If you’re not making the money you want online, chances are it comes down to copywriting.
There are two core skills that you need in online marketing:
- SEO, and;
- Copywriting.
Practically everything you do online as a marketer falls back to one of these two core skills.
- SEO skills let you tap into reliable streams of online traffic, by convincing computer algorithms to favour your site over your competitors;
- And copywriting skills help you convert that traffic into sales, and convince people to do the things that get you ahead.
If all you knew was Copywriting and SEO, that would be enough… You’d never need to buy another marketing course again – you’d have all you’d ever need to be successful online – a way to attract visitors, and a way to turn those visitors into sales.
The problem is, too many marketers focus on just the traffic generation side of their business, and they overlook the conversion (Copywriting) side.
Copywriting is a Mandatory Skill for Internet Marketers
Think about it for a moment – can you name someone who is successfully making money online who doesn’t know how to write effective and convincing sales copy?
That simple fact tells us that if we want to be successful online, we need to know how to “sell” online through our writing.
Practically everything you do online will require some level of copywriting skill:
- Recruiting Affiliates – Convincing people to invest time, effort and money into promoting your product;
- Approaching Big JV Partners – You have one chance to get their attention and get your foot in the door, or get turned away;
- Building a List – Every opt-in and squeeze page is a mini sales letter that you need to copywrite;
- Autoresponder Messages – How do win the crowded inbox battle to get attention in your prospect’s busy day?;
- Selling Your Own Products – To make the big profits, you’ll need to convince people to buy;
- Affiliate Marketing – Selling other people’s products takes sales copywriting skill;
- Adwords and PPC Advertising – Enticing people to click is critical. Bad click-through rates kill ad campaigns overnight;
- Video Marketing – It all starts with writing a compelling, convincing script for your video;
- Even Developing Content and Training – The same techniques that get a message across in sales copywriting help you to effectively communicate your training and information products.
This is why there is such a big difference between marketers who know how to write good copy, and marketers who don’t.
Copywriting is the Skill That Makes Everything Else Work…
Without copywriting, without the skill to convince people to act when you need them to, without the skill to convert traffic into dollars, you come up short in all of these areas – building a list, having an effective autoresponder sequence, selling your own product, recruiting affiliates, approaching big joint venture partners, Adwords and PPC, video marketing, etc…
So many people “know” how to do these things technically, but they don’t have the copywriting skill to make it work “for reals”.
And if you’re missing this one practical skill, these things just “don’t work”…
That means you risk end up on the internet marketing merry-go-round, spending some of the best years of their lives in front of a computer but not making any money…
…Spending thousands on traffic and not seeing a single sale;
…Following the big success stories, and applying the same strategies – but still, somehow, you’re never able to achieve anything near the same results for themselves;
…Having your hope slowly crushed every day, with every “near miss” that you have;
…Moving from project to project leaving a trail of half-finished and failed projects in your wake;
…Seeing all the great success stories and not being able to achieve the same for yourself;
…Having to face up to friends and family and look forward with optimism, or make up “little white lies” about how your websites are doing, because of the shame and embarrassment that things just haven’t taken off yet;
…Knowing that friends and family are rolling their eyes and talking about you behind your back — “Have you heard about his LATEST get rich quick scheme? …It’ll never work…”
You get the idea.
(You might know someone who is experiencing these pains, you might be experiencing them yourself.)
Without copywriting skill, everything’s harder, takes longer, or doesn’t work at all…
…But WITH copywriting skill – everything suddenly clicks together – doors open, and people buy.
“Great” vs “Good Enough”
The thing is, you don’t even need to be great at copywriting. You just need to be “good enough”.
This is what happened to me.
For a long time, I struggled to get anywhere in internet marketing.
When I started to take copywriting seriously, I bought John Carlton’s “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” course.
(At the time, it was one of those purchases that hurt. I didn’t have a big bank balance, and wasn’t making much money, so making that payment was like taking a big dose of nauseating medicine – I knew it was what I needed, but the thought of it made me feel physically sick. It motivated me to get every penny of insight out of the course as I could, as fast as I could, and put as much of it into practise as possible… I don’t recommend everyone does this, but it worked for me at the time.)
What happened next was one of those “sliding doors” moments.
Within months, I’d turned a product that had “bombed” and was going to be taken off the market into a $89,000 success story.
The system worked!
So I kept playing John Carlton’s CD’s in my car, and stealing ideas from the example sales letters he put included in a swipe file in his course… And because I’d already proven what I’d learned by turning an unsuccessful product into a successful one, suddenly I had more and more opportunities to practice and build my copywriting skills.
…I wrote a sales letter that made $297,000 over a couple of months;
…Then one that made $570,000 in 37 minutes (I was so excited! This was my first mega-launch!);
…Then one that did $960,000 in just 3 weeks. (This sales letter was re-used again and again, making many more millions over the next few years – even after I’d stopped working for that company.)
Since then, I’ve used the same techniques to boost traffic to 6-figure Google Adwords campaigns, approached and worked with marketers who are household names in the internet marketing industry (even writing sales copy for them to use), and helped Market Samurai go from just an idea to over 200,000 users in just 26 months.
And in practically everything I did – approaching affiliates, Adwords, autoresponders, approaching JV partners, building a list, etc – I used the same copywriting techniques I learned from John Carlton:
- How to turn heads, cut through the noise and actually get your message read (like John did with his “One Legged Golfer” headline);
- Telling people the “reason why” – and how it’s the easiest and most honest way to write good sales copy;
- And, most importantly, the how to “close the sale” without being a sleazy used car salesman.
I don’t share this story to impress you – I share it because there are plenty of people out there who are struggling, like I did before I got serious and actually started learning about copywriting – and I wanted to share how everything just “clicked” after I took copywriting seriously.
The thing is – I’m still not a great copywriter. I’m just “good enough” to hack together something that works.
And it’s not hard to do the same if you get the right teachers, and learn from their experience.
What John Carlton is Doing Right Now, and Why It Matters…
The guy I learned copywriting from is John Carlton. He’s a grizzled master sensei of 27 years copywriting experience.
Right now, John and his team of pro sales copy writers are doing a free mini-course on how to write sales copy in the lead-up to his Simple Writing System launch.
I realise this is late notice…
…He began the free course a few days ago (while I was in Sydney), but I’ve just had the chance to check it out – and I recommend you do the same while it’s still up.
Again, it’s free, and it covers the 3 most important skills you need as a copywriter:
- How to get into the head of potential customers;
- How to get to the point and get your message across, and;
- How to close the deal without being pushy, awkward or obnoxious.
(If all you had were these 3 lessons, you’d start writing better copy straight away.)
He’s also giving away his presentation from Frank Kern’s Mass Control 2 in San Diego – a presentation I flew 36 hours return from Melbourne Australia to see.
Plus – John and his team are currently providing feedback to people who complete the sales copy exercises inside the free training content.
The problem is – it’s all being taken offline in 2 days – on the 17th of September (USA Eastern Time).
If copywriting is the “missing link” you need for your online marketing, and you’re interested in John Carlton’s free training, here’s where you need to go to get it now:
https://m190.infusionsoft.com/go/swsblog/noblesam/
(Use this link if you want to support us and the development of Market Samurai – if you do decide to get John Carlton’s training program after going through the free stuff, we will earn a commission.)
http://www.simplewritingsystem.com/blog/
(OR – This is the naked, non-affiliate link. If you use this link, we’ll never see a penny – whether you choose to buy, or you choose to stick to the free stuff.)
Check out John’s stuff, and take up his offer of feedback on your sales copy while you still can. Remember: John’s free training gets taken down on September 17th, 2010 US EST (2 days away).
We don’t make many recommendations - but so much of the success we’ve achieved in Noble Samurai and our other ventures can be traced back to John’s techniques and advice.
We hope you take advantage of John’s training, use his techniques as well and as often as you can, and see the type of results that we’ve seen on our businesses.
Brent
IMPORTANT EDIT:
True to John Carlton’s word, the free Simple Writing System Express course was taken down on September 17th, 2010, and is no longer available.
This is because John and his team of pro copywriters were giving specific, personalised and free feedback on people’s copy – so it could only stick around for a limited time. After all, John and his team real people, just like you and me – and just like you or me, if John and his team gave away all of their time and expertise for free, they couldn’t afford to feed their families! 
So the free training and coaching could only be a limited-time gig.
However…
If you would still like to learn John’s systems for writing effective sales copy, and to receive coaching as well as specific, personalised feedback on your sales copy from John Carlton’s team of pro copywriters – this is available by purchasing John Carlton’s Simple Writing System Course via one of the links above.
But again, (just like with the free course,) because you’re dealing with real expert copywriters who only have so many hours in the day, this type of coaching and training can only be offered on a limited basis. (There are only so many copywriting coaches in John’s team, and so many hours in the day – so the course can only handle so many people at any one time.)
If copywriting is the missing link in your marketing, and you want to start improving in that area now, make sure you get in before John Carlton’s course is full. John’s a man of his word (as you’ve seen already) – so when he says “limited time only” or “limited places available”, he means it.
This week, a great manual on Search Engine Optimization was released by SitePoint – “The SEO Business Guide.”
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For a while now, the Market Samurai Affiliate Program has been one of our most requested “features”.
beside any result inside Rank Tracker)
