When you set out to write your copy make sure that, you are addressing the mind of your prospect and understand that you are speaking to their emotional side. We all make our purchasing decisions from an emotional stance. We are looking to solve some pain or increase some pleasure. Isn’t it really the little boy who is living out a childhood fantasy when he buys that high performance BMW fully loaded with all the lights whistles and gadgets?

You may be selling to professionals that you think have awesome sophisticated vocabularies. That may indeed be true in their professional lives. However, when selling a product you are really selling to the emotional mind and that can be the mindset of a ninth grader or below.

I know it sounds somewhat crass, but when you are creating your copy, you really want to write at a ninth grade level or below. Once upon a time, I worked in a place where the COO instructed all his staff to write memos to the professional staff that an elementary school kid could understand.

When I heard that that is what they were doing, I was a little insulted. But when I really think about it from an educated stance, I can see that the best way to communicate to a bunch of professionals who are often overwhelmed in a world that includes a lot of high stress and responsibility is to talk to their inner child in a much simpler style. After all, what do most of us do when we get home from work? Engage in some intense academic pursuit or kickback, watch some TV and relax.

It is that relaxed, chilled out prospect that you want to attract and it will be easier for you to do that if you are using simple understandable language.

You might be asking yourself how it is that you would know at what level a ninth grader reads. If you use Microsoft word, then you probably have a great tool readily available. It is called the Readability Index and you can set it to tell you at what level you are writing.

First, open your Microsoft word program. Go to tools then to options then to spelling and grammar. Check the box that says, “Show readability Statistics.” Then, when you are ready, have spell check run through your piece, correct or change what you think you want and when you are done you will get a little pop up screen that will give you all the statistics about that piece including the readability scale. Oddly enough, this blog post has a readability scale for the ninth grader.

The first trick is to identify sales letters that spark an interest or an emotional response and thus are income producing. Take the letter of your choice and first copy it in your own handwriting, line by line. You want to pay special attention to the rhythm of the letter. Notice the words that are used and how the writer puts those words together. Pay attention to the style and flow. Examine each sentence for it’s structure and how it relates to the overall message of the sales letter. Also pay attention to how the letter makes you feel. What sort of emotional response comes up for you.

Now go back and do it again. You can use the same letter or find others that are good sales copy letters.

Another method for learning the best copy techniques is something that I first used  long ago when I was in college. What you want to do is read some of these great sales letters aloud while you are listening to baroque music. I believe you want music that maintains 60 beats per minute. Try a piece you like from Bach, Mozart or Vivaldi.

The next step is to record yourself reading the copy along with the music. Later you will listen to the recordings while studying the flow of the copy, paying attention to the use of words and how the author uses those words to evoke an emotional response, usually a call to action.

What educators have found is that there is an association between the music and the item being studied. The baroque music helps to maximizes the learning of new material and our ability to retain that new information.It has a lot to do with engaging both the right and left brains simultaneously. Evidently the human mind works better when listening to this sort of music. Try listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Piano’s in D Major

What happens later when you go to write copy of your own is that through an association with the baroque music you are able to better recall the copy patterns that sell.

What’s in it for me?

The very first thing you want to do is grab the attention of your prospect. You will want to spend a considerable amount of dedicated time  creating the ideal headline. A common mistake amongst copywriters is that they write just one headline. But they’re missing out. Just as creating optimal copy takes time and many re-writes, so too does your headline. Take your time and create some great headlines. You’ll be glad you did.

After you identify your target market and your Unique Selling Point (USP) you will want to write at least a couple hundred headlines. Yes, that’s what I said, you want to write a couple hunderd headlines for just this one assignment. In the end you will use several of those headlines. One will be that great attention grabber at the beginning of your copy. The others may serve as sub-headlines in the body of your copy.

For your headlines you want to be using words such as:

* Announcing
* Breakthrough
* Now
* New
* Free
* Discover How
* You
* How to

You then want to capitalize on the benefits that your product or service offers. And make sure that you are talking benefits and not features. This will help you to awnser the question that your prospect has on his mind.

What’s in it for ME ?

Nevertheless, I took that information and arranged it by category and subject matter. They also provided a link to the site so that I could see exactly waht it was that they were  providing through their web pages.

My next step was to engage in the investigation process. I spent some time at their site familiarizing myself with their content, features and benefits and any special selling points that I could find. I did some other investigation about their ideal customer and what it is that that person might be looking for from this web site. It’s improtant to know your customers so that you can address your copy to a specific audience.

Then I spent some time perusing other relevant web sites with similar information to really get a better understanding of the industry as well as to get a better handle on unique selling points (USP) for my customer. And again, customer interest and demographics play an important role.

Then I had some questions and so I contacted the customer to go over my progress. As we spoke it became clear that she was thinking more along the lines of just one single page of the website. So the copy needed to address just a single service provided by a site that provides a myriad of services.

Given this much better understanding of the job intention and  specific intention I was better able to  pinpoint the focus of my efforts and provide the copy the customer was seeking.

When you are embarking on your copywriting endeavors it’s always a good idea to do all of your homework which should ultimately include a question and answer session with your customer, ideally before you spend a great deal of time putting anything together. You really want to make sure that you thoroughly understand what the assignment’s focus might be.

My initial information was vague. But in all fairness the customer always knows what she wants. It’s our job to help her articulate the specifics of that assignment so that we too have substantial knowledge of the assignment.

However, there is an often overlooked area which is not often discussed, and that is how to influence your prospect with keywords. This method, in all actuality takes precedence over all the others, as the keywords which are relevant to the product you are delivering is what ultimately interested the prospect to consider reading your copy to begin with. When you learn how to influence your prospect with keywords, your keywords can serve as a reference point to the prospect, and remind them why they are reading your sales letter in the first place.

Copywriters often get too caught up in the “calls to action,” “the buzz words,” and the fancy adjectives, not realizing that after they proofread their ad copy, they completely left out the product, and must begin again. Such things as product names, competitor’s names, company slogans, logos, etc., all qualify as keywords that must be repeated often to a prospect.

In learning how to influence your prospect with keywords, you will be bringing them back to what they were seeking, and not distracting them by overusing literary devices, which can turn off a prospect.

If you diligently learn how to influence your prospect with keywords effectively and concentrate on this area, you will unlock one of the best-kept secrets in copywriting, and be on the road to becoming a successful copywriter in no time.

The best example of the power of writing copy that solicits an emotional response is found in brand marketing. When a soft drink consumer enjoys a Coca Cola, they aren’t  necessarily thinking about carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup. They are more identifying with all of the positive experiences they either have had or anticipate having in association with the product. There is an emotional response associated with people enjoying things like summer fun, quenching thirst after a sporting activity, a hot day at the beach engaged in a rigorous game of volleyball and frolicking in the water. These are the sorts of messages that good copy writers create in their advertising copy that aims for the heart and ultimately that emotional response.

The most important thing to learn in writing such dynamic content is also one of the most basic fundamentals in sales: believing in your product. In this case, your product is your message, the reason that you’re writing copy. Ultimately if you don’t believe in your message, then your customers will sense that.

Consider starting off the way professional advertisers do. Before ever getting started do some brainstorming on why it is that a prospect would be inspired about that product. Really take the time to get into their shoes as it were and find that same inspiration in yourself. Really getting fired up about the product and what it can do for YOU the customer will help you to confidently inspire others to take action. You will have touched them at their very core. You will be aiming for their heart and subsequently touching their desires with an emotional response.

Once you have your drive and inspiration, take a break, go for a walk, put some distance between you and your focus. Then return later to make sure that that fire and inspiration is still there. Whatever resonates with you the most, that’s the heart of your copy. Take those images and craft them into copy that explains how your message is so integral to the basic emotional center and inspiration of your work. Do this, and you know that you’ll be writing copy that aims for the heart.