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My first thought was, “Woah, that’s a good question.”

A top Internet marketing guru was interviewing me before deciding to hire me. He hit me with a seemingly simple question… that still stopped me in my tracks. It went something like this…

“What’s the most important component of writing copy?”

Woah. I’d honestly never thought about it like that. And I suppose it can be answered several different ways.

Many people pick the headline as the most important. And I definitely understand that, I test different headlines more than anything else.

James Brausch, the analytical programmer/scientist/entrepreneur, gave the should-be-obvious-but-is-not answer: the order button. Can’t get many sales without that!

Researching and understanding your market is another obvious (and truthful) answer.

With this guru sitting in front of me, I didn’t want to give an obvious answer. So I thought about it, probably longer than I wanted to, and said…

Believability.

Sales copy MUST come across as believable to work well.

* If your headline makes a wild claim that’s not believable, you lose them.

* If your copy makes claims that aren’t backed up, you lose them.

* If your offer sounds too good to be true, then you lose them.

If any aspect of your sales copy lacks believability, you’re gonna feel the hurt in your pocketbook.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised when Brausch discovered that testimonials were consistently the most important part of his copy (outside of the order button).

Testimonials help to provide proof, which adds to the believability.

But testimonials are only one form of proof (and I’ll talk more about them in the next entry). And because the entire sales letter needs to be believed, I want as many forms of proof as I can get.

Hence Question #9 in my copywriting questionnaire:

9) What sources of proof can you provide to back up your product’s claims…

When I write copy, I want to back up every claim I make with proof. Both little and small.

If my client is an expert in the field she wrote this ebook for, then I want to know what her credentials are.

Did she have demonstratable success with the topic area? Something I can prove with say… screenshots of proof of income? a photo of her enjoying her new mansion? awards or honors received? a video of success in action?

Does she have relevant credentials? A degree? Is she a published author? Made guest TV appearances on the topic?

I want to know all these things so I can boost the credibility of the seller.

I also want to prove the product works.

Can I have a picture of the finished result? Would a before and after photo set be appropriate?

Can I show a video of the product in action?

Can I construct a solid logical argument backed by facts that the product, does indeed work?

And here’s something that’s a little more creative that can help add proof…

Is there a story or analogy I can use to help the reader believe your product will work…

Success stories can go along way to helping the reader decide, “Yes! This product will work for me.”

The right story can help the reader wrap their head around your product (the solution to their problems) and really start to believe in it. What story do you have for me? What analogy would help the reader make this jump?

Is there a story about the creation of the product that would add believability?

Are there success stories I could use? Maybe an incredible story, like a one-legged golfer who can drive the ball further than most two-legged golfers?

Or maybe an analogy…

I was looking at the Hairmax comb the other day that’s supposed to regrow your hair (fine, I’m losing my hair, if you laugh it’s bad karma!). They compared combing your hair with the laser comb 3 times a week to brushing your teeth, just regular personal maintenance. That’s great!

Dig deep for this as it could play a prominent rule in the copy.

And there are more forms of proof as well. The most obvious one being testimonials as mentioned earlier. But we’ll get to that in the next entry. Until then!

Michel Fortin once told me the 3 most important elements to test in a sales letter are the headline, price and offer.

Price points are easy to come up with. The headline takes a lot of work… but that’ll come from my research.

The offer is something you need to team up and strategize with the client on. And one thing they’re not likely to have given a thought to is how they’ll LIMIT the offer.

Because of that, question #8 comes with a link to Michel Fortin’s amazing article on scarcity.

How are you limiting the offer? (See http://www.michelfortin.com/use-scarcity-to-sell-not-scare/)

At this link the client will discover there are three ways to limit the offer. That’s through limiting the time, quantity or offer.

You can limit the time by giving a discounted price until a certain date.

You can limit the quantity by only selling so many of your product… or only letting so many in to your membership site… and so forth.

You can limit the offer by giving out special bonuses… special extras like free coaching or shipping… and so forth.

Michel has said procrastination is the biggest killer of sales. And that’s why having a legitimate REASON WHY the customer must act now to get the best deal is such a powerful tool for the copywriter.

In addition to Michel’s article, I created a product called “Digital Scarcity” that gives ideas for adding legitimate REASONs WHY the client must act now… even if you have an unlimited supply of your product (because it’s digital).

It’s important to brainstorm these “reason’s why.” Both for the initial launch and after that scarcity is over (for example, after the first 100 bonuses are given away).

You simply must limit the time, quantity or the offer to maximize your sales.

What do beginning copywriter’s forget to think about that can destroy their online sales? Where the visitor is coming from!

Question #7 from my copywriting questionnaire is…

“7) a. Where is your traffic coming from? (Please be very specific)

“b. If you’re targeting specific keywords, what are they?”

How is the client planning on getting visitors to the site. Are they going to rely on methods like Google Adwords? Or are they going to send a mailing to their list?

There’s a big difference between the mindset of these two visitor groups.

When a list owner sends an email out saying, “Come buy my product,” the visitors who click on over are already browsing to buy.

In complete contrast, someone who clicks on a Google Adwords ad may not even be close to looking for something to buy.

You need to approach these two visitors differently.

For the visitor that knows they’re about to see a sales pitch… it’s OK to mention details about the offer (like price discounts and limits on the offer) and display testimonials at the top of the copy. They can be in the headline, deck copy or intro.

But for people who were not expecting a sales pitch. Hold on!

With this group, you shouldn’t mention anything is for sale early on. You shouldn’t mention anything about ordering, price, offer limitations or testimonials. Save that for later.

Instead, just focus on getting their attention and keeping it. Get them interested in the copy and subtly sell them on your product… before they know there is a product.

Then when they’re convinced your offering is the solution, let them know the price, the discounts, the bonuses, the testimonials and so forth.

Part “B” of question 7 asks which keywords are being targeted, if any.

This will further let you know the mindset of the visitor.

If the keyword “easy magic tricks” is targeted and you write copy aimed at professional magicians… you just made a big mistake.

In closing, I hope you realize that understanding the mindset of the visitor before you write the copy is absolutely essential.

That was a close one.

Remember when I lost all my blog posts last month? Well I tried to get as many of the valuable posts back as I could from Google’s cache.

One post that I didn’t find the first time around was an awesome interview I did with Ryan Healy.

I was reminded of it when I saw that the interview he gave me was still one of the most popular posts on his blog. Well, I didn’t want to lose this interview. I got Google up and running again and searched for that interview…

…I had to be clever, but I found it. So here it is, once again. The interview!

1. What attracted you to copywriting?

Actually, copywriting found me.

Starting in the 8th grade, I knew I would be a writer. I wrote for the high school paper, poetry journals, and the college paper. I wrote essays, speeches, and fiction — the whole gamut.

At every job I had, people would come to me to edit their writing. At Merrill Lynch, my managers would have me edit and rewrite their most important emails before they sent them out! (I wasn’t hired to do this; it just kind of happened.)

Anyway, I was approached by the owner of Sonlight Curriculum to write copy for him. He wanted to replace himself. He knew I loved to write and had an entrepreneurial bent, so he hired me.

I spent three years writing sales copy for him and his company, and doing all their Internet marketing.

And that is how copywriting found me.

This interview is continued over at my new blog, click here to keep reading.

Ever seen the spy movie “Cloak and Dagger” with Henry Thomas? Great movie, one of my favorites from my childhood.

Sometimes when I call my sister’s cell phone and she answers, I shout, “Lady Ace, Lady Ace, Come in Lady Ace!”

Guess you had to see it…

…in any case. I bring it up because it’s time to spy on your competition.

Now, you may be thinking I’m suggesting to spy on your competition so you can take their best ideas and copy them. And sure, I usually take ideas from competitors’ copy.

But that’s not the biggest reason you should spy on your competition.

The BIGGEST reason to spy on your competition is to see what they’re NOT doing. To find out what claims they’re not making… or what claims they’re not capable of making. To discover how your product kicks the pants off their product and so on.

Armed with that competitive intel, your job will be to craft a unique sales message that is superior to your competitors’.

The last thing you want to do is write sales copy that could apply to any other product in your market. If you did, how would they remember you? Why would they read your copy if they’ve read similar copy in the past? If your product is more of the same, why buy from you instead of just finding the cheapest?

It’s important to make your copy unique by discovering competitive advantages and exploiting them.

In my copywriting questionnaire, I ask the client to help me identify these competitive advantages with three simple questions.

4) Who are your competitors? (URL’s please, if available)

I can do a simple Google search to find out who are the top adwords advertisers for a market. But that doesn’t mean they’re the most popular competitor.

We want to find out out which competitors the reader has likely seen before so we can make sure to be different. Google searches are part of that. Checking out popular forums from the marketplace can be part of that.

But asking the client is the quickest and often the most valuable way. They usually know who is spreading their sales message around the best. And we need to make sure we differentiate ourselves from them.

5) In what quantifiable way do you stand out from the competition?

Now that we’ve identified who the main competitors are, this question is aimed at quickly finding out how you can stand out.

If the client gives a good answer, he/she can save you a lot of time digging up the competitive advantages on your own.

6) If your product is an info product, is their a specific passage/segment I can look to that I won’t find in a competitor’s product?

This question narrows down the competitive advantage even further, saving the copywriter a lot of time. Now we can quickly skip to the pages that detail how your client’s product is unique and superior to your competitor’s product.

After you’ve identified the main competitors and identified the competitive advantages, you’re ready to start brainstorming your angle and logical arguments. But NOT before.

That’s what makes questions #4, #5 and #6 so important.

When writing copy, you’re not selling a product/service so much as you’re selling a solution.  A solution that solves a problem or fulfills a desire.

So instead of asking something silly like, “What’s your product?”, I ask about the major benefit.  And that’s question #2 on my questionnaire:

“2) In one or two sentences only, what major benefit does your product/service uniquely provide?”

There are two key words to pay attention to in that question: “major” and “uniquely.”

A product may have a gazillion benefits.  But the copy is going to focus primarily on the big idea.  The MAJOR benefit of your product. It could be to lose weight, make money, get out of debt etc.  That’s the major benefit.

But that’s not all I want to know.  I also wanna know how your product UNIQUELY delivers that benefit. There are lots of weight loss products out there, how does your product stand out?

If this question is answered correctly, it could be the entire theme of the copy.

Of course, most products have more than one benefit.  Or sub-benefits.  So question #3 is designed to expand on question #2:

3) Please list additional benefits of your product/service.

If your product helps you to lose weight while still eating your favorite foods, that’s a great benefit.

If you’re selling exercise equipment that stores away easily, taking up little space.  That’s a great benefit.

(Note: For great advice on writing benefits, check out Michel Fortin’s article “Forget Benefits, And you Will Sell More.” Make sure to read all the way down to the advantages vs. benefits portion.)

These secondary benefits will help you support the major benefit.  The more you collect, the easier it will be to connect with your reader and write great copy.

The sales letter was good.  It was more than good, it rocked.

Michel Fortin was my copywriting coach at the time, he didn’t have anything to add.  It was ready to give to the client.

The client was a big name guru you’ve probably heard of.

And he hated it.  He changed it quite a bit, including the entire angle, before he published it.

What happened?  I didn’t manage my client’s expectations.  Part of that job is to discover what the client is expecting the letter will look like.

And the easiest way to get that answer is to ask…

“1) Are there any competing sales letters you like that I should see?”

Have you ever heard, “The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side.”  If your client likes a competitor’s sales letter, they’re probably looking for something similar.

Of course your sales letter needs to be unique to be successful.  But you can get a good feel of the tempo and energy of the copy.  And that’s likely what your client is looking for.

The lesson: If you want to keep your client happy, find out what they like about their competitor’s sales copy.

My favorite excerpt from this blog entry:

The biggest error that most people commit when they write copy is that they try to be clever, trying to ‘WOW’ people with every sentence.

Check it out: http://blog.onecoach.com/2008/12/09/how-to-sell-in-print-the-secret-of-writing-killer-copy/

You may know my sister, Rebecca at MissCopy.com.

I’ve mentored her as she’s become a copywriter. Well, sometimes she tries to tell me, the TEACHER, that I’m wrong!

This particular argument required Michel Fortin to step in and break it up. Here’s my question to Michel and his response…

My Question:

My sister and I have been arguing about benefits in your QUEST formula.

She tends to put many general benefits in the stimulate section right before the transition section. The formula calls for more benefits in the stimulate section, but I feel like they should be more specific, so I tell her to change them. An example would be…

For say a “make money” product, she would put “leave your corporate job!” in the stimulate section. I guess I can see that works. But I might put something like that earlier (almost like a qualifier) and be more specific in the stimulate section, like “start receiving $100.00 checks in the mail!”.

Hopefully I described it well, what’s your take?

Michel’s Response:

The answer is… it depends. It depends on the market, the product, and the chosen “hook” (the platform upon which your story will be built).

In fact, this also goes hand in hand with my OATH Formula.

For instance, if your market is, say, “Apathetic” if not “Oblivious,” then you need to educate them on the problem first before you sell them. You need to qualify them a lot more, too. You might even need to drive the fear factor a lot earlier, too, to get them to fully appreciate not only the problem but also the gravity of the problem—what Dan Kennedy calls “Problem-Agitate-Solve.”

Let’s say your hook is about making money to live the life of your dreams. Your entire story is about the benefits of quitting your day job. And your market is unaware of the consequences of staying in that job (they’re apathetic). Then the benefit “leave your corporate job” (followed by reasons why) is a core benefit. In this case, I would use it much earlier in the QUEST formula.

Why? Because leaving your job is a core benefit that’s intrinsic to the “understand” section because it ties the main story to your market, and the specific situation your market is in that your solution solves. If you pontificate on the wonders of financial freedom as the main thrust in your argument, then “leaving your day job” is a frontend benefit. And it needs to be driven home much earlier.

But if it’s a lateral benefit, that is, a by-the-way benefit (or backend benefit), then it can be used further down, in the stimulate section. Because then you want to pile on the benefits. If the benefit like “leave your day job” is more like the part of many benefits of buying the product, then it’s a backend benefit. And it can and should be used in the stimulate section to cover all the bases, pile on the benefits, build more value before the close, and so on.

In fact, using it at the end like this makes it less of a benefit and more of a rational “reason why.” Remember, people buy on emotions first and then justify their decisions with logic. And giving them actual, logical justifications later on in your copy is not only good practice, but also giving them ammunition they can use and even own to justify their decisions to themselves—and to others around them.

So “leave your day job” is not so much a benefit as it is a logical “reason why.” (That said, it can be used anywhere in the copy, and I don’t want you to think that following my formula means that the structure is written in stone. Sometimes, it can be used earlier on if it’s appropriate and conducive to the proper flow of the letter.)

Anyway, here’s an example. Let’s say you sell a stock trading product, and your main hook is that there are massive market shifts going on right now that, if the customer doesn’t take action today, can be missed.

The ability to make money with the stock market (and leave your job) is a side benefit—or a more generic, overall benefit, since pretty much all stock trading type infoproducts promise the same thing).

And since making money leads to, among many other things, quitting your day job, then it becomes a backend benefit rather than a frontend one.

That said, however, if your product’s main hook is its ability to make a lot more money than any other program out there, for example, then it’s a frontend benefit, and would probably be better earlier on.

Michel Fortin has answered Edward’s question! Here
it is…

Question: “How do you get inside the head of the
prospect?” And I’ll try and make it more specific
by saying, what’s a quick overview of your
methodology for discovering the conversation in
the prospect’s mind?

I just posted a blog post today, “How to Target
Your Perfect Customer,” that specifically deals
with this. (What a coincidence!) Here’s the link:

Michel Fortin’s Blog

Generally, this involves doing a lot of detective
work. Market research is key. Getting to know the
prospect as intimately as possible is even better,
and a step beyond typical market research.
Sometimes, I conduct phone interviews with
clients, record the conversation and get the call
transcribed. And often, they practically write the
copy for me!

I try to pull out their passion. Get them to
expand. Ask open-ended questions. Ask questions
(like the questions I posted in my blog post) and
let them take over the conversation. Really.

I also sometimes browse related or
industry-specific forums. Just watching some of
the conversations going on is very telling. People
are posting their desires, their fears, their
concerns, their appreciation (or disklike) of
certain products, both competing and non-competing
products, etc.

Sometimes, I join these forums under a pseudonym
and pose questions, as if I was “one of them.” I
then carefully watch what kind of answers they
give me. And blogs and social networking sites,
which have now exploded, are perfect locations to
discover what kind of conversations are going on
in specific niches or about specific topics.

For example, let’s say you’re writing copy for a
“fly fishing” infoproduct. Then you could browse
forums like:

http://www.flyfishingforum.com/
http://www.theflyfishingforum.com/
http://troutunderground.com/

Sometimes, and if the client hasn’t done so, I
also create a blog or information site, where I
post articles on the topic at hand. If I have
enough time, I tend to wait it out a bit, see what
kind of traffic it generates, what kind of
comments it gets, and what kind of keywords they
find me under.

There are tons of market research tools out there
to help you. You can use them to do keyword
research, lateral analyses — meaning, other
topics, concepts of discussions going on in the
marketplace you target, including locations they
find you under. For example, if a blog on fishing
links to you, what was the conversation? What are
the comments on that blog post in which you were
linked from? What other sites are they linking to,
and what do THEY say?

(There are many new tools to help you, like
www.hittail.com that lists some of the
less-than-targeted keywords they find you under,
but are popular enough on the Internet to warrant
more research. Hittail is specifically designed to
help you know what to post. You can post articles
with more of those keywords in them to attract
more traffic. But I like to use it to find out the
frame-of-mind of the visitor.)

David Garfinkel said it best: don’t just learn who
your market is and what their problem is. Find out
“how they talk about it.” That’s important. How
they talk about their problem is not just a
language thing (meaning, what the problem means to
them).

It’s also very insightful into the mindset of the
market, the behaviors of your market, buying
patterns, lifestyle choices, etc. For example, if
your product is about how to cure insomnia, people
don’t talk about insomnia. They talk about
lethargy, lack of productivity, loss of job or
relationships, feeling sluggish, absenteeism, lack
of clarity and focus, low self-esteem, etc.

So the copy shouldn’t talk about how to cure
insomnia. It should talk about all the “problems”
and “end-results” people suffer and talk about as
a result of insomnia. See the difference?

Michel Fortin, CEO
The Success Doctor, Inc.
http://SuccessDoctor.com