Category Archives: Copywriting Resources

Copywriting Interview With Joseph Ratliff, Part II

By | Published July 28, 2011

Here’s part II of my interview with Joseph Ratliff.

What is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your copywriting business?

That is an excellent question Stephen, and I’ve made only one (LOL, kidding). My biggest mistake was in my early days, I was an “order taker” for my clients. They had a project, and I wrote it…turned it in and got paid.

But if you want to survive as a copywriter, you have to be more than an “order taker.” You have to find a way to help a client in more ways than writing the project they are offering. In other words…

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Copywriting Interview With Joseph Ratliff, Part I

By | Published July 27, 2011

Local marketing is all the rage lately. Strangely enough, I’ve never written copy for someone in my city. The closest was across the river in Portland, OR a handful of times.

So when I got the chance to interview Joseph Ratliff I seized it. I know he has experience working both local and global. And this would give me a chance to share valuable information with you… and pick up a few nuggets myself!

Joseph did not disappoint. Here are my first 5 questions to Joseph and his answers.

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Great Copywriting And The 3 B’s

By | Published May 12, 2011

Great CopywritingIf you want to bust out great copywriting every time you stare at the blank page, you’ve gotta learn the 3 B’s of copywriting.

Unfortunately, learning the 3 B’s takes time. I can tell you once, I can tell you twice – but until you practice APPLYING the 3 B’s in your copy… the science-slash-art of copywriting will remain just beyond your grasp.

Kind of like hitting a baseball. I can tell you not to drop your back shoulder when you swing, but you’re going to do it anyway. And you’ll continue to do it until you finally have a eureka moment – realize you’re doing it wrong – and take deliberate steps to fix it.

This article is an attempt to speed up the process and help you have the eureka moment sooner.

For maximum effect, read this article before and after your next copywriting project. Chances are, even though I’ll have you nodding your head in agreement the first time through… when you next read this article you’ll likely notice you “dropped your shoulder,” so to speak.

So here it is…

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GeoSurf Lets You Browse For International Clients

By | Published April 12, 2011

Recently I was given the opportunity to check out an interesting new tool with many valuable uses. And I gotta admit, while it’s good for business it’s also just fun to play with.

The GeoSurf Toolbar

The toolbar is made by a company called BiScience and it’s heavily aimed at online media-buyers who need to keep tabs on their campaigns around the world.

After reviewing the toolbar, it’s clear it can do that job well. But it provides a completely different but valuable service for me, as I’ll get to in a moment.

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Happy Hour Friday 10/22/10

By | Published October 22, 2010

It’s the weekend again! That brings us back to Happy Hour Friday – which I was hesitant to do as I hadn’t made any other posts this week. So I did add another post this morning, check it out: The Shotgun Approach.

Great Twitter Follow:
Lawton Chiles (@lawton_chiles) Lawton Chiles publishes a valuable advertising blog and uses Twitter well to announce new posts and share valuable content. He’s a good example of how to use Twitter.

Meaningful Forum Thread:
Someone on the Warrior Forum discovered that Ben Settle writes amazing bullets: 108 Bullets To Savor. They link to several of Ben’s sales pages with a goldmine of bullets to study.

“Nailed-It” Blog Post:
Is Double Opt-In Overrated? – We’ve talked about single opt-in out performing double opt-in before on this blog. As I’ve been investigating deliverability for my new autoresponder, I ran across this insightful blog post at… wait for it… deliverability.com.

From My Life

My brother wrote and recorded this song. I think it’s awesome! Here’s the video he put on Youtube.

Two soccer games this weekend – pretty excited about that. And I just finished week 11 of p90x. New personal record!

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Copywriting Research Tools For Any Market

By | Published October 13, 2010

Recently I was privy to a conversation from a perspective client who had some questions about hiring a copywriter. They asked…

“Will he know how to write specifically for my audience?”

The answer is almost always “Yes.”

My job as a copywriter is to find out who your ideal customer is and discover what makes them tick. The Internet makes this fairly easy to find out.

The trick is finding and using copywriting research tools…

Many of your prospects will have already searched Google for more information about your marketplace. You can check out the top results to see what your market is likely to be reading currently. (Also pay attention to the ads on the first page.)

You can also copy and paste the URL of these top sites in to Quantcast.com to get an accurate demographic profile of your ideal customer. Also enter the URLs of other known popular sites for your market.

You can go to Yahoo Answers to find out what questions your ideal customer might have about your marketplace and products.

You can go to eBay or Amazon.com to find out what people are buying in your marketplace.

You can go to Clickbank’s Marketplace for affiliates to discover which sales letters are working… and then analyzing them to see why they work. (Look for sales letters with a high gravity, they’re doing the best.)

Those are a few of my most used copywriting research tools. They make it extremely easy to narrow down your target audience and begin to understand them.

I also have a few tricks up my sleeve from reading the great copywriters, mentoring with Michel Fortin, and nearly 7 years of my experience. Maybe I’ll let out some of these tricks in related blog posts soon :)

If you have any copywriting research tools of your own, please leave it as a comment.

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Copywriting FEVER

By | Published September 23, 2010

Ever had copywriting fever? That’s what I’ve had over the last several months as I’ve been putting out a ton of copy, both for myself and multiple clients.

My keyboard is Hot, HOt, HOT!

Not only have I been writing like crazy, I’ve also been plugging away at some new software projects that will be available in the future.

Right now my software offerings are…

Easy Split Test (Free, Opt-in required)

Copy Breeze

…and my new projects are just as exciting (or dare I say, MORE exciting.)

In the midst of all this, I’ve discovered an awesome new site to hone your copywriting instincts. I should give credit to Michel Fortin for pointing it out to me:

Which Test Won

Check out the archives and you’ll find tons of A/B split test results.

The site lets you check out each version first, then guess, and then see which version really won out.

It can be both very humbling AND reaffirming.

Even more valuable, it teaches you to have the proper respect for opinions. Something forum junkies could definitely benefit from.

Check it out and have a great day!

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CopyBreeze Now Available (James Brausch Called Me Out)

By | Published June 8, 2010

Remember James Brausch?

I used to mention him on my blog often when he was posting about Internet business regularly. He retired a couple years ago but now appears to be back. I’ve been reading his articles enthusiastically…

…so imagine my surprise when he called me out in a blog post. Doh!

Apparently he noticed that I still haven’t released Copy Breeze after saying I would more than once. Yikes! So I have to thank him for giving me an extra push to get this thing out here…

Let me tell you about it… it’s AWESOME!

I’ve been writing sales copy inside CopyBreeze for YEARS now and I would NEVER go back to WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver. Those programs are expensive and drive me absolutely NUTS.

Instead, CopyBreeze removes all the distractions and just allows you to TYPE. You don’t have to worry about formatting or getting your WYSIWYG editor to listen.

Just write copy at the speed of thought.

Then when you’re done, hit “Generate.” Out pops a BEAUTIFULLY coded HTML sales page.

(Copy Breeze comes installed with my carefully crafted sales page template designed to maximize sales, so you don’t even need to worry about designing the sales page at all.)

You can click here to order…

Or click below to read the extremely rushed sales page:

Copy Breeze – Stephen Dean’s WYSIWYG Killer

If you have any questions after ordering just leave a comment on this post. I probably won’t publish it but I will email you back.

Cheers!
Stephen

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Ryan Healy Asked Me To Give You A Free Gift

By | Published April 26, 2010

Last month Ryan Healy asked me if I’d like to share an .mp3 Interview Ken McArthy did with Drayton Bird and Bob Bly. (I am one of thousands who have huge respect for those 3 names.)

You can find out more about it and download the MP3 interview here (opt-in required).

I wanted to give the interview a listen before I promoted it on the blog – not so much to make sure it was quality (I knew it would be) – but so that I could give you an idea of what was in it.

Unfortunately I never found time in my schedule to do it. BUMMER for all of us, as I highly recommend visiting the site and downloading the MP3 while it’s still available. (The event the promotion was intended for has already past, so it may not be available much longer.)

So I want to apologize to you for not giving you the heads up on this awesome opportunity.

And because I have a ton of respect for Ryan, I wanted to take the opportunity to promote him and his work in general. His blog is top notch and has been for years. I’ve bought products simply based on Ryan’s recommendation, even without reading the sales letter – and have never been let down.

I highly recommend his business growth strategies blog and suggest checking out his new site at the Copywriting Code.

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Stephen Beat A Marketing Team Of 15

By | Published April 22, 2010
Stephen Dean
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