5 Advanced Copywriting Tips

On Thursday night I’ll be meeting superstar copywriter Robert Phillips for dinner, and while I won’t be recording our conversation, I’ll bring you some of his tips on Monday, or maybe even in Friday’s QnA email.

Fortunately I did recall a call with Robert a couple of months ago – for my Mastermind group – and recently I went through and summarized his 5 top tips for closing the sale with good copy.

According to Robert, it’s all about having a powerful call to action.

So naturally, I asked him to explain.

Here’s what he said…

If you’ve made a great sales presentation, you’ve got the problem agitation and now you’re offering the solution.

Make sure that you explicitly ask for the order and give clear directions, because a lot of people shy away from asking for the order.  They never really say “Order Now”.

With your call to action just make it clear what you want people to do.

Those are effective strategies for getting people to act now.

A couple of ways you could do urgency would be maybe “The first 200 people to respond get in at $47 plus they get some kind of super bonus. But if you’re number 201 the bonus disappears and the price rises to $97”.

It’s pretty easy to figure out who’s number 201 where the price will kind of automatically jump up to that.

That motivates people, because people tend to be motivated more by the fear of loss than the prospected gain.

So they’re sitting there thinking, “Oh my, if I wait then I might miss out on that $47 plus the bonus.”

If you are advertising a seminar with a limited number of seats available, or selling DVD’s with only a limited number produced, both are real forms of scarcity and need to be highlighted in your copy.

The PS is the second most read part of the sales letter, and the headline is number one (of course).

A lot of people are skimmers and they’ll just skin through the copy until they reach and read the PS.

Knowing that, use that to your advantage. In the PS you should restate the offer, guarantee, and call to action as clearly and concisely as possible. If you can work in

scarcity and urgency, all the better.

There are times where it might be appropriate to challenge your readers, to “call them out” you could say.

For example, in a recent Ryan Deiss video sales letter, Ryan said something like:

“There are three types of people in the world.  The first type makes things happen, the second type watches things happen and the third type wonders what happened. So which type are you?”

It challenges the reader/viewer to take action…Are you going to sit around and let things happen or are you going to make things happen?

You’re challenging people into taking action.

If possible, you want to capture the email addresses of people who visited your sales page but didn’t order.

For those folks, you’ll create a follow-up email sequence.

Robert, the expert copywriter for Glazer-Kennedy, uses something like this:

“Think about the following. The most successful people are usually the quickest to take advantage of opportunities because they know that complacency is the enemy of both security and progress.

“They understand that the time will never be right to take the action that lifts you up to higher achievement.

“The cliché is true.  Time waits for no one, there are always ample reasons to wait, and the overwhelming and unsuccessful majority do just that.

“But this is a time of rapid change, difficult challenges and enormous opportunity all best confronted by acting now, not by waiting. So take action today and complete your order”.

This sales piece also includes a PS that says, “There are all sorts of decisions you can make about this that have no upside potential whatsoever. All sorts of excuses you can make for those decisions. And the harsh truth is they speak to your true intentions.

“If you’re truly serious about…,” and then you just insert your benefits.

For example:

“If you’re truly serious about getting six-pack abs then there’s only one decision offering enormous upside potential. Don’t procrastinate, don’t be the kind of person who sits on the sidelines and watches as others achieve the kind of success you deserve. Take action now.”

So that’s a real life example to spur people to get off their butt and take action now.

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Thanks Robert, and I’ll see you at dinner on Thursday night.

By the way, if you’re new to InternetIndependence.com, and haven’t listened to my sales copy audio call, you can do so for free here:

=> Free Copywriting Teleseminar

(Scroll down, the link to the call is at the bottom of that page.)

Learn something new everyday,

Craig Ballantyne

InternetIndependence.com

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines

what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz