A great question came through the pipeline this morning.
Here ’tis:
Matt,
Question, what makes good copywriting? I feel like my copywriting is getting better just by reading your emails but I’m not sure how to gauge that. Would your email copywriting course also apply to writing sales copy? This is a whole new world for me.
Thank you so much for your time.
Faith
Hi Faith. Superb question. Here are my answers:
1. Good copy is clear copy. It is as clear as the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. You look at the surface and you can see the fish, the kelp, the coral and the sand. The reader can easily picture what you’re writing about. He or she can also hear the sounds and feel the vibrations as the wind moves the water, the seagulls sing and the children build sand castles.
Good copy flows from one point to the next, seamlessly, the same way an ocean’s waves move back and forth.
Good copy absorbs the reader, placing him or her in an alternate universe, one you have created.
Good copy slides the reader to the finish line; it makes the reader lose track of time.
There is a ton more I can say on this. As an aside, I regularly address this type of question in my monthly newsletter,Zen Mastery.
2. You can definitely improve your writing ability by reading good writing, but even more so, GREAT writing; and then superb writing.
Unconsciously, you can start to pick up details that will strengthen your copy. Even so, it is better to be conscious of what someone is doing when he or she writes, so that you can be conscious of what you are doing and what you can do to improve. If you’re not conscious of what you are doing and what you can do to improve, then you’re winging it.
3. Email copywriting is often considered different than sales letter copy. And it is, except for when it isn’t. What do I mean? It is this: I have written emails that have driven readers directly to an order button. No sales copy other than the email. Does this work? Most certainly. This proves that emails have a great return on the time you invested writing them, provided you know how to sell to the subconscious minds of the readers.
Additionally, I have written emails that pulled so well that I deleted the sales letter and replaced it with the email I sent. And guess what happened when I did that? Sales increased from the new sales letter, which was in reality, an email.
Here’s an example of the copy I used in an email that BECAME the sales letter for the Tao of Email Copywriting that Sells
“Holy schnikies. I just found something and I cannot stop smiling from ear to mouth to ear.
There I was debating over which never-before-released product I want to launch.
And just when I was certain I’d made a definite decision, I saw a stack of CDs and
DVDs in a corner of my office.
On the front of the CD, there were various numbers and dates, along with the letters
MAO.
Huh? What the hell could this be?”
So I grabbed the CDs and popped one into my computer. After I’d only listened to
the first 32:43 I had three pages of notes.
And the speaker was ME.
Not MAO, as in Chairman Mao.
These CDs are from a 3.5 hour talk I gave several years ago, supposedly on my method of email copywriting. But in true Fureyesque fashion, the audience gets FAR MORE than t
hey expected.
Honestly, I cannot believe many of the words that came out of my mouth during this talk. Although I had an outline of 11 Keys to Writing Fureyesque Emails – I went “off-topic” so much that any serious student of success, even someone who has no desire to EVER write emails for a business, would love to hear this message.
For example, of the 11 Key Points to be covered, the first four are all about HOW I get myself into the right frame of mind, the right mental state, the right emotional space –
so that the words flow effortlessly onto the screen…
Faith, again, the above was an email that I converted into a sales letter. Thank you so much for your questions. They were most excellent. Best to you as you dive into this alternate universe.
Matt Furey
