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Business Writing Skills II - A Web Writing Primer
Whatever you would write on paper, cut it in half. The web was designed for quick reading. Studies show that people do not read long blocks of text while surfing the web; reading from the screen is often slower than reading on paper. Therefore, be...
Freelance Writing Markets, Poetry Markets - Highly Paid -v- Unpaid by AskProfessors.com
Amazing as it may sound, there is a real shortage of good writers and poets. Try telling that to the thousands of writers and poets who get daily rejection slips. As far as they are concerned, writing is virtually impossible to break into no...
Simple Writing For Super Sales
Is your sales letter not converting readers into buyers? It just might be your choice of words. Listen. People dont stop by your site to be wowed by your stunning prose. They want to be sold. And the fact is your sales letter needs to be...
Writing Benefit-Driven Web Copy 4 Steps to More Sales
You've identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers? Recently I wrote an article explaining how to identify the benefits you offer your...
Writing direct mail that really, really works
So, you have something you want to sell. It may be a product, a service, or a cause. It could be a membership, a subscription, or a motor car. It might be paper, health products or the idea that the humane society or the Alzheimers association is...
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Heres A Little-Known Secret To Writing Copy, For Serious Copywriters Only
Have you ever wondered how your copy sounds to your prospects when they're reading it?
If you have, here's a little-known trick to making your copy sound as clear as a bell, and feel as comforting as a warm fireplace in the winter.
The very best way to figure out how your copy sounds to your prospects, is NOT to read it, but to read it out loud. And actually, if you can have someone read it to you, preferably a child, that's even better.
When I first started writing copy, my 2 sons were in elementary and middle school. They were excited about my new career and were more than happy to read back my copy out loud to me.
Fortunately, my career progressed pretty rapidly, and it wasn't long before I was writing 13-page long-form sales letters.
Well, needless to say (and understandably so), my kids weren't as excited about reading their dad's 17-page "FREE Reports" and long-form sales letters, as they were about reading half-page newspaper display ads.
But luckily, I found a little tool that comes in handy, exactly for situations like this.
And, the price is right -- it won't even cost you a penny!
There's a software company out there called Read Please (www.readplease.com), located in Ontario, Canada, that's come up with the perfect tool for writers.
Not surprisingly, the program is also called "Read Please" and here's what it does: You copy the text from your document and paste it into the Read Please program.
Then, in any one of a number of different voices, the program reads back your text out loud over
your computer's speakers, word-for-word.
You get to choose the voice you like, and you can even slow-down or speed up the pace of the voice.
So what happens is, you have your copy in front of you while the Read Please program is reading your text back to you out loud, and then you start making all the corrections you need to, whenever you hear a mistake. All you do is "pause" the program using your mouse, when you have to do this.
You'll be able to see exactly where your errors are as you go along, and it'll be crystal clear whether or not your copy is flowing smoothly, and whether or not you're communicating clearly and saying what you need to.
Using this tool makes your copy much more effective.
If you want, there's even an upgraded version of the software you can buy for a few bucks, that has some nice bells and whistles added.
Consistently using Read Please helps me discover loads of errors I never would have ferreted out on my own -- at least not without a 12-year old reading the piece back to me.
Remember, the number one error you'll find yourself making, is not speaking clearly enough to your prospects. Remember, your prospect isn't "inside" your head -- they really don't understand what you're trying to sell them. So be crystal clear in what you're saying -- no one ever lost a sale for speaking too clearly!
About the Author
Craig Garber is one of America's Top Direct-Response Copywriters and Direct-Marketing Consultants. For more copywriting tips, go to www.kingofcopy.com Copyright 2005 www.kingofcopy.com
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