How important is copywriting to you?



For me personally Copy, selling, angles, etc. are what my campaign successes and marketing skills are based on. Am I the best traffic buyer out there? Do I always run things by the numbers or use the best tools possible? Nope.

I've written a bit before about how I've noticed most AM's seem to lean towards more of a creative side or more of a math/statistical one, and it's reflected in how they create their campaigns. I'd say everyone is a little bit of both, and it's somewhat based on the background a lot of people have coming into AM. programmer, developer, salesman, etc.


This is what helps you create winners because if you're not doing this you're not going to be profitable for too long... Which is why everyone will tell you that you can only get so far by copying other people.
 
Writing lengthy copy is more important when pushing trials and other CPS offers, where you're collecting the user's full info and CC data and need a real lander. With affiliate marketing though, most folks seem to just copy/paste.
 
Not sure where to put this, but if anyone has a recommendation for a great copywriter, I'd appreciate the referral (and will give you a cut if it works out). I'm looking for a copywriter that can do long scripts for those videos you see making the rounds. I'm going to be needing a lot of copy like this in the next few months. No crazy eyes Waggenheim copywriting though plz.
 
Thanks coach on the book titles. I actually just purchased Hypnotic Writing to check it out. Does anyone else have more books worth checking out? Thanks in advance.
 
without good copy you can have the prettiest site on earth and it wont matter 2 dicks. copy is king.
 
Copywriting is important, as it creates content. However, it comes out of inner abilities to compose sentenves more than other sources.
 
I never stopped practicing writing copy.

Who knows - with SEO dead, media buying dead, spam dead, everything dead, might have to whore my services out on WF again. It's nice that in any decent copywriter will never starve since they can either sell a prod, or sell themselves to someone who'll give em money.

But then again - who would I sell to if all the traffic gen sources are dead, right?
 
I honestly think that someone who takes the time to study, and I mean really study Copywriting, could become a wealthy individual.
 
Aff marketing and copywriting is interesting. It is a lot different than your CB style copywriters. Usually you hire a copywriter to write you a killer sales letter and that's it, maybe split test some headlines. What I see AFF doing more is A LOT more testing. Which I think is smart. I also notice that aff landers don't use story as much as CB style letters. I think Stephanie pointed this out once too, you guys need to create more cool stories in your copy. At the end of the day, I guess all that matters is if you can stay profitable.

This is what I'm about to test. I had someone watch my sales video yesterday and they gave me some advice on a new angle I should try using. It got my juices flowing and I went back and looked through one of my gary halbert swipes that I had printed and bound at a fedex kinkos last year.

And as I flipped through the pages I started to realize that all of the killer old school direct mail letters and magazine ads all have 1 single thing in common: they tell an interesting story.

If you look at most affiliate offers, there's more emphasis put on some good pullet points and then images/design, which is great and obviously it depends on how you want to deliver your message.

But in regards to sales videos, I'm feeling very positive about my new copy because it tells a very interesting yet believable story that still communicates the benefits but it does it in a way where I could see the video ending and all the sudden the prospect realizes they just got hypnotized for 10 minutes.

It's great to see that more of you guys are getting interested in copy. I got hooked on GH 2 years ago and for about 6 months I would hand write his copy every morning, but I stopped because I felt it was too old school and I needed to learn more about traffic sources and other meaningless BS that can come AFTER you have mastered the art of writing killer copy.

I'm starting to realize now that if I would have focused more on testing copy and angles I would have been successful a long time ago and a lot of my campaigns that came close to break even could have easily become profitable.

Lesson learned.
 
And as I flipped through the pages I started to realize that all of the killer old school direct mail letters and magazine ads all have 1 single thing in common: they tell an interesting story.

Yes, if you leave out the story you're not really talking directly to the prospect, a story opens thinking patterns / loops and also helps to keep the prospect reading/watching the offer. I cannot stress enough on how critical the story element really is, to me it's the hardest part of writing really good copy because it truly is an art form at this point. Good luck with your sales video!
 
I used to write my own copy. Not knowing anything about copywriting it was pretty shit, but my traffic was good so it converted OK. Only recently I got my content for one of my newer sites rewritten (just on a whim, cheap copywriter proposed it to me so I thought why not) and my conversions increased by quite a bit. 1-2 more sales a week (and that's around £400+ a sale, so that's not too bad) and I also found my customers were more interested in what I had to offer... like the copy got them all riled up and ready.
 
I force myself to write about 15 pages a week on assorted topics myself, but I also use a copywriter now that I hired recently full time. Written communication is one of the most important forms nowadays.
 
like the copy got them all riled up and ready.

It really is almost this simple. All you're trying to do is get the visitor to take some sort of action. Often times people just need to be told what to do, people need to be led and will be less resistant depending on the copy. That's all copywriting really is in my opinion.

I force myself to write about 15 pages a week on assorted topics myself, but I also use a copywriter now that I hired recently full time. Written communication is one of the most important forms nowadays.

Yes, this is something I am guilty of I will admit. You must write, and rewrite over and over again each time trying to metaphysically experience the copy from a different perspective and I don't do nearly enough of it. I learned a little bit of this when I studied up on NLP and meta selling. It's pretty cool when you get to a certain level involving the psychology with it.
 
It really is almost this simple. All you're trying to do is get the visitor to take some sort of action. Often times people just need to be told what to do, people need to be led and will be less resistant depending on the copy. That's all copywriting really is in my opinion.
That's some of what copywriting is, but not all. Doing appropriate hurt-spot massageing is more effective than merely telling them what to do. Sometimes they haven't been able to sort out what's wrong on their own. Your job is to tell them how they feel and that you understand their problem.

"I jiggle when I move. Why do I have so much trouble losing weight?
I'm not meeting anybody I want to date. What's wrong with me?
I don't make enough money, and it makes me feel humiliated."
...and so on.

After that, you express ways the offer can soothe the hurt spot. You need to stress what it does (benefits), as opposed to what's in it (features).

HTH.
 
That's some of what copywriting is, but not all.

Of course, when studying Mike Fortin, he liked to break it down into simple systems and if I remember correctly he explains that your goal is to: Keep the prospects attention, break objections/offer something, and get them to do something. Of course there is more to it than that, I was just looking from a top view.