Copywriting Classes

The Internet may be one of the hardest forms of media to write lucrative and motivational sales copy. Attracting unique visitors, and keeping their interest to stay on your site, for more than ten seconds, is what I often refer to as the, “Fly Paper Theory.”

Writing good, or excellent, sales copy for the Internet, is a craft - and the results of this work speak volumes for themselves, almost instantly. Direct mail copywriters can say the same, but good web sales copy should produce very respectable numbers. Web sales copy is totally traceable, and the return on investment is usually better; this form of media can create wealth at an extremely rapid pace.

This is why good copywriters, who specialize in sales letters on the Internet, get very respectable fees. An inexpensive copywriter isn’t going to do extensive research about the needs of your customers for a “cheap fee.” If you put a job up for bid, and the copywriter is getting less than a fair wage, what do you really think you will get?

Many experts feel that converting one in one thousand visitors is acceptable. This is neither acceptable for an information marketer or a “brick and mortar business.” Once your traffic is pre-qualified toward your niche market, your sales conversion rates should be much more respectable. As a matter of fact, sales conversion rates depend upon price, but even with an item that sells for $400 to $600 USD, .1 percent conversion to sales is far too low.

Please bear in mind that your unique visitor traffic is visiting your site to find information that will solve their problems. Your pay-per-click program should be geared toward your niche market by using specific keywords within your sales copy. The sales copy itself should contain key words that relate to your micro-niche.

What is a micro-niche? I know a fashion designer who creates clothing for women, in a style that is specific to Southern India. The keywords she should use, for her web site, are extremely specific in comparison to “women’s clothing” or “Asian clothing.”

Your natural search engine rankings will go up by using your own unique writing that is content rich. The saying, “Content is King,” does apply to the Internet. When you write your own articles, or hire a competent author to write unique articles with specific keywords, that draw traffic to your website, you will be in a much better position.

© Copyright 2006 - Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Paul Jerard is a co-owner and the director of Yoga teacher training at: Aura Wellness Center, in North Providence, RI. He is also a published author and copywriter who specializes in sales copy for the wellness industry. You can see an example of his work at: http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org/index.html

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So you have spent hours and hours writing, shaping and crafting your media message. You’ve worked on setting your objectives, identifying your target audience and working out how to reach them. Your release is well structured and packaged, leaving just writing the head-line remaining.

Unfortunately with little time remaining you hastily put together the headline and send out the release but fail to hear from any interested journalists.

Why? A poorly written headline will fail to attract the attention of a reporter, journalist or editor.

Let me give you an example.

“Triple Bottom-line Community Net Benefit Decision Time for Sustainable Economic Development Decisions Needed Says Economist”

This is an actual headline on a media release from MacroPlan Australia published in ‘The Australian’ Media Section on Nov 13, 2003.

Would you want to read more if you got this on your fax machine or email inbox?

How can you write better headlines?

Here are my Top 10 Tips:

1. KEEP IT TO 1 LINE.

More than one line and you are likely to loose a busy journalist who would receive hundreds of media releases a day. Be sharp and precise, remember your trying to hook the journalist in to read the rest of the release.

2. KEEP IT TO LESS THAN 5 WORDS.

Remember with headlines, ‘less is more’. Make each word effective rather then having too many.

3. EDIT FOR BREVITY

You probably won’t achieve points one and two on the first go. Rewrite and edit every time. Even experienced journalists take several attempts to get a headline right.

4. DON’T TRY AND BE TOO SMART.

Writing headlines for the print medium is a real art form. Leave it to those who make a living out of it - namely newspaper subeditors. Remember newspaper headlines have to sell papers, your headline has to engage one reader - a cynical journalist or editor with a ’so what, who cares’ attitude.

5. KEEP TO THE ESSENCE OF WHAT THE STORY IS ABOUT.

The headline should summarise the story. Make it relevant. If the headline is too flamboyant it will be disregarded, make sure it is appropriate to the story.

6. USE A BIGGER FONT SIZE THAN THE REST OF THE RELEASE.

Don’t go smaller than size 12 for the main body of the text and use size 14 or 16 font or bigger for your headline or title.

7. USE THE SAME FONT STYLE AS YOUR TEXT.

Never change font styles in a release. Times New Roman is the most accepted and professional.

8. USE BOLD TO MAKE IT STAND OUT.

9. CENTRE IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PAGE.

10. ALWAYS SPELL CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK FOR TYPOS.

Nothing harms your credibility more than a typo in the headline!

Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries.
You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com

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Ringtones are big business. The Yankee Group announced that over the last five years, these musical tones have sent people literally singing to the bank, with a total revenue of $2 billion since 2001, and $50 million in one year alone.

The figures show how popular ringtones have become among cell phone users, who download the files to personalize their caller functions. They can pick from millions of songs, from the latest hit R&B single, to quirky sounds like cows mooing, to the classical pieces of Ludwig van Beethoven. Technological development has also made the audio quality of the ringtones much more realistic. From the ear-piercing, tin-like sounds of the first downloadable tunes, today’s music pieces have a near-radio quality. You could dance to it, except you’d look pretty silly shaking your booty while taking a call.

Unfortunately, the realistic quality of the musical pieces have raised a few ethical issues, namely violation of copyright. Since the sound of the ringtones and the sound of the actual songs are so close, record companies are saying that they count as reproductionsand because of that, they should pay some kind of royalty to the labels and the singers.

In a celebrated case, rap artist Eminem filed injunctions against five ringtone companies, supposedly because they had used his songs without his prior consent.

Some would argue that the ringtones only use ten seconds, maximum, of the actual song. How long should a snippet be before it becomes copyright infringement? Nokia representative Matthew Courtney believes that it has nothing to do with length. “Every reproduction of a musical excerpt involves payment of copyright fees to the copyright owner,” he says.

There are some songs that fall beyond this rule, such as those that fall into public domain: classical pieces, national anthems, and yes, a cow mooing. (To date, there are no records of cows suing any major ringtone company.) Others still require the permission of the artists, and may even be subject to royalty fees.

Luckily most artists are not that inclined to sue, seeing the ringtones as a way of promoting their music, and perhaps a compliment to their own popularity. In a way, being immortalized in a ringtone has become a gauge of how one’s music has infiltrated public consciousness. Besides, nobody actually downloads a ringtone as a replacement for an actual record. A real fan would want more than a ten second recording out of a three minute song, although would probably use that snippet to announce to the world, “Hey, this tune rocks.”

However, trends do indicate that fans may actually be willing to pay for their polyphonic ringtones. Music label EMI representative Jay Samit estimates that the earnings form ringtones could contribute as much as 10% of the record industry’s total revenues. Apparently, the appeal of ringtones is that strong people aren’t just downloading it because it’s free, but because it’s a valued feature.

Of course, many polyphonic ringtones still allow people to download the tunes for free, generating their revenue from ads instead. Others use a mixture of the two business models, offering some for free (or a weekly rotating list) while requiring a small download fee for “premium ringtones”.

Either way, lawsuits notwithstanding, the fact is that ringtones are here to stay.

Polyphonics.eu.com provides fully licensed polyphonic ringtones as well as all the latest real tones.

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