Copywriting and Advertising: 20 Ways to Increase Response Rates

It's easy to overlook the obvious when you're putting together an ad. The following checklist will help you keep on track for better response in print, direct mail, broadcast or web advertising.

1. Is it clear what you're offering? Show the communication to someone who's had nothing to do with it and see if they understand it. And understand it quickly!

2. Is it equally clear what you want your prospect to do? Order your product, send for more info, return the questionnaire, visit your website.

3. Does your communication have a single strong idea? More than one idea can confuse and lose your prospect. And the best idea is of course linked to your strongest product or service benefit.

4. Have you shown an obvious advantage over your competition? This could be a unique benefit, lower price, better quality or else your incentive.

5. Can you make your offer seem exclusive? Prospects feel flattered if they can be among the chosen few.

6. If there's an incentive, is it brought into the communication early? And is it justified? The incentive is an added reason to buy. In a crowded market it can be the only reason to buy. So get it up there quick. And justify it. For example, "End of Season Sale" is more credible than simply "Sale".

7. Can you strengthen the communication by quoting testimonials or independent research? Satisfied customers or an objective point of view are powerful ways to persuade new prospects to buy.

8. Can you offer a guarantee to increase buyer confidence? Guarantees are as old as advertising itself - for good reason.

9. Have you made your prospect the most important part of the communication? Not your company, not even your product or service, but the improved quality of life that your prospect will enjoy if they respond.

10. If your brand is well known, is it featured strongly? Your name adds reassurance.

11. Have you given every reason to respond and, consequently, overcome any normal objections? Your communication - whether it be online, print or broadcast - has to do the work of a salesman. But as it can't hear the particular objection in your prospect's head, you need to cover all possibilities.

12. Have you made it easy to respond (and pay)? A choice of channels usually increases response.

13. Is it written in a friendly tone? It should sound as if you're talking to your prospect face to face.

14. Is the tone of voice appropriate for your target audience? Talk to consumers as if you were chatting at their kitchen table. For B2B imagine you're in their office.

15. Have you matched benefits to features? (Here's the feature) "The Golden Fund invests in China's top twenty companies... (Now the benefit) ...giving your portfolio exposure to massive growth potential."

16. Have you been specific in your claims? Not "a great choice of insurance plans" but "a choice of 17 insurance plans, allowing you to..."

17. Are words, sentences and paragraphs short and easy to read? Choose simple words. Sentences with eight words are easiest to read. Paragraphs should be bite size.

18. Do your visuals emphasize a benefit? Put captions to your visuals as they are almost always read.

19. In the case of ads and mailings, have you restated the benefits near the coupon or phone number? Or at the checkout for your website? For ads and mailings people sometimes rip out coupons to complete later. If they can't remember why they did so, it's a lost sale. Online it's at the checkout where they sometimes have a change of heart; your main benefit can keep them reassured.

20. In print and screen media, is your font easy to read? Newspapers use a serif typeface because it's easy to read. If you use sans-serif make sure there's enough space between the lines.

Copyright 2006 by Tony Brecher

Article Source: http://www.articleshine.com

Tony Brecher has over 19 years experience as a copywriter and creative director at some of the best direct agencies in London and Sydney. He now runs Adwriter and creates advertising, direct mail and web content for clients large and small. For more information on how he can help you create successful advertising visit www.adwriter.com.au

5 Best Copywriting Tips: To Eliminate Your Copywriting Errors

Copywriting, as others think is supposed to be a simple and trouble-free task. On the contrary, it is not as simple as we believe it to be. Copywriting surely requires skill and a little bit of freedom to express your motto of writing impressive content. But, you must not lose heart. There are a few tips that will surely help you groom your copyrighting skills.

The following mentioned are some of the best copywriting tips. They are easy to learn and anyone can grasp these copyrighting tips efficiently.

1. We would advice you to keep reading your written material over and over again. You will not come up with errors in continuous seven to eight glances. Try taking a break of a few minutes before you read your copy again. You will surely come across a few minor or major errors.

2. No one expects you to be a “GRAMMAR NERD”. Allow the content to flow smoothly with simple words and precise content. Avoid using really strong and difficult words.

3. It is always better to construct short and sweet sentences. Allow each idea to have a separate paragraph for itself, so your content does not read like one big jumble. This will generate interest in the reader and they might just want to read some more through your web pages.

4. Try not to loose the main focus of your content. Enhance your main theme may it be a product that you are selling or virtual services that you are planning to offer. If you drift away from your main focal point, you will also loose the customer.

5. When you are about to do the copywriting, we would recommend you to talk in specific yet friendly language. If you make use of a very corporate language, you might just scare the customer away. The content should be interactive.


Author Resource:- Alakh Arpan is the author of this article on Seo
Copywriting. Find more information about Seo
Copywriting Services at seocopywritingservices.net.

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The Art of Freelance Copywriting

The best way to enter the writing business is to start with freelance copywriting. Freelance copywriting is a good money-yielding job. Every business activity requires marketing the materials in the written form, whether big or small. Freelance copywriting may involve materials right from tiny advertisements to big training manuals. Web marketing is very effective to run the business in a fast way. Web marketing involves web sales pages, online catalog copy, web site copy, pay per click advertising etc. Actually the opportunities for freelance copywriting are unlimited. There is no prerequisite condition to enter this field of copywriting. To earn good money through copywriting, the freelancer should get organized in the first place and should know how to write, so that a freelancer can get the maximum benefit out of this profession.

Almost all the businesses have their web pages and they need to keep their page rankings. Unless and until the web pages are refreshed with new contents, they cannot keep their page rankings high. Failing to keep the content refreshed might also result in a setback to the business as the ranking might drop. There are millions of such websites, which require the assistance of the freelance copywriters. Imagine the scope for copywriting profession for yourself. Freelance copywriting requires a bit of imagination and creativity to excel in the field. The first step is to find companies, which can pay the freelance copywriters adequately for writing their content. The topic should be understood properly, and then the information necessary for it needs to be collected. Organizing the facts and presenting it with originality is the secret of success of a freelance copywriter.

Copywriting portfolio of the freelance copywriter is very crucial in getting good assignments, as the copywriting portfolio will consist of the materials he has written like the brochures, direct mailer samples, advertisements, web sales pages etc. It is always good to get the consent of the client before adding the work to your portfolio, the one you wrote for them.

The legitimate way of building the portfolio of the freelance copywriter is to work for a local agency as an intern copywriter. Even though the money gained during such period is of less value, the experience gained will be of great value. Also the person will get good contacts, which can be useful while becoming a freelance copywriter.

Article Source: http://articlekarma.com

S. Geetha regularly contributes informative articles to web guides on freelance and work from home jobs - www.perfectjobsportal.com and www.myhomebizguide.com

How To Test Your Copywriting Skills in the ClickBank Marketplace Without a Reseller Account

If there is any skill that is indispensable to the web marketer it is copywriting. Regardless of how much traffic you can bring to your site, if the words on the page do not convince your prospects to buy your product, or sign up for your mailing list, it all means nothing.

So many webmasters overlook this critical component of a successful site. However, it is one that is easily corrected. A complete course in copywriting is outside the scope of this article, but to point you in the right direction, I would suggest that you start with "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples, followed by "Web Copy That Sells" by Maria Veloso.

Once you are comfortable with the fundamentals of copywriting, it's time to test your new skill. I have discovered a simple, yet brutally accurate way to measure your progress.

Go to the ClickBank marketplace at marketplace.clickbank.net and choose a product you'd like to promote. Then, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and sign up for a ClickBank Affiliate ID.

Next, create your landing page somewhere on your site, and write your sales letter. If you really want to get creative, write two versions of your sales letter and use your tracking software to conduct an A/B split-test between the two.

In order to test the effectiveness of your letter, you'll need to send people directly to ClickBank's purchase page. Although it isn't advertised, ClickBank has provided a way for you to do this. Your purchase page link will look like this:
ITEM.AFFILIATE_VENDOR.pay.clickbank.net

Where the item is the item number of the product that you are promoting. Find this number by clicking on the vendor's purchase link, landing on the ClickBank purchase page and viewing the source code in your browser. You are looking for a line that says:
(input type=hidden name=item value="item#") where item# is a number.

So, to recap, you've got the Item number, your affiliate ID, and the vendor ID (if you don't know the vendor id, go back the the source code above and look two lines up from the item number for the vendor ID). Now put them all together to create the purchase link above.

There is a caveat here you must be aware of; this method does not embed your affiliate commission, so if the purchase is not made right there, you will not get the credit.

Track the number of visitors to your sales page, and the number of sales that you get credit for. In this manner, you'll be able to judge the effectiveness of your copywriting skills.

Article Source: http://www.articleshine.com

Create sales letters instantly with this amazing tool.

Ron Jones is the owner of www.internetprofit101.com
Learn the Fundamentals of Internet Marketing and Build a Sustainable, Income Producing, Online Business.
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