I’ve got some bad news for you. How bad? Soda up your nose from laughing bad, but this is so not funny.
Some of you already know this and I hate to rub salt in that almost-healed wound but here goes:
You can spend, aka lose, a shit-ton of money on ad campaigns and get back a big, fat, nothing.
This sad fact has an evil step-sister.
You can spend a shit-ton of time writing copy for landing pages, sales pages, webinar opt-in pages, and emails and feel like you did that time that guy (hottie girl) stood you up. LOSER!
Right?
When it comes to ads I’d help if I could, but that would go against everything I teach you about having one or two core things you do and offering them to a narrow slice of the hungry masses. To whit, I will not attempt to teach you about the dark art of Facebook Ads or how to land on page one with your Google Adwords ad. I have felt the sting of being stood up by results and so I don’t teach that, ever, and you can’t make me. She here, works hard for the money and she likes it to work hard for her, and so leaves those things to the experts.
My secret weapon is Daniel, one-half of the marketing agency, eVision Media. If you get in touch, tell them I sent you.
Many of you write your own copy for said landing pages, sales pages, webinar sign up pages and emails with the intention of getting opt-ins and eventually buyers. And I’m here to commend you and give you resources to make you better with a little help from my friends. Not all of them are capital F friends you understand, but great writers make you feel as if they are speaking to you, the one with the soda dripping down your face while snort-laughing. And you wouldn’t do that snort thing in front of strangers would you?
That’s the kind of writing that gets results and these are the people I have either studied with, are still with, or have followed and learned from like any other online seeker of free information when the lead flow pipe was frozen like my Koi pond spouts are right now.
Joanne Weibe, founder of CopyHackers is the goddess of conversion copy, testing, customer data research, and the business of writing. Don’t care about any of that but do want to learn how to write a better headline, nail the welcome email, or one of those pages we’ve been talking about? Then use those tutorials first. Once you’re in the CH zone I think you’ll find a wealth of ferret holes you can nose around in. And it will be time well spent as you learn the subtleties of getting to the “yes.”
(Why do rabbits get all the attention? Ferrets burrow and they are almost as cute.)
JW is a hard act to follow, but I know she’d be proud to introduce my next two recommendations: Rob Marsh and Kira Hug of The Copywriters Club. These two have separate businesses as well as TCC. They keep it real about what makes writing great. Sign up for anything of theirs just to read the emails they send. Then study them for signs of genius.
They offer a few different levels of learning. Their monthly membership is the Copywriter Underground. It’s beyond a deal for the value they provide, and listen to this, lean in, they send a snail-mail newsletter. Paper, ink, texture, content that wows me every month. Look for TCC on Facebook. They have a super active group of copywriters from all genres, countries, and senses of humor so be prepared. Nothing X-rated, keep your hair on. It’s lively and there is always someone willing to help you off that cliff or out of your stuckiness 24/7.
The name of Henneke Duistermaat’s biz is Enchanting Marketing and it perfectly describes her How-to style. Her name is always mentioned on those top 25 or 50 lists of marketers to follow. She’s here for writing because she’s written a couple of crazy high-value low-priced books and programs. Here’s one for many of you, How to Write Seductive Web Copy. Not mentioning any names but I’ve seen a lot of websites during my web copy reviews, (complimentary, just so you know and open to all takers on a first-come that month first-served basis) and people, there is Big Way room for improvement. If you are just writing your website or have a sneaking suspicion it could use a little something-something, her book is $3.99 and should be 5 times that. What are you waiting for?
But wait, there’s more.
No there isn’t. Well maybe there is just a wee bit more, and it has to do with how to use these resources. Pick one thing you are working on or about to start on — a landing page for your lead magnet let’s say — and then go find information on that. If you just want to read about how to be a better writer — translation, get more conversions from your writing— then ferret hole away. It will be way better for you than binge watching Orange is the New, again. (Or maybe it’s Breaking Bad for you. I’m on lock down knowing it’s the Soprano’s 20th anniversary and there’s a “best of “list of episodes…)
When I was in the restaurant biz we used to say that a good waiter could save a bad meal, but a good meal could not save a bad waiter. It’s that way with your writing vs all the other elements of a page like layout, colors, button placement, readability etc. Great design is super-important, but it won’t save mediocre writing and put dollars in your pocket. And not feeling you write well is one way to ensure you’ll stare at the blank screen ‘til you’re convinced the cursor is going to kill you.
Learning to write also won’t kill you, and it might just save you from ever feeling stood up again.