First, let me tell you a funny story: When I attended my first internet marketing seminar, I knew almost nothing about this business. When a person introduced herself as being a copywriter, I thought she was registering copyrights for texts. I was relieved to see that the man next to me also did not have a clue what copywriters did.
Now that you started making money on the web, you might be looking at ways to improve your sales, conversion rates and that’s perfectly normal.
Many people have spent countless hours changing and testing such little things as a color or a word on their web sites or sales letter and saw that their conversion rates changed drastically. There are numerous softwares out there that test which headlines, text or pictures convert most. I must admit though that the only tracking I have been doing so far is my sales! (Give me a break, I am still working full time and have four children! Lol).
Allow me now to warn you about what will follow. You wanted controversy, you wanted fighting, you wanted blood… Well, you are going to get all them on this page. Hence, although I do not mean in any way to insult any copywriter out there, I truly believe that the best copywriter for your product is YOU!
I have hired copywriters in the past and I know they were good by the industry’s standards but I ended-up regretting it and going with my own texts.
Here is the deal:
+ Copywriters will write in their own language and often I felt after reading their proposed texts: this is not me talking. I don’t even relate to that.
+ One of the copywriters I hired basically copied my sales letter and put exclamation marks everywhere and charged me hundreds of dollars to do so.
+ Since you need to describe your product or service, you already need to start the writing yourself. Nobody knows your product better than you do.
+ Copywriters sometimes have their own agendas and will drive your campaign in a direction totally different from the one you want. I had one of my sales letters re-written and all that was focused on was the money but my target market was people seeking a happier and healthier life. Not good.
First, you need to know, understand and believe in your product. People can spot a phony usually just by reading their sales letter. If you are not good at writing, you can record yourself talking to a friend about your product or services. Imagine you are at a dinner and the person sitting next to you is asking you about what you are offering on your web site. What would you tell her?
When writing your web pages, sales letter or newsletter, there are a few rules that need to be followed:
1) Be clear and to the point. If you are selling a turn-key software, tell people what it will do for them (stay away from the technical stuff unless you are selling to a very technical crowd).
2) There should be a very clear call to action: click here for… As internet marketing beginners, we tend to all fall in the trap of wanting to sell everything on one page. What happens is that if your customer is confused, he leaves. You have to consider your customer as needing a clear and simple action plan.
3) The general rule is one action per page. I admit I have been guilty of offering my products, subscribing to my newsletter, affiliate products and adsense ads all on one page. My conversion rate was not very good for those pages.
4) There has been so many debates on internet marketing forums about how long a sales letter should be (yawn). My take on this is say what you want and need to say and then offer your simple call to action and then shut up!
5) The sales letter should identify a problem your customer has and then offer the solution to the problem. If the customer really feels like you have answered their needs, they will buy your product.
6) We all know that most people buy from emotions and then justify their purchase with logical reasons. You have to appeal to your customer’s needs and answer their number one question: ”What’s in it for me?”
7) Inserting bullets in your sales letter is a good selling point.
8) Many people, like me, skim through sales letters by just reading the headlines.
"Your paragraphs should be short (five lines or less) and insert frequent headlines to draw attention to your most important messages."
9) Resist the temptation to underline and highlight everything. The last thing you want is to draw your customer blind!
10) Many people have created what they call “swap files” which is just a document with all the sales letters they liked. Their intention is in no way to copy the sales letter by rather to be “inspired” by them and be able to create their own magic sales letters. There are also books and ebooks like the one called “words that sells” that can give you good clues on positive words to use in order to convert your sales better.
11) You might decide in the end that you do want to hire a copywriter and that’s just fine. Before you hire them, I suggest you ask to see their previous works and make sure that they will work on your sales letter until you are satisfied.
HERE IS YOUR CALL TO ACTION:
Browse the internet and look at sales letter but with a writer’s point of view. Better yet, go back to a sales letter of a product you bought and see what made you click. The lesson will be even more valuable if you bought the product and either never used it or find it not very useful. You will then know what good copywriting is about!
There are tools you can use to help you create great sales letters. Yannick Silver is a great internet marketer who has done very very very well in selling his products to other people. He offers great copywriting products that may help you:
If you feel you are not quite ready for such an in dept course but you want to start copywriting, you will need this: http://webcopysecrets.com/?51495 You can listen to these fantastic recordings in your car while stuck in traffic!
You can always come back later and get the more advanced products when you are ready. The links will still be here.
Once your copy is written, have it read by your friends and family (the dumber the friends, the better) and ask if they understand everything and their feelings about the copy. Change what needs to be changed and then you can change it as needed afterwards.
Now that you started making money on the web, you might be looking at ways to improve your sales, conversion rates and that’s perfectly normal. 
+ Copywriters will write in their own language and often I felt after reading their proposed texts: this is not me talking. I don’t even relate to that.
First, you need to know, understand and believe in your product. People can spot a phony usually just by reading their sales letter. If you are not good at writing, you can record yourself talking to a friend about your product or services. Imagine you are at a dinner and the person sitting next to you is asking you about what you are offering on your web site. What would you tell her? 
2) There should be a very clear call to action: click here for… As internet marketing beginners, we tend to all fall in the trap of wanting to sell everything on one page. What happens is that if your customer is confused, he leaves. You have to consider your customer as needing a clear and simple action plan.
6) We all know that most people buy from emotions and then justify their purchase with logical reasons. You have to appeal to your customer’s needs and answer their number one question: ”What’s in it for me?” 
9) Resist the temptation to underline and highlight everything. The last thing you want is to draw your customer blind! 
Browse the internet and look at sales letter but with a writer’s point of view. Better yet, go back to a sales letter of a product you bought and see what made you click. The lesson will be even more valuable if you bought the product and either never used it or find it not very useful. You will then know what good copywriting is about!