Copy — what you say and how you say it in your marketing — is obviously at the foundation of whether you end up with a message which converts or not.
But, what most entrepreneurs have been taught is good copy… is not.
Good copy doesn’t read or sound like copy.
Good copy doesn’t feel like, or come across, as a sales pitch.
Good copy doesn’t simply spew an endless tirade of claims.
And good copy doesn’t feel hyperbolic or exaggerated.
No.
Good copy feels valuable, moves people emotionally as well as intellectually, and uses education to establish the beliefs necessary for prospects to want to buy.
I didn’t understand this when I first got started in marketing.
I thought, like many entrepreneurs, writing copy was about using lots of colorful adjectives and adverbs to hype-up the value of my products.
I, too, bought in to the idea that good copy was nothing more than “salesmanship in print”.
But, it’s not. Not anymore.
“Salesmanship in print” is a good mindset to have when advertising a product for people already in the market for your type of solution. For the people simply looking for evidence of why to buy yours over every other option.
But, when marketing to the majority of your marketplace — the people aware of a problem or need, but not yet sure of the type of solution they want — an advertisement (i.e. “salesmanship in print”) doesn’t work.
For the masses, you want a marketing message. Not a sales message.
And good copy for a marketing message is not at all like good copy for an advertisement. Because selling and marketing are two different activities which require two different types of messages.
As my friends at Agora Financial teach their new copywriters, constructing an effective marketing message which produces sales at scale has very little to do with what you say and how you say it in the body of your marketing campaign.
“The stuff most people have been taught to focus on when writing copy is not what produces the big winners,” AF head honcho, Joe Schriefer, says.
Instead, they teach their copywriters a system for dialing-in the campaign idea, the campaign lead (first 350 words or so), the marketing argument, and the offer.
“Those are the foundation of good marketing copy; those are what make or break every marketing campaign,” says Joe.
To fully understand how they do this — their copywriting system — I flew to Baltimore to spend the day with the Agora Financial marketers, copywriters, and executives.
It was a game-changer for me. Utterly eye-opening.
If you’re interested, I published the videos I took, the audios I captured, the internal copywriting diagrams I saw, and more, in a free training series you can find here.
I believe it’s some of the best copywriting training you’ll find anywhere.
Cause it shares the real scoop on how to construct good copy.
Enjoy,
Todd 🙂