Writing Content that Gets Attention and Makes Money

I’ve written about Yanik Silver and his ideas before …

… and have been very impressed with this thirty-something expert who has acquired the marketing wisdom of someone much older than he. Today I would like to bring to your attention Yanik’s ideas as they appear in Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars by Mitch Meyerson. Yanik wrote a special chapter in Mitch’s book called “Writing Copy that Sells”.

Yanik encourages those learning to read a lot of sales letters by others to get ideas for your own. He teaches those steps to success with web content:

Put up a simple web site that gives the reader 3 choices — leave their email, buy the product, or leave. He says its best to limit what readers can do so that they are not distracted and are more likely to buy what you are selling.
Write a powerful headline. See Lesser Known Secrets of Getting Buying Customers to Come To You for more about developing great headlines. Make note of headlines (from reading others’ sales letters) and create what he calls a swipe file. He has developed a course called Ultimate Copyrighting that has over 1,500 of the best headlines he has collected over the years. This and his other useful products can be found here.
Build Interest — write copy that involves your reader and gets them visualizing how your product will solve their problem(s). Example: “Suppose you could write one effective letter, send it out, and have your phone start ringing off the hook?”
Show Hot Benefits such as “Turn lost customers into actively paying customers”. Benefits are the secrets you have to offer, not so much the features of the item or service you are selling.
Use testimonials that show results — he interleaves his copy with testimonials throughout his web content because they carry a lot of weight with customers.
Build value by comparing apples to oranges — this is how you build the perception of value for your product. What you do is compare your product to the amount you would have to pay as an alternative to your product/service. He gives the example of paying a professional copywriter much more for the same service that his product fulfills. I builds perceived value in the prospect’s mind.