How To Write A Truly Killer Basic Sales Message
BY: John Carlton
Copywriting Expert & All-Around Guru
Message from Colette Marshall, President: A special thanks to John Carlton for being our guest expert for this newsletter. If you don’t know John, he has a
SimpleWriting System for copywriting that is fantastic.
He has helped many big name Internet Marketers with their sales copy. Use the simple techniques he provides in this article to help you generate that killer sales copy and product descriptions for your auctions or your site. If you need more help with writing copy, I recommend checking out the full
“How To Write A Truly Killer Basic Sales Message
- by John Carlton
Over my 25-year career in the front-line trenches of advertising and marketing, I’ve learned 2 ways to teach almost anyone how to easily write an ad (or email, or website, or video script, or anything else needed) that will bring in some major treasure.
Let’s call the first technique “The Shovel”.
Because that’s how basic it is: It’ll do some digging for you, and it’s hard to beat for a fundamental tool in your kit.
And we’ll call the second technique “The Bulldozer”. Because this is what you want to haul out when you REALLY want to plow up some action.
It’s still easy to use, but you need a few more skills to truly understand the potential.
“The Shovel” technique is what I teach when someone needs that initial shortcut breakthrough to communicating a sales message to prospects.
It’s very straightforward. You merely write out:
Who you are… what you’ve got for your prospect… how it will positively affect their life… and what they need to do now to get involved, or buy, or learn more.
It’s really just that simple. This is, by the way, the exact advice I gave to Frank Kern when he had no clue how to “close” the big launch for StomperNet a couple of years ago. I tossed him this formula, his eyes lit up, and in one afternoon he wrote a basic “Shovel” message that brought in close to $20million in just a few days.
So it is powerful enough, on its own, to blow the roof off the joint.
For most folks, though, it’s simply a realistic way to wrap your brain around the barest of functional sales messages. It can be your bread-and-butter “go to” plan when you need to write something fast.
However…
When you’re finally ready to move up into the ranks of the best marketers alive… and become so adept at creating wealth, fame and happiness that your competition fears and envies you to distraction…
… then, you gotta take it just a little bit deeper.
And guess what? The formula behind the “The Bulldozer” is just as easy to pull off as “The Shovel”… once you get hip to the supporting “meta-text” elements.
For example: “Who you are” is amazingly more powerful when you include the story behind your credibility as a respected, respectable and capable expert… in a “voice” that slips smoothly into the conversation already going on in your prospect’s head.
Flavor generously with good testimonials that back you up (not the bad, boring ones most ads drag out)… and a big helping of your Unique Selling Position. (That’s just a fancy way of letting prospects know how special, urgent and important your stuff is, compared with everything else available.)
Then, “what you have to offer” and “here’s what it will do for you” become crystal-clear through specific emotionally-potent explanations of the nuts-and-bolts of what you offer. (This is street-savvy salesmanship: Most buying decisions are made with the emotional part of the brain… which you must please if you ever hope to rake in the moolah. We call this “painting pretty pictures in your prospect’s head.”)
Finally… once you understand how to construct the simplest of “sales funnels”, it’s easy to close the deal. Your prospect actually slides into the action you want him to take, willingly and enthusiastically… because you’ve helped him understand that you’re guy he wants to deal with… you’ve got the goods he actually wants… and he can feel good about buying right now.
The difference between shoveling into your target market… and bulldozing, it… can barely be measured in actual wealth. It will take your breath away how much influence you can exert on almost ANY group of prospects… once you nail the slightly deeper (but still simple) details hiding behind a truly killer sales message.
“The Shovel” technique will serve you well.
However, “The Bulldozer” will change your freaking life… fast.
The steps I’ve outlined here — credibility, testimonials, USP, bullets, sales funnels — are joined by other fundamental (yet lethal) advanced elements like finding hooks that grab attention, finding the fascinating core of “your” story, writing headlines, and a few other secrets that will put you in the same league as the best marketers on the planet.
There, in fact, exactly 17 steps to the <https://m190.infusionsoft.com/go/swsdvds/wwbrands/>Simple
System I’ve developed (after teaching some of the biggest names in marketing how to write their own stuff). I’ve learned, over the decades, how to quickly and painlessly insert these steps into your mind… so you will never again wonder what to write when you need fresh sales ammo for your business.
To shovel in profits, you are now fully armed.
To get locked-and-loaded for moving mountains of wealth and fame, however… going just a wee bit deeper can transform your ability to wildly succeed as a marketer.
About the Author: John Carlton’s career arc is legendary — from “A-List” copywriter (stalked by the largest direct response companies in the world), through long partnerships with notorious marketing geniuses like Gary Halbert, and finally becoming the dominant writing guru for the most famous entrepreneurs on the Web — and his best-selling book “Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel” is a central element of his <https://m190.infusionsoft.com/go/swsdvds/wwbrands/>Simple
Writing System hands-on, interactive mentoring program.
