Copywriting Dean

Seems like the economy has people tightening their belts. It’s not as easy to throw money at business opportunities these days.

And one thing I’ve noticed for sure is that people are being more cautious before hiring a copywriter.

Good.

One question I get a lot is, “Are you sure you can improve my conversion rate?” Or, “Can you promise a 2% conversion rate?”

Sounds to me like many online marketers are getting burned. And while I tend to agree with Bob Bly who says it’s dishonest to guarantee a conversion rate, I refuse to be a copywriter who turns his back on a client after handing over the copy.

So when you invest $4 to $6k with me for your sales copy, I’m ready and willing to help you test and track your copy for 30 days. With software I even customized myself to get results as quickly as possible.

Often times underperforming copy can be fixed with just a tweak here and there, and multivariate testing can help you find it.

So if your new copy is missing the mark a bit at first, I’ll be tweaking the copy to fix the problem maybe even before you notice!

This makes it easy for potential clients to decide…

…which copywriter should they hire in a recession when every dollar counts?

The copywriter who sticks around to test and track your copy to make sure it’s a winner? Or the copywriter who hands it over and is done with you.

The answer is clear, and you can fill out an application here: Copy Productions.

I recently was reminded of a quote from Michel Fortin that I blogged about once before. In one line, he sums up the problem with many of the new copywriters sprouting up on the web:

“The biggest error that most people commit when they write copy is that they try to be clever, trying to ‘WOW’ people with every sentence.” ~ Michel Fortin

EXACTLY. Here’s an example to show his point.

The prospect asks himself…

“How can I retire at 50 on my current income?”

The faux copywriter writes this headline for the prospect…

Attention! You Are About To Discover How You Can Unleash A Flood Of Interest-Generating Cash In To Your Bank Account So You Can Retire Young And Never Worry About Money Again!

The pro copywriter writes this headline for the prospect…

“How To Retire At 50 On Your Current Income.”

Copywriting isn’t about trying to impress the reader, it’s about connecting with the reader. While it’s important to get the prospect excited, it’s just as important to make your ideas as exciting as your words… or maybe more so.

Do you have a blog? Do you have a question about writing sales copy, designing squeeze pages, creating products, getting traffic… or just want some advice on a headline?

Then leave a comment to this post with your question (and make sure to list your blog as your website in the comment fields).

If you’ll agree to post my answer to your blog with a link back to here, I’ll answer your question at length. That’s worth at least $100, so I highly recommend taking advantage of this opportunity.

If you don’t have a question but do have a blog, how about swapping guest posts? Either way, leave a comment!

Check out these 4 products I’ve personally checked out and love…

• Productivity Engineering
• Internet Business Box
• The Secrets of a 10% Conversion Rate!
• Make Money “One Bite At A Time”

All 4 of them are worth at least double the asking price, so I decided to see if I could highlight them here.

Each product owner gave me permission to do so, and even decided to give me a commission for any sales I send their way. Cool!

If you purchase one and are not happy with it, you probably shouldn’t trust my opinion again. It’s with that understanding that I highly recommend these products.

Two of my big first winners were for Kaviraj Kodai at UltimateMarketingCenter.

My copy skyrocketed his income for years after making the smart decision to fill out an application for my services.

“My Conversion Rate Has Skyrocketed!”

“I have two words about the sales letter. Mind blowing! You’re a genius copywriter.”

“Business has been doing great. My conversion rate has skyrocketed ever since you wrote those sales letters for me. I can’t thank you enough for doing such a marvelous job. You’re the first person I’m going to think about every time I start a new project that requires copywriting.”

Kaviraj Kodai, ultimatemarketingcenter.com

You can hire me to write your sales copy at Copy Productions.

Many copywriters advise that you keep a swipe file. Meaning that you keep a collection of high quality advertisements to study and get ideas from when writing your own copy.

There are ways to collect an awesome set of offline advertisments… and one way is to BUY products from successful offline mailers. But frankly I’ve never gone this route.

I primarily write copy online and I look for online copy to put in my swipe file.

In the past when I found copy I liked I’d bookmark it or add it to my favorites. This worked OK… until the site disappeared, the offer was taken down or the copy changed.

Then I tried saving the webpage with the copy to my computer. This works OK still. But it can be messy with all the extra files attached to the webpage. Especially if all I want to keep is a headline.

So now I’ve discovered my favorite method for keeping a collection of swiped ads.

Windows Vista, Windows 7 and some versions of Windows XP have a “Snipping Tool” that allows you to highlight a portion of your screen and save it as an image.

Now it’s easy and painless to save a simple headline. Take for example this quick swipe of the headline from my Copywriting Services page. (Which of course was based on a swiped headline

I’ve set up a folder on my PC’s “Desktop” called appropriately, “Swipe File.” And another folder inside there is named “Headlines.” I save all swiped headlines in here.

Then when it’s time to look at successful headlines, I can open up any image inside this folder. Windows opens the image inside of it’s photo viewer and allows me to hit “Next” over and over again browsing my swiped headlines.

Fantastic! So much cleaner than paper or saved web pages.

Of course, most of the images you are creating involve copyrighted material. So you shouldn’t be sharing or selling your swipe file with anyone.

But creating a swipe file this way for your personal use is no problem. (At least that’s what I believe. I’m no lawyer, so do your own research.)

In any case, you have permission to swipe any of my sales copy for your personal use in this way.

And if you’re looking for more copy to swipe, you might start here:

Productivity Engineering

Good luck hunting and swiping!

Ed Charkow filled out an application to write sales copy for a $197 product. I liked the service they were offering and took them up on the offer.

After the project Ed left me this testimonial:

“…9 Hours To Pay Off The Sales Letter…”

“Stephen did such a rotten job for us it took all of 9 hours to pay off the sales letter with PPC ads only. I don’t recommend him unless you want a good sales letter at a decent price.

“(For those of you don’t get sarcasm – Stephen is a good guy who will take care of you and do a great job.)”

Ed Charkow

You can hire me to write your sales copy at Copy Productions.

Veteran affiliate Rhen Khong filled out an application at CopyProductions.com. I accepted his application and wrote a sales piece for an affiliate product he was promoting.

More than a year later he left me this testimonial.

Stephen Beat A Marketing Team Of Over 15 People

“Stephen wrote a piece for me last year that was directly responsible for $37,410.00 worth of affiliate commissions so far.

“His copy was so good that I started noticing my merchant (who have a direct response marketing team of over 15 people) literally copied my landing page’s headline and changed all their Google ads!”

Rhen Khong, Veteran Affiliate Marketer

You can hire me to write your sales copy at CopyProductions.com.

I met Shawn Pringle at Jim Edwards’ Bootcamp in Atlanta.

After chatting for a bit he decided to hire me to write sales copy. I put my new copy to the test against the previous copy and we saw sales instantly double.

“Boosted My Conversion Rate Substantially…”

“Not only is Stephen a great copywriter that boosted my conversion rate substantially (paying for his fee rather quickly), he is also one heck of a good guy!

“I met him personally a few years back at an IM event and he’s a stand up guy that’ll treat you right. You can’t go wrong working with Stephen.”

Shawn Pringle,
FromShawn.com

You can hire me to write your sales copy at Copy Productions.

Finally, the WYSIWYG Killer has a name. “Copy Breeze” won out over several other choices… partially because it was one of the few choices with an available domain name…

and mostly because it makes writing copy a breeze. No doubt about it.

The copywriting method can change from copywriter to copywriter, but the consensus is that the best way to write copy is to just sit down and WRITE.

Write at the speed of light and don’t bother with making it sound “just right.”

Copy Breeze allows you to do just that. All the distractions are taken away. The software is extremely light on resources so it doesn’t bog down your computer and you never have to wait for the screen to catch up to your fingers.

It eliminates “noise” by ONLY allowing you to write. So you don’t have the option to play with tables, fonts, styles, CSS and whatever else you can find in a myriad of pull down menus and floating tool boxes.

No, this is the tool for copywriters that just allows you to write amazing copy.

And when you’re finished, at the click of a button, your copy is made in to a phenomenal HTML page designed for maximum sales. It’s based on the sales template I put together while working with Michel Fortin.

One click, and you’re ready to publish your sales page to the web.

And that’s why, as a professional copywriter, I write exclusively in Copy Breeze.

It’ll be released next week.