No matter what wonderful service you provide or how amazing your product is, if you don’t tell people it’s there, no one will buy it. Sure, word of mouth works for some things. For most though, you need to write something down and let people know what you have. The question is, how can someone on a budget with beginner skills as a copywriter, someone who writes copy, get people to know about their product?
The answer is simple. Copy what others write.
plagiarism is not allowed
When I said copy what others wrote, I don’t mean steal their words and use them in your own ad copy. I mean have a pen and paper in hand, no computers unless you literally can’t use your hands, and copy a sales letter word for word. This is a powerful learning technique used in many circles. When you write with pencil and paper, something magical happens in the brain. I can’t tell you all the neurochemical responses in that brain of yours, but when you write by hand, there’s a complex interaction in the brain that helps you learn faster and easier.
Don’t waste your time physically reproducing any sales letter you find. Use your time wisely and copy, for learning purposes only, the best sales letters you can find. You can do an internet search using the keywords “winning sales letters” and come up with a treasure trove of letters that you can start copying to get used to writing a good sales letter.
One of the most successful, if not the most successful, letters to introduce a new product was written to a newspaper that you may have read or at least seen the name. That’s it The Wall Street Journal. This successful financial newspaper was once just an idea in someone’s mind. As time has shown, it was a great idea. The problem was that people had to buy initial subscriptions for it to be successful. This very simple two page letter has generated an estimate of $2 trillions in income from The Wall Street Journal.
The step before copying
The sales letter you launched The Wall Street Journal it is one to use to support copying by hand numerous times. Before you put pen to paper, read it out loud several times. Listen to the cadence of the words. Pay attention to the images. Notice the feelings you have as you read it. Can you put yourself in the place of each of these young people? Which would you rather be? Would you want success so badly that you would pull out your checkbook, fill out the form, and mail it back? Remember, the Internet wasn’t even a spark in anyone’s mind at the time. This direct mail piece had to provoke immediate action before the offer was lost under a pile of other advertising.
Once you have read the letter and put yourself in the reader’s shoes, start copying the words. Feel the cadence as you type. Let the words and the rhythm of them become embedded in you from the interaction of what you see with your eyes and reproduce it with the movement of your hand. This simple task, although time consuming, will help you learn the skill of copywriting faster.
You can then take what you’ve learned and write your own powerful sales letter in your own wonderful style that may just be the next $2,000,000,000 winner.