In a recent blog post over at Clicknewz.com, Lynn Terry asks me to do a quick post on “5 Ways You Can Spice Up Boring Sales Copy.”

Now, for those of you in the blogging and tech world who don’t know this, this post may shock you a little. I’ve been writing sales copy for the past couple of years for various sites, product launches, software products, etc. I do quite well with it and it’s my main source of income online right now.

Here goes:

5 Ways To Spice Up Your Sales Copy

1. Making this one, simple (yet powerful) change to your bullet points could make or break your sales copy. You’ll be red faced when you realize how often YOU make this mistake.

I could say “nuff said” but I’ll try to explain further.

Your bullet points take one specific aspect of the product you’re selling and transform that aspect into an emotional selling point. For example, in one of the late Gary Halbert’s newsletters, he spoke of a letter he wrote for a real estate investing course. Today, we call it “flipping houses” but back then it was all about buying houses cheap, fixing them up and selling them quickly for a profit.

Anyway… one of the tips in that course, as per the author’s own experiences, said that by painting a house, or at least part of a house yellow, it would attract a larger number of potential buyers. It was a simple one or two sentences written in the book. That’s it.

But when Mr. Halbert wrote the salesletter, he used it as one of the bullets, but didn’t tell you what the color was.

After thousands of copies of that course were sold, feedback from numerous customers indicated that that bullet alone, and the curiosity it created in the readers mind (they just HAD to know what color to paint the house), was one of, if not THE thing in the letter that clinched the sale.

Bullets in your letter are like mini headlines, a series of classified ads or whatever that sell small aspects of your product and sell the benefits of that aspect, or at least create an emotion or curiosity that the reader NEEDS to satisfy.

2. Never. Ever, EVER… say “You’d be stupid NOT to buy this!”

Make the case SO Strongly in your sales copy that it’s blindingly obvious… but saying it outright is the mark of a rank amateur copywriter. If you’re good, the reader’s own mind tells them how silly they’d be if they didn’t click the order button.

3. Know your market, or at least spend a few days researching exactly what motivates them to buy the products you’re selling.

No. I don’t mean do keyword research using some software. No, I DON’T mean looking at your competition’s sales material (because they are more than likely doing it all wrong).

What I mean is…

If you’re writing a sales letter for a product that helps women grow bigger, firmer breasts (OMG!!) WHY do they want to do that in the first place?

The main reason, is vanity and how they WANT other people to THINK about them and how POWERFUL they’ll FEEL with a bigger chest!

So here’s 2 headlines for an imaginary bust enhancement cream sales letter. Which one do you think would sell better to women in that market?

a. Have Larger, Firmer and More Shapely Breasts in Just Weeks

b. Become A Powerful Seductress In 30 Days Or Less

I dare you to split test well written sales copy written around those 2 headlines and compare the results.

4. Personality. Personalization… Yeah, people. You’re writing for people.

So talk to those people in a context they understand, or more importantly, in a context you already know gets them excited. It’s all about knowing your market and what triggers them to buy stuff.

This may not make sense at first, but think hard about it: It’s not what your potential customers are passionate about, it’s why they get passionate about it.

I know a gentleman who’s into cigars. He loves smoking fine cigars, he loves reading about them, the fact that his favorite brand is illegal in his country makes him want them even more and enjoy them even more when he finally gets his hands on them.

But one thing that stuck out in my mind more than anything else is this one thing he said once: “We just like looking at other people’s stuff.”

He was talking about an online community for cigar buffs, and how the most popular and active area was the section where members posted pictures of, and chatted about their cigar stuff. Things like the cigar boxes, those little clippers for clipping the end of the cigar, ashtrays, humidors, cigar bands, etc.

Think about that the next time you write sales copy. “We just like looking at other people’s stuff.” That statement, is powerful when you REALLY understand it.

5. Ok, lastly but not leastly (Yes, it’s a word, now.) What copywriting post would be complete without talking about headlines?

So what makes up the perfect headline?

(Don’t you just hate it when people say this…)

It depends.

What kind of sales copy are you writing, a classified or google adwords ad, a 1/4 page ad for USA Today’s Travel section or the headline for a full blown internet marketing product launch sales letter?

All I’ll say, is that if I were going to write a headline for a blog post about how to spice up your sales copy, it would go something like this:

5 Ways To Spice Up Your Sales Copy

Thanks Lynn!

Tonight (Tuesday, Oct. 9th) at about 1130pm EST we’re going to do a live broadcast over at justin.tv/ipaul.

Yes, a friend and myself will be streaming a live video show over the web. We’ll be talking about things like technology, online business, the trouble he’s had with his computers lately and hopefully brainstorming “show” ideas.

Although I can’t promise that this will be a nightly occurance, really do hope it’ll be the start of something bigger.

So if you’re the type of person who slows down for car wrecs and just can’t keep your eyes off the carnage, no matter how disturbing, drop by justin.tv/ipaul and say hi.

Pulling out seconds before the life giving injection is made. Not only is Withdrawl a questionable birth control method, it’s a nasty tactic for a private investor to use to gather all the info they possibly can without actually delivering the goods.

It also destroys friendships and relationships, maybe even lives if taken just a little too far.

54 is dead in the water. My sincere apologies to the 150+ people who applied for a blogging position. If there were no legal or privacy ramifications present in the deal, I’d point you all to the person who killed it.

Oh well, another black eye and temporary limp. Time to heal and move on… Maybe next time.

I’m absolutely blown away by the quality and calibre of people inquiring about writing/blogging positions at my new startup. So far I’ve seen people with Bachelor of Science degrees, people who have written for major online and offline publications, experts in technology and travel. All I can say is “Wow!”

If things keep going as well as they have been for the past 48 hours with responses to the ads I placed here, here, here and here, 54 will be sprinting out of the starting blocks with some killer traction and content under it’s belt.

This is where it starts to get exciting.

54. Remember that number.

Ok, well, I guess I have no other choice but to let the cat out of the bag, or at least let it peek out and look around…

Are you an engaging writer/blogger who’s passionate about any of the following subjects?

Health & Fitness or Sports?
Vacationing & Travelling the world?
Food & Nutrition, Wine or Cooking?
Business & Marketing?
Personal Finance & Wealth Building?
The Latest in Fashion & Trendy Stuff?
Hot Cars, Green vehicles or SUVs?
Family stuff and Homemaking?

If so, and you’re savvy enough to know the potential of breaking in at beginning of the web’s next big startup company, then boy, do we have a deal for you!

If you’re passionate about any topic related to the subjects above, can commit to writing 3, 200+ word blog posts per day, 5 days a week and write consistently with authority, flair and know how to use a spell checker, here’s what we have to offer you…

In mid July, 2007, we’re launching a large blogging startup company & community. We’ll set you up with a blog, take care of the tech issues, find revenue streams for you, drive targeted traffic to your blog and pay you 75% of all contextual ad revenue generated by what you write, for as long as you write for us.

Plus++ As traffic and revenue grows, we’ll be setting up lucrative bonus plans for top performers.

Interested?

Just use the email address below to email me a brief bio about yourself (short resume or CV of your writing talents and niche expertise), the subject you’d like to write about (suggestions are cool), and links to about 3 examples of your writing currently published on the web. Those examples can be on your own existing blogs or sites, or published elsewhere.

Use this as the subject of your email:

PS Blogger Partnership Application

Please email me your Resume/CV and links to examples of your writing only, not examples of your writing right in the email itself.

Contact email: pshort at gmail dot com

——

Because this network is so new and we don’t want too many details leaking out before launch (crunch) time, we’ll be contacting applicants over the next few weeks and giving them more information.

It’s going to be a wild ride and we only want the best, most passionate writers to share it with us.

Join us now.

As an addendum to my previous post on the subject.

I’ll even go as far as to say that collectively, search engines, aggregators, advertisers, scrapers, etc. are actually making more money from blog content that we write, than we are ourselves. Someone, please, prove me wrong!

It’s time for us to take a long hard look at alternative ways to monetize our content. $0.10 clicks just aren’t cutting it any more.

We need to look at ourselves as publishers rather than bloggers. Publishing companies sell a lot more than just ads.