Step 1 - Create a problem

What is your customers or prospects biggest concern or problem? Define what it is and write about it. Everybody has some kind of problem whether big or small that interests them in your product or service.

Step 2 - Agitate Them

Make problem larger than life. Tap into their emotions. Pour salt on their wounds. You have to make them feel so angry that they are pacing room thinking "this has got to stop" or "I have to do something about this."

Step 3 - Offer a Solution

Now that you got them where you want them, offer them a solution to their problem, which is your product or service, and list features associated with it as well.

I just had to laugh! During a recent conversation about how often you should change your copy, I had one person tell me “Well, if there were any *good* copywriters out there, they’d be able to write it once, and it would work forever!” Oh really? Actually, nothing could be further from truth.

It is extremely rare for advertising copy to last for extended periods of time. Changing your copy is a given, reason being that people and events change. Since we, as copywriters, are reaching our customers on an emotional level, we have to stay in tune with what’s going on in their lives and their worlds. Let’s look at an example.

Say you rent mailing lists. Your primary benefit might be that you have largest lists available offering a minimum of 100,000 names per category. Things are going great, and you’re renting lists like wildfire. But then – right in middle of your success – postal service increases rates substantially.

All of a sudden, your rentals begin to drop dramatically. Here you are screaming about largest lists available anywhere, and your customer is thinking about how much his postage expense is going to skyrocket.