Category Archives: Copywriting Tips

Political Copywriting

By | Published January 9, 2012

Are more people lying these days or is there just a political race in the works?

Ahh, yes, the Republicans in the US are trying to pick a candidate to go up against Obama. That explains it.

And that probably means a lot of copywriters are getting paid a lot of money to write fundraising letters and other campaign materials.

Funny that every candidate has campaign material and fundraising letters going out in their name, that they didn’t write… yet some people refuse to believe Paul had material sent out in his name that he didn’t write. Their proof that Paul actually wrote it? His name is on it. Hmm.

I don’t read too many political fundraising letters but I do pay attention to campaign/marketing strategies.

It’s interesting in politics that one way to get attention is to have a public dispute with another candidate. This helped Ron Paul get attention in 2007 when he sparred with “top-tier” candidate Rudy Guiliani. This time around some lower-tier candidates like Rick Santorum tried to leapfrog their way past Ron Paul by attacking him by name in the debates.

These public disputes or “feuds” like they call them in the music industry can be great for votes or record sales. The trick is to only engage when it helps you.

Jon Huntsman has been trying his hardest to start a feud with Ron Paul right before the New Hampshire vote tomorrow. But so far Paul hasn’t really bitten back because it won’t get him any votes. Unless you believe a stupid video posted unanimously on a YouTube account anyone can create in seconds was really from the Ron Paul campaign, or from a Ron Paul PAC as Fox News and other news sources reported it.

Some conspiracy-minded folks think Hunstman’s campaign might have uploaded the video themselves to help stir a controversy. I sure hope not.

You have to be careful with this tactic in business though. Sometimes by attacking another product you’re just giving it publicity and even credibility.

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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…

Continue reading »

Also posted in Business Tips, Copywriting Heads Up, Copywriting Resources, Internet Advertising Tips | Tagged , , | View Comments

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.

Continue reading »

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Copywriting Continuity And The Marketer’s Folly

By | Published July 6, 2011

So get this: There’s two goldfish sitting in a tank, right?

And one goldfish turns to the other and says, “Do you know how to drive this thing?!”

Believe it or not, that joke was determined to be one of the best jokes IN THE EVER by a scientific study.

But the funny thing here, is, what makes the joke work would make a sales letter BOMB. And bomb BIG.

That’s because what makes the joke work is discontinuity. One situation doesn’t naturally flow to the next. The surprise of a goldfish being in an armored tank rather than a domestic fish tank is funny.

But it doesn’t make the sale…

Continue reading »

Also posted in Internet Advertising Tips | Tagged , | View Comments

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…

Continue reading »

Also posted in Affiliate Copywriting, Business Tips, Copywriting Resources | View Comments

Split Test Myths And Statistics

By | Published March 15, 2011

Several years back I created Easy Split Test for marketers who want to improve their sales copy.

A split test is where you send one page’s traffic to two pieces of copy and calculate which page converts best. Afterwards you stop showing the loser and begin a new test with the winner and a new slightly modified version of it.

One myth is that there must only be ONE difference between the two pieces of copy to have a valid test. That’s not true at all, and marketers have been doing the exact opposite for decades.

Businesses often enlist copywriters to write copy to challenge their control piece.

They may have copy that has been running for years and converting a solid 2%, but they want to see if that copy can be beaten. So a copywriter writes an entirely different ad for the same product to see which ad converts better.

That’s a valid split test.

The only problem that may arrive is in the conclusions you may draw from the test.

If the control ad has a red headline and the challenger has a blue headline, you could not conclude which headline color converts best from the test unless that was the ONLY difference between the two ads.

So if the the control and the challenger are completely different ads, you will not find out the answer to small questions like which order button, background or font works best. But you CAN find out which ad converts best – and that’s useful information.

Once you know which ad converts best, you can begin slightly modifying the winner and testing it against itself to find out the smaller questions – like which order button converts best.

Another mistake is thinking you need a certain number of actions before you stop a test.

That can be a good rule of thumb, especially for offline marketers who struggle using a computer, but now there are calculators that can do the complicated mathematical formulas for you.

One such complicated mathematical formula is the Chi Square test. This test can predict which version will be the winner from surprisingly low amounts of data, so it doesn’t take as long to run a test. (Which is great when you want to optimize a sales letter fast.)

Easy Split Test has the Chi Square test programmed in to it, so you’ll be notified when your test hits 95% confidence.

And you can search google for “Chi Square calculator” to discover the statistical confidence of any test you’re currently running.

Either way, the marketers who are #WINNING are split testing. Go ready spaghetti and get to work!

Also posted in Business Tips, Internet Advertising Tips, Multivariate Testing | View Comments

The Most Important Letter You’ll Ever Read

By | Published March 10, 2011

“The Most Important Letter You’ll Ever Read.” Ya right.

Ever read that line in a sales letter? I think it has it’s place. And this isn’t it…

“If you’ve ever wanted to go birdwatching in your backyard, then this is the most important letter you’ll ever read.”

Could anyone possibly believe that birdwatching is the most pressing issue a person has experienced in their ENTIRE life.

Nope, it’s unbelievable. And in copywriting, every time you make a claim you need to back it up. This claim is indefensible here, and even laughable.

In fact, I laughed out loud yesterday watching a TV commercial use the line for a product equally trivial.

As it turns out, “the most important letter you’ll ever read” is often a sign of lazy copywriting. And I know that from my own experience.

The only time to use that line is when it may be true – like for life insurance or identity theft protection. With products like those, it’s not too hard to back up the claim.

Another alternative is to change the line, like Ryan Healy did for the Copywriting Code:

“…then this may be the most profitable letter you ever read.”

Ryan then goes on to back up this claim throughout the letter. That’s doing things right.

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Are You An Action-Taker?

By | Published March 7, 2011

A few years back I was at Ryan Deiss’ Ultimate List Building Bootcamp, which was amazing.

It was the first time I saw Keith Baxter speak and he had me writing notes at warp speed. It was a great presentation on traffic generation and link building.

One technique in particular stuck out to me. So that night in my hotel room I bought the software he recommended and put the the process to work.

It only took me an hour or so, but I took action nonetheless.

The next day I saw Keith talking to a small crowd that had gathered around him. I approached and when it fell silent I told Keith I put his plan in to action.

He looked right at me and said, “Good job. I bet you’re one of the only ones who will take action.”

And he was probably right.

Taking action is rare. That’s why the Ready Spaghetti challenge focuses on doing rather than learning.

I’m going to put several steps in to action.

Some of them may not work. Some of them will. And I’ll learn from it.

But I’ll do the learning AFTER I take action. I’ll learn from experience, the best kind of learning.

It’s not too late to join March’s Ready Spaghetti Challenge. If you’re thinking about it, why not join us now and leave a comment?

Also posted in Business Tips, Internet Advertising Tips, Productivity & Success, Ready Spaghetti | View Comments

A Story Of Two Ranked Videos

By | Published March 2, 2011

I’ve been brainstorming how to get my video on the front page of a google search result. And of course one way to do it is to reverse-engineer videos that have already made it.

If you search google for “Magic Trick” two videos come up before any page results.

Both videos have “Magic Trick” in the title.

Both videos are old: 2007 and 2006.

Both videos have more than 8 million views.

And both videos have thousands of likes and dislikes, and thousands of comments.

That would be hard to beat! So I’ll be going after keywords that are a bit less competitive.

But I also noticed something about these two “Magic Trick” videos that are less obvious. They have hundreds of links pointing to them!

So I’m guessing when Andy Wilson told me that getting videos linked is similar to getting pages linked, he was right. Get links pointing to your videos.

Andy had some more tips for me as well. The first one will help you get to that 8 million views mark :)

1) You can have your video appear as a related video to popular videos in the same category by making sure your tags are the same. This means if you track down youtube copywriting videos with high views you can make sure your video has the same tags, etc and essentially “piggyback” off of them.

And here is Andy’s favorite SEO tool, which you may have heard of.

Market Samurai

There’s the link to the tool. I’ve been with it since the earlier stages of development and the support and team behind the operation are top notch.

There are oodles of training videos and Ed Dale devotes nearly 1/3rd of his 30 day challenge (now called “the challenge”) to using Market Samurai and its applications.

If you’re looking to dabble in SEO you should check it out. It’s pretty easy and straight forward to use. The competition and research modules are worth the whatever price by themselves.

Also posted in Business Tips, Internet Advertising Tips, Ready Spaghetti, Traffic | View Comments

Booming Businesses In A Struggling Economy

By | Published February 28, 2011

Guess which business is a money tree in this struggling economy?

The Dollar Tree. Their profits were up 20% last quarter. And their largest growing demographic is income earners of $100,000+.

People are changing their spending habits. They’re looking for bargains. They’re saving.

All of their shopping decisions are being looked at through a new lens.

And that includes your offer. So here’s what you can take away from this…

1) Test your prices. Both higher and lower, but make sure you test your prices. The prices that worked 3-4 years ago could be a thing of the past for years to come.

2) Make sure to hire a copywriter that knows how to paint your product as a no-brainer purchase in a recession. It takes more than it used to – and your biggest competitor isn’t another product, it’s buying nothing at all.

Also posted in Business Tips, Internet Advertising Tips | View Comments

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