Copywriting is one of those things that should definitely be hired out if you can`t do an excellent job yourself. The fact is, this isn`t an area to mess around with. If you aren`t going to be able to turn out amazing copy for your business, get someone who can.

When it comes to sales copy for your business, you need writing that works. Professional copywriters know just how to phrase things to get people in the right mindset to buy.

That being said, many small business owners have learned to do copywriting on their own and are quite good at it. It is possible to learn, but you do need to consider the time cost involved. Do you have time to learn a completely new skill set? Is it worth your time to learn? For those who have more time than money, it`s probably a good move to learn copywriting. However, not everyone will find this works for them.

Hiring someone else to do your copywriting for you is a great way to ensure that your website and materials turn out just the way you intended . . . as conversion tools.

The one way you can strengthen you sales copy right now without changing your message is to go back through and change all of your verbs to action verbs. This one technique will strengthen every sales page you write by at least 100%.

Whether you are writing web pages or company brochures, your sale copy is the most important copy that you will write. You can’t afford to take it lightly. It should sell. Verbs are the words that sell your products and services. Instead of filling your sales copy with weak, passive verbs, try changing those verbs to strong action verbs. Here are a few examples of strong action verbs and their weak counterparts:

• to be a runner (weak) ——> Run, Forest, Run!
• his lawn was mowed (weak) ——-> He mowed his lawn
• if you’d like to own this (weak) ——–> Purchase right now

An action verb tells your reader that something is going on. There is movement. There is action. Take a look at those weak verbs again. They are all passive. They all have something happening to something or someone else. The action verbs have an object that performs the action. Forest runs. “He” mowed. (You) purchase - right now!

Make your reader feel the action and you’ll snag her. She’ll rip out her wallet faster than a chef reaches for his meat cleaver. Make it strong. Verbs sell.

by Diane Autey

One of the most effective marketing tools for speakers, authors and service providers is a 1-2 page “sell sheet” or “one-sheet.” Printed in full-color on 8 ½” x 11” coated paper, it stands out in pocket folders and at trade shows and professional association meetings. It’s a great conversation-starter when you hand it out in person or at networking events.

The Trick? Say it Quick
It is best to write in “sound bites” – brief statements and lists of key benefits. Direct your messages to your target audience. Tell them, “What’s in it for me?” Include a combination of paragraphs, statements, bulleted lists and credibility-building testimonials and/or credentials.

Well-written sell sheets include:

• Attention-grabbing headline
• Company logo and name
• List of services or key features
• Client testimonials with company logos
• Photos and graphics
• Biography or company description
• Contact information

If you’re an author, include your book cover(s). If you’ve been published, include a list of publications, article titles and dates. If you’re a speaker, list the topics you address.

Have it Professionally Designed
Effective use of graphics, text, images and colors will make it or break it. Graphic designers think visually and can make your words come to life. A professional, graphically appealing presentation is well worth the investment.

Print it Digitally
If you’re printing less than 1,000, digital is the way to go. The quality of digital printing is so good nowadays that only the experts can tell if a piece is printed digitally or conventionally. Unless they’re in the industry, your customer’s can’t. The price has also become quite reasonable as the technology has improved.

Use your Sell Sheet to Open Doors
The sell sheet won’t make the sale for you, but it’s a powerful door-opener and conversation starter. It boosts your professionalism and credibility in the eyes of your prospects. Along with your business card, use it at every opportunity and you will generate more business.

Diane Autey, President of Projects Done Write, specializes in projects with depth and complexity that impact a company’s bottom line. Diane can be reached at diane@projectsdonewrite.com or 612-716-7642.

I think there is a bit of confusion among new Internet marketers about what constitutes a good keyword phrase. Many new marketers will perform their keyword research then use every phrase that is offered as related by whatever tool they are using. It doesn’t matter which tool you use for your research - they will all return keyword phrases that make no logical sense. It’s your job to turn those phrases into something meaningful.

Here’s an example of what I mean. This marketer is obviously targeting the phrase “online advertising internet marketing online businesses” as it is repeated verbatim several times throughout the blog post. Can you tell me what that phrase means?

If your keyword research tool returns something of this nature as a suggestion for related keywords, take that phrase and massage it into something that makes sense. Don’t just use it because your keyword research tool suggested it.

As a general rule, don’t use any keyword phrase that repeats a word. The redundant use of “online” in this phrase is useless. The search engines will likely view it as spam and your pages won’t rank well. Secondly, choose one synonymous phrase and stick with it. “Internet marketing” and “online advertising” mean almost the same thing. Not exactly, but they are close enough that you should focus on one and let the other drop. If both phrases are important to you then write one blog post or web page that focuses on one of the phrases and another that focuses on the other. Don’t combine them. Your watering down your phrases when you do that.

Thirdly, do a little more digging on the research. Do that many people really search for “online advertising internet marketing online businesses”? I really doubt that people are searching for that exact phrase. If they are then they probably aren’t finding a lot of information because savvy marketers use phrases that actually make sense. Remember, you are writing for humans and if humans can’t make sense of your content then they aren’t going to buy what you are selling so give extra thought to how you use your keyword phrases.

Just about every retail company with a website online is publishing product descriptions. How will you sell without them?

To be sure, product descriptions are necessary, but product reviews sell more. Think about, would you rather buy a product from a company that told you their widgets were the best and the brightest widgets on the market or from a company who has one satisfied customer proclaiming, “I plugged in the widget and it immediately started glowing like a lighthouse in the dark; not only could I find my way home, but I got there more quickly than I ever had before.”

Personal testimonials always sell. People like to hear from real people and that’s what product reviews are. They are real people telling about their real experiences and you should include them in your sales copy.

Companies making the transition from print advertising to online marketing might wonder whether web page design is like print page design. This is a legitimate question and it deserves a thoughtful answer. My answer, the one I’d like you to keep in mind is, yes and no.

Cliche, I know. But it’s also true. In some respects, the two are a lot alike. In other ways they are completely different.

Design is design, right? The purpose for any page design - whether print or Web - is to attract a reader’s response. You want your copywriting and visual elements to work together to elicit a positive reaction - close the sale. That’s the point to any kind of page design, whether we’re talking web page design or print page design, but that’s really where the similarity ends.

Web page design is a bit more complex and a lot harder to nail down that print design. With print design you are dealing with a two-dimensional canvas. Web page design is a four-dimensional canvas. Consider:

Print Design
Brochures, flyers, newsletters
All are solid and flat
Words sell, graphics enhance
Limited space
Say too much, lose the sale
Say too little, lose the sale
Say the wrong things, lose the sale

Web Design
Blogs, websites, and html newsletters
Words sell, graphics enhance
Audio and video capable
Unlimited space
People thrive on information
Biggest danger is not saying enough
It is almost impossible to say too much (almost!)

The essential difference between web page design and print page design is that with web design you can include elements that you can’t include with print design and once you publish something it has no time line. A print page can be discarded or discontinued and you know that the information at some point is no longer valid. Once you publish information to the web is there forever and even if the information is outdated, you’ll have a tough time retrieving it. Let’s explore that:

E-mail Newsletters - Hit send, it’s gone. No getting it back. Better make sure it’s accurate and you better make sure that if your information is timely or has a deadline that it is carefully and intentionally spelled out.

Blogs - Blogs are, by nature, timely. Make a post today and this time next year it is obsolete. It’s a given. People expect that. But the blog post is still there and will always be available for viewing. If you want to correct a blog post with incorrect information in it, you’ll have to make another blog post and make sure that your readers can find it. Simply removing a blog post leaves a cache copy of the incorrect information in cyberspace.

Websites - You have a window in the beginning to catch information before it is indexed by the search engines. Once a web page is indexed, it is difficult to have the information de-released. You can change your web page, but there is still a cache copy of the old page until the search engines crawl the new page again. Even then, websites like archive.org will make the old page a treasure for centuries.

I mentioned that web publishing is four-dimensional. I’ve already talked about the time element. The third dimension is what you can do with audio, visual, and links. Programs like Flash and technologies like podcasting and video marketing allow you to do things on web pages that you can’t do in print. A rising trend is the use of spokesmodels on web pages. You can actually turn your web page into a running infomercial. This type of technology plus the element of linking between pages - and between websites - makes web page design a completely different publishing platform than print design. There is more to think about, there are more ways of doing what is possible, and your imagination is the only limitation. The offset is that with web page design, there is much more potential in terms of monetization and reputation success.

Copywriters do more than just sell and put pretty words on a page (or website). In one very important sense, they also save you time.

If you run a business then you know how important time is. You can never get everything done that you need to get done in the amount of time that you have to do it. Maybe you’re trying to do too much.

Many literate and savvy business people are perfectly capable of writing their own copy. But once they find themselves achieving a certain level of success in their business, they find that they have less and less time to do some of the mechanics of the business. That’s why they hire people to help. A part of running a business successfully is knowing who you need to hire and what positions you need to fill within the company to leverage your time effectively.

A copywriter might be one of those positions you choose to fill outside of your company because it’s a highly specialized skill that requires a certain type of knowledge or personality. You can do it yourself, but should you?

If you want to grow your company and take on new challenges then you have to be willing to let some of the work go. Even if you can do it yourself. That means giving up some control in lieu of new ideas. A copywriter can help you with that. Not only do they write the copy, but many copywriters are also good at coming up with ideas. If you empower people to help you grow and develop your business then you can achieve a lot more than if you direct them from the top down. Let your creative people use their imaginations and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Don’t just think about copywriting as an expense. Think of it as an investment. When you put resources into this important aspect of your business, you should see a return and that return is more than just dollars and sense. If it leverages your time then it is paying off.

Copywriting is copywriting, right? Wrong.

There are similarities between online copywriting and off line copywriting, or traditional writing. You still are writing to persuade. Whether your copy is to be found through a search portal or to be read from a page, you still want your copy to spark an emotional reaction. That part is the same.

Other similarities between online copywriting and traditional copywriting include:

• Both require a call to action
• Both are the meat of your marketing collateral
• Both are improved with graphic enhancements
• Both need human readers to interpret them for value
• Both are at their best when they sell the benefits and list the features

Copywriting, in a sense, is the same whether done online or through print publications, but there is one fundamental difference between the two that makes online copywriting a bit more of a challenge. That key difference is that with online copy you have to capture the attention of robots, spiders, machines, algorithms, entities that do not breathe.

Search engines exist to catalog information. Your job as copywriter is to make sure that information is cataloged properly so that humans who need it can find it. That means you have to become an expert in search engine optimization. You can’t leave this to chance. You have to understand how search engines crawl, read, and index information. In addition to doing all the other things that traditional copywriting does, online copywriting must feed the spiders.

When it comes to copywriting, are you closing the sale? Most people never close the sale because they fail to do one thing. It’s the one thing you can do for your copy that will increase your sales even if you don’t change anything else. Do you know what that is?

It’s called a Call To Action. By including a call to action in your copy - online or off line - you’ll increase your sales and conversions more than you will by doing any other one thing. It’s the one thing new copywriters fail to do the most and it’s the most important thing you can do in your copy. Fail to include a call to action and you’ll likely lose out on 50% of your sales. Include it and watch your income go up. This is no joke!

Copywriting = call to action. And don’t you forget it.

People love stories. Always have. That’s why good storytellers are some of the most loved people on the face of the earth. Recently, Brian Bieler wrote a great blog post about why stories are important in marketing and how you can engage your audience through storytelling. Here are some highlights to his very useful blog post:

Brian’s three keys to successful storytelling

1. Learn the story
2. Tell the story
3. Remember the story

A good story is one that captures people’s emotions. People will not always remember what you say, but they will remember how you make them feel. Get them emotionally involved and engage them with a memorable story full of images that create strong reasons to act. But remember that it isn’t the story that is the important thing. Features and benefits are far more important; the story is there to help you show the importance of features and benefits.

Brian’s Secret Storytelling Strategy

1. Use stories to keep ideas in order and show ideas sequentially: First this happened and then that happened
2. Use stories to point out how this happened or that happened
3. Use stories to help others understand why things happen
4. Use stories to share information and to illustrate
5. Use stories to help illustrate principles that can be used in other situations

Stories are powerful memory tools. People will remember what you tell them a lot better if you include a story that engages them emotionally. Good marketers are good storytellers.

Finally, Brian shares his craft of telling a story. Here’s how to do it, he says:

• Start with simple, easily recognizable truths
• Show people the way out of their problems
• Let the customer win
• Illustrate how your products and services work better than your competitors’
• Provide value in everything you do
• Point to scenarios that show how and why things happen
• Leave your listeners room to have their own point of view
• Have fun and be real

These are great tips. Good sales people are good storytellers. If you can’t engage your audience with a good story then you could lose their interest. It’s one of the most powerful sales tools on the planet and I agree with Brian that with good stories you can close a lot of sales.