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Copy Makeovers Made Easy

How to sell more of anything via effective, cheap, useful, fruitful and intelligent advertising. Specific strategies to increase your sales in any type of business, online or off, without spending a fortune on copywriting.

Copy makeovers can work magic.

Perhaps all you need is a little medicine... and not major surgery. Take whatever sales copy you have now and modify it. Recast, rework and repackage what you've got.

Chances are you’re sitting on some solid (yet hidden) sales material. Often simple copy makeovers can work wonders in terms of response.

So, before you crumple it up and toss your sales letter in the trash, try tweaking it first. You might be surprised at the result.

Here are 3 simple steps to complete copy makeovers...

Copy Makeovers -- Strategy #1: Create A More Compelling Headline.

This is critical. The headline is the first thing your audience sees. It either "grabs" prospects by the jugular... or it doesn't. If the headline fails, nothing else matters much because it won’t even get a fair reading.

Make your headline and/or sub-heading alluring. Talk to your prospect about what is most important to her.

Think in terms of the BIG BENEFIT your product offers and deliver it in a captivating and compelling way.

Craft a handful of words that attract attention, identify specific target markets, and deliver enough interest and intrigue to pull true prospects inside.

If you’re struggling with your headline, just think about the greatest advantage your product offers and promise it right up front.

Copy Makeovers -- Strategy #2: Take The "YOU" Point Of View.

You're weight-loss story might be admirable, but what does it mean to your reader or prospect? Talk about yourself and the audience turns off.

Talk to your reader one-on-one about something important in her life… and you’ve got her undivided attention – at least momentarily.

If you could re-shape your story... if you could express it in a way that was more meaningful to your individual readers, you'd quickly capture their interest.

There's a difference between telling your audience that you lost X number of pounds... and telling them how they can lose X pounds, enjoy the process, and feel terrific about their slim, new look.

Remember the old marketing phrase "What's In It For Me?" Everything your prospect reads gets filtered through this frame of reference.

With each statement you make, your audience is thinking... "So What? What does this have to do with me in my situation? How does this help me?"

If the answer isn't obvious immediately, off they go and you lose the sale. Many times the decision to stay or go is made in the blink of an eye – and often unconsciously.

Copy Makeovers -- Strategy #3: Turn Your Bullet Points Into Irresistible, Benefit-Packed Mini-Headlines.

Make each bullet a "grabber" in its own right. Prospects tend to scan certain segments of an ad or sales letter, to determine if it offers something they really want.

While many marketers use bullets in their sales letters, most settle for weak bullet point copy -- copy that lacks enthusiasm and passion.

If you’re going to employ this powerful sales tool, you might as well make the most of it. Craft your bullet points with the same emotion and magnetic appeal, as you’d inject into a major headline. After a while, this gets easier to do.

Bullet points are one of those sales letter components that have the power to quickly stimulate intense reader interest.

Use them for all they're worth by making each point justify itself. Each and every bullet point should be capable of compelling the reader to read on -- with heightened desire and interest.

Before you do anything else, try implementing these simple copy makeover strategies. You just might notice an immediate improvement in your conversion rate.

Copyright Procedures; Quick and Easy

The digital age of cyber publishing and intellectual property raises many questions about copyrighting. If you have never published anything in your life, you still hold copyrights. If you do publish your work, how do you know your copyrights are in place? Copyrighting is not complicated or difficult, there is a quick and easy way to copyright any creative material you produce.

The digital age of cyber publishing and intellectual property raises many questions about copyrighting.

If you have never published anything in your life, you still hold copyrights. If you do publish your work, how do you know your copyrights are in place? Copyrighting is not complicated or difficult, there is a quick and easy way to copyright any creative material you produce.

Legal copyright protection is in effect immediately and automatically upon the creation of any “original work of authorship" that is "fixed in any tangible medium of expression."

In other words, a copyright notice is not necessary for your work to comply with U.S. Copyright law.

For example, when authors, webmasters, amateur writers or anyone else submit creative material of any kind for publishing, that creative material is automatically copyrighted. No copyright notice is necessary to be legally binding.

The laws are so generous in fact that the notes or scribbles you mindlessly make while speaking on the phone are considered copyrighted material, even if you wad it up and toss it in the trash at the end of the call.

This does not mean that copyrighting should be taken lightly. There are significant legal advantages to using a copyright notice.

Copyrights can also be given away in part or in whole and must be agreed to in writing.

The details of this are way beyond the scope of this writing. All authors and publishers have taken part in copyright agreements knowingly or unknowingly.

Quick and Easy Copyrighting

The conventional copyright notice consists of 3 elements. The the word "copyright" or the copyright symbol, the year, and the name of the copyright owner.

To comply with current copyright law and to copyright any computer generated creative materials follow this formula.

First, add the copyright notice as described above to the end of the document. When you have finished editing, save your document as a file.

Finally, print the complete document with the title or file name and the current date. Set these to be printed in your printer settings or use the header and footer options of your text editor.

Optionally you can simply type the title and date along with your copyright statement manually.

For example:

The printed hard copy becomes your Master Document. This document should be protected at all cost as it is proof that you are the author of the created material.

Other medium

If your creative material is on some fixed and tangible medium other than computer, your hand written signature and date is usually enough copyright protection until you can apply for copyright.

Summary

I know that the procedure outlined here sounds too easy, but it is the procedure recommended by the US Copyright Office.

This short procedure is valid and will stand on its own in litigation. Remember that the original date is key and a hard copy adds considerable weight to ownership.

If you wish to make your copyright bullet proof, you can begin copyright procedures online at the United States Copyright Office. ( http://www.copyright.gov/ )

Quotes Resource: http://www.copyright.gov

Copywriting as a Job

Within this article today we will look at what copywriting as a job has to offer. There is a great deal of benefits if you have copywriting as a job.

The salary for a copy writer is much higher than the average wage in the United States.

According to the magazine Advertising Age, the average salary for a copywriter in the United States is right around $60,000 when you include bonuses and that was for the year 2005.

You can imagine that the income will be higher now, given that there has been inflation in the last two years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics comes up with a similar but slightly lower number, right around $57,000 for a copywriter.

Copywriting does have a great deal more flexibility than many jobs.

You do not need to worry about keeping set hours usually because the focus is upon you writing good copy.

This could allow you to live a full life in some ways because you can plan some events around the fact that you can make up more time in hours on certain days if something comes up. This is something that many jobs such as banks or restaurants are not able to do.

Copywriting as a job also offers a great workplace environment. Many copywriters work within an advertising agency, which can be a great place to work.

You often have many other creative people and there you can bounce ideas off of one another and these people often have high energy which you can feed off of.

This can be a great group of people to work with because you will often find that you are challenged due to the intelligence and creativity of this group of people.

There are many different sizes of advertising agencies see you could decide to work for a smaller advertising agency if you like a close-knit group of people or you could work for a larger advertising agency if you want more competition.

This could be structured according to how your mindset and makeup are. There is a great deal of flexibility within your workplace environment as demonstrated here.

Writing good copy can be very challenging so you will find that this job will never grow boring.

If you work at an advertising agency, you often will have many different types of clients so the work that you do every day can change.

This is good because you'll get a great variety of different things they would never get bored.

Copywriting as a job offers great benefits to you no matter how you look at it. You are able to make very good money, considering that the average wage is right around $60,000.

If you are able to establish yourself as a master copywriter, you can obviously earn a great deal more money than the average salary.

The workplace environment often will be crackling with creative energy and the flexibility that you will have from the job is more than most other jobs can offer.

Copywriting Assignments

There are numerous methods for you to acquire copywriting assignments. Within this article day, will focus on different websites where you can acquire copywriting assignments as well as how to acquire clients who will bring you copywriting assignments.

There are many different online freelance marketplaces where you can acquire copywriting science.

There are three particular websites which stand head and shoulders above most others. The first of these is www.guru.com.

This is the biggest online freelance marketplace. He second of these three websites is www.elance.com. A third of these three websites is www.findafreelancer.com.

Each of these websites has a search agent which can e-mail jobs based upon the desired search criteria which you would like. The third website is the European version of the first two.

It is the smallest of the three but is still a significant source of good copywriting work. Most of the websites do usually charge a subscription fee, whether it be monthly or quarterly.

This can be a great investment because you will have access to copywriting assignments that you would not normally have seen.

There are many other ways to acquire copywriting assignments other than using online freelance marketplaces.

This is a place where you can use your creativity in selling yourself. Many companies in need of copywriting work will not normally look online first.

They may go towards local contacts and sources that they have because they feel more comfortable using someone who they can physically meet with. You can take advantage of these needs by cultivating contacts within your region.

Look into joining your Chamber of Commerce as well as other civic groups. Be sure to bring business cards with you and have a thirty second speech explaining what you do so that people remember what you do and who you are.

Do not work at directly selling yourself to them at first but rather make the connection and allow them to come to you.

People are more willing to do business with you when they actually know you rather then just a face on a website or an anonymous bid to a project that they post.

Another key when acquiring copywriting assignments is to make sure that you have a website.

Many copywriters and professionals do not have a website and this can give you a competitive advantage. You can publish some of your past assignments on the Internet so that if people are interested, they can look at your website.

You do not have to worry about e-mailing them any information and they will contact you if they're interested.

If you work on getting your site indexed, people searching the Internet for copywriting could also stumble across your website and provide in other source of leads for you.

When looking for copywriting assignments, the key is that you must sell yourself and think creatively outside of the box.

If you set yourself up well, you will find that you will be inundated with work by consistently prospecting for new business using some of the techniques explained above.

Copywriting Demand

Within this article on copywriting demand, we will look at how much work there is out there for someone who wants to do freelance copywriting as well as the demand for copywriters as a profession.

Copywriting demand will always be strong. Demand will always be strong whether the economy is strong or weak.

In past decades, it was easy to get away with a strong product and some marketing. With the emergence of globalization, there is a greater deal of competition in all markets and the way to stand apart is through marketing.

For many consumers, the only way to be able to discern the differences between competing products is through the marketing. This ensures that copywriters are needed.

Any good company which wants to send a consistent message to a target audience will always be employing copywriters. Some companies not looking ahead to the future may cut their advertising budget when they hit weak sales but that is not a smart move.

If a recession comes along, demand may go down by a small margin for copywriters but it would pick right back up when the economy turned around.

There is always need for copywriters so no matter what happens within the country, companies will want to make sure that they have copywriters to work for them.

There is a growing demand for copywriters in one particular forum and that would be on the Internet. With the Web up past four billion web pages, the demand for search engine copywriting has continued to increase.

It is harder to get your web site indexed and search engine copywriting give you a better chance of being indexed.

To do this, the search engine copywriters must write well to ensure that two audiences, the people searching and the search bots, are appeased so this provides more opportunities.

If you are looking into copywriting, there are a great many opportunities within this field. You can work for an advertising agency or you can decide to work for yourself.

Many jobs are available all over the country for copywriters and you will find that this copywriting demand will stay at about the same pace and continue to grow with the pace of the economy.

If you go out to the website, www.monster.com, you will find that there are currently more than 500 jobs are available for copywriters. This is just a small piece of the job market.

There are many other ways that you can find copywriting jobs currently at this time. This should give you an idea of how there is demand for copywriters.

Hopefully this article on copywriting demand will help you out. If you are a copywriter, you should find that no matter the condition of the economy, you will always find work.

Even when the economy is in a recession, some companies' sales are increasing and they may have a need for more copywriting work.

With the demand of the whole market, you should always find yourself needed by someone. Good luck in finding a copywriting job but you will find that this is something that will often not be needed because of copywriting demand.

Copywriting Tips and Tricks

Within this article on copywriting tips and tricks, we will look at how you can take a sales letter and maximize its usage in eight different ways.

This comes directly from a book written by Dan S. Kennedy, titled The Ultimate Sales Letter.

This book comes highly recommended as he is one of the foremost experts on copywriting with in the world today.

Copywriters have a very interesting niche in that you can use your own writing to help you develop leads.

If you find that you had many inconsistent advertising methods, think about developing a sales letter to help bring in qualified leads.

If you develop a successful sales letter, you can send this out in quantities which you pre-determine.

The beauty of this is that you can quantify the amount of work that you want to do in a given month and mail out that many sales letters.

After having used a consistent sales letter for a certain period of time, you will know what the response rate is and this will allow you to know how much business you should potentially get from mailing a certain number of letters.

This can make sure that you always have clients coming into the door when you want them to.

It can also help you better pattern the business after your life and lifestyle so that you can pick up the pace when you have extra time and slow things down when other parts of your life become busier.

If you have quite a few clients who are telemarketers or you would like to start developing telemarketers as potential clients, you may want to look into developing a sales letter for one of these companies.

Telemarketing has become much more expensive and more inconsistent these days due to new laws and it is an industry with very high turnover.

Developing a sales letter to send to qualified prospects in the beginning can make telemarketing more effective for these companies and potentially reduce turnover.

If you are able to quantify the savings in training employees as well as in better sales, you will find yourself called upon by many telemarketing companies because you will have put yourself in their shoes and can understand the business struggles that they go through.

The final way that we will use a sales letter and one way in which you could increase your business is to focus upon dentists and doctors office.

Often these professionals are consistently looking for new clients and this could be a way to help them out. You could use a sales letter to help stimulate referrals.

These were just a few of the ideas that came from this great book. If you are looking at copywriting and have been in the field for awhile, this article can be very valuable because it can offer new places to look for business.

Hopefully this article on copywriting tips and checks will benefit you with more dollars in your bank account.

Info Bang Jo

Copy Makeovers Made Easy - Copywriting as a Job - Copywriting Assignments