A Series of Copywriting Tips… Tip#1

 Power of…NOT!

I will be doing a series of Copywriting Tips that will be sprinkled into my various blog entries so if you have specific questions about writing copy be sure to let me know.

So this first one will be a short, BUT very powerful copy technique that is NOT used enough.

I call it the Power of NOT.

Too many times your prospect will already have seen what you are offering in some fashion or form so they will ‘complete the sentence in their mind’ and think they already know what you are talking about and disqualify your service or product. They will have the classic ‘knee jerk’ response and say to themselves …”I’ve seen this before” or “I know what this is already…” and if this happens you are doomed!

So early in your sales letter you need to bring out this technique to break this dangerous ‘knee jerk’ reaction from your clients.

It is simple, yet powerful.

All you simply do is have a list of bullets that tells the prospects exactly what your product or service is NOT. For example if you were selling a real estate investing course you’d say something like this:

First, let me tell you what this is NOT!

•  This is NOT about the stuff you see on late night television
• This is NOT about some overblown scheme taking advantage of people in hard times
• This is NOT about scanning papers looking for a deal
• This is NOT about knocking on doors
• This is NOT about making phone calls getting rejection after rejection
• This is NOT about blah, blah, blah

Now the reason this is so powerful is several reasons. I’ve already mentioned it stops the knee jerk reaction above, but that’s just the beginning.

This technique also creates a strong curiousity effect especially for the sales letter that is going out to prospects that already have a level of knowledge about the service or product that you are selling. As in the real estate example above. The curiousity drives the prospect down your sales letter to discover what it actually IS you are trying to sell. And remember…that’s a big part of getting the sale.

Another reason this technique is so powerful is it overcomes objections very well. So you’d want to make sure you have an idea of what the objections usually are for your product or services so you can put that into the bullets.

For example, most people have heard about the late night infomercials and have probably formed an opinion of them so this technique basically overcomes the objections before they can stop the sales process. I’ve put some of the big objections to getting real estate courses in some of the bullets above.

So put this tool in your copywriting tool belt and pull it out early and often to help inprove your copywiting skills and put money into your banks!

 Take Action, But Dont Let Actions Take You!   

“Think Big¦Dream Bigger!

©TMG 2008