If screaming headlines and over-the-top phrasing make you want to hide your head in a bushel, get this guide to writing attention-getting yet sincere and helpful sales copy.
Whether you're a coach, author, financial advisor, B-to-B product manager or some other kind of professional who values trust, dignity and respect for clients, you'll find a framework for setting down a solid first draft and then tweaking it into an effective selling tool.
This concise handbook from a copywriting expert known for creative marketing leads beginning and intermediate writers through a three-step process of collecting the needed information, jazzing it up responsibly and then polishing it so it appeals to ideal customers.
Discover:
- The 5 inescapable components of a complete marketing presentation and another element that adds oomph whenever it's appropriate
- Why it's essential to provide more information for shoppers, rather than less - and how to identify the facts customers need
- 10 ways to make yourself and what you're selling more credible
- 21 no-hype writing techniques that make dull items much more desirable
- Dozens of illuminating examples (many structured as "before" and "after")
- 11 kinds of unethical or disreputable marketing tactics to avoid so you maintain self-respect and buyers' trust
- 12 methods of fine-tuning your headline for greater reader intrigue and curiosity
- How and why to tinker with your tone
- 8 techniques for making whatever you wrote more direct, clear and powerful
Marcia Yudkin is the author of Meatier Marketing Copy, Persuading on Paper, 6 Steps to Free Publicity and 13 other traditionally published books, including a Book of the Month Club selection and another featured on "Oprah." She has delivered commentaries on National Public Radio and landed publicity on page 1 of the Wall Street Journal.
As a copywriter, she works primarily with solo professionals, service firms, authors, publishers, software entrepreneurs and information marketers.