7 Steps for Effective Copywriting by Dan Lok

How To Sell Millions Without Ever Opening Your Mouth!

Copywriting Secrets Simple 7-Step Formula Pt.1 - 3

[Table of Contents]

1. Identify Your Ideal Customer
2. Create an Irresistible Offer
3. List Every Single Feature and Benefit of Your Offer
4. Write Attention Grabbing Headlines
5. Eliminate All Objections with Preemptive Credibility
6. Compare Apples to Oranges
7. Have a Clear Call to Action

 

 

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is about closing in print instead of spoken words.

Copywriting is to convince and influence someone to make a buying purchase, to do a move, to make a decision.

Copywriting is not about writing but about communication.

Email, webpage, sns post, video, video sales letter - anything that's involved with closing on a mass scale is copywriting.

 

Why Copywriting?

With some minor tweaks in any messages, suddenly we're getting way more results.

Don't be afraid of making assumptions and testing your material, because they make differences.

You are not a marketing genius but customers are - let them tell you just by testing.

 

Start from Your Best Customer!

Set up a time to talk to some of your best customers:

• ask their problems
• ask why they chose us
• ask why they stay with us
• take what your best customers say and turn it into copy

 

STEP 1. Identify Your Ideal Customer

 

Who is your ideal customer?

1. They have a need for your product
2. They have the ability to buy your product
3. They have the authority to buy your product

Once you know who your target market is, go and talk to them one on one basis. Good copy is 80% reasearch and 20% writing. Don't try too big, be personal. Make copy trying to start a conversation with one ideal customer.

 

The amount of money you will make is in direct proportion to how well you understand your customers. Entrepreneurs often fail because they have a product but they don't understand their ideal customer. You can't sell your product to everybody.

 

YOU GOTTA NARROW IT DOWN. BE PERSONAL.

 

People vote with their wallets. Don't listen to just what they say, watch how they behave and what they pay for. 

 

 

STEP 2. Create an Irresistible Offer

 

Almost the most important thing in the entire steps. The biggest challenge for most businesses is they sound the same as everybody else. Make your offer as compelling as possible.

 

Market and message, which one is more important? Market. If you have the greatest message but send it to the wrong people, it's not gonna work. So think about what's the thing your audience truly wants. If you get the right market and figure out how to make your offer compelling, you don't need to use as many words.

 

GIVE ME $10, I'LL GIVE YOU $100. It is an irresistible offer and it's called as SELLING MONEY AT A DISCOUNT. "Spend X with me, I'm gonna teach you how to make Y." Amazon prime is basically charging you for a membership fee SO THAT YOU GET MORE BENEFITS AND YOU BUY MORE.

 

Move audience's emotion. "Irresistible" is not only about logic, but also about emotion. When the offer LOOKS SO IRRESISTIBLE, logic goes out the window. 

 

 

 

STEP 3. List Every Single Feature and Benefit of Your Offer

 

List every single thing possibly that people would get. If you sell personal computers, you want every single possible scenario.

 

You need to know "feature" and "benefit" are different from each other.

• Feature = what it is = "it is automatic."
• Benefit = what it does = "it drills a hole quickly."

List a long list of features and ask yourself, "SO WHAT?" This computer is very fast. So what? So you could play high-end computer games. You need to make the best benefits as possible, in every different angle, so you need full features in advance. PC gamer, one angle. Designer, one angle. Video streamer, one angle.

 

 If you have features and benefits, then go to "the benefit behind the benefit". Go deeper and find the trigger. For example, "How to incorporate blar blar" copy works but not enough, then got the pain points of tax, "The Ultimate Tax Shelter". Boom. What are you actually selling? 'Cause most people don't get it. Another example - Domino pizza's copy "Fresh and hot" sells not 'delicous' but 'SPEED'. It's where their business is in, they're in the business of speed. 

 

 

STEP 4. Write Attention Grabbing Headlines

 

The more headlines you write, the better. For headlines, you could have "how-to", "who else wants to", "discover", "secrets of". Go to grocery shopping and find the checkout stands. Magazines. There's the best examples to grab attention. You know what? They recycle headlines depending on what they sell, combine them in one headline. They are:

• Compelling
• Benefit-driven
• Using curiousity
• Power punching
• Using credibility

"How to hit a man 11 times or more in one second or less and explode into action before he can blink an eye." Pretty powerful headline if you wanna improve your power and speed.

 

"If you've ever wished you could

Live on a Caribbean Island... 

don't let envious naysayers stop you. With our help, you can successfully escape freezing winters, crime, pollution, oil crises and mega stress. Whether you're looking for a retirement heaven, vacation home, land or business, please read on."

 

A beatiful sub headline. They are not just selling a vacation home, they are talking about "don't let envious naysayers stop you". It's about escaping from your daily life. "Freezing", "crime", "pollution", "oil crisies" they touch your emotion and convince that you need the fantasy they offer. Then they promise you and try to close the deal with the last two words, "read on".

 

 

 

STEP 5. Eliminate All Objections with Preemptive Credibility

 

Consumers are skeptical than ever and demading than ever. So you need to STACK UP YOUR CREDIBILITY. So think about what it is that you have to offer. Maybe you have a long history of being in business. Use that. If you have lots of happy customers and their reviews, use then. If you have case studies, use them. If you are selling some kind of product with scientific research, use that. Use everyhing because customers are skeptical.

 

Look at the most successful infomercials. Testimonials. Stories. Something people wanna share. Because what other people say about you is way more powerful than what you can say about yourself. Elegant and calculated sayings from your mouth is less powerful than rough but real sayings from customer's one. So ask yourself, are you fully utilizing all of your credibility assets? Get your assets as many as possible.

 

There's one speaker and he does not send his speech demos. He just sends 500 testimonials, reference letters, etc. His closing ratio, you could not believe that. There is no "too many" in testimonials. Get them as many as possible.

 

And one more, it's FAQ. Imagine all the objections you can think of that your customers might have that prevent them from buying your product. On your page or in your email, turn them into FAQ. Your FAQ has to be designed to demolish the objections. "How do I know this works?" "We guarantee, check out testimonials." Shoot them one by one.

 

 

STEP 6. Compare Apples to Oranges

 

When you are selling something to every single person, before they make a purchase, you're not just selling them the benefits. You're always selling against something. People think that buying something means losing money. How to turn around the table? Compare apples to oranges. When you have nothing to compare, they come up with their own comparison. So you tell like, "looking at your scenario, that last year you paid $327,000 in taxes. By investing $10,000 with our accounting tax package, this is gonna save you whatever how much money." So you develop this comparison, suddenly $10,000 looks not so expensive. You spend $10k, you save $100k. Don't let them come up with their own comparison, you give the comparison.

 

When you sell a subscription service, don't say $100 monthly. Instead, you say "just a cup of coffee daily". Compare apples to oranges.

 

 

STEP 7. Have a Clear Call to Action

 

Now if you've done all the above, at the end, HOW DO YOU WANT THEM TO BUY? Clicking a button, booking an appointment, visiting your office, setting up an appointment? Whatever it is, you gotta make it simple and clear. You need to be extremely precise - "click this link", "book a time today". And you need to answer because people love to procrastinate. Unless there's a reason to act, I don't care if he/she's a high performer. Most people procrastinate. So you give them a reason, a sense of urgency to ACT NOW so that people act as you want. Limited time thing, limited exclusive thing, price goes up later, anything.