Top 10 Ways For Copywriters To Overcome Writer's Block

We all know that words have the power to persuade, compel and most importantly, sell.

However, many have likened the process to getting the 'right words' to trying to get blood from a stone.

When I first started out, writing copy meant slitting my wrist and 'giving blood'.

Of course, I've greatly refined my copywriting process, and I'd like to share my methodology with you.

Here are my top 10 ways of getting greatly reduce the number of brain farts that can stand in your way of writing cash pulling copy.

Writer's Block Annihilator #1: National Enquirer

While you might be tempted to dismiss the Enquirer, the fact is people love tabloids! Sensationalism sells. Big time. This may just provide the much needed 'sensational angle' you need to position your product or engineer your offer.

Writer's Block Annihilator #2: Female Magazines

Headlines on these magazines are designed to tilltilate, tease and intrigue. You can and should model those headlines to add more sizzle into your copy and to give your writing that much needed 'oomph'!

Writer's Block Annihilator #3: Competitor Research

Check your competitors out. Observe what they're doing. What kind of strategy are they using? What kind of tactics are they using. How are they presenting their offer? The answers to these questions will provide you with the necessary brain juice to get the words 'flowing'.

Writer's Block Annihilator #4: Current Events

There may be happenings in the world that you can link your ad copy to. For instance, you could have headlines like "If Only Clinton Knew This...".

Get the idea?

Writer's Block Annihilator #5: Festive Occasions

Is Thanksgiving or Valentine's day around the corner? If you're an info-publisher, would Valentine's day be a good time to tell your subscribers how much you love them? Would Thanksgiving be a good time to tell your subscribers how grateful you are for their continuous support?

Writer's Block Annihilator #6: Be Still

How about trying to stop 'figuring' it out, and just observe a good 3 minutes of pure silence. To quote the Good Book, "Be still and know that I am god". You'll surprise yourself at just how many ideas will start popping into your head simply because you 'stopped thinking'.

Writer's Block Annihilator #7: Read Something else

Choose to read something completely different from what you are writing. The more 'different' it is, the better. This will allow your haphazard thoughts to regroup and refocus.

Writer's Block Annihilator #8: Chunk It

Break down whatever you're writing into achievable small chunks. Reward yourself at the end of every completed chunk.

Writer's Block Annihilator #9: Refer To Controls

Drop all that you're doing, and start reading winning 'controls'. Understand that these sales letters became 'controls' because they were winners. It's near to impossible to not get the next million dollar idea from winning sales letters. Remember, don't reinvent the wheel when you can change the tires.

Writer's Block Annihilator #10: Listen To Mozart And Baroque Music

Yes, it's been proven to boost productivity. Baroque music is an excellent example, especially the works of Vivaldi, Bach and Handel. Interestingly, the major portion of scientific research into whether listening to music increases productivity has centered on what is known as the "Mozart effect".

Studies have shown that college students had performed better on their math problems when listening to classical music. Interestingly the effect of listening to Mozart does not appear to be limited to humans either. Apparently cows will produce more milk if music Mozart is played. Imagine what the 'Mozart effect' would do for your copy?

So now not only do you have one, but ten ways to rid yourself of writer's woes.

Use them, nail those words, get those customers and rake those sales in.

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Jo Han Mok is a frequent guest and featured speaker at Internet Marketing bootcamps and conferences on subjects such as copywriting and Joint Venture Marketing. Visit his website to view a letter that had a 100% response rate and brought in over $30,000!

5 Little Known Ways To Double, Or Even Triple The Effectiveness Of Your Web Copy!

It's sad but true.

Most Internet Marketers are struggling with poor response, and have no idea how to go about increasing the effectiveness of their marketing beyond increasing the size of their advertising budget. This foolishness never ends.

The truth is, most Internet Marketers do not have a problem getting traffic. They have problems CONVERTING browsers into buyers, and more often than not, the problem lies with their web copy.

It's brutal, but bad copy is bad copy, long or short.

It costs nothing to tweak your web copy, and yet you can get measurable, marked improvements in response!

FACT: Changing a headline can boost response by up to 1700% as tested by John Caples.

Aside from tweaking the headline, I'd like to present 5 little known ways which cost nothing to implement, to radically improve your website conversion rates.

Response Booster #1: ** Add Drama **

FACT: It's hard to get any body's attention

FACT: It's hard to keep their attention

Read this:

“Bill was shocked. He had never seen so much blood in his life... it was almost nauseating. It wasn’t his fault. He buried his face in his hands and wept… she was such a lovely child……”

I bet you really want to know what happened right? Honestly.. I don’t know too cos I made that up. But I think this proves how powerful a device drama can be.

The key, is to keep your reader hooked!

If you reader doesn't read your copy, your copy has no chance of selling anything!

Here's one of my favorite quotes from the famous mystery writer Dashiell Hammet, who gave other budding writers this advice:

“When in doubt, have someone come crashing through the door with a gun.”

Response Booster #2: ** Controversy **

People love tabloids. Whether or not you love the National Enquirer, there are people who actually READ such stuff.

If you swipe enough headlines from the Enquirer, I guarantee you'll never have any problems getting your headlines to *sizzle*.

Let's face it...sensationalism sells!

Why do you think Women's magazines sell like crazy?

Check out one of the teaser bullets:

"The Kinkiest, Wildest Turn On Of All Time Is (would you believe it?) Mutual Trust. Read on..."

Get me a copy of Cosmo now!

Response Booster #3: ** Empathize **

Here's a direct quote from Robert Collier from his legendary out of print book, 'The Robert Collier Letter book':

"The reader of this letter wants certain things. The desire for them is, consciously or unconsciously, the dominant idea in his mind all the time. You want him to do a certain definite thing for you. How can you tie this up to the thing he wants, in such a way that the doing of it will bring him a step nearer to his goal?"

Bottomline: “KNOW THY PROSPECT”.

You need to get out of your own ego, and get into theirs!

When you truly know your prospect inside out, you’ll be able to display empathy in your sales copy, and be able to push their emotional buttons, and hit them in the “sweet spot” to make them say “Man.. I really need this thing…”

Response Booster #4: ** Give Them The Facts! **

Do you know what's the No #1 trend online?

Skepticism.

There are way too many scandals in the politcal, economic, educational, religious and financial arena.

People just don't know who to trust anymore, do you?

On the Web, almost every mother's son is THE GURU.

Who do you trust?

Does your sales letter answer the questions: Who are you, why should I pay attention to you and why should I buy from you?

You have to back up what you say with the cold, hard unadulterated FACTS.

"...the first step is to gather the facts. Every aspect of the product and its market is analyzed. The research is thorough. When it is completed, the report, called a FACT BOOK, is compiled in an organized manner."

- "The Law Of Primacy And Recency" - from 'Marketing, Advertising And Sales Promotion' (1965)

This "Fact-Book" appraoch will enable any marketer to find the "hidden benefit" to establish a new copywriting angle or structure a new offer.

This, sadly, does not happen by chance.

On the contrary, it's conceived by the marketing intelligence you have marshalled together about your customers, your competitors and your own product.

Response Booster #5: ** Dress Up **

It's really important that you know why your website looks the way it does.

While many will argue that it's not always true... people DO judge a book by it's cover, and for that matter, your website from how it looks.

You can radically increase the chance of your prospect doing business with you, by conveying credibility through your font and color selection. It's easy to tell an amateurish website from a professional.

If you don't convey credibility, you'll lose the sale as people are wary about credit card fraud, and there is no way they will gamble with fate.. and give their credit card number to a website that looks like.. @#$#.

Whatever the case, here's the golden rule about cosmetics and it's place in web copy.

The Golden Rule: Do the graphics enhance readership and credibility, or are they there, simply for the sake of being there?

This is the very best 'litmus test' for using graphics in your web copy.

In conclusion, these are 5 no cost, yet super effective ways to radically increase the effectiveness of your web copy. They are almost "instantly implementable", and cost you next to nothing.

Now there's only one thing that stands between your web copy and the results you should be getting from it.

You.

Go for it!

Jo Han Mok is a frequent guest and featured speaker at Internet Marketing bootcamps and conferences on subjects such as copywriting and Joint Venture Marketing. Visit his website to view a letter that had a 100% response rate and brought in over $30,000!