I'll warn you: you won't see highly polished copywriting every time we offer something. Why? Well there could be a couple of reasons.

Some of what we offer here are things we didn't develop ourselves but we bought for resale. Sometimes it comes with copy that's not great. But we feel the product is good enough where it should speak for itself. And since our goal is to only offer "the good stuff", we expect to build a certain amount of trust. You know...

Like the "Used car dealer" in every town who offers a car for sale and can't get a bite because no one trusts him. Even if THIS car is a fantastic deal - it is still a hard sale. But next door to him...

Is a mechanic with a great reputation for quality and honesty. He offers the exact same model for sale (maybe even for a few dollars more than the car next door) and it gets snapped up in short order. Why is that?

Is it because the mechanic had better "sales copy"? Hardly. He stuck a sign in the windshield that said "for sale" and the price.

Is it because he was better at advertising? Nope. Just the sign.

Did the mechanic have a better sales pitch? Maybe. He said "Here's the keys, take it for a spin. If you like it, write me a check when you can - within reason. If something goes wrong - I'll be here."

We feel much the same way about our products. We'll tell you what it is and what it does. We're not going to put on our plaid "salesman's uniform" to get your attention. Sure there are some products that warrant the extra sales pitch but for the most part, we figure if you just HAVE to be "sold", you'll find someone willing to do so.

On the other hand we DO try to offer most everything with the necessary elements of a good sales letter. We try to show you the best benefits of what we're offering - show you what's in it for you. We do make it easy to buy. We (usually) take all the risk with a money-back guarantee. Those times we don't it's because the product is so good AND so cheap we don't want to piddle around with those few folks who just gotta have something for nothing no matter how good the deal is.

In any case, copywriting is a useful skill to know and use and we DO use it now and then. But we don't go all out with every product. If you want to learn this most valuable skill yourself, we've got an excellent selection for you coming up in the next few weeks.

One thing you will notice about copywriting books, courses, seminars - what have you - they all start with pretty much the same thing: headlines.

A good headline, article title, or auction title can make or break you. It can also be the hardest part of a sales message to write. In any case they all tell you to focus on headlines. You might even get sick of hearing it. But this repetition should be a red flag to you.

There HAS to be a reason anything is repeated so often by so many people. Most times that reason is one of two:

Either the information is something you really must pay attention to or...

Everybody is wrong.

Both are possible but usually things are repeated because it's too important to ignore. Think "location, location, location" and then ask youself how many successful restaurants have you seen in the middle of nowhere and you'll get the idea.

News News News!

We've launched a site focusing exclusively for copywriting called Copy Tactics. It takes a tactical approach to improving sales copy. In other words we suggest any page can be improved one chunk at a time.

We've also released two products to help:

First - Paperless Copywriting is an affordable "course" in copywriting. It's actually a collection of 10 of the best volumes - written by top web copywriters and arrainged into six modules. You'll learn what good copy is, how to write it effetively and put it all up on a web site. We've invested thousands in our copywriting education - you can get much the same information for pennies on the dollar. Check out Paperless Copywriting here.

Our second release is "22 Secret Hot Buttons" - This is a truly tactical guide to the meat of online sales - the triggers that make turn cold prospects into hot customers. Learn them, use them and watch your sales skyrocket. Visit the 22 Secret Hot Buttons page here.

There's more to come including special rewards for loyal subscribers so you'll want to sign up for our Copy Tactics Blog Alerts too.

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