Persuasion

Copywriters love to tell clients they can create compelling copy. Few of them ever mention whom they think they’re compelling. That’s because too few of them have ever given it the thought it deserves.

If you want to quickly build a responsive email list in the next 30 days — especially if you’re just starting online and don’t have a lot of money — the following strategy can get the job done. Here’s the story: Several years ago, I was struggling to build my email list and nothing seemed to work.

Marketers of most stripes know how important and powerful calls-to-action are. If you want someone to take a specific action, you have to actually ask them to take that specific action.

On the snowy, northeastern Christmas of my 11th year, our parents gathered all five kids around the kitchen table to deliver the news. We were moving to San Antonio, Texas. I was devastated. Texas? I imagined what our new home would look like. We’d be miles from any neighbors — who all walked straight off the “Hee Haw” set — with a dusty, rock-filled front yard punctuated by the occasional tumbleweed rolling by.

Everywhere you turn these days, you hear about authenticity. They say you’ve got to be real in order to connect with today’s social media savvy audiences and consumers. But it’s not necessarily true. Go out and be “real” when you’re having a bad day, and people will quickly call you out for not reacting in the “right” way.

As a professional copywriter, there’s one question that tends to pop up constantly from my readers and clients … “Can you teach me to write like you?” My knee-jerk answer is usually something like, “Um. No. There is no other like me! I reign supreme! Me! Me! Me!” OK, I’m not really that egocentric.

If you’re a diligent researcher, you might think you know everything there is to possibly know about your prospect. Deepest fears, pain points, income, business, marital status, family status. You might even know their hair and eye color. If you’re writing to that person (and you really have those details correct), your copy will likely convert well.

Remember learning Greek mythology in school? I’m going to give you one name, and I want you to think about the first image that pops into your head … Hercules. What’d you think about? Was it what you read in that dusty old history book, or was it the unforgettable Disney cartoon?

Have you ever gotten so caught up in a deadline (or your own expectations) that writing anything at all felt … uncomfortable? Too often as writers we measure ourselves by our level of productivity. We get so worried about being productive that we forget to enjoy ourselves. Here’s the rub: if you aren’t enjoying your writing you aren’t truly being productive.