Most businesses spend more time worrying about their product than they do about marketing. But even with the best product in the world, you will not sell very much without good marketing. Marketing is essential for all businesses to succeed and copywriting is a huge component of marketing.  Thus, copywriting is vital for you to be successful online. 

You may wonder, why all the fuss about copywriting?  Before I realized the importance of copywriting, I spent most of my time creating products.  But creating new products every month did not necessarily ensure that I was making any more money.  I had to find a way to sell all of the new products I was creating and I had to find it fast.  So, I began studying copywriting for my own business.

According to copywriter Joe Sugarman, the goal of effective copywriting causes a person to exchange his or her hard-earned money for a product or service.  It really is that simple.  Here are some tips I have learned to make your copy more effective.

1. Research

Research is absolutely necessary in order to have an effective sales letter online.  So, what do you research?  First, you should know your customer, inside and out.  List the things that keep him up at night, what he is afraid of, his daily frustrations, and so forth.  This type of analysis will help you address concerns and objections your customer may have. 

Additionally, you should determine if he uses a specific language or whether he has a certain bias to the way he makes buying decisions.  For instance, engineers are very analytical when they make decisions.  Engineers also have a language all their own, that the rest of us may not understand. 

Get to know your customer so you are able to write your sales letter to a person, not a group of customers.  It should be very personalized.

Besides getting to know your customer, you should also investigate your product.  List the features and benefits of your product.  Have these handy so you can include these as you write to your customer.  Features tell what the product does.  Benefits tell your customer, what is in it for them.  With each benefit, you should ask the question, ?What is so great about that?? Your customer will be asking that question as he reads through your sales letter, so your benefits should answer the question for him.

2.  Index Cards

Do you remember using index cards for your high school research paper?  Well, it is time to bring out those index cards again.  As you answer the questions about your customer, put each answer on a separate index card.  You will end up with a pile of information about your target customer. Next, put each feature and benefit on an individual card. 

For each index card, write a few sentences that you can include in your sales letter.  Address just that one point.  Do not worry about making it perfect; it is just the first draft of your sentences.

Now, you can spread out your index cards and begin to write.  I learned this technique from Dan Kennedy. 

These research strategies are crucial for an effective sales letter.  If you skip the research portion of copywriting, your letter will not address the concerns of your customer and you will not make the sale.

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about Stephen Beck
Stephen Beck teaches families how to use articles to climb in the search engines. Go grab Stephen's 3 free videos at http://www.8weekstoprofits.com so families can begin today.

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