Business Copywriting – The power of writing great words

Posted by Adam Franklin

Over the last few years, friends and family have often asked “what is it you guys actually do?”

I usually give what I think is the simplest response.

I ask:
“Do you have a friend who owns a business or works in marketing?”

They will answer something like: “Yes, I do. My friend Laura runs her own business.”

“Well, we teach online marketing to people like Laura.”

If they express genuine interest to know more, I elaborate with “we help businesses like Laura’s attract more leads, clients and revenue via online marketing. Plus we’ve discovered this training framework appeals to digital marketing consultants.”

However that answer isn’t always appropriate.

When my parents’ friends ask, I know Dad often says: “they wrote a book”. My parents’ generation can wrap their head around that. “Oh… they’re authors. I get it.”

Friends who work in service-based businesses or who are in full time roles ask, “Yeah but what do you do in exchange for money…?”

For them, it’s easiest to grasp that “we get paid to do speaking and corporate training.”

It still seems weird to get paid to talk about and teach something I am so passionate about. Although it’s a privilege and one that we take seriously. We’ve had coaching, mentoring and done hundreds of live presentations plus we’ve dedicated plenty of time to practicing and studying how people do it well.

To friends who also work in this online world, I say “We sell online courses that teach web marketing and we also promote JV partners whose material I know will help our readers.”

‘Normal’ friends, as in people outside of our online world, often cannot grasp how people can earn a living “online” or via a “blog”… And this is ok too!

Can you see how the words and language I use to describe the simplest of questions is so important? And how it varies depending on who I am talking to?

All are true and authentic answers yet you need to explain things in terms the other person can understand.

Just like you would talk to your grandmother differently to the way you talk to your mates. You are still authentic, you are just using language appropriate to the other person.

Crafting WORDS in order to COMMUNICATE is called copywriting.

(Btw, this isn’t what lawyers do — that is ‘copyright’ — completely different.)

Writing words aka copywriting is important.

It doesn’t matter if your words are written in a blog, book, email or sales letter, or spoken in a speech, video, conversation or sales meeting. Words are the tools you use to educate, inform and persuade people and to grow your business.

In fact when you think about it, everything we do in business and marketing comes down to how well we write words (copy).

So if it’s so important to select the right words for something as simple as answering, “so what is it you do?” Imagine what impact using the right words can have on your business across all its facets…

How would it feel to double your business just by changing a few words on your website?

What it would be like to get 3x, 5x, even 10x your current sales by writing a single email?

It’s definitely possible thanks to something most businesses take for granted: Copywriting.

Copywriting is literally the art and science of writing words in a way that moves people to take action… and Ramit is one of the best I’ve seen.

Luckily, you don’t have to start learning from scratch like he did.

Ramit Sethi has confidently distilled everything he learned about copywriting into real, actionable insights you can apply in your business and for limited time it’s available in a free mini course called Copy Week.

Here’s a quick rundown of the details of what you’ll learn in this jump-start course:

• How to write copy that reaches out and grabs hold of your ideal customers — so they buy from you over all your competition
• How to crush writer’s block — so you never waste time staring a blank page again
• How to make boring copy irresistible — he’ll even re-write copy on the spot to instantly make it more powerful.

Come learn from one of the best.

Ok ok, if you’re still not sure what ‘copy’ is… ‘Copy’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘words’. So copywriting is literally the process of ‘writing words’. Something that we all do every day.

Even if you just consider the emails we send… we write hundreds of words a day, usually thousands! Then if you factor in blog articles, sales proposals, and social media posts, you soon realise that the words we use impact every aspect of our marketing — more so than anything else!

The words we use can be the difference between…

• a new email subscriber or a lost opportunity
• a meeting being accepted or declined.
• a reply from a prospect or deafening silence.
• a sale or… going back to the drawing board.

Important stuff, hey?

Back to Copy Week which is a free copywriting short course by Ramit Sethi – the copywriter whom I most study.

The free course is for business and marketing people who know they need to write better (like me — I’m always trying to practise!).

And it’s for people who don’t see themselves as professional copywriters (me again — I don’t write copy for clients but I know how valuable it is for us at Bluewire Media).

Come, learn and write better copy.

Finally, I am a registered affiliate of Ramit Sethi — his material is what I have studied and endorse wholeheartedly.  And yes if you do eventually buy something from him via links in this blog or emails I send, I am likely to receive a commission of some sort.