White Hat Guys

Advertising copywriting, or ad copy, is nothing more than salesmenship in print. The purpose of copywriting is to sell. Period.

That’s all a copywriter’s job is supposed to be. A copywriter either sells through copy or looks for another job.

If you want a successful online business you need to write copy that converts (or hire someone that can write copy that converts).

When it comes to your internet business copy can take a number of different forms. You need effective copy that converts visitors into signing up to your list.

You need effective advertising copywriting in your autoresponder messages and newsletter articles so that you send as many of your readers to web sites that sell your products.

Which brings us to the type of copywriting you’re used to seeing and that is a direct response one page sales letter that sells a product.

Then there is the type of advertising copy that is more subtle and that’s pre-selling copy.

This would be articles that you submit to article directories or content you place on your web site or bog.

You may not be trying to overtly sell from these articles. But you’re still selling. You’re selling your visitors on coming back to visit your site again and again.

You’re writing quality content and selling other sites on linking to your site which will hopefully generate still more visitors.

Hopefully, your site content will get visitors to sign up to your list, buy products you recommend as an affiliate, or even purchase your own products.

To quote Claude Hopkins again from his timeless classic, Scientific Advertising:

“To properly understand advertising or to learn even its rudiments one must start with the right conception. Advertising is salesmanship. Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman’s standards.

“Let us emphasize that point. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.

“It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before the people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make. Then you will not go far wrong.

“The difference is only in degree. Advertising is multiplied salesmanship. It may appeal to thousands while the salesman talks to one. It involves a corresponding cost. Some people spend $10 per word on an average advertisement. Therefore every ad should be a super-salesman.

“A salesman’s mistake may cost little. An advertiser’s mistake may cost a thousand times that much. Be more cautious, more exacting, therefore. A mediocre salesman may affect a small part of your trade. Mediocre advertising affects all of your trade.”

All of your writing is copywriting and all of it should have a purpose, whether you are writing an informational article for your blog or a more traditional sales letter to sell one of your own products.

You may not be going directly for a sale (such as in an informational blog post) but it’s still all copywriting.

Keep in mind what type of selling you are doing when writing will help you focus on what you want to convey, whether it’s writing to get visitors to your blog, writing for a squeeze page, writing a link bait piece designed to get other blogs to link to you, or to sell a product directly.