Copywriting |
The Lead: Sinking The Hook Into Your Prospect
You only have an instant to capture your prospect's attention. No matter the medium - a sales letter, print ad, or commercial - she's going to make an almost instantaneous decision about whether you are worth her time or not. So you'd better start off with a bang. Hopefully, you already have a good headline. The words that come after it are your lead, and it's their job to sink the hook into your prospect and keep her reading or listening until you can convince her that you are the answer to her prayers. Here you introduce your Big Promise. Not just another benefit, but the Granddaddy of all benefits. The One that will reach down into her heart and stimulate some emotion. The One that taps into her core desires. But you don't just tell her how your widget will change her life. And you absolutely, positively, never talk about yourself or your company here. Here, you show her what it will be like when she's experiencing that Big Benefit. Help her to see herself lying on the beach, sipping a Pina Colada because she took your correspondence course. Show her lying in the grass, looking at the clouds with her five-year-old because your widget saved her so much time. You have to see beyond your actual product or service and get to the big promise you can make to your prospect. And, you have to make sure that promise connects with her core beliefs, feelings, and desires in all their complexities. By the time she's finished with your lead, you've sunk a big hook into your prospect. Spend the rest of your conversation reeling her in. Show her why your product delivers on that big promise. If you have room (in a longer sales letter, for example) you can pepper in some more benefits, but always come back to the Big One. Let it be like a golden thread woven throughout the conversation. You catch more flies with honey, or so the old saying goes. And you catch more prospects with a big, vivid promise in your lead. Lisa Packer, author of "How To Dramatically Increase Your Business... Without A Blockbuster Budget" and "7 Ways To Get A Pay Raise From Your Web Site" is an independent Copywriter and Marketing Consultant. Find out how to get these two reports, plus more helpful articles like the one you just read at dramatic-copy.com/. Dramatic Copy: Copywriting That Dramatically Increases Your Business.
MORE RESOURCES: 1 |
RELATED ARTICLES
Writing Benefit-Driven Web Copy - 4 Steps to More Sales You've identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers?Recently I wrote an article explaining how to identify the benefits you offer your customers (divinewrite. Dont Forget The Copywriting Copywriting And Content CreationOne of the most important, but often overlooked aspects of marketing is copywriting. Businesses afford much attention, time and money, on graphics, mail formats and all of the website bells and whistles. Cleaning Up Your Copy When you are beginning to write, you gather as much data as you can. You continually add allied thoughts. Kick-Starting Body Copy Several correspondents to our newsletter, AdBriefing, say that they are having trouble writing body copy for ads. Their problem seems to be the age-old one of how to kick things off - how to make a start. 7 Big Ticket Copywriting Secrets I Learned from Ted Nicholas I recently sponsored and attended Joel Christopher and Ted Nicholas's Double Birthday Bash and Interactive Marketing Summit in beautiful San Antonio, Texas. There was a fantastic lineup of speakers including John Assaraf, Joe Vitale, Brad Fallon, George McKenzie, Shawn Casey, Alan Bechtold, Tom "Big Al" Schreiter, Brian Keith Voiles, Rosalind Gardner, and Sydney Johnson. How To Really Connect With Your Customer In Your Copywriting One of the least talked-about areas in copywriting education is voice. This is probably because it's tough to set general rules for something that's so personal to each of us. Be That Copywriter Everyone Wants to Work With So many copywriters think that it's enough to be a stellar writer and grammatical genius. Oh, but this is so far from true. Be Contagious... Spread The Word! "Melissa" invaded our computers in late 1999, then "I Love You" in 2000. A year later, the "homepage. How To Test The Body Of Your Sales Copy For Weaknesses Your sales copy is the life source of your business. If your sales copy isn't pulling in a decent conservation rate, then your business is suffering. 11 Things You MUST Know Before Hiring a Copywriter! If you're considering hiring copywriting help for your next brochure, Web site, or marketing project. Congratulations! You should get great results if you hire a pro to do it right. Advice for Copywriters: How to Win the Freelance Bidding War Are you a freelance copywriter working from home? If so, you've probably been on the project bidding war sites, like elance.com. Web Copy - How Much is Enough? These days, there's widespread acceptance that a website is an integral part of the marketing plan of any business. Likewise, it's commonly accepted that web copy is a vital component of any website. Discover Your Creativity You have a choice. Do you want to be constructive and positive in a unique way? Or do you want to be destructive and negative in a unique way? History has proven the futility of the latter goal. Direct Mail Sales Letters Flow Better With Subheads A subscriber to my newsletter asks: "Got any good pointers on writing great sub-heads?" Yes, I do. Here they are. Dissolving Buyer Scepticisim ... A Lesson In Copywriting When making a purchasing decision, people have their "rip off radars" on high beam. They're wary and so they should be -- after all, they're about to spend money so they want to be sure they're not going to get ripped off, AND they want to be sure they're going to get the absolute best return on their advertising dollar. Bullshit Avoid the use of the word Bullshit It is important in this new paradigm of political correctness to tone down the language a bit. In this present period if you use such words like Bullshit, even when you are describing something that definitely is complete and total BS; it makes you look just as bad as what ever you are describing. How To Get Started With A Career In Copywriting Careers in copywriting are booming. Could it be that the new and ever growing market on the Internet has helped to fuel this demand? You can bet your sweet keyword that it has! With so many businesses looking to the internet for their freelance copywriters the demand for employees keeps growing. Sticky Homepage Copy in 30 Seconds Yes indeed, that's all you've got, 30 seconds to make your website visitors decide to stick around.. The Lost Art Of Fundamental Copywriting What ever happened to good old fashion, fundamental copywriting? Has anyone seen AIDA? I mean, before you can run, you first have to learn how to walk, right? Yet, I see it over and over again. Marketers who can't even write a simple headline are trying to "hypnotize" readers with "psychological copywriting," because that's what a few of today's copywriting experts are telling them they should do!I'll let you in on a little secret. How to Write a Direct Mail Fundraising Letter (Four Tips for Fund Raising Success) 1. Address your reader as a friend, not as "Friend. |
home | site map |
© 2013 |