A quickie from my Friend Brett McFall.

How To Think Outside The Box ...
And Laugh All The Way To The Bank

 From: Brett McFall

THE MCFALL REPORT

The World's Best Advertising Secrets - MADE SIMPLE

Hello my friend,

You need to listen to the recording below IMMEDIATELY.

It's hot off the presses. In a LIVE interview, two of the most switched on ladies in the country - Victoria Furey and Sabrina Yuille - have uncovered some of my biggest copywriting secrets for creating wealth.

So, I thought ... why not make them available to you at no charge!

You need to listen to it if you're in business... or trying to sell anything at all (perhaps on e-bay ... or your own products or services etc) - even if that's yourself.

I reveal...

• What I look for in a product or service in order to turn sales around lightning quick (imagine if you knew how to do the same for yourself)
   
• How to find the "killer" punch that can massively increase sales in just days (this is called finding something unique about your product or service - use my simple little formula revealed here)
   
• How to create an offer so IRRESISTIBLE that people can't help but spend money with you (this is so easy it's not funny - use my advice here to get the money coming in quick... quick... quick - in fact people will feel silly if they don't buy from you)
   
• On-the-spot examples to make every point crystal-clear (these stories will get your mind racing - you won't be able to stop the ideas flowing for your own situation ... in fact you'll probably have to pause the recording just so you can think clearly! Isn't this the sort of injection and inspiration you need right now?)

So don't dilly dally - either hit the play button now ... or download it to your computer for listening on your MP3 player or via your computer speakers. This will be the most important hour you spend this week (so don't tell me you haven't got time to listen to it - you haven't got the time NOT to):

THE 10 PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE COPY WRITING FOR THE NET:

1. Know Your Product

This is the cornerstone of good copy writing. Know your product and be passionate about it. Believe in it. If you don't, you shouldn't be selling it. It is not only unethical to sell something you wouldn't buy yourself, but also difficult and unpleasant.

If you have a product that you *know* will change your customer's life for the better, then copy writing becomes much easier. You're doing her a favor - offering this product at this price - believe that yourself first.

2. Know Your Customer

Before you write the first word, create a profile customer.

• Is it a techno-peasant housewife or an IT company executive?
• Income range?
• Age?
• Sex?
• In a hurry?

Select your words and page length to suit your reader - not yourself.

Then, once your web site is tailor made for her unique needs, it is time to test... Find about 3 people who more or less fit your profile customer's specs and let them loose on the site. Give them tasks like finding your e-mail address, getting to the order page, finding information on a specific product etc.

See how easily they find it and ask for general comments as they go.

Testing is absolutely vital.

My own sales copy always looks good to me - but I wrote it, so I know exactly how it's structured. Someone else might find it tedious or even confusing.

Confusing web sites is the NUMBER ONE reason people leave.

Swear at them if you must, but don't confuse them.

That is why you have to test.

3. Stress Benefits

Whatever you do, DON'T put you mission statement on your homepage.

We just don't care.

We want benefits! What can your product do for me? Right now!

• Can it make me rich?
• Can it save me time?
• Can it entertain me?
• Can it make me feel better about myself?

That's what people want.

Your product's greatest benefit should be right in the top header in bold red letters. Your first three or four words should hit them between the eyes.

You never read everything on every page you visit. You scan - you look for something that seems interesting.

Statistics show that you have 10 seconds to grab your visitor's attention. If you don't, she'll move on. No sentence starting with "Our goal is to..." has ever grabbed my attention. I don't care about you. I care about me. What does your site/product do for me? Right now!

I know this seems harsh, but you'd do well to take it seriously. It's been proven many times. E-consumers are very back-button-happy. It's a big web with lots to see. You HAVE TO give them a reason to stay on your site.

4. Establish Trust

On the Net you don't have the advantage of speaking face to face with your customer, so you have to load as much credibility into your words as possible.

How?

Offer a free trial, a money-back guarantee, testimonials, put your e-mail address, physical address and phone number at the bottom of every page, show a (small) photograph of yourself etc.

Most important: Speak to your visitor. Don't ramble about technical specs of your products. Imagine sitting down with a friend and telling her about something that can really enhance her life.

5. Use Headings Like This One

Break it up.

Short paragraphs.

Few people will read your entire page. Make it scannable.

Each heading should do 2 things:

• Grab their attention
• Give them clues about the content of the next two or three paragraphs.

Remember that reading from the screen puts extra strain on the eyes. Make the read easy, quick and informative.

6. Words (not) To Use

Good words:
Free; proven; discover; breakthrough; learn; you/your; benefit; first; complete; exclusive etc.

Bad words:
If; but; should; could; etc.

Powerful words:
Why say "If you want to get to the top of the Search Engines..." when you could say "Nail the search engines in five easy steps. Read on... ".

As a rule of thumb, assume that your visitor couldn't care less about you. Don't use "I" or "me" more than "you".

7. Keep It Short

I mentioned page-length up there at #2. The key is to keep it as short as you can. When you're done writing your killer copy, see if you can say it in half the words. Don't sacrifice quality though. Make it as long as it needs to be without dragging it out.

8. Create Urgency

Throw in something special for the first 100 subscribers or make it "this month only". Your word selection is important here. Don't say "Subscribe now!". Put a specific time limit to it - "Subscribe during July and I'll give you... ".

Try to get them to buy on their first visit, because chances of them returning later are slim. To overcome this create a mini course or something of value to allow you to keep corresponding with them.

9. Get A Response

Hook'em the first time.

If they don't bookmark you, they probably won't find you again. Have a back-up response ready.

For example:
Let's say that you have a visitor that just can't make up her mind. With a bit more convincing, you'll hook her, but she's at the end of the page and thinking about the dreaded back-button.

So give her something - like a free subscription to your newsletter or a trial download. That way you survive in her memory and you get another opportunity to persuade her.

10. Spelling, Grammar and Formatting

I won't tell you that a typo will kill your sales effort. The same applies to grammatical errors. Use a spellchecker of some sort. I make a habit of pasting my text in MS Word and running a spell-check. It saves a lot of time later.

EASY ON THOSE CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!

They look unprofessional. Use bold text and color to highlight important points.

“The 7 Deadly Mistakes to Avoid with Your Promotional Web Copy” With Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero, President of Red Hot Copy Audio Must be Online Download PDF Work Sheet

Using a Swipe file?

Simply put, it's a collection of other peoples ad copy and web sites. Before the days of the Internet it would usually consist of a folder or scrap book. Every time you spotted some good advertising copy, either from a newspaper or from some letter that arrived in the mail that morning, you would keep it in your 'swipe file'.

Whenever you came to write some new copy of your own, you could use these clippings and letters for inspiration and ideas.

With more and more sales copy appearing on the web, you can formulate an 'electronic' version of the same idea. I store web pages and copy of good sales copy in my favorites and sometimes I even print out copies and drop them in my now large collection of paper clippings and letters.

How to decide what goes in your swipe file?

Whenever you come across a piece of sales copy, whether it's on the web, in your email, in a newspaper or it arrives in your postal mail, you need to take a couple of moments to look it over. If the headline grabs your attention and the letter draws you in then the chances are you are holding a good piece of copy in your hands. Never assume that every piece of copy you see is working well for it's author, I've seen some hopeless examples arrive from even the largest companies (who also should be paying the best copy writers).

I actually have three sections to my personal swipe files. The first is what I considered to be good copy. The second is copy that has some good points but is weak in a few areas. The third is for total trash copy. I keep the trash copy for one reason - I can pull it out now and again and for practice I have a go at re-working some of it. Practice makes perfect and no matter how long you've been trying to sell through direct copy, the more practice you have, the better.

How to use your swipe file?

The main use of this collection of copy is to learn from the 'good' stuff. I use it for inspiration, and sometimes I pull out some good copy, and then with pen and highlighter marker in hand, I go through it and highlight the parts that are really holding it together and really making me get drawn in and convinced. I scribble notes in the margins too (now you see why I often print off good web copy).

As time goes on you will become better at working out which parts work and why certain things have the effect they do.

Never Copy!

The only word of warning I have is this: Never just try to rip-off someone else's copy. Firstly because it's a breach of copyright and that happens to be illegal. Secondly, because you will never become good at writing copy yourself if all you do is copy someone else. And thirdly, although their copy looks good - there's no guarantee it is definitely working for them, and no guarantee that what works for their product will work for yours. You always need to test copy yourself, but that is a whole separate issue.

In Conclusion.

If you are not already keeping a swipe file - start today. No matter what level you are at, as far as copy writing ability is concerned, you will always benefit from this powerful resource.

The secret of good copywriting for the web is to use conversational writing. Read it out loud to yourself to make sure it makes sense.

Most importantly be honest and don't make any outrageous claims. Try and provide the reader with as much information as possible.