If you’re like most people, writing a sales letter is the most dreadful part of marketing online. They can be long, ugly, complicated, and you probably don’t know where to start.

This is what you want to do when writing copy

First off let me say that I’m 24 years old, and in comparison I don’t know sh*t about writing copy. The experts have been in the game for longer than I’ve been alive. Take what you can from this post, but if you’re serious about writing killer sales copy and driving more online sales for your business learn from a seasoned expert.

That being said, my sales copy HAS generated over $73,000 in online sales in the past 13 months. It’s not that much, but it’s more than most people hope to make online, and it’s enough to get you out of your job and into the part-time, beach-side, kick-back-and-do-what-you-love lifestyle that you deserve. If you’re not selling anything online, it’s NOT because you need more traffic, more SEO coaching, or a better brand. These things all help, but start by getting one prospect and closing one sale. You need to learn how to write good sales copy because with good copywriting skills you will succeed online. So here’s what I’ve got for you:

Start With Your Call to Action in Mind

Whenever I start to write copy, the first thing I ask myself is “What action do I want my readers to take?”. This may be clicking the “Buy Now” button, visiting a blog post, or calling a phone number. If they’re making a purchase, consider how much money you’re asking your readers to spend. Once you know what action you want your readers to take, you can begin to write copy that moves your readers towards that goal.

For example, if the CTA is to purchase something for $297, I know from the beginning that I have to create a compelling reason to pay $297. I may use a story to paint a picture of how spending $297 right now will not only make your life better but it will actually save you money in the long term, and use comedy and positive imagery so that the reader actually associates good things with spending that amount of money, rather than the usual objections (“I don’t have that much money”, “my spouse will kill me”, “this is too good to be true”, etc).

Know Your Audience

There’s one deadly mistake that most beginning marketers make and some never get over: the desire to market to everyone. There’s this lingering fear of loss that if we don’t make our marketing messages universally appealing we’ll lose customers. It seems obvious that the more people you can appeal to, the more prospects you’ll have, and the better you’ll do. The truth is, this is total BS.

The truth is, no matter what you do some people are going to like you and some people are going to hate you. Take Tony Robbins for example. He’s pretty Universally appealing. Most people can resonate with his stuff. But there’s still a large number of people out there who just straight-up despise Tony Robbins, and will quickly jump at the opportunity to call him a cult leader, greedy, etc.

Then take someone like John Carlton for example. John’s a grumpy old man who knows how to sell. He’s damn good at it, and he makes great money teaching people how to write sales copy. A lot of people don’t like John. I’ve come face-to-face with successful people with plenty of money who wouldn’t give it to John, because they were upset that John requested that nobody talks to him during breaks at his seminar. But for every person that doesn’t like John for his attitude, somebody else loves him… and he’s got the clout and the bank account to prove it.

John knows this, and he chooses to do business with the people he wants to do business with. You have that same choice. Take the time to really think about WHO you want your customers to be. If you haven’t realized it, I’m not writing this blog to attract goody two-shoes who run from cuss words and think life is about being acceptable. I’m here to attract real, rugged people who are sick of all the bullshit and want to make real money. My favorite clients want to learn from somebody with the street cred that proves they know what they’re talking about, so they choose to do business with me over a pretty boy in a nice button-up with his twitter account auto-posting inspirational quotes. I used to be that pretty boy, so I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart that you want to choose who you’re doing business with.

Do Something Compelling

This is where it gets fun. You know who your audience is, and you know what you want your audience to do. Now you have to grab their f*cking attention. This could be either easy or hard, depending on how creative you are. Spend some time on the email lists of great marketers and you’ll start to pick up on what I’m talking about. Every day, your people are doing the same thing- day in, and day out. They get up, go to work, take orders from their boss all day, get home and wear themselves out taking care of their kids, eat dinner, watch TV, and wake up to do it all over again.

It’s up to you to break them out of this pattern. If you can be that one magical moment, that one special part that makes today different from all the other days, you’ve won a client and a life-long fan. I strongly believe that everybody needs to laugh a little bit more and stop taking life so seriously, so I choose to use curiosity and comedy. When you get an email from me, your first response to the subject line is probably “what the f*ck?”. I do that on purpose.

You don’t have to copy my style, and you can be more straight-forward about exactly what you’re giving in your headlines (ie, “How to Train Your Dog to Juggle Watermelons in 30 Minutes Per Day” will work just in the watermelon-juggling-dog niche), but it is important that you find your own style and stick to it. Lose the polish. Take your ego and throw it to the side. The truth is, no matter what it is, you’re not the best at what you do. You’re always going to be able to improve, and if you weren’t life would be boring. So don’t treat every email and every sales letter like it’s the mecca of your achievement, because it’s not. Tomorrow you’re going to wake up and move towards something even greater. So don’t take yourself too seriously, find a way to draw your audience in, and then carry that emotion all the way to your call to action.

Appeal to Your Audience’s Pain

This is as close as I’ll get to manipulation, and this is one of the few situations where it’s actually justified to manipulate people: you want to manipulate people for their good. Since you’ve taken the time to choose and get to know your audience, you can see what pain they have in their lives. It’s pretty easy to figure out why someone’s life isn’t all they wanted it to be. If you’re in the watermelon-juggling-dog niche, you have to realize that it just plain sucks to be a passionate potentially-juggling-dog owner and your dog just plain CAN’T get it. You’re spending hours and hours each day trying to teach your dog to juggle watermelons, and lil poochie can’t even pass a peanut from hand to hand just yet. This is your audience. You can relive their pain.

Take it as your duty to resonate with what’s hurting your audience, and then cater your sales message towards how you can make it better. You can even go so far as to say that writing copy is a matter of sticking a knife in your prospect, twisting it around until he or she nearly faints, and then putting a band-aid on the wound. That’s a pretty extreme example, so rather than trying to create pain in your prospect, look at it this way: your prospect has pain. He or she may or may not be open about it or admit it. It’s up to you to find the pain, tell your prospect what’s hurting them, and then show how you can take it away and make his or her life better.

Assume the Sale

Don’t beat around the bush.

Don’t be afraid to ask for money.

Your prospect wants to buy your shit.

Tell him or her how to buy it, and don’t create any excuses not to.

That brings me to my next point…

Know How to Sell

There’s no easy way around this. In order to be an exceptional copywriter, you’ve got to be an exceptional salesperson. Here’s my to-the-point, stone-cold matter-of-fact works-every-time way to become a exceptional salesperson: go get a sales job, and don’t leave until you’re the top salesperson there. This may take you a year. It may take you 5 years. You may die trying. But there is a shortcut, and it’s inside of your mind. It’s all up to you, how hard you work for it, how much you study and read, and how long it takes you to get your mindset right. Sales is a game of mindset, and you won’t win until you learn to conquer your own thoughts and drive yourself to success. The cool thing is, you’ll make damn good money at your sales job while you’re learning how to do it.

But that’s the truth of it. You won’t be able to sell online if you can’t sell in person. So you may think that making money online is all about computers and you don’t have to deal with people, but you’re wrong. You have to be good with people, you have to know and understand people, and you have to know how to give people what they want before you can write good sales letter.

Demonstrate Results

If there’s one easy, tangible thing you can do write now that will greatly increase your conversions, it’s this: demonstrate to your prospect that you can and have created results for other people just like them. I’m talking about the testimonial. The testimonial is one of the most powerful ways to appeal to your prospect’s inner emotions, and get over the “is this too good to be true?” and “does this really work?” objections. However, there’s an art to the testimonial, so listen up:

• No BS “Russell is a great person and I highly recommend him” testimonials. Nobody cares
• Talk about specifics, ie “My dog juggled 2 watermelons in 5 minutes”
• Get testimonials with pictures (or videos) of people just like your perfect client. If you like working with older ladies, get a testimonial from Grandma May with her picture. Or, if you’re appealing to a wider demographic, use testimonials that appeal to different ages/races/genders, for example: An old lady, a middle aged man, a 30-something woman, and an 18 year old hispanic guy.
• Testimonials should always be SHORT, SPECIFIC, and SPICY (visit John Carlton to learn more about the term ‘Spicy’)
• Celebrity endorsements always help
• Finally, if you’re getting video testimonials, ALWAYS DO THE FOLLOWING:

1. 1. Have your client write the testimonial first and send it to you
   2. Edit the testimonial to meet the requirements above (short, specific, spicy)
   3. Send the edited testimonial back to your client and have him or her read it word-for-word back into the camera

Here’s What to Do Next

Get John Carlton's FREE Simple Writing System Express Course

If you actually took the time to read this whole post, first off let me say I am impressed. It amazes me that someone’s actually bored enough to sit down and read the unrefined ramblings of a 24 year old. That being said, you’re probably pretty excited about writing copy at this point, but don’t know exactly where to go from here.

If you’re ready to learn how to write exceptional copy and start making sales online today, it’s time you learn from someone who’s been around the block a few times, someone with the chops and the in-your-face teaching style you need to throw away every preconception you have about selling and learn how to do it right.

Here’s the free step-by-step system that will teach you exactly how to write killer copy, using an exact science perfected by that grumpy old man I was telling you about, John Carlton.

Get John Carlton’s FREE Simple Writing System Express Course

And if you haven’t already, share this post with your friends and leave your thoughts in the comments below. I’m up to a new kind of shenanigans where I write ridiculous posts like this, for free, in exchange for Facebook fans. So go ahead and fan me on facebook and leave a comment about what you’d like me to write about next. Everything I write here comes from the heart and I truly know that if you read it and apply it to your business it will help you sell more and make your life better in no time.

“Like” Russell Yermal on facebook for more posts like this one

Alright, it’s about 6:10 PM here in Southern California and I’m an hour late to the Cowboys game. Until next time.

Keep it real

Russell

p.s. John Carlton’s FREE Simple Writing System express includes FREE professional coaching and will naturally be taken down soon. Follow this link to get it: Get John Carlton’s FREE Simple Writing System Express Course

p.p.s. Read the disclosure