Lightbulbs are Starting to Flicker!

It seems everywhere I turn there is copy to be examining and learning from. I’ve burned several copywriting teleseminars I had in mp3 format onto CDs so I can immerse myself in the copywriting mentality on my drive to and from work. I’ve been watching some great webinars that are being hosted by Russell Brunson of www.onlinemarketeroftheyear.com. I watched and listened to Lorrie Morgan-Ferraro yesterday and Ray Edwards is presenting his webinar even as I am typing this (I had an eye doctor appointment and missed most of it so I’ll catch it on the recording.) Lorrie Morgan-Ferraro has also had some website copy critiques available (a new one each week for at least a couple more weeks) at www.redhotcopy.com/redhotcritique.htm. These have been awesome. I just love watching over Lorrie’s shoulder as she makes changes to her copy project and talks her listeners through her mental process. What a terrific learning tool!

But what has really been making the lightbulbs start to flicker are the exercises I’ve been doing as part of the AWAI Copywriting Course. I’m still on the first installment (with the second one on its way) so I’m desperately trying to stay on top of it. One exercise has me reading a successful salesletter over 10 times and then writing it out by hand 3 times. I know this is a fairly common exercise in most copywriting courses and the experts say it helps get your brain used to thinking like a copywriter. While I didn’t disbelieve what I was told, I certainly realized that I’d underestimated the potency of this assignment as it all started to click.

I think it was about the third time reading the salesletter that I started to really notice the vocabulary that was being used and how it all seemed to work together to create an image in my mind of the kind of person that would be looking for this service. A personality was beginning to form.

As I continued to read the letter over and over I started to feel as though I was writing the letter myself. I was “tuned in” to the way the writer was thinking and the emotions he or she was gently eluding to.

Each word — previously just letters on a page — had a specific purpose and the more I read, the more obvious each one’s purpose became. Patterns were emerging. I was getting the whole idea of how the reader enters into a trance as he gets pulled in by the words and why it’s so essential to keep him there.

As I started to write out the copy, it helped me see the format being used. I could see why bullets were written a certain way and how artfully they flowed together. I loved how the copy looked on the page — plenty of white space, paragraphs with only a few sentences in each, thoughts that were to the point and clearly articulated.

I’m starting to think I need to write the letter out a few more times (while the course says to write it out 3 times, Lorrie Morgan-Ferraro or perhaps it was Yanik Silver suggests at least 10 times) but I’m eager to move on to the next assignment which I know will include more of the same.

I think the underlying motive for the rote exercises is beginning to surface. I have a long way to go and suspect the next installment of the AWAI course will arrive tomorrow.  I foresee a long evening filled with writer’s cramps ahead. Fortunately, it’s fun!

Note to Self: Reading the copy out loud as I’m writing  it out seems to help cement the ideas into my brain and allows me to feel the cadence and emotion the writer is expressing. And I definitely get more out of reading the copy out loud instead of to myself. Make sure to keep doing this!

Off to sharpen my pencils …

Inspiration Comes Unannounced

Scott Ginsberg is fast becoming one of my new favorite bloggers. Yesterday I started reading his book Make A Name For Yourself and loved one of his quotes that stated “If you’re not holding a pen right now, go get one. Inspiration comes unannounced.” Now today I am reading a post that Scott wrote a few days ago titled “38 Random Thoughts About Creativity” in which he says, “… Thomas Edison carried a 200-page notebook wherever he went, just for his ideas. At the end of his life, he’d filled up more than 3,400 of them. He also obtained more patents than any person in history. What does THAT tell you?”

Well, it tells me a lot! Granted, Edison was an inventor and not a copywriter but I don’t really think that matters one iota when it comes to inspiration and creativity. I’m just wondering what kind of system he used to keep his thoughts all organized. I, too, have years worth of thoughts written down (on every kind of paper imaginable — hotel notepads, napkins, grocery store receipts, and of course stenopads, spirals notebooks and legal pads!) and I am now in the process of trying to sort through all this “brilliance” and get it into subject-labeled folders.

This is no small task. I’ve been working on this little project an hour at a time for days now. Sadly, I have nothing much to show for all my hard work except piles of folders stuffed full of paper which are now sitting where the piles of paper used to be. I confess I’ve been entertaining rather tempting thoughts about calling it quits and ruthlessly tossing every bit of it, but this quote about Thomas Edison has, at least temporarily, spared my trash collectors a backache that surely would have followed the pickup at my curb this morning.

I am certainly inspired by Edison’s perseverence and dutiful recording of this ideas and thoughts. I wonder whether he was organized and had some sort of system to keep track of it all. I’m trying, but memories of an old saying I embroidered and hung in my bedroom as a teenager keeps coming to mind — “Creative minds are seldom tidy.”

Does that give me permission to ditch the office organization project this afternoon and go enjoy the sunshine? I think — YES!

Until next time …

Simple Yet Profound

I’m just going to quickly put this thought down so I can

• Go hop in the shower
• Keep reading this book and not worry about forgetting this statement.

The thought is this — “If you’re not holding a pen right now, go get one. Inspiration comes unannounced.”

It’s found in the opening pages of a book by Scott Ginsberg (That Guy with a Nametag) called “Make a Name for Yourself”. I’m just starting to read the book after finding his blog on a blogroll somewhere and being entranced by it (Note: You can access Scott’s blog from my blogroll which is in the right column of the page.)

I just found this statement to be so completely true. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a fantastic idea while in the middle of a class at RIT or standing in the checkout line at Wegmans, wishing I had some way to capture it before it would be replaced by the task at hand and be gone forever.

I’m not suggesting that I become the woman with the pad and pen (although that might get me some publicity …) but I do want to keep that statement emblazoned on my brain because it just resonated with me.

Ok, thought recorded. On to shower and church.

Until the next post …

How Many Hours Before I Yell “UNCLE!”?

This might seem like a very silly post but I said right from the git go that one of my goals with starting this blog was to become familiar with the WordPress blogging program since I have a couple other projects I’d like to use it for. Well, I hit my first roadblock last night.

I’ve got a couple of blogs on Blogger that I try to keep up with and it just seemed like the program was so easy to learn. When I wanted to learn how to add an image to my post it was a snap. When I wanted to add links — even easier. And when I decided it was time to figure out how to add an RSS feed, I was able to add it to all my sites within an hour (maybe two, but no more than that!)

Since I’m about as non-technical as you can get, that’s really saying something. Even more impressive (at least to me, I’m sure no one else probably cares) is the fact that I figured it out myself. No calling the PCWT (Personal Computer Whiz Team –a.k.a. my kids) or sweet-talking my husband into doing it for me or even walking me through it. Nope, I did it myself.

I figured that all blogging programs were the same, maybe a few minor differences, but overall it would be same old, same old.

Not true. I started out pretty good, creating this blog , getting my sidebar set up, listing a few categories and so on. I was feeling pretty good. I liked this new blogging program. The templates are great; it certainly seemed simple enough. And then last night I decided to add a picture to one of the posts I had written. It did not go well.

Actually, if you bother to look, you’ll see there are no images in any of my posts (at least not at this writing.) I just couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t get the picture to load, then when I finally did get it to load, I couldn’t get it to insert where I wanted it. I finally gave up in frustration. Time invested: 1.5 hours (and no picture.)

Later I decided to do a little reading and add the RSS link. I found instructions and finally figured out how to access a “text widget” as the instructions stated, but damn … no little RSS icon was showing up. Finally I sent a desperate request for help to the support desk and called it a night. Time invested: 2.5 hours (and no RSS feed.)

When I got up this morning, I was happy to see a reply from the support desk with instructions on what to do. Actually it contained a link to where I could go for more help. Guess what? It was the same page I’d spent the better part of my evening with last night. Arrghh… I’m fairly certain that I mentioned this particular page in my email — mentioning that I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong since I was following the sketchy directions on this page as best I could. So I was back to being frustrated.

But then I went and looked at the blog and saw the RSS feed had miraculously appeared. I don’t know how and I don’t know why. And at this point, I don’t really care either. Maybe the Blogging Fairy showed up after I went to bed and tapped her magic wand on my sidebar. Who knows? The point is that it was there. Still, I needed to make a few changes (I had just a little icon and I wanted it to be a little bigger) but they were easy and done very quickly. So maybe this isn’t going to be so tough after all.

This morning I decided to try to figure out how to add links. It took a couple of minutes but I considered myself an old pro after only about 15 minutes of focused attention. I think this is starting to get a bit easier.

What’s left? Figuring out how to add images. Adding a Blogroll. Trying to decide the best way to add tags that can be picked up by Technorati (I have no idea if that is what I actually want to do but I think I’m using the right terms!) … I know this will all take time. I know there will be a learning curve. I know that once I get it all figured out it will all make sense and I’ll look back wondering what the big deal was. But I’m not there yet.

In the meantime I hope the Blogging Fairy continues to do a fly by of my computer at night.

Until the next post … 

Telling a Story to Sell Your Product

I received a great solo ad email from James Roche (www.infoproductguy.com) this morning and wow, did it suck me in! First the subject line read, “How to Tell Stories That Sell.” Since I’m learning all I can about copywriting and I know that storytelling is one technique writers often use, it caught my eye.

As I opened the email, expecting to find a hyped up ad for a new product or teleclass, I was immediately drawn into a story that James started telling right from the get go. It had all the elements of a good story — interesting characters, suspense and secrets, and a happy ending. What a great example and lead in to his new article — “How to Tell a Story that Sells Your Product and Service.’ 

After a great article that shared “three essential elements that make up stories that persuade, captivate, and sell,” James ended his note with just a brief one line note mentioning a teleclass that Lorrie Morgan-Ferraro of www.red-hot-copy.com will be holding next week. I’m sure James is an affiliate for Lorrie and the whole reason for the article and opening story was to have you see the power of telling stories in your copy and then to offer you a way to learn more about it. But the way James presented the information was masterful and smooth. I was certainly impressed. This was a great example of how to send out an effective solo email ad.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about Adam Urbanski’s direct mail package (which included the worry doll) I would love to contact James and find out what kind of response he gets from this campaign. I bet he had a huge conversion rate.

I’d love to post the entire email just to keep a record of it that I can refer back to. I may email James about that!

Until next time … 

Fear, Greed, and Lust … oh my!

Even though I’m still in the opening pages of the AWAI copywriting course, I’m already discovering that emotion is what motivates a person to buy — especially if you are addressing the reader’s fears, greed, and (gasp) lust, among other things. To be honest, I already knew this. It’s been drilled into my head by internet marketing gurus for the past couple of years but still, it was good to see it confirmed by copywriting experts. 

So while I am pouring over my junk mail, I’m going to be trying to figure out what emotion the writer was trying to tap into in the various pieces of mail I’ve collected.

Speaking of which, I got a great swipe file sample today from Adam Urbanski, a direct marketing biggie and internet extraordinaire (www.themarketingmentors.com). It came in a large red mailer that looked like a FedEx rush mail delivery and inside he had a little worry doll attached to the opening page. I haven’t read it all but he mentioned right off the bat that he had two reasons for attaching the little worry doll — one to grab my attention (it did) and two to let me know that he was “worried” about me and wondering why I hadn’t responded to his incredible offer. 

Did he grab my attention? I’d say that’s a big yes. I’m definitely going to read that one from cover to cover. I am tempted to contact Adam and see if he’d be willing to share his response stats with me on the effectiveness of this particular mailing. I have received something similar from him in the past (and I still have it so I’m going to compare the two mailings for content and formula) so obviously it must have worked fairly well last time for him to repeat this kind of mailing. It can’t be cheap.

I’m still in the first section of the program, the introduction really. I plan on reading a little more before I hit the sack tonight. I also spent some time this afternoon reading a special report by Donna Doyle (AWAI Copywriter of the Year and one of the 3Chix at www.3Chix.com) called “10 Success Tips for Freelance Writers.” I don’t claim to know an awful lot about copywriting or freelance writing for that matter, but it made me feel good that almost all of the information Donna put forth in her report was information I was already aware of and/or I would have done instinctively. That was encouraging to me. It made me feel as though I might have a greater affinity for this profession than I realized or perhaps it is one that just might come more easily to me than I had anticipated. Let’s hope.

So that’s my progress for today. Nothing earth shattering but still, it’s progress.

Until next time …

It’s a Start …

There isn’t really anything extraordinary to report at this point. I’m more interested in getting into a routine of working on the AWAI program and trying to become familiar with the WordPress blogging software than anything else at this point.

Still, I sat down with the materials last night and started at the beginning. I had started to read through the first couple chapters last week when they arrived but with going to Valley Cottage for an EFT workshop and trying to get my office organized I really haven’t been able to devote the time I wanted to it. I figured I’d better get going on it though before the next installment arrives and Ifind myself already behind on my goal of completing one installment before the next arrives.

So — introductory letters meant to inspire were successful in doing so. The opening pages by Michael Masterson had me pumped up and ready to dive in. So far my assignment is to start collecting and reviewing the junk mail that arrives in my mailbox everyday. There certainly is enough of that to keep me busy! I’m to keep the stuff that grabs my attention. I’m wondering if I should also print out a copy of salesletters I see on the internet that entice me to buy. Since one of my interests is internet web copy and salesletters that seems like it might be a good idea.

I’m hoping to get more into the course material today after I get home from work. For now at least I can say that it’s a start. There’s nothing quite like being at the beginning.

Until next time …