Revealed: Secret To Gain the Edge In Your Copy
To get the real edge, you can tap into overlooked resources such as interviewing industry experts. This approach might lead you to cutting-edge information that hasn’t yet been published anywhere. You can contact the authors of articles you’ve read, experts interviewed in articles, experts on subjects in your niche, anyone who might lead you to a “nugget.”
Dig deep and find stuff not everyone knows. Then figure out a way to work that into your promotions. Use this stuff to tease, inform and give your prospect something he didn’t know before.
And what’s the benefit of gaining the edge in your copy? Your prospect will be grateful to you for it and you’ll move him a little bit further through your copy.
Talking Your Way in Print
To really command the attention of your prospect, you have to take it a step further and speak to him in an informal “conversational” manner, as if you were talking to a good friend. In other words, write like you talk.
This is easier said than done. Most people (including myself) have had difficulty putting actual spoken English down in print. And this is no surprise. Why? Because no one’s taught us how. As a matter of fact, we’ve been discouraged from writing conversationally all throughout school and probably even in our careers.
Writing like you talk can only be found in two places:
- Copywriting
- Fiction writing
In these two forms of writing, you never have to use fancy, grandiose language. You don’t have to worry about being grammatically correct. Or make sure you’ve included some complicated literary device.
Effective copywriting is the furthest thing from formal or “proper” English. So make it a practice to never make your copy sound stuffy or academic.
Write at your prospect’s or customer level. Not higher. Never lower. And most importantly, try to get as close to spoken English as you possibly can.
The challenge lies in the lack of physical intimacy and the ability to use body language. So it will be impossible to write exactly the way you talk. But you can come very close to it. You can do certain things in your writing that are identical to raising your voice, pacing yourself, raising an eyebrow, inflecting on a word, and so on.
If you want to emphasize a particular point to your prospect, you could for example put in italics, underline it, bold it, or CAPITALIZE it. You could also pause for a moment…
Or skip a line.
As you develop your copywriting skills and gain experience, you’ll know when and how to use these techniques for maximum impact. But for now, know that there are many ways to establish a “physical” connection with your prospect.
Of course, writing like you talk isn’t enough. If you want to sell your prospect, you’ve got to get fired up about your product or service. Then you’ve got to put that passion down on paper.
Injecting Passion into Your Writing
The best things in life are those created with passion. Passion built the Empire State Building, gave us the ability to travel through the skies in an airplane and put a man on the moon.
Without passion, everything loses its momentum and energy.
And the same is true for copywriting. When you write with passion, your copy will have a certain excitement to it. Your words will carry more meaning. Your ideas will be more clear and compelling. And your voice will be stronger, richer and more convincing.
Even better, your vigor will carry over to your prospect. Not only will he get pumped up about your product, he’ll desire to send YOU his hard-earned money.
When you fail to write with passion, you put your readers to sleep. Worse yet, you’ll lose sales.
There’s no two ways about it – passion rules.
But there’s one thing about passion; you can’t “make it up.” You have to actually feel it toward whatever it is you’re selling.
Get excited about your product and tell your prospects how it will make them successful, smarter, sexier, successful, etc.
When you can write informally and passionately, you’ll be well on your way to developing your own voice.
Moving Toward Your Own Voice
When creating your copy you must move toward your own voice – the natural way you talk to someone when you’re trying to persuade him.
Some copywriters tend to have exaggerated voices. They make audacious promises, frequently raise their voices and have a certain charismatic flair. You’ll find others that are more reasonable. They convince with facts and figures, charts and graphs, and tend to be lower key.
And both of these voices work.
Because (no matter what it is) your natural voice will ultimately be your strongest. It’s your true personality on paper. You just have to trust it and go with it.
As time goes by, your voice will get better and better. And when it does, you’ll be in a powerful position.
You’ll be able to create winning copy two to four times faster than before. Projects that took you a month to complete will take you only eight or 9 days. And that means you’ll be more productive and your bottom line will grow.
But exercise patience. Your voice will come. In the meantime, until that time comes, you’ll still be able to create very strong, moneymaking copy.
The “You” Myth
In direct marketing there’s a longstanding rule that says you should always write in the second person. This is where you address your prospect by the personal pronoun “you” throughout your copy. Some top-notch copywriters even live by this rule as if it’s one of the “Ten Commandments” of copywriting.
But, in fact, there are many instances of extremely successful direct-response copy that’s not written entirely in the second person. Instead they’re written in the first person where the writer uses the pronoun “I.” Other times, they’re written in the third person with the pronouns “he,” “she,” and “they.”
There’s no phenomenon that states where writing in one form over the other works better than the other. But the “you” rule can become a crutch when following two universal selling principles – the principle of benefit and the principle of intimacy.
The Benefit Principle
The best way to sell any product or service is to talk about all the benefits or advantages it will bring your prospect.
Let’s say for example that you’re selling a microwave oven; you wouldn’t tell your prospect that it’s got 2.3 kilowatts and is 36 inches wide. Instead, you’ll show him how it’ll make his life in many ways simpler. How he’ll be able to prepare gourmet meals for friends and family in 10 minutes or less. How he’ll never have to worry about cleaning pots and pans. And so on.
Instead, you’d point out the benefits of the product, not the features.
When you focus your prospect’s attention on the future benefits he will get, you’ll create in him a psychological link between your product or service and the fulfillment of his desires. So as he moves through your copy, he’ll start to equate your microwave oven with becoming more sophisticated, more organized, and more esteemed by his friends and family.
And it’s true that when you speak in the second person, you will touch on the benefits of your product or service. It’s naturally easier to project benefits when you talk in terms of “you.”
For example, “You’ll never have to worry about rushing to prepare that special meal for your friends and family.” Or, “Are you sick and tired of cleaning your range top? Well, now you can prepare delicious meals without even turning on your stove!”
But let me point out that it’s entirely possible to speak in the second person and never communicate benefits. For example, if you’re a car salesman, you could say something like, “As a car owner, you can appreciate how slick the front spoiler is. It has the finest anti-lock braking system available and most sophisticated built-in security mechanism.” As you can see, this only describes the features of the product.
Or if for example, you’re selling a financial service, you might say, “As an investor, you can appreciate the fact that I graduated from Yale Business School and have an IQ of 170.” Even though you’re speaking in the second person, the focus is really on yourself. It’s like the old joke, “Let me stop talking about myself. What do you think about me now?”
In both of these scenarios, you’ve created ineffective copy since you’ve ignored the universal principle of benefit – show your prospect all the advantages he’s getting at every opportunity!
And to continue on the subject of principles, let’s look at the other principle that the “you” rule invokes – the lesser known and talked about principle of intimacy.
The Intimacy Principle
Intimacy is a close, familiar and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group. When it comes to direct-response copywriting, the principle of intimacy is based on the observation that there are only two ways to sell anything:
- The classical approach and
- The charismatic approach
As previously mentioned, the basic thrust of the classical approach is to focus the prospect’s attention on the benefits he’s going to get from your product or service.
In the charismatic approach, you create an additional overriding benefit – the benefit of becoming familiar or “intimate” with the seller himself. Think back to the time you bought something you didn’t really need just because you liked the salesperson and wanted to reward him for his kindness – this is when you get bitten by the charisma bug. To put it another way, the seller had a quality that allowed him to influence your opinion or behavior.
But when it comes to direct-response marketing, it’s not always appropriate to adopt the charismatic approach and to evoke intimacy. Generally, the level of intimacy you want to create depends on what you’re selling and your relationship with the prospect.
For example, if you know you’re never going to “see” or “hear” from the prospect again, it doesn’t make sense to evoke intimacy. Why make the prospect trust and like you if your relationship with him is over?
But since for the most part we nearly always want an ongoing relationship with our prospect, then creating some level of intimacy is generally helpful in the sales process and should be done whenever possible.
Speaking in the second person is one of many ways of evoking intimacy. But as previously mentioned, you can speak in the second person and not create intimacy. In fact, if you reread the car and financial service examples presented before, I think you’ll agree that they’re not very intimate.
Once you understand the principle of intimacy, you’ll realize you can “connect” with your prospect without going into the second person. You can write in such a way that the prospect and/or customer likes you, trusts you and wants to hear from you again.