Should All Online Marketers Learn Copywriting?
It seems that copywriting is one of those things that people, who don’t know how to do it, take for granted. But you can’t really blame anyone for that because it does look kind of easy to write. It isn’t until you try to write copy that you realize just how difficult writing good copy can be. It can be hard to write copy that will get the job done if you don’t have the knowledge to write good copy. So there it is, and that’s why you’ll find most IM marketers hiring real copywriters to do it. Even if you choose to do this, you should make sure that you know the basics of copywriting so that you understand what your copywriter is doing.
Without a good headline, no one will even read the rest of your page. Readers see your headline first, and then make a split second decision to either read or not read the rest of the page. It’s natural for beginners at copywriting to assume that bolder and more dramatic the headline, the more effective it is. They use a lot of exclamation points and bold fonts to cover up the fact that their headline isn’t anything special. A good headline will grab the reader’s attention, entertain him for a minute and describe what you are about to tell him. It’s a challenge to be able to do this using only a few words. Study the headlines of your competitors. What makes you want to keep reading? Which ones leave you feeling indifferent? You can consider this when you write headlines of your own.
Depending on the circumstances, you can use humor but not in excess. There have been some successful sales letters that used humor. Humor is a great way to endear you to the people visiting your website. Also, just getting a chuckle from readers will sometimes be enough to make them relax enough to stay on your page. But you know… there’s always a fine line between just right and overdoing it. Always avoid coming across like you’re trying real, real hard to be a quick wit.
You can break some rules, but just remember that cute never sells. If you learn copywriting you’ll see that a lot of grammar rules are blatantly ignored – but not spelling rules. If you read some basic texts on copywriting, you can easily determine how far you can go with rule breaking. If you decide to just ‘wing it’ you may end up looking like a complete amateur. Becoming a good copywriter often takes years of work. It’s the mark of a professional copywriter that he makes it appear effortless. Copywriting is something that is essential to internet marketing. By becoming even a moderately good copywriter, you can greatly improve your business. When it comes down to it, you have to use copywriting to sell anything. Copywriting is absolutely essential, as people have to be sold on your products before they will part with their money to buy them.
