Hi there,

I recently received an email from someone who was wondering how to market himself as a copywriter.

Here’s what he wrote.

Forgive me for being sceptical but…

Three years ago, I spent $400 plus on the AWAI
copywriter home study course.

I have since read books by Bly, Vitale, and others. For
some reason I am not getting it. The writing piece seems to
be a small piece of the puzzle. The market focus, testing, more
testing, and still more testing seem to overshadow the writing
of the copy. I guess I’m missing something here?

There wasn’t a great more detail to the email so I’m not sure exactly what steps he’d taken and what did or didn’t work.

In my reply I outllined the steps I would take if I were in his shoes, he’s already taken a copywriting course so I wouldn’t recommend him taking another at this stage.

However if you are struggling to write profitable sales copy and haven’t had any guidance you’ll learn a lot from reading ‘Profitable Copywriting Secrets’ before following all these steps. You’ll learn the nuts and bolts of sales letter writing from doing so.

Here’s my reply:

Thanks for taking the time to write.

I’m really glad that you are sceptical…

I haven’t studied the AWAI course but it has a good reputation as do the other authors you mention so you should have a solid foundation upon which to build.

But… and forgive me for asking, what have you tried and put into practice?

Where a lot of people go wrong is they learn but don’t apply. In my life (I’m almost the same age as you) I’ve come across many university ‘wonder kids’ who have a head full of theory but can they apply a single iota of it? Can they fudge…

A Head Full Of Theory Means Absolutely Nothing — It’s The Application Of That Theory That Matters

You mention that you want to start a career as a copywriter, so here’s what I would do.

First you need to keep abreast of what is happening ‘out there’ — That means signing up for newsletters and getting yourself onto mailing lists. If you live in the states or other countries you probably get a lot of junk male.

Don’t throw it in the bin! Read it, study it — it works that’s why people send it. There’s tons of valuable lessons in those envelopes for you to learn.

Sign-up to ‘top-copywriters’ mailing lists, you’ll be able to follow their marketing techniques and promotions as they go along. They are already successful and you can learn a lot from them.

Also most of the top copywriters give out tons of Free advice.

Some people whose work I highly recommend (in no particular order):

Clayton Makepeace: http://makepeacetotalpackage.com
Michel Fortin: http://copywritersboard.com
Ray Edwards: http://rayedwards.com
Craig Garber: http://www.kingofcopy.com
Matt Furey: http://physco-cybernetics.com
Gary Bencivenga: http://www.bencivengabullets.com
Peter Stone: http://peterstonecopy.com
Gary Halbert: http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com
John Carlton: http://www.marketingrebel.com
Daniel Levine: http://www.sellingtohumannature.com
David DeAngelo http://www.doubleyourdating.com

Those are just a few names. Also, google Jo Han Mok, Harlan Kilstein, Perry Marshal and Bob Serling, Michael Masterson, Agora. Visit their websites and study their copy plus marketing tactics.

Use these guys websites to start building-up a swipefile of power sales letters. The thing is to use their techniques and ‘way-with-words’ to write your own copy.

Don’t copy and paste huge chunks of their text. Pick the letters that appeal to you the most then print them out and copy them word for word by hand on a clean sheet of paper.

This takes a little time but really ‘rams-home’ all the little tricks and secrets they use to inject life into their copy.

You are a unique person, you have your own personality — use it when you write but follow the lead of those that are successful.

Your Most Important Sales Letter

You need to set-up a website with your most important sales letter on — The focus here is on selling YOU and your services. You are a copywriter so you need to sell yourself, think about your life and personality and pick an angle to market yourself from. John Carlton is the ‘Marketing Rebel’ Gary Halbert is the ‘Prince of Print’ My angle is Kung Fu Copywriter.

But, before you write… take some time to get in the mood first. Do whatever you need to do to energise yourself first. Take a look at my blog post that sets out how I go about it:

http://www.stuartelliott.info/2007/01/24/getting-in-the-mood-for-copywriting/

Once your sales letter is up and ready on your website you need to drive traffic.

One excellent way is to write quality copywrting articles and submit them to the article directories, (I’ve picked up copywriting assignements from this and sales of my book.)

Other ways are blogging, press relesases — here your unique angle will really come in handy, Ezine ads, google adwords, U-tube videos, forum posts… etc. etc.

It’s also a good idea to register yourself on Elance — you can also pick-up a lot of work that way.

Marketing is a major part of copywriting – the best words are of no use if no-one reads them.

And.. of course… Testing and tracking.

Whatever you write, whatever ads you put out you need to test them. Often what you think will work doesn’t and what you think won’t work does.

The only people who can tell you for certain are the market place.

I’m busy with a testing and tracking white paper because this issue keeps on coming-up, I’ll send it to you as soon as I finish.

I’ve given you the broad outline of what I would do, without knowing what you’ve done and tried before it’s a little difficult to be more specific.

Hope this helps.

Even if you only want to improve your own sales letter skills so that you can sell more of your own products you can’t go wrong from following this advice.

To your success, always.

Stuart.

Your sales letter is vital to the success of your advertising and ultimately your business so it’s vital that you get-in-the-mood before you attempt to put pen to paper.

But how do you do that?

Obviously before you attempt to write any form of sales copy you should have carried out in-depth research into the product or service you are writing for.

This will give you the background into the product you need to be able to talk to your prospects one on one.

Now you can get-down to writing your copy can’t you?

Well there’re still a couple of steps you need to take first…

Good copy flows, has zest, rhythm and more importantly has energy.

Energy that you need to inject — this means that you must give it your all when you write. As Tony Flores (head copywriter for Clayton Makepeace’s Easywriters Club newsletter) says, “If you’re not exhausted once you’ve finished writing your copy then you’ve not put enough into it.”

Small wonder then that Eugene Schwartz advocates spending no more than 33 minutes at a time writing.

I can still remember one of his lessons well, he stated:

“I’ve got a timer, it’s permantly set to 33 minutes and 33 seconds. Whenever I sit down to write I start it… Once it’s counted down and the alarm goes off I get up — no matter where I am in my writing…”

You see he knew the energy it takes to turn your words into powerful sales copy.

But you’ve still got to get the energy to write from somewhere… here’s what I do.

My friends have christened me the Kung Fu Copywriter because of my commitment to Tai Chi and the way I use it to inject my energy into my copywriting.

Once I have thoroughly researched the product or service I will be writing about I focus my intent by practising my Tai Chi. I start with the ‘gentle’ forms really focusing on the slow movements to ‘warm-up’

Then I move onto the weapons side – this is where I need to use speed and explosive energy. I currently practise with the Sword, Spear and Sabre.

It’s amazing how much energy this gives me – afterwards I feel as though I can conquer the world.

Now I’m almost ready to write but first I put on some music – the type varies – for a really fast-moving heavy hitting sales letter I will choose something like ACDC other times I’ll choose African drum music or something else.

The choice is not that important. What matters is the energy I can ‘borrow’ from the music.

Now in this heightened state I close the door, switch off the phone – sealing myself away from ALL (no wife, kids, phone, email…) distractions and just write…

I let it all pour out driven by the immense energy I have stored inside myself.

I must admit that I don’t adhere rigidly to the 33 minute rule advocated by Eugene Schwartz but I do take regular breaks as soon as I feel myself flagging.

Then I get up and use my Tai Chi to refocus and energise myself.

I’m not saying you need to be a martial artist to write sensational sales letters but you need to look at what really gets you energised and make a habit of using it to put you in the zone to write.

Once there focus solely on writing copy and nothing else. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, looks or anything else – all that can be tidied up later.

It’s the only way…

To your success, always.

Stuart.

Hi there,

I was just reading a post by Willie Crawford on the Warrior forum. He explained how theives are using ‘Myspace’ and similar social bookmarking sites to steal peoples log-in details.

Using these they are then able to gain access to peoples paypal and other banking accounts, email addresses – the whole works.

You can read the full post here.

Many people use the same password for multiple accounts which makes life easy for the lowdowns…

I personally use Roboform available from http://www.roboform.com/ (not an affiliate link) to generate and store all my passwords. It’s also works from a USB drive so even if your computer is compromised you won’t have your passwords stolen. There’s a free version which limits you to 20 identities and a pro version (small investment necessary) with unlimited identities.

Another great tool I use to help protect me from phishers is the Netcraft toolbar. Have a look here. It’s free and has picked up many suspicious sites whilst I’ve been researching.

Yahoo also have similar protection in their toolbar, however I’ve not used that so cannot comment on it’s effectiveness.

Don’t let the theives take you to the cleaners — be careful out there…

To your success, always.

Stuart.

Hi there,

Back in my early days when I was starting to write copy it used to take me ages to write a sales letter.

I’d start to write a few words then go back and reread what I’d written, changing a few things here and there — it seemed like the more I changed the more I wanted to change.

Hours, sometimes days to write a simple sales letter…

This was crazy but I didn’t know any better. To me it seemed logical to keep my mind fresh by reviewing things as I went along…

But I didn’t realise that what I was in effect doing was messing up my train of thought and stifling my creativity.

It was only when I spoke to my mentor about time management and writing killer copy faster, that I discovered the easy way…

You could say that was one of my biggest breakthroughs — it’s increased my productivity a thousand times.

The advice he gave me was priceless; here’s what he said…

“No matter what comes into your mind put it down, don’t stop to read it or think about it. Just write and keep on writing, spelling mistakes, grammar misuse – jot it all down….

Even if you’ve no idea of an opening write down the first words that come into your mind and keep on going.

When there is nothing left in your mind to write take a break, go for a walk, do something different – anything. Later when your mind is more refreshed come back and start editing.

First rearrange your sentences and paragraphs into a logical order so that your copy flows seamlessly from start to finish. Then get to work on the structure of your sentences and paragraphs, sort out the spelling and grammar mistakes.

Now start inserting powerful headlines and sub-headlines in strategic parts of your copy. (Remember that any readers will use these to make their buying decision alone so they should tell the story in themselves or at the very least tease the reader into wanting to read more)

When you’ve finished file your sales letter away for a day or so, don’t think about it or even glance at it again.

After a couple of days have another look through fresh eyes – your prospects – and make sure it flows, tells the story you want to tell and, of course, excites your prospect.

Read it aloud, anything that doesn’t flow will be difficult to read out, you’ll find your tongue tripping over the mistakes.

Now polish those sections and that’s it – you’re ready to make your sales.”

I followed that advice to a ‘T’ and my productivity rocketed which was great but a great bonus was that my copy read better and pulled better.

So next time you set out to write your sales copy do the same — just start writing no matter what is in your mind. Don’t sit there trying to think of the perfect opening just write!

To your success, always.

Stuart

Chris Bruso, a professional web programmer now turned affiliate marketer recently sent me this unsolicited review of my sales letter and copywriting guide – Profitable Copywriting Secrets.

Be sure to check out his site — it contains unbiased, firsthand reviews of other products he’s actually tried out. His address is http://www.grqnetwork.com/

Here’s what he said in full and unaltered.

——————————————————————————————

Discover Obscenely Profitable Copywriting Secrets – Master Copywriter Reveals All In No-Risk Ebook

“Effective, Profitable Copywriting Secrets will drastically improve your sales letters conversion and increase your bottom line. Discover How To Write Killer Ad Copy From A Master Copywriter”

I was staring at my computer screen working on my copywriting and was drawing a complete blank. While I was staring, it hit me – I really needed guidance with my mediocre copywriting skills.

Discouraged after searching through dozens of copywriting products on the internet, I nearly gave up. Most of them seemed so over-hyped that I didn’t believe they could stand up to their promises. So, I avoided those. I was looking for a product that I could learn effective copywriting skills from and apply it to my SEO copywriting. After what seemed like hours, I finally found exactly what I was looking for.

I downloaded Profitable Copywriting Secrets, a tell-all ebook written by master copywriter Stuart Elliott. It’s filled with astonishing information revealing secret, breakthrough methods of the copywriting masters who have written million dollar sales pages. I began reading and my initial thought was “Wow! I can personally profit from the incredible information in Profitable Copywriting Secrets!”

Glancing at the clock, it was already 1:00 A.M. I really needed some sleep but Profitable Copywriting Secrets is so reveailng that I stayed up and read anyway. I was tired the next day but it was worth it! I do lots of SEO copywriting and I am going to apply Stuart Elliott’s unique ideas immediately. My SEO copywriting skills will suffer no more!

What I Liked

I found Profitable Copywriting Secrets to be more than just a copywriting guide – it’s filled with the powerful tactics Stuart Elliott uses to look into the mind of the consumer and generate more sales.

Stuart Elliott guides you through the maze of copywriting pitfalls with ease. Profitable Copywriting Secrets shows you what to avoid and how to create a successful sales letter. It also shows you the exact layout of an effective sales letter and how to tailor it to your business so you can begin to increase your conversion rate immediatey. Profitabe Copywriting Secrets provides you with an insider’s view of ‘killer ad’ copywriting.

Stuart Elliott’s experience has given him great insight into a sales prospect’s thoughts and the ability to teach you how to gain that insight. He has a keen eye for the sales process and how to turn that process into a sales letter that will generate sales. Guaranteed or your money back! This will also be handy with my SEO copywriting. Getting into the prospect’s mind is an important part of any copywriting that can make or break the sale.

Along with the e book, you’ll receive a free sales letter critique. Stuart rolled out the service in response to requests from many would be home based entrepreneurs who don’t have the resources to pay the $300 or more per hour that industry experts demand.

The fact that Stuart Elliott once had to sell his CD collection to put food on the table means that he started his copywriting career down and out and worked his way up to be a master copywriter. He’s an ordinary guy who’s excelled at wordsmithing and figued out how to profit from it.

What Could Be Improved

About the only thing that could possibly be an improvement to Profitable Copywriting Secrets would be the addition of summaries to the end of each chapter. I found myself scrolling a bit to find something I’d already read and wanted to read again.

Would I Recommend It?

Absolutely! Never again will I be stuck for words and waste my precious time. It’s worth every penny of its low price which means you have nothing to lose. Stuart Elliott takes all the risk with an 8 week no-nonsense money back gurantee that you won’t need. I am anxious to apply the fantastic secrets I’ve discovered in Profitable Copywriting Secrets to my SEO copywriting and increase my own sales!

A quote from Stuart Elliott’s Profitable Copywriting Secrets:

“Selling is the number one skill you MUST learn if you are going to be in business, and this applies to offline, too. If you do not know how to sell, you and your business will struggle financially.”

Stop losing sales with pitiful sales copy. Investing less than forty dollars right now to own your copy of Profitable Copywriting Secrets could make you thousands in the future.

Chris Bruso
http://www.grqnetwork.com/
——————————————————————————————-

I borrowed that last quote from Michael Masterson’s must-read book Automatic Wealth — you can get a copy here.

By the way, what Chris didn’t say in his review was that he found a couple of ‘Typos’ in my book (OOOPS!) – he kindly sent me an email pointing them out — thanks Chris!

If you want to become a viable entity in business you really do need to develop your copywriting skills. Grab yourself a copy of Profitable Copywriting Secrets now and start yourself off on the right foot.

Here’s the link to your: Profitable Copywriting Secrets

To your success always.

Stuart.