There are mountains of quick, tactical tips out there for improving the response rate of your copy.
They have a short shelf life, what worked 6 months ago may no longer work.
There are also timeless principles that apply to copy and they will stand the test of time.
Here are three timeless principles that I use as a working copywriter to boost response rates of my copy.
Copy Response Boosting Tip 1: Specific For The Intended Audience Despite the urging of myself and many others - customisation of copy for a specific audience remains uncommon.
I understand why, its hard work and its tedious work.
But it pays off big time.
Don't expect me to create a one-size-fits-all campaign for you cos it is too hard.
Treat yourself the same way segment and customise.
However, more of your prospective audience will listen to what you have to say when they believe what you are saying is specifically about them.
It can rapidly take a good business to a great business.
That is how powerful this copy boosting response is.
Copy Response Boosting Tip 2: Meet them where they are Robert Collier is best known for his belief that you enter the conversation already going inside your customer's head.
He's right - sales is a journey.
You need to take your customer where they are.
Take them from the problemthey are thinking about and move them all the way to buying your product.
It's actually quite a feat and it is important that you can actually do it if you want to be able to sell successfully.
It's fairly easy to write a copy for a product.
It's much harder to write copy that compels a market to buy a product.
Gene Schwartz was one of the great masters of it.
In Breakthrough Advertising, Gene explained his belief that you can't afford enough media in order to create demand for a product.
You can only take a customer's existing desires, frustrations and dreams and channel them onto your product.
Try and do the first and you will go broke - do the latter and you will get very rich indeed.
Start where your market is - not where your product is.
Copy Response Boosting Tip 3: Know where you are going.
In 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, the late Stephen Covey talks about the principle of, 'Begin with the End in Mind.
' It applies to copywriting too.
You need to know the point of the map you specifically need to get to.
Then you just have to find the best route to get there.
To this end, I always write the offer copy and order form first.
Then when you write the rest of the copy it is knowing if you are heading towards the goal/offer or away from it.
It makes adjusting through the body easier.
It means less rewrites (not none).
Beginning at the end makes it so much easier to write copy that sells more.