A few basic questions can help you start learning how to be a copywriter: Are your readers doing what you want them to do? Are they signing up for your email newsletter, registering for your membership site, or downloading your ebook?
If not, you need to study a master craftsman’s copywriting secret.
The secret, masters-only technique to compelling your readers to act is to …
There’s nothing magical or tricky about getting someone to do something by just asking them, right? That’s completely obvious.
And most copy doesn’t do it.
Which is why most copy gets weak results.
These five pro copywriter secrets are simple, but powerful enough to immediately transform your digital business.
The advice to “always ask them” has been turned into a heroic-sounding marketing term called the call to action, as if trumpets were sounding and prospects were marching off to war just because you inserted a couple of words at the end of your copy.
The term might sound a little bombastic.
But the fact is, once you’ve gained your reader’s attention (with great headline writing and a strong blog post introduction) and presented all of the benefits she’ll get by taking the action you want, you still have one more hoop to jump through.
You need to tell your reader exactly what to do, how to do it, and that you want her to do it right now.
Let’s look at a call to action example from copywriting master Gary Halbert.
He liked to include seemingly insane levels of detail, and his copy would end with something like:
He goes on and on like that for quite some time. But if you want someone to get on board with your offer, it does make sense to get that specific, right?
Still, for the beginning copywriter, it feels like a strange, awkward technique that’s going to “look weird.”
But for the reader, in the context of taking action that might cost some money, time, or inconvenience, this level of detail creates a solid, comfortable understanding of what to do next and what to expect.
If you want your reader to take action, use highly descriptive language with clear, concrete details. Don’t leave any question about what you want to see happen.
And don’t be afraid to be a little “too obvious.”
As you’re writing, you’ll think you have made yourself stupidly clear.
You spent 14 hours on that lengthy article describing your fascinating new digital product. You followed up with a 12-part series on your blog and an autoresponder sequence of 20 emails.
To you, anyone can see what to do next — your reader should click through to that PayPal button and order your new work of genius.
But the reality isn’t very appealing.
For example, Ron Reader may have found one of your posts (maybe #3 out of that carefully planned series of 12) from a link on Twitter and spent 30 seconds skimming the subheadings.
He read the first sentence twice because he thought it was funny, and then skipped down and read part of the last paragraph.
Then you got lucky — instead of exiting your post and going back to his Twitter timeline, Ron’s boss came up behind his cube and Ron had to think fast. He brought up a spreadsheet to look like he was working.
An hour later, Ron’s cousin sent him a link to a cute cat video on YouTube, and Ron spent the next 20 minutes surfing videos of dogs drinking beer. Then he wrapped up that really overdue report while eating a bag of Fritos and catching up on email.
Four minutes before he shut down for the day, Ron noticed your post again, so he read your first paragraph and one of the sections that looked kind of interesting …
Your readers are not dumb. But they do have a lot of other things competing for their attention.
So no, Ron Reader is not going to know what to do next unless you spell it out with painful clarity — and probably tie a giant red ribbon on it while you’re at it.
It might be hard to believe, but many hurried and distracted users don’t instantly get that they are supposed to “click here.” You have to tell them.
Granddaddy copywriter John Caples wrote about this very point way back in 1932.
When you see the word “ad,” substitute “cornerstone content,” “landing page,” or even “email subject lines for sales.”
All persuasive writing is built on the same foundation.
Decide what action you want readers to take. Ask them to take that action. Ask them clearly, succinctly, and unmistakably.
Put at least one unambiguous call to action into every piece of persuasive writing you create. You’ll see results.
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