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Words that burst out on the page and make sales are what you want from your copywriting. Last week we heard from Louis Burns about NLP being used in direct response marketing and now we will look in more detail about how the copy is written.

Copywriting is an essential part of marketing on and offline. The strategic choice of words that promote a product or service will encourage the reader to take action. To make this happen you must tell compelling stories and grab the attention of the reader.

THE HEADLINE

The first thing we need is a headline. There is a rule that says you should spend as much as 50% of the time taken to write persuasive copy in making sure the headline works. David Ogilvy, an advertising legend, wrote this famous headline 104 times before it was right:

‘At 60 miles an hour the only thing you will hear in the new Rolls Royce is the ticking of the dashboard clock’

An average of 8 out of 10 people will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 will read the copy that follows. The better your headline is written, the better chance you have of your readers being persuaded to read on. Just having a good headline is not the answer either because you need the same power in what follows to keep your readers reading, but without that headline to grab attention you will be doomed to failure.

Headlines should be

• Useful to the reader
• Make him or her feel a sense of Urgency
• Convince that the benefit is somehow Unique
• Each of these qualities must be presented in an Ultra-Specific way

Questions that Clayton Makepeace, a guru copywriter, says you should ask are:

1. Does your headline reward the reader in some way?

2. What specifics will make your headline more interesting and believable?

3. Will your headline trigger a strong emotion to make the reader take action ?

4. Does the headline instantly gets a nod of the head from the reader?

5. Will your headline be better if it includes a proposition?

6. Can you introduce a feeling the copy that follows the headline is worth reading?

The combination of the 4 U’s and these 6 questions give you a great framework for writing your headline. Using the techniques of NLP you step into the world of the client and find ways to give a rewarding and useful experience.

COPY STRUCTURE

All of our writing should be clear, concise and simple so we can communicate easily. We need to make a promise early on that tells the reader WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) so that we have their interest to keep reading.

In NLP terms you should think about the preferences of your ideal client, how they may think and react. You can remind yourself of these by looking at ways to make influence more effective and how the best communication can give increased success.

Each section of the copy should have a theme or main idea that supports the overall objective of your proposal.

You must make sure you offer very specific assertions and reasons why using specific facts to support what is on offer.

Credibility is something you should build, using references and testimonials from people who have either gained from using your product or are acknowledged experts in the field.

We know that stories and metaphors are powerful ways of maintaining the interest of the reader and a good story is a valuable way to get a message across.
You must present your offer very clearly and overcome the resistance of the reader by demonstrating the benefits of using or buying what you have to deliver.

At the end you must sum up what you have said with your original promise and show how you will make it happen.

Using these points will make your copy persuasive and effective, and practice will produce good results.

SELLING BENEFITS

One of the most important qualities of good copy is that the benefits are stressed. Features do not sell products, but benefits demonstrate WIIFM.

Benefits must be real, because false benefits will fail. To find out the benefits you can use this procedure:

• Make a list of all the features of your product or service
• Ask yourself why each one is there
• Take each ‘why’ and explain how this gives your client what they want.
• Work out the emotional payback for the client of doing what you propose

Sometimes when you are selling to a highly technical client you can use the feature as a sales tool, because trying to reach their emotions may be annoying to them. Mostly clients buy what they want, but when your techy buyer needs a solution to a problem, that is what you must sell. Even so, with features that are innovative you will need to move them along the decision path towards making the right decision.

Most of the time we buy based on our emotions, rather than the logic we like to think we use. To generate emotion we must talk to the right brain, which is in control of desire, and justify the needs of the logical left brain with features and data.

OFFERS & PROMISES

Making an offer that cannot be repeated is a way to encourage your client to buy, so finding that irresistible incentive is a real challenge. Unless you make a good offer, why should your product or service be chosen from the many other alternatives. You may think it is obvious that what you offer is the best, but to get into the head of your client and understand what he or she thinks is important. It is a skill you must develop and use to make sales.

Each promise or offer you make must be backed up with some kind of proof, which is something better than just stating ’satisfaction guaranteed’. You must reinforce your offer with a convincing promise that what you are selling will meet or exceed expectations. This will demonstrate your confidence in the product or service and it will educe the risk your client feels he or she is taking by making their buying decision.

LONG OR SHORT COPY?

This is a a question that is always asked, but there can never be one answer for all situations. A short headline of 8 words or less has historically been more successful in most campaigns, but there are situations where you want to convey more information than can be fitted into 8 words. The rule must be that you write a headline containing a unique offer and benefit to the reader, however long that headline needs to be.

Do people read long sales letters? In fact yes they do and there is lots of evidence that a longer sales pitch is more effective. The length of your copy according to Bob Bly, a top copywriter, depends on three main factors:

The Product - The more features and benefits, the longer the copy

The Audience - Some people want as much information as possible before buying.

The Purpose - The sales copy must answer every possible objection in the mind of the client.

Joe Sugarman, master copywriter adds two more factors:

Price Point - The higher the price, the more copy is needed to sell.

Unusual Item - The more unusual the product or service the more benefits you must demonstrate and therefore more words are needed.

Michel Fortin, copywriting guru puts forward four categories of product, each successive one needing longer copy:

Convenience Products - An immediate need, low price, no thought, impulse buy, short copy.

Shopping Products - Higher price, more chance to shop around, needs more copy.

Speciality Products - Exotic goods, luxury cars, expensive jewellry, art, longer copy is definitely needed.

Unsought Products - If you did not know you needed it, then you will need convincing with some really long copy.

I hope you can see from this that the answer to how long your copy should be can only be answered by what works best for what you are selling. This can be determined by testing different lengths and styles of copy, to know whether more or less is successful.

Most of all, your copy must not be BORING!

YOUR SWIPE FILE

The copywriter’s swipe file is a collection of snippets from other peoples’ work and can include headlines, sales letters and pieces of impressive copy. These are a resource you build up as you develop your skills. The secret of using the swipe file is to make sure you use it in the right context in each situation. Many times the mistake is made of just cutting and pasting without thinking through what you are trying to say. By choosing the exact words, in the winning context, will help you achieve the result you seek.

GETTING HELP

From when I started I have used a piece of software to compare what I write with a large database of successful copy. The software is Glyphius and you can use it to generate a score based on the likely success of the words you use. Many reviews have been written by leading copywriters who were initially skeptical, but after using and testing the copy generated they recommend its use. It works like a massive swipe file in comparing what you write with copy that has been successful. It cannot write copy for you, but it acts as a reference point for you to use in comparing different ways to say something significant.

An important part of the way this post is written is thanks to the excellent work of Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com. Thanks Brian for doing such a good job!

A BONUS

Trevor Crook is a copywriting master who believes in the principle of reciprocity and because of that he is happy to give you, at no cost, his Copywriting Blueprint Formula. All he asks in return is that you forward it to 3 people who you know would like to receive it.

Next week we will be looking at Emotional Intelligence EQ Marketing.

I hope you will make sure you are subscribed to the RSS feed for this blog so that you automatically receive new posts as they are published.

Please let me know any questions or comments you have about this important skill of NLP copywriting by leaving a comment and I will do my best to find an answer.

Using the principles and standards of good NLP direct response copywriting will allow you to put together words that burst on to the page and make sales.

Tags:   Communication · copy · Copywriting · glyphius · headline · Influence4 Comments