A few weeks ago I highlighted Copywriting as one of the 4 Key Skills to Business Success. The positive effect that a good sales copy can have on your bottom line is immense – so much rides on this one factor and yet how much does any of us know about it?
Well, I understood the importance of it with regard to conversion rates. Put simply, the better the sales copy the more money you will make:) And for every percentage increase in the conversion rates the more cash you are putting in the bank. So this made me inquisitive of Copywriting and I wanted to learn more about it.
There are many so-called experts out there but one mans name in particular kept coming up when I was researching who to study. That man is John Carlton, a Copywriting veteran who has more than 30 years experience in the industry.
Naturally I hunted down one of Johns books and spent this past week reading it cover-to-cover. “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” is an extremely informative book on the Art of Copywriting and having studied it I really feel I understand the whole concept a whole lot better.
I know many believe that Copywriting is something that should be outsourced to the professionals but I think it’s important to still have an understanding of it. If however outsourcing this sort of thing is beyond your budget at the moment then I highly recommend you do some investigations and learn more about how to construct a successful advertisement before jumping in off the deep-end. The little time investment necessary will be repaid in abundance when the orders start flooding in…
Having read John’s book it is easy to see how he commands a basic fee of $15k plus commissions and how he is booked months in advance for any assignments. The guy knows his stuff – I tell you that.
Everything from Creating an awesome Hook, what psychological buttons to push and how to Close the Deal are all explained in perfect detail and in easy to understand language. I particularly liked how he demonstrated the proper flow a sales page should follow and how every single words contributes to the momentum of the add as it approaches it’s peak i.e. the Order Button!!
There were a lot of lightbulbs going on in my mind as I turned each page and read each chapter. I’m quite excited about what improvements I will yield when I implement his strategies to my own sales copies. Lucky for me I’m a testing-nut so I will be able to compare my results and see if any improvements have been achieved.
Either way I’m glad I took the time to research this area further because it was something I knew very little about before. I know John Carlton has numerous products floating around so I think I’ll invest in one of his courses in the near future so I can really get my head around it all.
Mini Giveaway Event Update
Also, I have been following up on the Mini Giveaway idea from last week. I spent some more time learning about the whole concept in more detail and read a few other reports that I found online. Well, so far so good – in Kelvins ebook he claims that anyone could learn the system and have it up and running in under a day…
I wasn’t entirely convinced by this, it looked like there was a fair bit of work involved setting up the site and configuring everything correctly – but I gave it a shot. The result being I now have my own Mini Giveaway website online and ready to launch my first event. All I need to do is network with some other willing list builders and then put the system to the test.
I’m not sure how long it will take me to organize one of these events but I’ll keep the blog updated with any progress I make and will of course publish whatever results I see. I’m not going to make any wild claims about what the outcome of this experiment might be but I’m the kind of guy who likes to learn things for himself and I’m interested in trying this method out.
If the results are good then happy days and I will be able to “Rinse & Repeat” the process for as long as I wish. If things don’t go to Plan then at least I’ll be able to say I tried it and failed. And failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for as my mentor often says “Fail Forward – Fast!”
With each failure comes a lesson, some knowledge you can put down to experience and use to your advantage in the future.
So with that being said I’ll sign off there for today, but before I go – are there any new skills that you have been studying recently or are there any area’s that you plan to improve on in the near future? Leave a comment below, I’d love to know how you’re all doing…
Cheers – Noel.
Hi Noel
I agree with you about Copywriting but now depends because if you sell a low price product you really dont have to be good in this field and for a high price produce is better to pay someone else to do it for you.
Let us know more about your results with giveaway.
Marius
Hi Marius,
Thanks for you input. Ya, from what I understand the more expensive the item the longer the sales copy, whilst a fairly cheap product can have a far short copy. Sure, I’ll keep you updated about the Mini Giveaways, no worries.
– Noel.
Awesome Post. I grabbed a copy of “Advertising Secrets of The Written Word” by Joe Sugarman and have really enjoyed reading it.
I will Have to try and get my hands on “Kick Ass” as well.
-Jeff T.
Cool, must have a look for that one myself. I think it’s great to read about these things, because even on a small scale selling info products they can really help you achieve some nice results by following their advice.
Have a look for “Kick Ass” if you can – it’s a very funny book aswel as being full of Copywriting Gold 🙂 🙂
Cheers – Noel.
Hi Noel,
I was once into copyrighting too. But I just learned the
basic few to have a more general knowledge on copyrighting.
It’s definitely an interesting subject to learn & powerful if you
know what you are doing.
If you are really into copyrighting, I would definitely you reading
and studying the works of Eugene Schwartz.
I was once in his audio recordings & it definitely blew me away.
Take care buddy.:)
-Muhsin
Thanks Muhsin for that tip – I’ll have to look up some of his work.
Cheers for that,
Noel.
Interesting post. I haven’t read too much on the secrets of copywriting, but obviously it remains an important part of making sales. It looks like really good ones are way out of my price range 🙂
Hi Chikara – thanks for your comment;)
Have a look around on Google – with a bit of luck you’ll come across a free ebook by one of those “Copywriting Kings” It’s true some of their courses are Big Ticket items but I’d start with the basics first and see how you get on.
Cheers – Noel.
I agree Noel, its always good to have a good grasp of copywriting because as marketers everything we do is in some way to influence others.
Glad you got your giveaway event up and ready to go. I’ve volunteered my ebooks to your project before. Never really jumped into a giveaway before so maybe we can learn together.
Thanks Dee,
Ya, it’s baby-steps for me with the Giveaway event but I’m looking forward to learning more about it.
All the Best – Noel.
Hi Noel,
Ah, copywriting, love it or hate it, it’s a must-have!
Back when I was first starting my blog, I bought a copy of Joe Vitale’s Hypnotic Writing – still reference that book often.
I believe John Carlton was one of his mentors, he at least talks about him in his book.
Anyway, doing it, testing it and tweaking it only make you better and better.
Great insights on the book – I myself am amazed at good copywriting, it fascinates me and makes me want to write better.
~Christine
Thanks Christine, yup me too – I really enjoyed learning about the psychology behind what makes people click the order button. What Trigger words to use and how to craft a successful sales letter. Those guys really have a way with words and it’s easy to understand how they command such high fee’s.
Thanks for dropping by;)
Noel.
Hi Noel,
I’ve read a few books on copywriting and there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. You have to strike a delicate balance between enthusiasm and appearing “pushy”.
Another difficult area is writing for an affiliate site. Here you are not aiming for the sale, but to entice the reader to click over to the merchant’s site. Sounds simple, but it isn’t.
Thanks
Wendy
Hi Wendy,
Thanks for that advice – I’m getting great tips from people this week:)
All the Best – Noel.
Hi Noel
“With each failure comes a lesson, some knowledge you can put down to experience and use to your advantage in the future.”
…and if we don’t learn from our experience and carry on doing the same things, expecting a different outcome? Well, we’re probably insane (according to Einstein)!
Have a good weekend.
Brad
Hey Brad!
Don’t keep doing the same things expecting a different outcome unless you want to spend some time in the funny farm Lol
Just use the knowledge you’ve gained from failure to make better decisions in the future. Well that’s what I’m “trying” to do! Good old Einstein, a perfect start to the weekend!
Have a Good One buddy,
Noel.
Hi Noel.
I just wanted to stop by and check out your blog and see how it’s going. That was about a half an hour ago 🙂
You genuinely got some really good content in here. I think anyone that joins up to your newsletter will definetly receive better information here for free than what some people are charging stupid amounts of money for.
Your definetly part of a small group of online marketers that can be trusted and whos word you can take.
I really look forward to seeing how you get on in the future.
Until then I wish you all the best mate,
Sean
Hi Sean,
Thanks very much for the kind words – much appreciated!
Ya, all is going very well here. It’s all “Baby-Steps” at the moment but things are progressing nicely;)
Glad you enjoyed you visit!
Noel.
Hey Noel,
Thanks for sharing this great post.
I’ve read some amazing sales pages out there that resulted in me not finding the buy button fast enough and being like, buy,buy,buy!. I’ve always been interested in how these writers create compelling sales copy like that and this sounds like a great read. Also, since outsourcing is out of my budget at the moment, this knowledge would be very useful. Thanks for the heads-up!
All the best,
Jas
No worries Jas;)
I’m in the same boat – couldn’t afford the huge outlay for a quality copywriter at the moment so learning about this stuff myself is the next best thing!
Very interesting subject if nothing else, I could tell from reading the book that there’s an awful lot going on behinf-the-scenes in these sales copie, a lot of psychological buttons being pressed!
Thanks for you comment,
Noel.
I agree mate, I think it’s an essential skill. For your blog posts, you emails and everything you write online. Really important plus it’s interesting stuff.
What I’ve just realized is that the biggest benefits of studying copywriting is that you learn copy isn’t written, it’s assembled. And that begins with researching your market and understanding what they really need. I think that’s the missing ingredient to all the affiliates with review sites punting products instead of thinking why do visitors what these products in the first place.
Hey Alan,
I agree, those affiliate sites turn me off straight away – they don’t seem to understand the concept of “giving value” and just sell, sell and sell.. As you mentioned if you understand your market and can satisfy your customers needs and base your Copywriting around that I think you’ll see greater success.
And you’re right, it is really interesting – I never gave it much thought before but I now get why good writers are in such demand..
Cheers,
Noel.